The International Republican Institute (IRI) and Senator McCain are irrevocably linked, as he serves on its board as one of its chairs. Other Republican luminaries—each one a right-wing hardliner with anti-populist axes to grind—with ties to the IRI include Senator Hagel, Representative Dreier, and Representative Kolbe. Also among those luminaries is one Brent Scowcroft, National Security Adviser to the first President Bush. And lest we forget, the military industrial complex is represented too, by Alison Fortier of Lockheed Martin Missile Defense Programs and J. William Middledorf II, former Secretary of the Navy and ambassador to the former OAS, not to mention, of course, a little bit of the rest of corporate America—Ford, AOL Time Warner, Chevron, and Texaco—all multi-national corporations with officials or former officials serving on IRI’s board.
For those not familiar with the IRI, its self-stated mission (on its website) is as follows:
"IRI believes that freedom is a universal aspiration that can be realized through the development of democratic political parties, good governance, strong civic institutions and transparent election procedures. The Institute is guided by the fundamental American principles of individual liberty, the rule of law, and the entrepreneurial spirit."
Yes, and the Defense of Marriage Act is all about defending marriage.
Actually, the democracy, nation building mission of the IRI is a screen for its promotion of a neo-conservative foreign policy agenda bent on establishing pro-Washington consensus client regimes at all costs, including overthrowing democratically elected leaders. For example, the IRI was involved in the overthrow of Aristide in Haiti and the attempted coup of Chavez in 2002. In Venezuela it funneled thousands of dollars to groups that opposed the election of Chavez. In Georgia it gave money to groups seeking to oust Eduard Shevarnadze. And in Czechoslovakia it helped corrupt, former communist officials fight against Vladimir Meciar.
And though it claims to be a private, non-partisan group, the IRI receives both private (Exxon Mobil) and public funding (around $40 million) from the National Endowment for Democracy.
USAID has also given money to the IRI.
John R. Bolton, a far right-wing neo-con, once told the truth and described USAID as "a subsidiary of the CIA which serves to promote political and economic desiderata of the U.S. Federal government through its financial assistance programs abroad."
The IRI’s roots go back to the early Reagan years and the Reagan administration’s response to Carter and Congress, which in the late 1970’s passed laws that no longer allowed the CIA to use "front groups"—such as the Peace Corps, among many others—to "secure American interests" abroad.
Consider this quote from scoop:
The International Republican Institute, an organization that describes itself as being dedicated to "advancing democracy, freedom, self-government and the rule of law worldwide," has in the last two decades earned the questionable distinction of being perhaps the least-known of a group of lethal Washington institutions devoted to the trade of nation-building, or more accurately termed, nation undermining. Despite its elaborate rhetoric and claims to nonpartisanship, the IRI in fact operates as the powerful and well-funded foreign policy arm of the ultra rightist wing of the U.S. Republican Party. It is far more ideological and operational than its Democratic Party counterpart, the National Democratic Institute, and is less concerned with democracy building than hunting down leftists and crushing their causes. It would not be too much to say that the IRI engages in anti-populist witch-hunts with far more enthusiasm than any of its research efforts exploring the history or politics of those countries where it wreaks its havoc. IRI’s seemingly innocuous activities, which are said to include party-building, media training, the organization of leadership trainings, the dissemination of newsletters and the strengthening of "civil society," mask a far more aggressive and calculated attempt by the organization and affiliated hard right Republican Party ideologues to destabilize liberal political movements and governments (which it sees as containing the germ of communism) in this hemisphere and around the world. Its central, though unstated, mission is to see to it that such vanguard movements have leaders perceived as being more agreeable to Washington’s orientation on a given issue.
(www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0407/S00159.htm)
Of course, if the German, French, or Bolivian Socialist parties were to set up front organizations in New York or California, disseminate socialist literature, hold workshops for organizers and party activists, provide money to American socialist or labor parties and candidates—and thus undermine U.S. elections—it would be perceived as a threat to national sovereignty, if not an act of war itself.
And just imagine if we elected Obama and he was overthrown by, say, Gen. Patraeus—with the help of, I don’t know, Saudi Arabia!
But never mind any of this.
Senator McCain may have had an affair with a lobbyist for which he may have done a few favors, which is pretty much indistinguishable from doing favors for money, itself indistinguishable from the normal and thoroughly legal kinds of corruption regularly seen on K Street—and from our elected representatives.
Surely that is far more important than McCain’s Hundred Years War—which is not just hyperbole.