{"id":169558,"date":"2015-07-30T20:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-07-30T20:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/why-russia-shut-down-ned-fronts\/"},"modified":"2015-07-30T20:00:00","modified_gmt":"2015-07-30T20:00:00","slug":"why-russia-shut-down-ned-fronts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/why-russia-shut-down-ned-fronts\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Russia Shut Down NED Fronts"},"content":{"rendered":"<div readability=\"222.91615667075\">\n<p><strong>Exclusive:<\/strong> The neocon-flagship Washington Post fired a propaganda broadside at President Putin for shutting down the Russian activities of the National Endowment for Democracy, but left out key facts like NED\u2019s U.S. government funding, its quasi-CIA role, and its plans for\u00a0regime change in Moscow, writes Robert Parry.<\/p>\n<p><span id=\"more-15586\"\/>By Robert Parry<\/p>\n<p>The Washington Post\u2019s descent into the depths of neoconservative propaganda \u2014 willfully misleading its readers on matters of grave importance \u2014 apparently knows no bounds as was demonstrated with two deceptive articles regarding Russian President Vladimir Putin and why his government is cracking down on \u201cforeign agents.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>If you read <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/opinions\/vladimir-putin-is-suffocating-his-own-nation\/2015\/07\/28\/3b27ae8e-3562-11e5-adf6-7227f3b7b338_story.html\"><u>the Post\u2019s editorial<\/u><\/a> on Wednesday and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/opinions\/putins-fear-of-civil-society\/2015\/07\/28\/3d873d0a-3569-11e5-8e66-07b4603ec92a_story.html\"><u>a companion op-ed<\/u><\/a> by National Endowment for Democracy President Carl Gershman, you would have been led to believe that Putin is delusional, paranoid and\u00a0\u201cpower mad\u201d\u00a0in his concern that outside money funneled into non-governmental organizations represents a threat to Russian sovereignty.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_11987\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" readability=\"35\"><a href=\"http:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/putin-wreath-laying.jpg?55ac53\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11987\" src=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/lazy-load\/images\/1x1.trans.gif?55ac53\" data-lazy-src=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/putin-wreath-laying-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"Russian President Vladimir Putin laying a wreath at Russia's Tomb of the Unknown Soldier on May 8, 2014, as part of the observance of the World War II Victory over Germany.\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\"\/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11987\" src=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/putin-wreath-laying-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"Russian President Vladimir Putin laying a wreath at Russia's Tomb of the Unknown Soldier on May 8, 2014, as part of the observance of the World War II Victory over Germany.\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Russian President Vladimir Putin laying a wreath at Russia\u2019s Tomb of the Unknown Soldier on May 8, 2014, as part of the observance of the World War II Victory over Germany.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>The Post and Gershman were especially\u00a0outraged that the Russians have enacted laws requiring NGOs financed from abroad and seeking to influence Russian policies to register as \u201cforeign agents\u201d \u2014 and that one of the first funding operations to fall prey to these tightened rules was Gershman\u2019s NED.<\/p>\n<p>The Post\u2019s editors wrote that Putin\u2019s \u201clatest move, announced Tuesday, is to declare the NED an \u2018undesirable\u2019 organization under the terms of a law that Mr.\u00a0Putin signed in May. The law bans groups from abroad who are deemed a \u2018threat to the foundations of the constitutional system of the Russian Federation, its defense capabilities and its national security.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe charge against the NED is patently ridiculous. The NED\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ned.org\/region\/eurasia\/russia-2014\/\"><u>grantees in Russia last year <\/u><\/a>ran the gamut of civil society. They advocated transparency in public affairs, fought corruption and promoted human rights, freedom of information and freedom of association, among other things. All these activities make for a&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/2015\/07\/30\/why-russia-shut-down-ned-fronts\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Exclusive: The neocon-flagship Washington Post fired a propaganda broadside at President Putin for shutting down the Russian activities of the National Endowment for Democracy, but left out key facts like NED\u2019s U.S. government funding, its quasi-CIA role, and its plans for\u00a0regime change in Moscow, writes Robert Parry. By Robert Parry The Washington Post\u2019s descent into [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-169558","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169558\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}