Democracy & Security International Conference

 Democracy & Security International Conference(Conference)  

George W. Bush Speaks at the Conference
Date	5 June 2007 - 6 June 2007
Website	http://www.democracyandsecurity.org

The Democracy & Security International Conference also known as the “Democracy and Security: Core Values and Sound Policies” conference was held in Prague on the 5-6th of June, overlapping the 2007 G8 summit in Heiligendamm. The event, dubbed the 'Neoconservative International' was organized by the Prague based Prague Security Studies Institute, the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem and Jose Maria Aznar's Madrid based Foundation for Social Analysis and Studies (FAES).

Conference Aims

Conference Logo

The aim of the conference was summed up in a background paper by Marc F. Plattner, that argued “building a world of free and democratic states should be our long-term goal”. The world view conveyed by the paper was one where “Increasingly the world is divided between liberal democracies and regimes that are tyrannical”. These tyrannical regimes represent a “growing security threat”, and they are “drawn together” by a “common fear and hatred of liberal democracy”. The hostile regimes “Support terrorism and threaten not only to acquire but to use nuclear weapons”. The regimes themselves were described as comprising of “The unholy trinity of Ahmadinejad, Chavez and Lukashenka”.

According to the Wall Street Journal it was the personal intercession of Natan Sharansky which persuaded George W. Bush to attend in spite of the objections of the State Department. Sharansky stated at the conference "In today's world of confrontation, there is no better weapon than the promotion of democracy," He argued for the importance of dialogue with dissidents and policy makers, saying "This conference gives those responsible for policy-making an important opportunity for direct dialogue with the dissidents themselves."

Looking at the conference agenda and the list of attendees (below), the neoconservative credentials of the conference are easily inferred. The subjects discussed focus on expediting political change in selected countries: Mynamar, Cuba, Iran, Belarus. Venezuela were also singled out for criticism in the background paper of the conference”. . The potential for dissidents to achieve political change in these countries was a key issue for discussion at the conference. The role of central european states in EU-Russian relations was also discussed, with the conference being underwritten by NATO, these discussions are likely to be centred round the planned U.S. missile defence system which is planned to based in Poland and have a radar base in the Czech republic

Neoconservative Foreign Policy

Round Table Discussions between dissidents at the conference

Strong elements of neoconservative ideology were prevalent throughout the attendees and agenda at the conference. Neoconservatives advocate an interventionist often aggressive foreign policy and this was reflected through the conference delegations attitudes towards other selected nation states:

• Russia: NATO were conference partners and one of the key speakers was Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg. Schwarzenberg signed the agreement with the United States that the radar base for the U.S. European defence missile system was to be installed on Czech soil . The missile shield was described by NATO secretary general as “A Key Element For Security”.

• Cuba: Rafael Rubio, the president of the Association for the Transition of Cuba attended to offer a dissident perspective against the Cuban regime. . Rubio discussed the importance to Cuba of what he called “real paths to the goal of sovereignty, democracy, reconciliation, and rights”. . Conference attendees Jan Bubeník and Karel Schwarzenberg, were both arrested and expelled from Cuba for meeting with dissidents. Several of the Czech delegation at the conference including Dana Baschová and Igor Klimes are affiliated with the NGO People in Need who aim to “support the opposition movement in Cuba ”.

• Belarus: Belarussian dissident Aliaksandr Milinkevich the President of the Political Council of Democratic Forces of Belarus was at the conference and a conference briefing paper described Belarus along with Venezuela and Iran as an “unholy trinity”.

• Iran: Iranian relations were described by Anne Bayevsky reflecting on the conference “There was an elephant in the room that dominated conversations in the coffee breaks and the halls – Iran, its genocidal ambitions, its mad dash towards acquiring nuclear weapons, and its familial relationships with terrorists prepared to use them while screaming the suicide bombers closing argument of choice: Allah Akbar.”. Reza Pahlavi Opposition Leader to Clerical Regime of Iran was also in attendence.

Conference Agenda

The conference was split into discussion groups who tackled the following issues:

• Has the democratization process reached an impasse?
• Does the process of democratization contribute to security?
• What are the right ways to make the transition from a totalitarian/authoritarian regime to a democracy?
• The role of dissidents in society
• The role of democratic states, international institutions and the media in the global security environment
• The role of central Europeans in EU-Russian relations

Affiliations

Adelson Family Charitable Foundation | Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies | Amar Center | American Enterprise Institute | American Islamic Congress | Ano pro Evropu | Association for International Affairs | Belorusian Government in Exile | Benson Oak | Bizlink Group | Brandeis University | Bubenik Partners | Canadian Defence & Foreign Affairs Institute | Case for Freedom | Center for National and International Studies | Committee for Democratization of North Korea | Diario di America | Die Zeit | Dillon Hillas & Dillon, LLC | Elmrock Capital | European Foundation for Democracy | EU-Russia Center | FAES Foundation | Forum 2000 Foundation | Freedom House | Freedom Now | Gateway Pundit | Global Panel Foundation | Hassan II University | Helsinki Group | Hoover Institution | Hudson Institute | Institute for Policy and Strategy | International and Security Affairs Center Fund | International Center on Nonviolent Conflict | International Tolerance Center | Iranian Enterprise Institute | Iranian Freedom Institute | Iraq Foundation for Development and Democracy | Las Vegas Sands Corp | Middle East Technical University | New York Sun | New York University | Obcansky institut | Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group | Pembroke College | People In Need | Policy Association for an Open Society | Prague Security Studies Institute | Project on Transitional Democracies | Quantum Communications | Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty | Reform Party of Syria | Ronald Lauder Foundation | Scarlet Communications Group | Sudan Social Development Organization | Tamkang University | The Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies | The German Marshall Fund of the United States | The Hebrew University | Transatlantic Center | Union Liberal Cubana | United Civil Front | University of Alcalá de Henares | UPI | We Remember Foundation | Westminster Foundation for Democracy

Resources

• Jim Lobe, A Neo-Conservative International Targets Iran, Lobelog.com, 9 June 2007
• Anne Bayefsky, Prague Marching Orders: Walking the Talk, National Review Online, 8 June 2007
• George Bush, Fora.tv, Bush Speech on Democracy and Security, Accessed 26-February-2009
• Karel Schwarzenberg,Karel Schwarzenberg's Speech at “Democracy and Security International Conference” (Prague, June 5, 2007), Accessed 26-February-2009
• Rafael Rubio, Remarks Democracy and Security Speech, Accessed 28-February-2009
• Security & Democracy International Conference, Conference Program, Accessed 01-March-2009

 

Known Participants

32 of the 166 of the participants already have pages here:

Participant	Description
Sheldon Adelson	Multi-billionaire pro-Israel US sponsor of the US government
Ronald Asmus	Expanded NATO eastwards
José María Aznar	Prime Minister of Spain 1996-2004, "If Israel goes down, we all go down", various deep state connections
Irwin Cotler	Canada's Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada 2003-2006. "Totally unabashed defender and supporter of Israel". Member of numerous spooky think-tanks.
Richard Dearlove	Head of MI6 from 1999 to 2004. Publicly announced in 2020 that he believed Covid-19 came from a laboratory.
Ron Dermer	Benjamin Netanyahu's closest adviser and strategic consultant
Marc Ellenbogen	Patron of the very intelligence-connected Henry Jackson Society and Chairman of the Global Panel Foundation
Amir Abbas Fakhravar
Jeffrey Gedmin	US spooky/hawkish neoconservative academic
Reuel Marc Gerecht
Colleen Graffy	US spook and propagandist
Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg	Born with silver spoon as scion of the zu Guttenberg family, but blew his political career in 2011 after academic plagiarism was discovered. Since then has stayed in spooky think-tanks.
Jana Hybášková	Czech diplomat
Saad Eddin Ibrahim	Egyptian neoconservative sociologist
Toomas Ilves	President of Estonia with a lot of Deep State connections, including membership of the Munich Security Conference Advisory Council.
Bruce Jackson	US spook. His later career focused on accelerating the integration of the Western Balkan countries, Turkey, Ukraine and Georgia into the European Union and NATO. Member of the Henry Jackson Society.
Josef Joffe	Publisher-editor of Die Zeit
Garry Kasparov	chess champion turned Putin critic.
Martin Kramer	Wrote that Middle East experts "failed to ask the right questions at the right time about Islam"
Ronald Lauder	Former US Ambassador to Austria, "the principle force behind the privatization of the WTC", Jewish power broker. As of 2020 promoting internet censorship to prevent "hate crime".
Joe Lieberman	Lawyer-Senator whom Sibel Edmonds named in 2006 as one of her "Dirty Dozen".
Jiří Pehe	Czech presidential advisor who attended the 2001 Bilderberg. Formerly worked for Freedom House and Radio Free Europe.
Richard Perle	"widely considered a core representative of the neoconservative political faction"
Tomáš Pojar	Czech "terror expert" and Czech Ambassador to Israel 2010-2014
Nina Rosenwald	Influential neoconservative and operator in many activities of the pro-Israel lobby in the US
Michael Rubin	senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute
Karel Schwarzenberg	Deep state connected Czech diplomat and politician, MSC regular
Natan Sharansky	Former dissident of the Soviet Union, neocon, Bilderberg, Le Cercle
Jamie Shea	Chatham House, spooky conference attender. As NATO spokesman during the Kosovo War he popularized the propaganda term "collateral damage".
Stefano Silvestri	Bilderberg Steering committee, Italian deep state functionary.
Bret Stephens	Neoconservative writer at the New York Times
Veton Surroi	Albanian politician; WEF/Global Leaders for Tomorrow 1999

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References

This page imported content from Powerbase on 2 February 2019.
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