Wall Street’s poorly hidden, poorly coordinated agenda in Russia. Who is behind it?

Hunting the Russian Bear

Dees Illustration

Tony Cartalucci, Contributing Writer

Activist Post

1. Wall Street-London’s Defense Team for Jailed Russian Oligarch Khodorkovsky

The background of jailed Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his “Open Russian Foundation” fashioned after George Soros’ Open Society Institute and chaired by both Jacob Rothschild and Henry Kissinger, can be found in William Engdahl’s, “The Real Crime of M. Khodorkovsky,” as well as in the London Telegraph’s humorously titled, “This man is now the people’s billionaire,” reflecting the paid-for rhetoric of Khodorkovsky’s Wall Street-London-appointed lawyer Robert Amsterdam.

In the latest round of attempted destabilization in Russia, it may be instructive to look at the “Khodorkovsky & Lebedev Communications Center,” a website developed in part by Robert Amsterdam and what is called an “international legal team.” Coincidentally, it fully embraces the narrative peddled by the West and its corporate media that the Russian elections were “rigged.” However, this accusation tenuously hinges on the work of US-funded NGOs including Golos – fully funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

Just as Robert Amsterdam is doing in Thailand, where he is using his “defense” of ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra as a point of leverage to in fact induce regime change in the Southeast Asian country, his defense of Khodorkovsky also aims not at defending his client legally, but at using his case to undermine and ultimately overturn the leadership of Russia. It is done in a concerted effort with the US State Department, the corporate media, and a vast network of US and European subsidized NGOs sowing sedition within Russia itself. khodorkovskycenter.com

2. Neo-Conservatives Attempting to Encircle Russia with NATO

The Neo-Conservative Foreign Policy Initiative, whose membership has helped engineer and promote every war in at least the last 30 years of American history, clearly enumerates what it believes the next steps the US should take toward Russia should be. These include continuing the encirclement of Russia with NATO and its controversial “missile defense” efforts, continuing to build up the Republic of Georgia as a menacing proxy-threat lying on Russia’s borders, and “supporting human rights” focusing on the “Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2011” which seeks yet again to sanction members of the Russian government based on disingenuous “human rights” concerns, just as the FPI and its collaborators did in Libya.

Foreign Policy Initiative’s Board of Directors

FPI Analysis: Moving Beyond the U.S.-Russian “Reset”

3. The Henry Jackson Foundation, NED, Alexey Navalny, & Ilya Yashin

We’ll keep hearing the name Alexey Navalny until the fact that he is fully subsidized by the US State Department through the National Endowment of Democracy is widely exposed, and like Egypt’s Mohamed ElBaradei, cast aside as extra-baggage.

The first clue comes to us from the London, Telegraph who afforded column space to a Mr. Michael Weiss of the Henry Jackson Society, providing a very robust defense for Navalny and his efforts to expose “corruption” during Russia’s election. And while Weiss does his best to fend off accusations that Navalny is indeed a foreign agent, calling such accusations “adorably old-fashioned,” he fails to point out that, again, the NGOs and poll monitors accusing Russia of rigging the elections, and whom “activists” like Navalny continuously cite as evidence, are all funded by the very US and European governments conducting the NATO military encirclement of Russia.

The background of Weiss’ Henry Jackson Foundation should surprise no one. It’s corporate-sponsors include (page 18) Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, IBM, General Dynamics, State Farm, and Xerox, while “signatories” of its “statement of principles” include current and former members of the British Government, members of the corporate-financier sponsored Chatham House, and professors throughout British academia.

International patrons include Neo-Con Max Boot – Michael Chertoff – Carl Gershman president of NED – Israeli Ambassador Dore Gold – FPI, Brookings Institution, and PNAC signatory Robert Kagan – Max Kampelman, also a PNAC signatory – Neo-Con William Kristol of the above mentioned FPI and also a PNAC signatory – Clifford May of the Neo-Con Foundations for the Defense of Democracies (FDD) – Neo-Con Richard Perle – former-NATO commander General Jack Sheehan – and Neo-Con warmonger James Woolsey, formally of the CIA and a leading proponent for war with Iran.

One must be forgiven for doubting the genuine resolve of the Henry Jackson Foundation’s commitment toward human rights and democracy, since those they associate with have single-handledly done more to exterminate such ideals from our collective human conscience than any other group of villains combined. Their association with Carl Gershman, president of NED who is on record funding NGOs like Golos in Russia, not only write off any legitimacy they portray themselves as having, but also begin to cast serious suspicion on Alexey Navalny whom they are so vigorously defending.

And while Alexey Navalny is renowned for “exposing corruption,” at least when profitable, those researching his background begin unraveling his own insidious, compromised agenda. Alexey Navalny was a Yale World Fellow, and in his profile it states:

“Navalny spearheads legal challenges on behalf of minority shareholders in large Russian companies, including Gazprom, Bank VTB, Sberbank, Rosneft, Transneft, and Surgutneftegaz, through the Union of Minority Shareholders. He has successfully forced companies to disclose more information to their shareholders and has sued individual managers at several major corporations for allegedly corrupt practices. Navalny is also co-founder of the Democratic Alternative movement and was vice-chairman of the Moscow branch of the political party YABLOKO. In 2010, he launched RosPil, a public project funded by unprecedented fundraising in Russia. In 2011, Navalny started RosYama, which combats fraud in the road construction sector.”

The Democratic Alternative, also written DA!, is indeed a National Endowment for Democracy fund recipient, meaning that Alexey Navalny is an agent of US-funded sedition and willfully hiding it from his followers. The US State Department itself reveals this as they list “youth movements” operating in Russia:

“DA!: Mariya Gaydar, daughter of former Prime Minister Yegor Gaydar, leads DA! (Democratic Alternative). She is ardent in her promotion of democracy, but realistic about the obstacles she faces. Gaydar said that DA! is focused on non-partisan activities designed to raise political awareness. She has received funding from the National Endowment for Democracy, a fact she does not publicize for fear of appearing compromised by an American connection.”

Alexey was involved directly in founding a movement funded by the US government and to this day has the very people who funded DA! defending him throughout Western media. The mention of co-founder Mariya Gaydar is also revealing, as she has long collaborated, and occasionally has been arrested with, Ilya Yashin, yet another leader of a NED-funded Russian “activist” opposition group.

Photo: Alexei Navalny, Yale World Fellow and co-founder of US National Endowment for Democracy Da! or “Democratic Alternative/Yes in Russian.” It is yet another Otpor-esque organization courtesy of the United States government and willful traitors to their motherland.

Ilya Yashin leads the Moscow branch of the People’s Freedom Party and is a leading member of the “Strategy 31” campaign, which claims to be fighting for the freedom of assembly. Unfortunately, Strategy 31’s ranks are filled with activists trained and coordinated by US NED-funded NGOs. From the official NED.org website we find:

“Moscow Group of Assistance in the Implementation of the Helsinki Accords $50,000

To draw greater attention to the issue of freedom of assembly in Russia and to the “Strategy 31” movement, which seeks to protect this fundamental right. The organization will train a network of regional activists and coordinate their activities through mini-seminars and field visits, and conduct an information cam­paign through press conferences, posters, and educational handouts pertaining to freedom of assembly, to be distributed to the general public by regional partners.”

This is also confirmed in NED’s “Democracy Digest” where the “Moscow Helsinki Group” is explicitly stated as leading Strategy 31 marches and that the group is a “long-time grantee of the National Endowment of Democracy.”

Worst yet, Yashin’s People’s Freedom Party is lined not with aspiring youth seeking “freedom” for the Russian people, but rather lined with career politicians and businessmen collaborating with foreign-interests. Among them is Vladimir Ryzhkov, a member of the NED-funded, Washington-based World Movement for Democracy. There is also Boris Nemtsov whose adviser, Vladimir Kara-Murza (of Solidarnost) recently took part in a September 14, 2011 NED-sponsored event titled, “Elections in Russia: Polling and Perspectives” where they used a NED-funded polling organization, the “Levada Center,” to project “winners” in upcoming elections and study the Manezh riots of 2010 – for now obvious reasons as the US attempts to fan the flames of unrest across Russia.

4. Freedom House

Rounding off the list is Freedom House, a US government-funded subsidiary of the National Endowment for Democracy. President of Freedom House, David Kramer, a minion under the Bush administration, recently wrote “Now Hear This, Moscow.”

In his piece he notes that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton “unambiguously stood with those who protested against Vladimir Putin and his party of power, United Russia, both in the voting booth and on the streets of Moscow on Monday and Tuesday.” Between Kramer’s Freedom House, NED who clearly has funded and supported, if not entirely created the current Russian opposition, and indeed Clinton’s “unambiguous” stand with the mobs in the streets, it is very easy to see why Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin accused the US of interfering in Russia’s sovereign internal affairs.

Kramer would go on by citing the Organization for Security and Cooperation OSCE poll monitors – funded by various nations, UN funds, and strangely enough Soros’ Open Society, Statoil, and USAID (page 125) – and his “concerns” over the alleged harassment of US NED-funded Golos. As usual, faux-human rights crusaders like Kramer who intentionally destabilize nations and foment unrest, then claim any measure taken by the targeted nation to defend itself is an abuse of “human rights” and “freedom,” an all too familiar narrative that has played out from Tunisia to Thailand, from Syria to Myanmar.

Another Freedom House statement, provided on their own website, again calls for the “Sergei Magnitsky Act” are made to leverage their false claims of human rights abuses to sanction and begin bringing down Russia’s leadership. The statement is signed off not by noted humanitarians, but by notorious Neo-Cons Eric Edelman, Jamie Fly, Robert Kagan, Kramer himself, and Stephen Rademaker, a corporate lobbyist at the notorious Podesta Group and a “foreign policy adviser” for Mitt Romney.

Conclusion

It is quite clear that the National Endowment for Democracy, Freedom House, the Foreign Policy Initiative, and even the US State Department whose new foreign affairs advisory board is full of think-tanks representing overt corporate-financier interests, are not interested in “democracy,” “human rights,” or “freedom” in Russia, but rather removing the Kremlin out of the way, and reestablishing the parasitic feeding on the Russian people and its economy they enjoyed after the fall of the Soviet Union.

The Kremlin is definitely fighting fire with fire, however they are doing so on their own sovereign soil against foreign-interests disingenuously masquerading behind the ideals of Western civilization. The mobs polluting the streets of Russia, while consisting of well intentioned folks are being led by willful liars who are on record covering up their foreign-funding knowing full well their “legitimacy” will be compromised should it be made public. After what Wall Street and London have done in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, and in nation after nation as it expands its vast empire, why should any organization taking funds from these people to destabilize and overthrow their own country retain any semblance of legitimacy?

And while NED and other corporate-funded foundations execute this policy of meddling in Russia’s affairs, it is Wall Street and London, the largest banking, oil, defense contracting, and industrial interests on earth that are producing the policy. They do so via a network of think-tanks they themselves fund. It is essential that we understand who these corporations are, boycott them out of business, and begin replacing them entirely as a society. If they can meddle and cause chaos in the streets of a large, nuclear armed super power, what threat do they pose to average people, their families, and communities?

Tony Cartalucci’s articles have appeared on many alternative media websites, including his own at

Land Destroyer Report.