NGOs: $100 million/yr investment spreads democratic ideas in MiddleEast & N. Africa
NYT / RON NIXON
18-Apr-2011 (2 comments)

WASHINGTON — Even as the United States poured billions of dollars into foreign military programs and anti-terrorism campaigns, a small core of American government-financed organizations were promoting democracy in authoritarian Arab states.

The money spent on these programs was minute compared with efforts led by the Pentagon. But as American officials and others look back at the uprisings of the Arab Spring, they are seeing that the United States’ democracy-building campaigns played a bigger role in fomenting protests than was previously known, with key leaders of the movements having been trained by the Americans in campaigning, organizing through new media tools and monitoring elections.

A number of the groups and individuals directly involved in the revolts and reforms sweeping the region, including the April 6 Youth Movement in Egypt, the Bahrain Center for Human Rights and grass-roots activists like Entsar Qadhi, a youth leader in Yemen, received training and financing from groups like the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute and Freedom House, a nonprofit human rights organization based in Washington, according to interviews in recent weeks and American diplomatic cables obtained by >>>

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Sahar Naaz

The Empire's Plan for a New "Democratic" Middle East

by Sahar Naaz on

This article should be read alongside "The Empire's Plan for a New 'Democratic' Middle East" published at Iranian.com on March 23, 2011 (//iranian.com/main/2011/mar/empire-s-plan).

Here is a quote from the article:

"There are reasons to believe that the youth uprising on January 25 and the ensuing few days were prepared and organized by individuals some of whom had received “democracy training” by the “democracy industry” in the U.S., in particular by Freedom House. This uprising started the mass revolt that led to Mubarak’s downfall. Its demands, slogans, and tempo in the first few days framed the scope and defined the parameters of the uprising."


mahmoudg

good for the US

by mahmoudg on

now onwards to Iran.  Although i highly doubt the world can rid itself from the menace of the Islamic Rapist Cultists of Iran, in any manner other than surgical attacks and ridding the world of 200K + would be brainwashed terrorists.