the cia and nonviolent resistance

7/28/2019 The CIA and Nonviolent Resistance

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This article, reprinted with the consent of the author, has

been banned from a wide variety of progressive news

outlets. Her reporting on this subject is independently

consistent with my own articles on the Spring movement

The CIA and Nonviolent Resistance

One important aspect of the diversity of tactics debate

(i.e. the debate whether to be exclusively nonviolent) in the

Occupy movement relates to mounting evidence of the role

CIA and Pentagon-funded foundations and think tanks play

in funding and promoting nonviolent resistance training.

The two major US foundations promoting nonviolence,

both overseas and domestically, are the Albert Einstein

Institution (AEI) and the International Center for

Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC). Both receive major corporate

and/or government funding. The latter comes mainly

through CIA pass-through foundations. While the ICNCis funded mainly by the private fortune of hedge fund

multimillionaire (junk bond king Michael Milkens second

in command) Peter Ackerman, the AEI has received

funding from the Rand Corporation and the Department of

Defense, as well as various CIA-linked foundations, such

as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the

International Republican Institute (IRI), the US Institute of

Peace and the Ford Foundation (see The Ford Foundation

and the CIA),which all have a long history of collaborating

with the Pentagon, the State Department and the CIA in

destabilizing governments unfriendly to US interests.
http://stuartbramhall.aegauthorblogs.com/2011/04/13/the-ford-foundation-and-the-cia/http://stuartbramhall.aegauthorblogs.com/2011/04/13/the-ford-foundation-and-the-cia/http://stuartbramhall.aegauthorblogs.com/2011/04/13/the-ford-foundation-and-the-cia/http://stuartbramhall.aegauthorblogs.com/2011/04/13/the-ford-foundation-and-the-cia/


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This is a strategy Frances Stonor Saunders outlines in her

pivotal Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts

and Letters. According to Sanders, right wing corporate-

backed foundations and the CIA have been funding thenon-communist left since the late sixties, in the hope of

drowning out and marginalizing the voice of more militant

leftists.

Gene Sharp, the Fervent Anticommunist

Much of this debate focuses around the American godfather

of nonviolent resistance, Gene Sharp, the founder anddirector of the Albert Einstein Institution. Sharps

handbooks on nonviolent protest were widely disseminated

in the Eastern Europe color revolutions, in the Arab spring

revolutions and in the Occupy movement in the US (see

Nonviolence in the Service of Imperialism). Unfortunately

Sharp has become a decoy in this debate, deflecting

attention from the larger question of whether the USgovernment is actively financing and promoting the work

of the AEI, the ICIC and other groups that promote

nonviolent resistance, to the exclusion of other militant

tactics. The question is extremely important, in my view,

because it possibly explains the rigid and dogmatic attitude

in the US progressive movement regarding nonviolence.

Is Military-Intelligence Funding Compatible with

Progressive Politics?

The institutional nonviolence clique has cleverly refocused

the debate on whether Sharp, who is eighty-three, is a CIA
http://mailstar.net/Sharp-Soros-NED-CIA.htmlhttp://mailstar.net/Sharp-Soros-NED-CIA.html


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agent and whether he actively participated in US-funded

destabilization efforts in Tunisia, Syria, Egypt, Libya, Iran

and elsewhere that resulted in so-called Arab Spring

revolutions. The obvious answer to both questions is no.The more important question is why the alternative media

and official progressive movement embrace Sharp

unconditionally as a fellow progressive without a careful

look at his past or his ideological beliefs. Sharp has never

made any secret of his fervent anticommunist views. He

also makes no secret of the funding he has received from

the Defense Department; the Rand Corporation; CIA-linked

foundations, such as NED, the IRI and the US Institute ofPeace; and George Soross Open Society Institute. All this

information is readily available from the AEI website.

Thierry Meyssans 2005 Expose

The current brouhaha over Gene Sharp was first triggered

by an article, The Albert Einstein Institution: NonviolenceAccording to the CIA, Thierry Meyssan published on

Voltaire Netin October 2005. Meyssan, a French

intellectual and political activist, first gained international

prominence in 2002 by publishing a French best seller

entitledLeffroyable imposteur (English title: The Big Lie).

The book claimed that the 9-11 attacks were directed by

right-wingers in the U.S. government and the military

industrial complex, who were seeking justification for

military action in Afghanistan and Iraq. Meyssans 2005

article on the Albert Einstein Institutes enumerates a long

list of collaborations between Sharp and opposition groups

receiving covert US support in campaigns to bring down
http://www.voltairenet.org/The-Albert-Einstein-Institutionhttp://www.voltairenet.org/The-Albert-Einstein-Institutionhttp://www.voltairenet.org/The-Albert-Einstein-Institutionhttp://www.voltairenet.org/The-Albert-Einstein-Institution


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Asian and Eastern European governments unfriendly to US

interests.

Iran and Venezuelas Denunciation of Sharp

The article was widely reposted on leftist and libertarian

websites. In 2008, it resulted in a formal denunciation of

Sharp by the Iranian government and Venezuelan president

Hugo Chavez, both targets of AEI destabilization activities.

In June 2008, Stephen Zunes, chair of the Academic

Advisory Committee of the Peter Ackermans International

Center for Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC) issued a rebuttal,Sharp Attack Unwarranted, inForeign Policy in Focus.

The latter is an on-line magazine of the Institute for Policy

Studies, where Zunes serves as Middle East Editor. The

article was simultaneously reprinted in theHuffington Post.

Zunes subsequently persuaded Noam Chomsky, Howard

Zinn, Code Pink and other high profile progressives to helplaunch an on-line petition defending Sharps progressive

credentials. However, as numerous critics point out, he

never addressed Meyssans most important concerns: the

military/intelligence backgrounds of many of the Albert

Einstein Institutions (AEIs) directors and advisory board

members; their documented collaboration, together with

Sharp, with opposition groups responsible for the color

revolutions in Eastern Europe; and their work with

Venezuelan opposition groups in an effort to topple

president Hugo Chavez.
http://www.fpif.org/articles/sharp_attack_unwarrantedhttp://www.fpif.org/articles/sharp_attack_unwarranted


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AEI Links with the State Department and the Military-

Intelligence Complex

Australian researcher Michael Barker, Canadian activistStephen Gowans and CIA watchers wrote detailed critiques

defending Meyssans 2005 expose. Barkers rebuttal is

entitled Sharp Reflection Warranted. Barkers main

argument is that the problem of elite manipulation of

ostensibly progressive groups isnt at all new. He also

points readers to excellent links regarding collaboration

between the CIA and the Ford Foundation, the National

Endowment for Democracy (NED), the US Agency forInternational Development (USAID) and others.

Gowans argues that Zunes, a paid adviser to the

International Center for Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC), is

hardly a neutral or objective party, given his involvement

with Peter Ackerman and the ICNC. Ackerman, hardly the

progressive peace activist, is a Wall Street investmentbanker, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and

head of Freedom House. The latter, according to Noam

Chomsky (inManufacturing Consent), is interlocked

with the CIA and a virtual propaganda arm of the (US)

government and international right wing. According to

Louis Proyect, Ackerman is also on the advisory board of

the ultraconservative Cato Institutes Project on Social

Security Choice. Not surprisingly, this group strongly

advocates for privatizing Social Security.
http://www.swans.com/library/art14/barker01.htmlhttp://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2011/02/21/gene-sharps-goal-liberty-in-a-world-of-market-imperatives/http://www.cato.org/social-securityhttp://www.cato.org/social-securityhttp://www.swans.com/library/art14/barker01.htmlhttp://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2011/02/21/gene-sharps-goal-liberty-in-a-world-of-market-imperatives/http://www.cato.org/social-securityhttp://www.cato.org/social-security


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A Close Look At Sharps Past

There is no question that Thierry Meyssans 2005 article on

Gene Sharps extensive links to the US military-intelligence complex is one of the most important exposes

of the 21st century. Its only weaknesses is Meyssans

failure to cite many of his references. What follows is the

best publicly verifiable chronology of Sharps life I could

come up with (most comes from Meyssans 2005 article

with sources added):

1953 conscientious objector during Korean War,imprisoned for nine months for refusing to report for

alternative duty. Imprisoned for refusing to fight in

Korean War (People and The Progressive).

1973 publishes The Politics of Nonviolent Action (1973)

with an introduction by Thomas C. Shelling. Shelling

was a well known economist and professor of foreign

affairs, national security, nuclear strategy, and armscontrol. After working with US ambassador Averel

Harriman in Paris in 1948 to implement the Marshall

Plan, Shelling had a fifty year affiliation with the Rand

Corporation (US military think tank) and is widely

credited as the theoretician behind military escalation

in Vietnam.

1983 founds the Albert Einstein Institution (AEI) in

Boston, with the assistance of Major General Edward

B Atkeson, who was on the first AEI advisory board.

The AEI website identifies Atkeson as Senior Fellow

at the Institute of Land Warfare Association of the US

Army. According to the CIA website, during the
http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20079526,00.htmlhttp://www.progressive.org/mag/intv0307http://www.peace.ca/genesharp.htmhttp://www.rand.org/about/history/nobel/schelling.htmlhttp://www.rand.org/about/history/nobel/schelling.htmlhttp://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/war_stories/2005/10/all_pain_no_gain.htmlhttp://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/war_stories/2005/10/all_pain_no_gain.htmlhttps://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol53no1/index.htmlhttp://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20079526,00.htmlhttp://www.progressive.org/mag/intv0307http://www.peace.ca/genesharp.htmhttp://www.rand.org/about/history/nobel/schelling.htmlhttp://www.rand.org/about/history/nobel/schelling.htmlhttp://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/war_stories/2005/10/all_pain_no_gain.htmlhttp://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/war_stories/2005/10/all_pain_no_gain.htmlhttps://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol53no1/index.html


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1980s Atkeson was alsoa National Intelligence

Officer for General Purpose Forces.

1985 publishes a book entitledMaking Europe

Unconquerable: the Potential of Civilian-baseDeterrence and Defense. The second edition includes

a preface by George Kennan, historian and State

Department senior diplomat whose writings

influenced Truman in the creation of the Truman

Doctrine. Kennan is viewed as the father of the US

foreign policy of containment (by force) of Soviet

expansion.

1986, 1988 and 1989 travels to Israel/Palestine tobolster support for the Palestinian Center for the

History of Non-Violence, founded in 1983 by one of

Sharps disciple. Its a matter of public record that

Sharp met with Colonel Reuvan Gal, who directed the

Israel Defense Force (IDF) Psychological Action

Division. Meyssan claims the two conspired to create

a split in the Palestinian Liberation Organization(PLO) by creating a dissident nonviolent group. Gal

and Sharp claim the purpose of their meetings were to

devise ways to dissuade IDF commanders from using

tanks and excessive military force against Palestinian

settlers (see The Jeruselem Fund, Mubarak Awad, and

Nonviolence).

1987 receives funding from the US Institute of Peace to

host seminars instructing US allies on defense based

on civil disobedience. By law, the US Institute of

Peace is an extension of US intelligence.

1989 assists Colonel Robert Helvey in training

anticommunist Burmese opposition groups concerned
http://www.peace.ca/genesharp.htmhttp://www.scribd.com/doc/49413815/The-Jerusalem-Fundhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mubarak_Awadhttp://www.maaber.org/issue_april11/non_violence2_e.htmhttp://www.swarthmore.edu/library/peace/DG201-225/dg220aei/dg220aeidevelop.htmhttp://www.zcommunications.org/operation-peace-institute-by-site-administratorhttp://www.peace.ca/genesharp.htmhttp://www.scribd.com/doc/49413815/The-Jerusalem-Fundhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mubarak_Awadhttp://www.maaber.org/issue_april11/non_violence2_e.htmhttp://www.swarthmore.edu/library/peace/DG201-225/dg220aei/dg220aeidevelop.htmhttp://www.zcommunications.org/operation-peace-institute-by-site-administrator


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about the growing strength of the Burmese

Communist Party. The AEI website refers to Helvey

as a retired US military officer and ex-military attach

in Burma. He was actually a thirty year veteran of theDefense Intelligence Agency with extensive

experience in overseeing clandestine and subversive

operations in Southeast Asia (see Who is Col Bob

Helvey and Peace Magazine Archive). Following his

retirement from the DIA, he became chairman of the

board of the Albert Einstein Institution.

1990 with his AEI team (according to AEI website),

assists Lithuanian opposition leaders in organizing

popular resistance against the Red Army. According to

the website, the AEI also did trainings with

anticommunist opposition groups in Tibet, Estonia,

and Belarus.

1998 travels, with Helvey, to Eastern Europe to train

Otpor, a group of Serbian youth opposed to Slobodan

Milosevic and Europes last communist government.Milosevic was immensely popular with Serbian people

for standing up to NATO and for his generous social

policies. The trainings were funded by the National

Endowment for Democracy (NED), the International

Republican Institute (IRI) and the US Agency for

International Development (USAID). (See 2000New

York Times interview with NED officer Paul B.McCarthy).

2003 assists, with AEI staff, in the launch of the Rose

Revolution in Georgia (see The Secrets of the

Georgian Coup).

2004 Helvey and other AEI members meet with the
http://www.raek.nl/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1658:who-is-col-bob-helvey&catid=111:subversive-us-organisations&Itemid=119http://www.raek.nl/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1658:who-is-col-bob-helvey&catid=111:subversive-us-organisations&Itemid=119http://peacemagazine.org/archive/v24n1p12.htmhttp://www.aeinstein.org/organizations/org/AEI_FY04_Appeal.pdfhttp://www.aeinstein.org/organizations/org/AEI_FY04_Appeal.pdfhttp://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/26/magazine/who-really-brought-down-milosevic.html?pagewanted=all&src=pmhttp://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/26/magazine/who-really-brought-down-milosevic.html?pagewanted=all&src=pmhttp://www.voltairenet.org/The-Secrets-of-the-Georgian-Couphttp://www.voltairenet.org/The-Secrets-of-the-Georgian-Couphttp://www.raek.nl/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1658:who-is-col-bob-helvey&catid=111:subversive-us-organisations&Itemid=119http://www.raek.nl/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1658:who-is-col-bob-helvey&catid=111:subversive-us-organisations&Itemid=119http://peacemagazine.org/archive/v24n1p12.htmhttp://www.aeinstein.org/organizations/org/AEI_FY04_Appeal.pdfhttp://www.aeinstein.org/organizations/org/AEI_FY04_Appeal.pdfhttp://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/26/magazine/who-really-brought-down-milosevic.html?pagewanted=all&src=pmhttp://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/26/magazine/who-really-brought-down-milosevic.html?pagewanted=all&src=pmhttp://www.voltairenet.org/The-Secrets-of-the-Georgian-Couphttp://www.voltairenet.org/The-Secrets-of-the-Georgian-Coup


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Ukrainian resistance in Kiev (see Mowats The Coup

Plotters).

2003-2004 travels, with Helvey and other AEI team

members to Venezuela to meet with wealthyVenezuelan opposition leaders, following the failed

2002 CIA-sponsored coup against Chavez. The AEI

advises them in organizing a recall referendum against

Chavez. They also train the leaders of Smate during

the August 2004 demonstrations and assist in the

formulation of Operation Guarimba, a series of

often-violent street blockades that result in several

deaths. According to an analysis published byStrategic Forecasting (Stratfor), Venezuelan student

leaders traveled to Belgrade in 2005 to meet with

representatives of AEI-trained OTPOR/CANVAS,

before traveling to Boston to consult directly with

Sharp himself.

Fast Forward to the Arab Spring

In the Arab Spring revolutions of 2011, Sharp and the

Albert Einstein Institution (AEI) seem to have handed the

baton to his disciple Peter Ackerman. It was Ackerman

who conducted nonviolence trainings in Cairo and Tunisia

in 2009-2010 (see Bloomberg Markets, Foreign Policy

Journal andNew York Times).

As others have documented elsewhere, the 2011 uprisings

in the Middle East and North Africa were neither

spontaneous nor indigenous. Many of the individuals and

groups who helped organize them received training (in the
http://www.raek.nl/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1656:the-coup-plotters&catid=111:subversive-us-organisations&Itemid=119http://www.raek.nl/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1656:the-coup-plotters&catid=111:subversive-us-organisations&Itemid=119http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/3413http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2012/01/19/regime-change-inc-denies-its-own-existence/http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2012/01/19/regime-change-inc-denies-its-own-existence/http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/17/world/middleeast/17sharp.html?_r=1&pagewanted=allhttp://www.raek.nl/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1656:the-coup-plotters&catid=111:subversive-us-organisations&Itemid=119http://www.raek.nl/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1656:the-coup-plotters&catid=111:subversive-us-organisations&Itemid=119http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/3413http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2012/01/19/regime-change-inc-denies-its-own-existence/http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2012/01/19/regime-change-inc-denies-its-own-existence/http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/17/world/middleeast/17sharp.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all


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US) sponsored by the State Department and CIA-linked

democracy manipulating foundations (see LAbarabesque

Americaine by French-Canadian analyst Ahmed Bensada

and Tony Cartaluccis Soros Celebrates the Fall ofTunisia). The New York Times lends further credibility to

these claims in their April 2011 U.S. Groups Helped

Nurture Arab Uprisings.

***

About the author: Dr Bramhall is a 64 year old American

child and adolescent psychiatrist and political refugee inNew Zealand. She has just published a free non-fiction

ebook21st Century Revolution, which can be downloaded

at http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/120942. Her

first bookThe Most Revolutionary Act: Memoir of an

American Refugee describesthe circumstances that led her

to leave the US in 2002. Her website is at:

www.stuartbramhall.com.

Note: CIA methods of discrediting excellent work such as

Dr Bramhalls above article includes [but is not limited to]

leaning hard on the better known progressive sites

[alternet terminated Dr Bramhalls' relationship, probably

faced with funding threats] not to run the pieces while

providing other so-called 'alternative' news sites where the

articles CAN be run but subjected to guilt by association

and other method of discrediting the information. For

instance 'Daily Censored' ran this article but only allows

negative comments through 'moderation' and concurrently
http://stuartbramhall.aegauthorblogs.com/2011/09/10/smoking-gun-us-role-in-arab-spring/http://stuartbramhall.aegauthorblogs.com/2011/09/10/smoking-gun-us-role-in-arab-spring/http://landdestroyer.blogspot.co.nz/2011/11/soros-celebrates-fall-of-tunisia.htmlhttp://landdestroyer.blogspot.co.nz/2011/11/soros-celebrates-fall-of-tunisia.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/world/15aid.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&emc=eta1http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/world/15aid.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&emc=eta1http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/120942http://www.stuartbramhall.com/http://stuartbramhall.aegauthorblogs.com/2011/09/10/smoking-gun-us-role-in-arab-spring/http://stuartbramhall.aegauthorblogs.com/2011/09/10/smoking-gun-us-role-in-arab-spring/http://landdestroyer.blogspot.co.nz/2011/11/soros-celebrates-fall-of-tunisia.htmlhttp://landdestroyer.blogspot.co.nz/2011/11/soros-celebrates-fall-of-tunisia.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/world/15aid.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&emc=eta1http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/world/15aid.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&emc=eta1http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/120942http://www.stuartbramhall.com/


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ran an article supporting David Icke's 'lizard DNA'

theories [to associate her work with nut jobs.] It then

becomes the dilemma of the author whether to publish in

less than optimal circumstance or not get the informationout at all

My own work supporting Dr Bramhall's conclusions here
http://www.scribd.com/doc/80821111/Analyzing-Fraud-in-%E2%80%98Democracy-Movements%E2%80%99http://www.scribd.com/doc/80821111/Analyzing-Fraud-in-%E2%80%98Democracy-Movements%E2%80%99

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