“Coloured Revolutions” and Populist Uprisings
'One of the Most Important Weapons of Warfare Developed by a NATO country'. Global Research News Hour Episode 222
“A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.”
– Allen Weinstein, co-founder of National Endowment for Democracy (1991) [1]
“War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”
-George Orwell, 1984 [2]
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A number of populist uprisings in modern history, captured by major media, have inspired the world with their depictions of mass numbers of people taking to the streets to demand freedom and democracy.
In the 1980s, the Solidarity movement in Poland, led by Lech Walesa, succeeded in mobilizing millions, eventually overthrowing the country’s communist government, triggering the collapse of the Berlin Wall, and ultimately the Soviet Union.
In 1989, defying authoritarian Chinese rulers, over a million people joined thousands of hunger striking students in Tiananmen Square, demanding more democratic government.
In the fall of 2004, a sea of demonstrators decked in orange flooded Kiev’s Independence Square, and sparked uprisings across Ukraine, determined to thwart perceived corruption which robbed presidential candidate Victor Yushenko of a clear victory. In the follow-up recall election, Yushenko was declared winner with 52 percent of votes cast.
In late 2010 and early 2011, we saw the beginnings of what would be termed the ‘Arab Spring‘ in which protesters from Middle East and North African countries defied crackdowns from authoritarian regimes with mass demonstrations. This outpouring of popular dissent resulted in the removal from power of Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali and of Egyptian strongman Ḥosnī Mubārak.
In the last month, popular uprisings in Armenia forced the resignation of Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan. Also last month, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega backed away from reforms to the country’s social security system in the face of anti-government protests which had turned violent.
One small problem. Far from being testaments to the potential of ‘people power,’ these incidents were strongly influenced, and arguably orchestrated by the United States.
So argues geopolitical analyst and researcher F. William Engdahl. In his latest book, entitled Manifest Destiny: Democracy as Cognitive Dissonance, Engdahl notes the emergence of what he describes in the book’s introduction as “one of the most destructive and one of the most effective operations by the intelligence services of any modern state, including of that of Stalin’s Soviet Union or even Hitler’s Goebbels-steered Third Reich.”
Effective CIA fronts like the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and a network of pro-democracy NGOs have been extra-ordinarily effective at manipulating political movements in such a way as to advance the hegemonic ambitions of the United States without the involvement of Vietnam-style interventions, and with the assistance of massive numbers of earnest citizens not aware of these cynical foreign ambitions.
Understanding this relatively new weapon of warfare is essential for any true advocate for peace, democracy and social justice not willing to play into the less than noble agenda of corporate controlled governments and institutions.
In this week’s Global Research News Hour broadcast, we examine some of the history of these NED crafted ‘fake democracy’ movements and their status today.
Our first guest, F. William Engdahl, expands on the thesis of his latest book, probing the origins of the NED, and elaborating on the mechanics of orchestrating these soft coups, including the looting and ‘raping’ of the Russian Federation.
In the second half hour, we examine the case of Nicaragua in the wake of protests that have rocked the Central American country for the past several weeks. Managua-based journalist Stephen Sefton provides some background on the unrest, shares information on the source of the violence, and rationales on who actually benefits from this ‘pro-democracy’ activism.
William Engdahl is an award-winning geopolitical analyst, strategic risk consultant, author, professor and lecturer. He has been researching and writing about the world political scene for more than thirty years. He has authored eight books on geopolitics, including Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation (2007), The Lost Hegemon: Whom The Gods Would Destroy ( 2016), and his most recent Manifest Destiny: Democracy as Cognitive Dissonance (2018). William is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization and a member of the editorial board of Eurasia magazine. He is based in Germany. His website is williamengdahl.com
Stephen Sefton is a journalist with the anti-imperialist Tortilla Con Sal collective and a frequent commentator on Latin American politics. He appears regularly on the Community Public Radio News broadcast with Don DeBar.
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Click to download the audio (MP3 format)
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Notes:
- https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-national-endowment-for-democracy-ned-is-now-officially-undesirable-in-russia/5468215
- George Orwell, 1984, cited in https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/g/georgeorwe141783.html
