Foundation for Defense of Democracies

Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Abbreviation	FDD
Formation	2001
Type	think tank
Sponsored by	Hewlett Foundation

The Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) was described by Daniel McCarthy, writing for The American Conservative in 2003, as an 'aggressive new neoconservative think tank'. Based in Washington D.C., the organization 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.”

George W. Bush used FDD as a platform for the launch of his National Security Strategy 2006..

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 .

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

 

Known members

29 of the 141 of the members already have pages here:

Member	Description
Kelly Ayotte	US lawyer and politician, Attorney General of New Hampshire 2004-2009
Henri Barkey	CFR deep state operative wanted for the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt
Gary Bauer
Donna Brazile
Eric Cantor	US politician, multiple WEF meetings
Paula Dobriansky	Spookily connected US politician
Eric Edelman	US diplomat/politician whom Sibel Edmonds named as a corrupt individual of interest.
Steve Forbes	Billionaire editor-in-chief of Forbes magazine.
Frank Gaffney	Described as "one of America’s most notorious Islamophobes"
Reuel Marc Gerecht
Marc Ginsberg
John Hannah	Neocon senior aide on "national security" to Dick Cheney
Michael Hayden	US Spook, NSA Director 1999-2005, CIA Director 2006-2009, News Guard advisory board
Jack Kemp	Closely associated with the hawkish wing of the Republican Party.
Jeane Kirkpatrick	Neocon "terror expert", US Ambassador to the UN, Washington Conference on International Terrorism...
Charles Krauthammer	Single Bilderberger Washington Conference on International Terrorism visitor
Bill Kristol	Hawkish neonconservative
Frank Lautenberg	United States Senator from New Jersey
Michael Ledeen	"Washington's neoconservative guru", Bilderberg, Le Cercle...
Joe Lieberman	Lawyer-Senator whom Sibel Edmonds named in 2006 as one of her "Dirty Dozen".
H. R. McMaster	Single Bilderberger US general
Emanuele Ottolenghi	Foundation for Defense of Democracies, suspected US-Israeli DSF
Leon Panetta	White House Chief of Staff 1994-1997, CIA director 2009-2011, US Secretary of Defense 2011-2013
Richard Perle	"widely considered a core representative of the neoconservative political faction"
Nadia Schadlow	Suspected US deep state functionary. First Bilderberg in 2017
Charles Schumer	American politician who has been Senate Majority Leader since 2021.
David Shedd	Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency during the war in Syria. In 2022 co-wrote an article outlying a strategy for "Waging Psychological War Against Russia."
James Woolsey	Ex CIA director still (per 2020) very active in deep state networks.
Juan Zarate	Worked on expanding the use of Treasury powers to advance national security interests. U.S. representative to get control over the Vatican's finances.

 

Sponsor

Event	Description
Hewlett Foundation	Huge foundation setting the agenda by funding lots of deep state projects.

Many thanks to our Patrons who cover ~2/3 of our hosting bill. Please join them if you can.