Difference between revisions of "International Rescue Committee"

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After the war, the Committee's European representatives focused on rebuilding the German Social Democrat SPD as a bulwark against the Communists. With the onset of the Cold War, its refugee work became of interest to the newly emerging CIA as a potential source of intelligence and propaganda expertise.<ref>Eric Thomas Chester, Covert Network: Progressives, the International Rescue Committee and the CIA, M.E. Sharpe, 1995.</ref>
 
After the war, the Committee's European representatives focused on rebuilding the German Social Democrat SPD as a bulwark against the Communists. With the onset of the Cold War, its refugee work became of interest to the newly emerging CIA as a potential source of intelligence and propaganda expertise.<ref>Eric Thomas Chester, Covert Network: Progressives, the International Rescue Committee and the CIA, M.E. Sharpe, 1995.</ref>
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The IRC initiates a resettlement program for East European refugees, which continues until the end of the Cold War.<ref>https://web.archive.org/web/20060601093941/http://www.theirc.org/about/history.html,</ref> These programs included a large portion of former Nazi-collaborators.
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The IRC was part of a [[psychological operation]] during the [[Berlin Blockade]] in 1947-48, "providing food to the people of West Berlin".<ref>https://www.britannica.com/topic/International-Rescue-Committee</ref> (In reality, the Soviets never stopped the supplies of food and other necessities to West- Berlin, but it became a huge Western propaganda victory).
  
 
In the 1950s, the IRC expanded its work beyond Europe to Vietnam, and was instrumental in the establishment of two key Washington lobby groups supporting South Vietnam, the American Friends of Vietnam, and its successor, the Citizens Committee for Peace with Freedom in Vietnam.
 
In the 1950s, the IRC expanded its work beyond Europe to Vietnam, and was instrumental in the establishment of two key Washington lobby groups supporting South Vietnam, the American Friends of Vietnam, and its successor, the Citizens Committee for Peace with Freedom in Vietnam.

Revision as of 01:32, 16 March 2020

Group.png International Rescue Committee   Twitter WebsiteRdf-entity.pngRdf-icon.png
IRC.png
TypeInternational NGO
Interest ofDavid Miliband
Member ofBetter Than Cash Alliance
Sponsored byCarnegie Corporation, Open Society Foundations, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Swedish Postcode Foundation
SubpageInternational Rescue Committee/Directors and Overseers

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) is officially a global humanitarian aid, relief and development non-governmental organisation. In reality it has historically close ties to the intelligence community, with a future CIA-director, Bill Casey, as one of its directors.

The President of the International Rescue Committee is former UK Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, who makes 425,000 pounds (US$600,000) a year for this job. [1]

Official history

Founded in 1933 at the request of Albert Einstein, the IRC's stated goal is to offers emergency aid and long-term assistance to refugees and those displaced by war, persecution or natural disaster. The IRC is currently working in over 40 countries and 22 American cities where it resettles refugees and helps them become self-sufficient.

Consisting of first responders, humanitarian relief workers, international development experts, health care providers, and educators, the IRC has assisted millions of people around the world since its founding in 1933.

Real history

The modern version, after 1945, is a merger of 2 organizations, the German International Relief Association and The Emergency Rescue Committee (ERC) founded by European exiles and American liberals close to Eleanor Roosevelt. It rescued many refugees from Vichy France, including a significant proportion of prominent intellectuals. Its representative in Marseilles, Varian Fry, also worked closely with British intelligence, helping to establish escape routes for British airmen.

With US entry into World War Two, the American Government asserted its control over the refugee issue. the IRA and ERC merged to form the International Relief and Rescue Committee, financed largely by the National War Fund.

After WW2

After the war, the Committee's European representatives focused on rebuilding the German Social Democrat SPD as a bulwark against the Communists. With the onset of the Cold War, its refugee work became of interest to the newly emerging CIA as a potential source of intelligence and propaganda expertise.[2]

The IRC initiates a resettlement program for East European refugees, which continues until the end of the Cold War.[3] These programs included a large portion of former Nazi-collaborators.

The IRC was part of a psychological operation during the Berlin Blockade in 1947-48, "providing food to the people of West Berlin".[4] (In reality, the Soviets never stopped the supplies of food and other necessities to West- Berlin, but it became a huge Western propaganda victory).

In the 1950s, the IRC expanded its work beyond Europe to Vietnam, and was instrumental in the establishment of two key Washington lobby groups supporting South Vietnam, the American Friends of Vietnam, and its successor, the Citizens Committee for Peace with Freedom in Vietnam.

In the wake of the Cuban Revolution, IRC chairman Leo Cherne proposed a Caribbean Refugee Program to CIA director Allen Dulles. The project announced publicly in 1960 was said to be focused on refugees from the right-wing Dominican Republic, as well as Cubans, but in the event the vast majority of aid went to Cubans.

The Committee began a major aid programme in El Salvador in 1984, a move some linked to the election of a pro-American president. At around the same time, David Miliband's 1970-vintage predecessor as IRC president, Bill Casey, was using Nicaraguan exiles to launch a proxy war against the Sandinistas as Reagan's CIA director.[5]

The IRC has been accused of being an instrument of US foreign policy, including being a forceful lobbyist for US intervention in its areas of interest; Iraqi Kurdistan and Yugoslavia are two examples from the 1990s. The IRC moved into the rest of Iraq in 2003, but was forced to withdraw between 2004 and 2006 by the escalating violence.

Freedom Award

Although drawing its prestige from the name Albert Einstein, The International Rescue Committee is deeply penetrated and used by the US and British governments. This can be shown by some of the winners of IRC's Freedom Award. [6]

Winners (excerpts; there are many, many more with deep state/spook connections):

  • 2001 US Senate Armed Forces Committee Chairman John McCain

References