American Center for Democracy
The American Center for Democracy (ACD) was founded in 2003 by neoconservative writer Rachel Ehrenfeld to monitor and expose 'the enemies of freedom and their modus operandi, and explores pragmatic ways to counteract their methods'.
A key focus is on radical Islam: ACD's stated objective in 2009 was 'to supplement government efforts to defend democratic institutions from global threat of radical Islam and terrorism'. [1]
Today ACD says it is 'dedicated to exposing and monitoring threats to U.S. political and economic freedoms and its national security from within and without'. [2]
Former CIA director James Woolsey, a long-time ACD board member says 'The ACD’s ability to predict future threats is second to none'.
Contents
Criticism
RightWeb describes ACD founder Rachel Ehrenfeld as "a controversial writer associated with a number of neoconservative outfits like the American Enterprise Institute. Her work, which often focuses on terrorism financing, has been criticized for having an overt bias toward U.S. and Israeli interests and for being sensationalist."[3]
A key critique cited by RightWeb is Michael Massing's 1993 response to Ehrenfeld in the New York Review of Books:
- It is not Ms. Ehrenfeld's conservatism to which I object, but her extremism. In Narco-Terrorism, for instance, she maintains not only that the Soviet Union was involved in drug-related violence—an unremarkable assertion—but that Marxist-Leninists are responsible for most of the world's drug-related violence. In fact, many of the world's violent trafficking organizations, like the Colombian cartels, are decidedly right-wing in orientation. In Evil Money, Ms. Ehrenfeld makes a series of sensational claims—that Sierra Leone has become "an international terrorist center," that BCCI "cemented the symbiotic relationship between Peruvian terrorists and drug traffickers," that Abu Nidal trained Shining Path members in urban guerrilla warfare, helping to set up a "dormant terrorist infrastructure" in the United States. In my review, I noted how little evidence Ms. Ehrenfeld offered to back up these claims. She does no better in her letter, preferring to take cover behind the claim of confidentiality—a lame excuse in any language.[4]
Mission
Areas of interest
Economic Warfare | CyberSpace Security(Purposeful Interference (GPS) ) | EMP| WMD| WME| Energy/Electric Grid | Finance | Banking | Commodities | Trade | U.S. Policy | Economic Sanctions | Anti-Corruption | Cultural Warfare | Free Speech | Lawfare | Muslim Brotherhood | Political Islam| al Qaeda | Jihad| Islamic State| Anti- Semitism|Middle East Conflicts | Anti-Corruption | Hamas Hezbollah | Illegal Drugs/Drug Legalization|International Institutions (UN, IMF, World Bank, EU) | International Law | Markets & Companies | Money Laundering/Transparency/Tax Evasion | Shari’a Banking & Finance | Terrorism & Terrorist Funding | Transnational Crime
Regions
Africa |Australasia | China & North Korea & Northeast Asia | Latin America | Middle East & ; Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Lebanon, Syria & Turkey, UAE/Qatar | Russia & Ukraine & East Europe | South & Central Asia | Southeast Asia | United States, Canada & Mexico | Western Europe & Scandinavia
Principals
Advisory board
- Thomas McInerney (US Lt. Gen.-Ret.)
- Ana Palacio
- Richard Perle
- Dmitry Radyshevsky
- Nina Rosenwald
- Leonard P. Shaykin
- Harvey M. Stone
- Paul E. Vallely (US Maj. Gen.-Ret.)
- William R. Van Cleave
- R. James Woolsey
Team
- Rachel Ehrenfeld – Founder and Director
Fellows
- Jonathan Dahoah Halevi (IDF Col.-Ret.)
- Alyssa A. Lappen
- Marc Schulman
- Ilan Weinglass
- John Wood
Affiliations
- Center for The Study of Corruption – parent organization
- Economic Warfare Institute
ACD links page
The ACD links page contains the following selection of websites:
Publications
A list of ACD articles appearing in the media appear here
- Rachel Ehrenfeld, Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed, and How To Stop It (The book the Saudis don't want you to read) - Expanded Edition.
External Resources
- American Center for Democracy, Right Web (last updated 14 Sept 2006).
Contact
- Website: American Center for Democracy
Old website address www.public-integrity.org
Notes
- ↑ Mission statement, About us, American Center for Democracy, accessed 23 December 2009
- ↑ Mission, American Center for Democracy], AMD website, accessed 4 February 2015
- ↑ American Center for Democracy, RightWeb, accessed 23 December 2009
- ↑ Michael Massing, 'Evil Money' By Rachel Ehrenfeld, Peter Dale Scott, Reply by Michael Massing, The New York Review of Books, 23 December 2009.
