(MintPress) – The Russian Parliament recently passed a law restricting the influence of U.S.-based non-governmental organizations (NGO) operating inside the country. Many of the groups have seemingly unobjectionable charitable goals. However, Russian lawmakers claim that many of the foreign NGOs masquerade as charities, plotting to implement regime change and push American influence through Russian dissident groups.
The move is not unprecedented as other countries, including Egypt, have placed similar restrictions on foreign NGOs. While U.S. meddling in other countries’ affairs often takes the form of direct military intervention, like in Iraq and Afghanistan, other, more subtle forms of manipulation of soft power through charities have been utilized by U.S. administrations to further American political interests.
The Duma protects Putin
The law passed last week by the Russian Duma was signed into law by President Vladimir Putin Saturday. The legislation requires any political group receiving funding from foreign sources to register as a foreign agent.
The legislation was quickly condemned by the U.S. State Department and U.S. NGOs operating in Russia. However, the legislation appears to be in response to subversive political activity by U.S. NGOs.
Paul Craig Roberts wrote in a recent editorial, “The Russian government has finally caught on that its political opposition is being financed by the U.S. taxpayer-funded National Endowment for Democracy and other CIA/State Department fronts in an attempt to subvert the Russian government and install an American puppet state in the geographically largest country on earth, the one country with a nuclear arsenal sufficient to deter Washington’s aggression.”
The problem is not merely limited to U.S. NGOs, as there are many other foreign NGOs operating inside of Russia. On July 3, the Russian Itar Tass news agency reported that there are around 1,000 foreign NGOs operating in Russia. These NGOs are involved both directly and indirectly in Russian political activities.
Putin has served for many years both as prime minister and as president of Russia. Many Russian constituencies viewed his previous work positively as helping to guide the country through the tumultuous early years after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
However, the most recent presidential election in March 2012 brought hundreds of thousands of Russians to the streets of Moscow, St. Petersburg and other Russian cities in a sign of opposition to Putin’s third term as president. Demonstrators charge Putin’s administration is corrupt and suppresses democratic opposition.
The recent NGO law, activists charge, is the latest attempt by Putin to stifle political opposition. Lyudmila Mikhailovna Alexeyeva, an 84-year-old activist and founder of Moscow Helsinki Watch Group, says the legislation is reminiscent of Soviet-era policies. “Putin by nature is a very Soviet person. He has a sincere desire to first of all return Russia to the former status of the Soviet Union, to restore the old Soviet order,” said Alexeyva in a recent statement.
Alexeyva, who some have called “the grandmother of Russia’s human rights movement,” has been an activist since 1976 and says that her group does not represent any foreign interests, only those of the Russian people.
While many Russians continue to oppose the rule of Putin, fears of American intervention in Russian affairs are legitimate given the lingering feelings of Cold War enmity. Additionally, neoconservative policy-makers continue to promote both direct and indirect intervention in foreign countries as a way to further American interests.
In Egypt, for example, several NGOs, including the International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute, were expelled from the country in December 2011. Faiza Abou el-Naga, the minister who coordinates foreign aid, described the reason for the move, saying, “The United States decided to use all its resources and tools to contain the situation and push it in a direction that promotes American and also Israeli interests.”
Egyptian officials reported in February 2012 that 43 NGO workers, including 19 Americans, will be put on trial for alleged involvement in banned activities, including receiving illegal funds. The move incited anger from U.S. authorities claiming the move was prompted by Mubarak-era officials trying to stifle Egypt’s nascent democracy.
Intervention: A neocon imperative
Other groups based in the United States have suggested more openly that the U.S. intervene in the affairs of other countries to accomplish political goals. The Project for the New American Century (PNAC), is among a small but growing number of influential neoconservative lobby groups headquartered in Washington, D.C.
Formed in 1997, PNAC believes that the U.S. has a unique duty to implement democracy and free market capitalism as a necessary goal. Many within the group openly supported the invasion of Iraq and continue to believe that the U.S. should use its large military force to overthrow “unfriendly” regimes, implement “friendly” ones and extend U.S. military protection to allies.
According to the PNAC statement of principles, published in 1997:
“We need to increase defense spending significantly if we are to carry out our global responsibilities today and modernize our armed forces for the future; we need to strengthen our ties to democratic allies and to challenge regimes hostile to our interests and values; we need to promote the cause of political and economic freedom abroad; we need to accept responsibility for America’s unique role in preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles.”
In the 20th century alone, the U.S. used these principles to invade and overthrow Soviet client states, the majority of which posed no security threat to the United States. In Nicaragua, a country about the size of Pennsylvania, the U.S. used the proxy “contras” paramilitary group to attempt an overthrow of the leftist Sandinista uprising.
This “moral interventionism,” now the backbone of neoconservative ideology, was borne out of the Reagan Doctrine, a foreign policy promoting strong military opposition to any country or group with ties to the Soviet Union. The policy, as many critics point out, had a devastating effect on civilian populations in Grenada, Lebanon, Libya, Nicaragua and Panama, among other countries.