Published time: 25 Jul, 2019 18:44Edited time: 25
Jul, 2019 22:27
The controversial pro-NATO Atlantic Council think
tank has been added to a list of “undesirable” organizations and forbidden from
operating within Russia.
Russia’s Prosecutor General said on Thursday that
it had decided to recognize the activities of the Atlantic Council (AC) as
those of a “foreign non-governmental organization” and as “undesirable” within
the country.
“It has been established that the activities of
this organization pose a threat to the fundamentals of the constitutional
system and the security of the Russian Federation,” a statement said.
The Russian law forbids “undesirable organizations”
from opening offices and disseminating its materials in the country. Being part
of such a group may result in an administrative fine of up to 100,000 (around
$1,600) rubles or criminal liability with a prison term of between two to six
years. The AC is the 17th organization to be slapped with that label.
The NATO-aligned @AtlanticCouncil "think
tank" has been declared an "undesirable organisation" in Russia.
The Prosecutor General deems it "a threat to... the security of the
Russian Federation." https://www.genproc.gov.ru/smi/news/genproc/news-1662746/ …
Founded in 1961, the Atlantic Council is a rabidly
anti-Russia think tank based in Washington DC and is handsomely funded by a
bevy of US and UK arms manufacturers, including Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and
Boeing. It has been described by other analysts as the“propaganda
arm” of the NATO military
alliance. Consistent with its military funding, AC experts – or “fellows” as
they call themselves – advocate for the engagement of the US military as
frequently as possible in conflicts around the world.
US ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman used to be the
chairman of the organization until 2018. The founder of Baring Vostok private
equity fund, Michael Calvey, who is now on trial for large scale fraud in
Russia, was one of its board members and the largest private investor,
according to the annual report.
While the Russian prosecutor general’s statement
describes the AC as an “NGO,” that seems to be not quite an accurate
description, given that the organization also receives funding from the US State Department and the British
Foreign Office.
The AC regularly hosts forums attended by
political, business and academic figures who compete with each other to see who
can suggest the most hostile Western course of action toward Russia.
Speaking at an Atlantic Council event in February,
US chief of naval operations Adm. John Richardson called for more American
aggression toward Russia and China, saying that when it comes to defending key
waterways around the world, the US should become more “muscular,” should “strike
first” and force Russia to “respond to our first move.”
Last year, Facebook teamed up with an Atlantic
Council offshoot known as the ‘Digital Forensic Lab’ in an effort to
combat “fake news” on the social media platform. Shortly after,
Facebook went on a censorship spree, suspending pages belonging to left-leaning
Venezuelan media outlets which were daring to question historically disastrous
US foreign policy in Latin America.
Despite its clear bias and US and UK government
funding, AC employees are regularly cited as objective ‘expert’ sources in
mainstream media reports.
About the Atlantic Council
The Atlantic Council is effectively NATO’s
propaganda wing. And it’s funded by arms manufacturers, various branches of the
US military, and Middle Eastern autocratic regimes, among others, as it
promotes the alliance’s agenda – which was best described by its first
secretary-general, Hastings Ismay, as “to keep the Russians out,
the Americans in, and the Germans down.”
Let’s be clear. If people don’t believe in
the “Russian threat,” NATO is essentially rendered useless.
Promoting tensions with Europe’s largest country is an existential matter for
The Atlantic Council. And now Facebook has effectively placed the lobby group
in charge of political censorship on its platform. This presents chilling
dangers to free speech and should worry anybody who believes in fairness and
balance in the media. Especially after Zuckerberg admitted in the Washington
Post piece how his company is being used by US authorities to control
information and combat “foreign actors.” The tech boss also boasted that “we’ve worked with law
enforcement to take down accounts in Russia.”
Roll of
horror
Founded in 1961, with the mission of “encouraging the continuation of
cooperation between North America and Europe that began after the Second World
War,” the Atlantic Council slowly evolved from being a sort of forum
for socialising to a pseudo-academic lobby group. While it professes to be a
“think tank,” its lack of genuine debate and tolerance for dissent means in
practice this description isn’t accurate in the classical sense of the term, as
the Atlantic Council is clearly more interested in creating a market for tanks
than thinking.
Funding comes from dozens of foreign governments
and also individual vested interests. They include arms makers Lockheed Martin,
Raytheon, and Boeing, plus wealthy private backers such as Ukraine’s Viktor
Pinchuk and Saudi billionaire Bahaa Hariri. State institutions who plough in
funds vary from the National Endowment for Democracy to the British Foreign
Office and the US Army itself.
The money is mainly used to hire lobbyists, who are
known as “fellows.” And some of them are occasionally outsourced to cutouts
like the Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab) – the department which works
with Facebook.
Some of the Atlantic Council’s hires have
significant media profiles. For instance, Dmitri Alperovitch (of
DNC hack fame), Anders Aslund (a radical economist who has predicted Russia’s collapse twice, and been wrong both times), Michael Carpenter
(Joe Biden’s, usually misinformed, Russia-baiting sidekick), Borzou Daragahi
(Middle East correspondent of Buzzfeed), Maxim Eristavi (a pro-American
Ukrainian activist), Evelyn Farkas (a rabidly anti-Russian Obama adviser), and
Michael Weiss (a CNN ‘Russia analyst’ who has never been to Russia and can’t
speak Russian). The DFR Lab is comprised of 11, almost uniformly young,
tech enthusiasts from the US and Eastern Europe and previously worked to support NATO narratives in Ukraine and
Syria.
Some are long-time Atlantic Council bodies, and
others are some fresh recruits. The main men are Eliot Higgins, the founder of
Bellingcat, which specialises in media-friendly investigations of wars
from the perspective which suits British and American interests, Aric Toler
(a former private intelligence specialist who spent time in Russia on State Department-funded
study programmes) and Ben Nimmo, a one-time NATO press officer.
Other censors include ex-Obama administration and
NATO staff, with the managing editor, Graham Brookie, having previously worked
at the US National Security Council. There is nobody listed as an employee who
could be considered, in any way, neutral on Russia. This betrays the unit’s
confidence in how the mainstream media won’t scrutinise them, as normally you’d
expect at least one token dissenter.
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