MIDDLE EAST: The CIA Operating behind a Web of “Pro-Democracy” NGOs

Strange Bedfellows: How the U.S. and Egypt control the destiny of the region

By Patrick Henningsen
Global Research

For the past five decades, the CIA has enjoyed near total anonymity whilst operating behind a web of international shell companies and NGOs like USAID.

In the 21st century, the agency has come to rely on a much more complex array of ‘human rights’ and  ‘pro-democracy’ foundation-funded and US State Department-funded organizations around the globe like the National Endowment for Democracy,CANVAS and the Open Society Institute. But keeping its influence peddling and regime change activities hidden from the public view has become increasingly difficult in the age of digital awareness.

Perhaps the foreign intelligence services have spread themselves too thin across the globe, or overestimated the public’s ability see through an increasingly transparent agenda. Or maybe this new revolution business has become too well-funded, with too many high-flying international consultants, and has tried too hard to look trendy in staging pop political campaigns like KONY 2012 – making it harder and harder to conceal their not-so-clandestine activities.

Obama’s latest move sent a clear message to Washington’s New World Order partners: provided American operatives overseas are not harmed, Washington does not care all that much about human rights, and even less about its local NGO Arab operatives – like all those Arab NGO workers hung out to dry in Cairo this month.

Present and future non-US NGO workers might take note here – as working for US-funded democracy and human rights programs in places like Egypt will not guarantee you any protection should you organization come under fire for spying.

Egypt remains as the Middle East’s most populated country, and most strategically placed – controlling the Suez Canal, and bordering neighbors Israel, Sudan and Libya.

\Unfortunately for Washington, Egypt’s military junta have quickly figured out how the US is always able to play both sides of the geopolitical game. Realizing that they had served their purpose in helping to secure Libya for NATO, Egypt knew it may soon fall fast out of favor with their paymasters in Washington, perhaps with yet another western-backed ‘Arab Spring’ at some point in the near future. Meanwhile, thousands of real pro-reform Egyptian protestors were literally beaten to death by Cairo’s brutal military junta.

On December 27, 2011, Washington’s favored Egyptian military ruling government did the unthinkable – raiding 17 NGO’s in Cairo, many of which were arguably under the CIA’s cloak and dagger regime change workshop umbrella. The raids included the State Department-funded National Democratic Institute (NDI) founded by Madeleine Albright, and the International Republican Institute (IRI), headed by regime change enthusiast John McCain.

Cairo’s surprise spook-house raid sent shockwaves through US State Department, as administrators led by Hillary Clinton decried the move “completely unacceptable”, not because it had anything specifically to hide (interestingly, we do not recall Clinton actually denying that spying was going on in Cairo), but because Egypt is the US’s second largest recipient of US military aid in the world – with annual military gift vouchers totally approximately $1.5 billion per annum – mostly for military hardware.

In reality there is no real relationship between US foreign aid and the pro-democracy traits of its winning contestants. The Obama administration quickly reconsidered its previously stern position with Egypt over the NGO raids, going ahead with full military aid to Egypt. It’s hard to imagine another scenario that could do more damage to U.S. and British intelligence operations in the Middle East. Clinton was even forced to issue a “national security waiver” exempting the White House from explaining to Congress why Egypt is not “implementing policies to protect freedom of expression, association, and religion, and due process of law”, yet still collecting its billions in US aid.

Although Egyptian courts lifted their travel ban on all American espionage suspects on March 1, 2012, criminal trials are still due to resume this April 10th against Egyptian NGO workers. NGO’s under the gun are the NDI, the IRI and of course, George Soros’s Freedom House, along with some 400 other NGOs also under official investigation.

Egypt played its role in bringing down Libya

During the fabled Arab Spring in 2011, Washington and London were under a very tight time table because of what was going on next door in Libya and needed a partner they could rely on. In order for NATO’s al-Qaida rebel forces, the Egyptian military junta obediently smuggled arms and al-Qaeda fighters over their western border into eastern Libya to help overthrow the regime of the late Col. Muammar Gaddafi.

The Wall Street Journal report confirmed this on March 17, 2011:

“Egypt’s military has begun shipping arms over the border to Libyan rebels with Washington’s knowledge, U.S. and Libyan rebel officials said…

… The shipments-mostly small arms such as assault rifles and ammunition-appear to be the first confirmed case of an outside government arming the rebel fighters. Those fighters have been losing ground for days in the face of a steady westward advance by forces loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.”

Good for US: Christian persecuted in Egypt and the wider region

Myth: Because of evangelical pro-Israel right-wing voters, Washington will care deeply about the mistreatment of Christians in the Middle East and East Africa.

And here’s the point: once you get past the myth of the fabled Arab Spring, you quickly realize that it’s common practice now for Washington’s illustrious State Department and London’s Foreign Office to back Islamist governments throughout the region, along with the usual protocol of partnerships for dictatorships and monarchies throughout the Middle East.

Christians are being targeted in what looks like obvious provocateur events against the Copts in Egypt, and Orthodox Christians in Sudan, Syria, Iraq and Turkey – and Washington appears not to care at all. Why?

Obama’s ignorance of Christian persecution is no mere political omission – it is the policy of Washington. Don’t think for one second that if a Mitt Romney were to take office in January 2013, this policy would change at all. For Washington and London, Islamist governments, with their bent towards theocracies – unlike Christian secularists, are much easier to manipulated and play against neighboring nations. Washington and the CIA’s real priorites in the region are aligned with a policy ofdestabilization, namely Israel and backing Islamist regimes. Where the US wants stabilty, it will back Monarchies and Dictators – as is the case with the Gulf States and Egypt’s military junta.  This also feeds into Washington and London’s strategy of surrounding the settler state Israel with Islamist regimes, thus furthering the old mantra that ‘Israel needs to defend itself’, and that is ’a clash of civilizations’ between east and west, and ensuring conflict for the next 50 years.

For this very reason, it is a top priority of engineers in Washington and London to bring down the secular/multi-religious society led by President Assad in Syria. The goal is destabilization and this simply cannot happen with a solid secular regime in place there. The same observation should be applied to Libya too, and the results speak for themselves now as the al-Qaida’s own Jolly Roger is flying over Benghazi.

Although GOP mouthpieces like Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney speak about the horrors of groups like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the reality is that this islamist group was created and is mostly steered by the British intelligences agencies who work in concert with the CIA. A classic case of controlled oppostion dating back to the the 1920′s – but still, US politicians name-drop ‘Muslim Brotherhood’ in order to scare Americans about the horrors of Islamic extremism and what a threat they pose to Israel.

Egypt is, and always has been the central choke-point in the Middle East, and no matter if it’s a brutal military junta or a pedestrian dictator- democracy matters little to Washington. The military aid will continue to flow and real reformers will continue to be killed and imprisioned there. And when placed under pressure, the US will throw all its Egyptian intelligence assets under the bus – and still send Cairo its $1.5 billion cheque.

Alas, strange bedfellows these two countries do make.

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http://www.globalresearch.ca/middle-east-the-cia-operating-behind-a-web-of-pro-democracy-ngos/29864