Foundation for Defense of Democracies

The Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) is a neoconservative think tank based in Washington, D.C., which was founded two days after the September 11th attack in 2001. In its own words, it “uniquely combines policy research, democracy training, strategic communications, and investigative journalism. We focus our efforts where opinions are formed and, ultimately, where the war of ideas will be won or lost: in the media, on college campuses, and in the policy community, at home and abroad.” In 2004, FDD reincarnated the Cold War relic Committee on the Present Danger in support of the so-called 'war on terror'. George W. Bush used FDD as a platform for the launch of his National Security Strategy 2006..

Selling the Iraq War

In April 2002, in a seemingly coordinated move the Center for Security Policy and FDD ran television adds identifying Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, Osama bin Laden and the former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein as part of a common threat in a bid, according to journalist Jim Lobe 'to advance their seven-month-old campaign to make Arafat a target of the President George W. Bush's war on terrorism.' The ads tried to explicitly link Israel with the US as a common victim of global terrorism.

The FDD script opens with its title, 'The Suicide Strategy' in bold letters and continues, 'It was used by terrorists against America on September 11. It's being used by terrorists against Israel day after day,' as the video flashes to a hellish scene immediately after a suicide bombing.

'If we let the suicide strategy succeed anywhere in the world, it will succeed everywhere,' the narrator continues as the video shows Palestinian children dressed up as suicide bombers at a Hamas demonstration.

'The suicide strategy threatens al of us - all those who are hated as 'infidels',' the voice continues as the camera shows Saddam Hussein addressing a crowd.

'If we appease terrorism, we'll get more terrorism. Our way of life is threatened,' it goes on, as the video depicts the burning of a U.S. flag and then fades to a written imperative: 'Never Appease Terrorism.'

Democrats Defect

Like all other think tanks enjoying 501 (c) 3 charitable status, FDD also claims that it is non-partisan. Initially it even garnered the support of prominent pro-Israel Democrats. However, several defected the think tank accusing it of 'fear mongering for political purposes' and 'scare tactics'. Democratic Party consultant Donna Brazile, who is listed as a founding member wrote: 'I am deeply disappointed they would use my name since no one has consulted me about the activities of the group in years.' She added that FDD had turned into 'a radical right wing organization that is doing the dirty work for the Bush administration and Congressional Republicans'. Brazile was followed Eliot Engel and Chuck Schumer. Shortly afterwards, the name of Marc Ginsberg also disapprared from board of directors.

However, investigative journalist Jim Lobe notes that this belated recognition of FDD's tactics is odd considering that 'fear-mongering is exactly FDD’s stock in trade, as it has been from the very beginning.' It has, he adds, 'acted primarily as a front for the Likudist founders of the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC)...Cliff May, FDD’s president since its founding Sep 13, 2001, served previously as RJC’s vice chair.' He adds:

Of course, these Democrats are leaving primarily because FDD has become increasingly partisan in its attacks on specific Democratic lawmakers and leadership, not because of its steady drumbeat of Arabo- and Islamo-phobia that has dominated its work since its inception more than six years ago.

The departures prompted FDD to hastily reorganize its corporate structure, giving birth to a new organization, [Defense of Democracies] — to preserve its 501(c)3 status.

George W. Bush speech

In George W. Bush’s 2006 speech he congratulated the FDD for helping fight terrorism and spread democracy across the Middle East. He said:

You have trained Iraqi women and Iranian students in the principles and practice of democracy, you've translated ‘democracy readers' into Arabic for distribution across the broader Middle East, you've helped activists across the region organize effective political movements—so they can help bring about democratic change and ensure the survival of liberty in new democracies. By promoting democratic ideals, and training a new generation of democratic leaders in the Middle East, you are helping us to bring victory in the war on terror—and I thank you for your hard work in freedom's cause.

Terrorology Summer School

In its first five years, FDD has established numerous programs that have extended its influence and reach. Three of these programs focus increasing attention on the issue of terrorism in universities:

Summer Workshop on Teaching about Terrorism (SWOTT)

According to FDD, SWOTT is a “unique, U.S.-based effort to provide college professors with the tools they need to teach about the threat of terrorism and the methods used to combat it … and includes classes that encompass all facets of terrorism studies and field trips to military and other national security-related installations.”

Undergraduate Fellowship on Terrorism

FDD fellowships and terrorism education programs routinely involve study trips to Israel. There they meet with Israeli, American, Turkish, Jordanian, and Indian officials to learn about each country's experience fighting terrorism. The fellows often form FDD-affiliated student groups on their respective campuses. FDD-affiliated student groups can now be found at nearly all major American undergraduate institutions. Many FDD Undergraduate Fellows have gone on to work in the intelligence and defense communities.

Academic Fellowship on Terrorism

The Academic Fellowship program uses Israel as a case study to teach “an intensive, 10-day course on terrorism and the threat it poses to democratic societies”. “The goal of the program is to offer information to teaching professionals about the latest trends in terrorists' ideologies, motives, and operations, and how democracies can fight them”.

Media, Campaigns & Conferences

• Three FDD programs focus on communications and the media: radio programming, investigative reporting, and strategic communication campaigns. FDD includes among its most important communications campaigns the creation, in partnership with the European Foundation for Democracy of the Coalition Against Terrorist Media (CATM), which organized a global campaign against Hezbollah's al-Manar television.

• In May 2003, the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies were co-sponsors (along with the American Enterprise Institute and the Hudson Institute) of an all-day conference on Iran. The speakers are reported to have all been strongly pro-Israel, with many of them calling for the US to replace the Iranian regime with a democracy.

• FDD have also campaigned against the UN court hearings on “Israel's Anti-Terrorism Fence”. They have also sponsored the Iraq-America Freedom Alliance (which is giving “voice to Iraqis who are grateful for their newfound freedom and working to secure democracy”).

• Every Sunday night at 9pm, FDD's Ambassador Richard Carlson hosts the WMAL radio show the Danger Zone. Danger Zone features discussions involving leading figures from the worlds of intelligence, security, military and academia..

• Using grant money from the United States Department of State, the FDD held an Iraqi Women's Leadership Conference, bringing together Iraqi women in order to study the principles of democracy, learn how they can participate in their nation's new government and electoral process, and help Iraqi women to take an active role in their country's civic life.

• FDD campaigned for Women for a Free Iraq and in coordination with the American Islamic Congress and the Independent Women's Forum, the FDD created the Iraqi Women's Education Institute, which has similar goals to the Iraqi Women's Leadership Conference.

Oil for Food Scandal

The FDD's journalist-in-residence, Claudia Rosett, was the first reporter to break the U.N.'s Oil for Food scandal.

As U.S. News and World Report senior writer Michael Barone explained: "The U.N. Oil for Food program, we learn from the reporting of Claudia Rosett in The Wall Street Journal, was a rip-off on the order of $21 billion -- with money intended for hungry Iraqis going instead to Saddam Hussein and his henchmen, to bribed French and Russian businesses and, evidently, to the U.N.'s own man in charge, Benon Savan."

For this reporting, Ms. Rosett received the Eric Breindel Award for Excellence in Opinion Journalism

As a result of her work, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan appointed an internal commission to investigate. The U.S. Senate and House also began their own reviews and invited her to testify at their hearings .

Funding

Journalist Jim Lobe has revealed that according to publicly available tax records the following individuals and institutions have contributed $100,000 or more — sometimes much more — to the group between 2002 and 2005:

• Abramson Family Foundation
• Leonard Abramson
• Annenberg Foundation
• Barrack Foundation
• Newton and Rochelle Becker Family Foundation
• Newton Becker
• Marcus Bernard
• Russell Berrie Foundation
• Samuel Bronfman Foundation
• Andrea and Charles Bronfman Fund at Brandeis
• Charles Bronfman
• Edgar Bronfman
• James and Patricia Cayne
• Dalck Feith Revocable Trust
• David Cutler
• Tony Gelbart
• Gerome Goodman
• Sanford J. Grossman Charitable Trust
• Hyperion Partners
• Lewis Ranieri

Principals

Founding Members

Steve Forbes | Jack Kemp | Jeane Kirkpatrick | Newt Gingrich | James Woolsey |Frank Lautenberg Charles Schumer | Joseph Lieberman | Donna Brazile.

Board of Directors

Steve Forbes, CEO Forbes Magazine - Board Member | Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, Fmr. Ambassador to the UN - Board Member Jack Kemp, Fmr. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development – Chairman | Clifford D. May, Frm. Republican National Committee Director of Communications - President

Distinguished Advisors

Louis J. Freeh - Fmr. Director of the FBI |R. James Woolsey, Fmr. Director of the CIA | Newt Gingrich, Fmr. Speaker of the House | Joe Lieberman - US Senator

Board of Advisors

Gary Bauer, American Values - President | Charles Krauthammer, Syndicated Columnist | Donna Brazile, Campaign Manager Gore 2000 | Bill Kristol, Weekly Standard Editor | Eric Cantor (R-VA), Task Force on Terrorism Chairman Richard D. Lamm, Fmr. Colorado Governor | Eliot Engel (D-NY), U.S. House of Representatives | Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), U.S. Senate | Mark Foley (R-FL), U.S. House of Representatives | Jim Marshall (D-GA), U.S. House of Representatives | Frank Gaffney, Center for Security Policy President | Zell Miller, Fmr. US Senator | Marc Ginsberg, Fmr. Ambassador Morroco | Richard Perle, Former Chair of the Defense Policy Board and FDD Advisor | J.D. Hayworth (R-AZ), U.S. House of Representatives | Charles E. Schumer (D-NY), U.S. Senate | Charles Jacobs, American Anti-Slavery Group President

Senior Fellows

Khairi Abaza | Daveed Gartenstein-Ross | Avi Jorisch | Samer Libdeh | Mario Loyola | Andrew C. McCarthy Barbara Newman | Walid Phares | Victoria Toensing | Youssef M. Ibrahim

Adjunct Fellows

Jonathan Adelman, University of Denver Professor | Mohammed Akacem, Metropolitan State College of Denver Professor Richard Z. Chesnoff, Journalist | Paul Crespo, Former Marine Corps Officer and Military Attaché Tanya Gilly | Orde Kittrie, Arizona State University Law Professor | Agota Kuperman, U.S. Foreign Service (ret.) Joel Mowbray | J. Peter Pham | Jess Sadick, U.S. government Terrorism Specialist | Frederic Smoler, Sarah Lawrence College Professor | Jan Ting, Temple University Law Professor

Staff

Richard W. Carlson, Vice Chairman | Audra Ozols, Campus Programs Coordinator | Mark Dubowitz, Chief Operating Officer | Cara Rosenthal, Donor Relations Senior Manager | Tanya Gilly, Democracy Programs Director | Claudia Rosett, Journalist-in-Residence | Eleana Gordon, Senior Vice-President | David Silverstein, Campus Education & Grassroots Programs Vice-President | Sara H. Levy, Communications Manager | Jonathan L. Snow, Research Manager Clifford D. May, President | Jean Thurman, Operations Manager | Bill McCarthy, Communications Vice-President Caitlyn Walters, Project Coordinator |Andrew Apostolou

Related Organizations

American Enterprise Institute | Americans for Victory Over Terrorism | Center for Security Policy | Coalition Against Terrorist Media | Committee on the Present Danger | Empower America | European Foundation for Democracy International Republican Institute | National Endowment for Democracy | Project for the New American Century |Spirit of America

Government Links

Defense Policy Board

External links

Official Sites

• Foundation for Defense of Democracies
• FDD Official Blog
• The Iraq-America Freedom Alliance
• The Human Cost of Terrorism
• The Coalition Against Terrorist Media

External Resources

• Sidney Blumenthal, The neocons' last stand, Guardian, 16 November 2006.
• Jim Lobe, Neo-Cons Driving Iran Divestment Campaign, InterPress Service, 11 May 2007.
• Rightweb, Foundation for Defense of Democracies
• Sourcewatch Foundation for Defense of Democracies