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The Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) is a Non-profit Organization based in Washington, D.C. that claims to be the only nonpartisan policy institute dedicated exclusively to promoting pluralism, defending democratic values, and fighting the ideologies that drive Terrorism . FDD was founded shortly after 9/11 to engage in the worldwide war of ideas and to support the defense of democratic societies under assault by terrorism and militant Islamism . OVERVIEW FDD states that it combines policy research, investigative journalism, strategic communications, and democracy and counterterrorism education. FDD focuses its efforts where it believes opinions are formed and, ultimately, where the war of ideas will be won or lost: in the media, on college campuses, in the courthouse, and in the policy community, at home and abroad. FDD’s most recent Annual Report claims that its work has been based on three simple but key ideas:
FDD INITIATIVES In contrast to traditional “ Think Tank s,” FDD refers to itself as both a think tank and a “do-tank.” To these ends, FDD initiated the following centers, coalitions, committees and ongoing projects:
FDD’s also operates the following programs:
FDD also coordinates the following education campaigns: FOUNDING MEMBERS AND LEADERS FDD’s founding members and advisors include prominent bipartisan leaders such as Steve Forbes , Louis J. Freeh , Newt Gingrich , Jack Kemp , Jeane Kirkpatrick , Joseph Lieberman , Charles Schumer , Donna Brazile and James Woolsey . Clifford May is the President of FDD. THE CENTER FOR LIBERTY IN THE MIDDLE EAST The Center for Liberty in the Middle East (CLIME) is an FDD transatlantic initiative that advances democratic values in the region through partnerships with local reformers who espouse liberty, tolerance, and pluralism. CLIME serves as a bridge between these liberal democrats (politicians, civil society leaders, women’s rights activists, journalists, and dissidents) and U.S. and European policymakers, media, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and academicians. With offices in Washington, Brussels , New York City , London , and Amman , CLIME raises the profile of these reformers, creates a worldwide network of support for them, and directs resources to their efforts to liberalize autocratic regimes. The center’s U.S. director is FDD Senior Vice President, Eleana Gordon who leads a bipartisan and multi-national team that offers reform activists extensive experience in political and advocacy campaign management, strategic communications, democracy training and education, media relations, organization building, and the strategic use of technology. In addition, CLIME organizes media appearances, policy conferences, and speaking tours. CLIME conducts research and commissions in-depth papers and reports on political liberalization and democratic reform in the region, which it distributes to hundreds of government officials, policymakers, media and academic figures in the United States and Europe. The center’s online publications include:
THE CENTER FOR LAW & COUNTERTERRORISM FDD believes that the war against terrorism cannot be won on the battlefield alone, and claims that Senior Fellow Andrew C. McCarthy is one of the nation’s leading experts on prosecuting the war against terrorists while protecting the civil liberties of Americans. For 18 years, Mr. McCarthy was an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York. From 1993 to 1995, he led the successful prosecution against Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and 11 others in connection with the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and a plot to bomb New York City landmarks. He also made major contributions to the prosecutions of the bombers of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania as well as the Millennium plot attack at Los Angeles International Airport. Mr. McCarthy’s background provides FDD with the skills and experience needed to help answer one of the most urgent questions faced by a democracy under attack: How can we safeguard our laws and liberties from being used against us by an implacable enemy bent on our destruction? He joined FDD as a senior fellow in 2004 to address this and other counterterrorism legal issues. In 2006, FDD stated that it tasked Mr. McCarthy with laying the groundwork for the Center for Law & Counterterrorism (CLC). This program examines the inevitable tension between civil liberties and national security. The CLC advisors Mr. McCarthy recruited include former Education Secretary William Bennett, retired Chief Federal District Judge Michael B. Mukasey, former Deputy Attorney General George J. Terwilliger III, National Review Editor Rich Lowry, Columbia Law School Professor Daniel C. Richman, and FDD Senior Fellow Victoria Toensing, a top litigator and former Justice Department official. THE FUTURE OF TERRORISM PROJECT FDD's Future of Terrorism Project is run by Dr. Walid Phares , a Middle East expert whose advice and counsel has been sought for the past two decades by officials from the United States , Belgium , Canada , Cyprus , France , Great Britain , Italy , Lebanon , Portugal , Spain , and Sweden . A professor of Middle East Studies and native Arabic speaker who is fluent in French, Dr. Phares played an important role in the passage of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1559, which called for Syria to end its occupation of Lebanon. As an FDD senior fellow, Dr. Phares regularly conducts briefings for the European Parliament and Commission, the U.N. Security Council, foreign governments, the U.S. Congress, and the U.S. departments of State, Justice, Defense, and Homeland Security. Dr. Phares is the author of nine books on the Middle East, including the Foreign Affairs best-seller, Future Jihad: Terrorist Strategies against the West, published in 2006, and The War of Ideas: Jihad Against Democracy, published in 2007. Dr. Phares reaches millions of people as a terrorism analyst for Fox News and through radio and television appearances around the world, including the BBC , Al-Jazeera , Al-Arabiya , and Alhurra . He writes frequently for academic publications and newspapers, including Global Affairs , Middle East Quarterly , The Philadelphia Inquirer , National Review , and the Chicago Sun-Times . THE COALITION AGAINST TERRORIST MEDIA FDD believes that terrorist controlled-and funded media—such as Hezbollah ’s Al-Manar Television and al-Nour Radio, and Hamas ’ al-Aqsa TV—are used to promote hate, incite violence, recruit suicide bombers and other terrorists, and conduct operational surveillance. They serve as a communications tool between terrorist leaders and their followers. As a result, FDD founded the Coalition Against Terrorist Media (CATM)—with a membership that includes Muslim, Christian, Jewish, and secular organizations in America and Europe—to fight on this front. It wages a campaign to remove terrorist outlets from the airwaves. Before CATM launched an unprecedented education campaign against Al-Manar , the station reached a daily worldwide audience of 10 to 15 million viewers with its 24/7 broadcasts. Al-Manar is controlled and financed by Hezbollah , which is responsible for more American deaths, pre-9/11, than any other group, including Al-Qaeda . It was Hezbollah that claimed responsibility for the deadly attack on a U.S. Marine Corps barracks in Beirut in 1983. The ongoing CATM campaign includes briefings conducted for more than 800 lawmakers, national security officials, diplomats, and private-sector executives in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. CATM officials have appeared dozens of times in the media in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East. As a direct result of CATM’s educational campaign, FDD claims that the following goals were achieved:
THE COMMITTEE ON THE PRESENT DANGER The Committee On The Present Danger (CPD) claims to be a non-partisan organization that seeks to stiffen U.S. resolve to confront and defeat the ideologies that drive terrorism. In its educational efforts, CPD focuses on the threats that militant Islamism presents to the national security of the United States and its allies. The Committee also is highlighting threats to basic human rights—in particular, women’s rights, gay rights, and freedom of religion. To help drive these efforts, the Committee appointed as vice president for policy one of its members, Lawrence Haas, former communications director for Vice President Gore. CPD has played an important role in U.S. national security debates in the past. The Committee was formed in 1950 as a bipartisan education and advocacy organization to build a national consensus behind President Truman’s policy of “containment” against Soviet expansionism. The CPD then re-emerged in 1976 when its original leaders and others—including U.S. Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson—believed that Americans’ will to win the Cold War was flagging, and that the United States should pursue policies to bring that conflict to a successful conclusion. Now, CPD has returned to confront the new “present danger”: radical ideologies that have emerged from the Islamic world. In the face of this global threat, which transcends state borders and recognizes no law, complacency and ignorance are as dangerous as military weakness. Today, CPD’s membership includes more than 100 former U.S. Cabinet members and White House officials from Republican and Democratic administrations, ambassadors, academicians, writers, and other foreign policy experts. Its co-chairmen are George Shultz, Secretary of State under President Reagan, and R. James Woolsey, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) under President Clinton. U.S. Senators Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) and Jon Kyl (R-AZ) serve as honorary co-chairmen. CPD’s international co-chairmen are former Czech President Vaclav Havel and former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar . CPD’s leaders and member have come together as individuals of diverse backgrounds and political persuasions to educate free people about the threat militant Islamism poses to the United States and the Free World; to counsel against the claimed "appeasement" of terrorists and the states that sponsor them; to support policies to confront this menace; and to encourage the development of civil society and democracy in regions from which the terrorists emanate. INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING FDD journalist-in-residence Claudia Rosett has performed award-winning reporting on the United Nations , including the U.N. Oil-for-Food scandal she broke in 2002. That landmark, ongoing story—now playing out in court cases and offshoot U.N. scandals—continues to provide an unprecedented window into the inner workings of the United Nations. Oil-for-Food has exposed how, under U.N. supervision, billions in funds intended for humanitarian relief in Iraq ended up in the wallets and secret bank accounts of corrupt politicians, businesses, terrorist groups, and Saddam Hussein himself—helping to strengthen the totalitarian regime that was the real cause of Iraq’s agonies. Insights gained from plumbing the depths of one of the biggest financial scams in history (some $17 billion and counting) led FDD’s reporter to other investigations in 2006, exposing yet more U.N. graft, misconduct, and abuse of public trust. Among the 35 articles published under Ms. Rosett’s byline in 2006 were investigative reports revealing how the United Nations indirectly helps advance North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, and how its refugee agency sabotages the struggle of North Korean refugees seeking freedom. Ms. Rosett also broke the story of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan accepting a $500,000 personal prize from the ruler of Dubai , through a prize jury stacked with U.N. personnel. Her 2006 investigation set off a storm of press criticism that ultimately forced the U.N. leader to relinquish the cash. Following up on some of the high-ranking U.N. officials implicated in corruption scandals exposed earlier by Ms. Rosett, she again scooped the world press in 2006 by interviewing the former head of the U.N. Oil-for-Food Program , Benon Sevan . Since fleeing the United States in 2005, Mr. Sevan had been living beyond reach of U.S. extradition in a penthouse apartment in the Cypriot capital of Nicosia . He had refused to speak to the media or to congressional investigators who came knocking. Ms. Rosett tracked him down and scored an exclusive two-and-a-half hour interview, which was published in The Wall Street Journal in April 2006. CAMPUS PROGRAMS FDD believes that it is on college campuses that tomorrow’s leaders will come to understand—or misunderstand—the true nature of the threat facing America and other democratic nations. FDD’s campus programs help students and professors become intellectual leaders in the defense of global democracy. FDD claims that academic apologists for militant Islamism dominate the fields of Middle East and national security studies, which advocate ideologies that drive or justify terrorism. FDD states that it helps professors and students better understand terrorism and the movements that give rise to it. FDD’s Undergraduate Fellowship program has educated close to 200 students since 2002 about the terror threat to the Free World, trained them to be pro-democracy activists on their campuses and in their communities, encouraged them to pursue careers in national security and public service, and prepared them for post-graduate studies. Concurrently, FDD’s Academic Fellowship program has enhanced the ability of 118 professors and four journalists to research and teach anti-terrorism and pro-democracy ideas and principles. Both fellowships are yearlong and include training components abroad and in Washington DC. FDD’s Summer Workshop on Teaching about Terrorism (SWOTT) program has provided an additional 120 professors and senior graduate students with the scholarly tools and knowledge needed to teach and research terrorism-related issues. FDD’s Arab and Muslim Speakers Bureau brings community leaders and activists from the Middle East and North Africa region to share their pro-democracy and anti-terrorism messages with students, professors, and their local communities. IRANIAN THREAT CAMPAIGN FDD’S Iranian Threat Campaign called upon the Free World to defend itself against the escalating danger to democracy, freedom, and human rights posed by the "radical regime" ruling Iran . FDD claims that this campaign raised global awareness of the threat from Iran and its terrorist proxies through more than 300 broadcast interviews of FDD staff in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East; nearly 100 newspaper and policy journal articles written by FDD staff; briefings to scores of policymakers in Washington and European capitals; 20 FDD publications; and polls FDD released. FDD led the policy debate in the United States and Europe—directly with government officials and indirectly through the media—to argue for a strong response to the Iranian threat. The FDD-managed Committee on the Present Danger (CPD) implemented an aggressive strategy of public education about militant Islamism that centered on Capitol Hill. And FDD’s Future of Terrorism Project Director, Dr. Walid Phares, traveled the world explaining the danger of the Iranian brand of militant Islamism and what can be done to stop it, including briefings at the United Nations. FDD’s Center for Liberty in the Middle East supported the work of Iranian dissidents who want to see a democratic transition within Iran. CLIME’s democracy programs in the Middle East and North African region empowered reformers to fight back against the encroaching Iranian influence. On college campuses, FDD sponsored speaking tours for Iranian dissident student leaders. In cooperation with FDD’s Arab and Muslim Speakers Bureau and FDD Undergraduate and Academic fellows at, among other schools, Harvard University , Stanford University , and the University Of Chicago , these Iranian student leaders spoke to students and faculty about the threat Iran’s mullahs pose to democracy and human rights. FDD’s CATM campaign led to eight out of 10 worldwide satellite companies removing Hezbollah’s al-Manar TV from the airwaves, prevented more than $2 million in annual ad revenue from reaching Hezbollah coffers, and facilitated the August 2006 arrest of two New York City men for providing material support to Hezbollah and al-Manar. Most important, CATM successfully campaigned for U.S. Treasury designation of al-Manar as a terrorist organization. This designation makes it illegal for al-Manar to do business in the United States. CRISIS IN AFRICA CAMPAIGN FDD believes that the six countries that make up the Horn Of Africa — Djibouti , Eritrea , Ethiopia , Kenya , Somalia , and Sudan —have become the next major front in the war being waged by militant Islamism. Radical Islamists in Somalia and Ethiopia threaten fierce Guerilla Warfare to impose a Taliban -like theocracy. In the Sudan, the genocide of Black Muslim Sudanese by the Arab Islamist national government continues unhindered. And even oil-rich Nigeria has found itself in the terrorist crosshairs as radical Islamist activity targets Christians, threatening national unity and increasing violence. FDD Adjunct Fellow Dr. J. Peter Pham, one of the first to raise the alarm about the militant Islamist threat in Africa and to call for a comprehensive U.S. national security strategy, conducted its 2006 Crisis in Africa campaign. His activities included testifying before three congressional committees, consulting with U.S. and international officials, participating in conferences of government and academic experts, conducting research, writing approximately 40 articles for major newspapers and publications, and encouraging FDD’s membership in the Save Dafur Coalition. CRITICISM ''Note: Most of the criticism directed at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies can be equally directed at any other organization that fits its ideological profile.'' The group is considered a published an article accusing it of being funded mainly by a small number of pro- Israel hawks, as well as being engaged in Spin and being one of several neoconservative organizations. {Link without Title} has accused it of being in favor of "permanent war" and of being hypocritical with regard to supporting democracy with regard to Uzbekistan . {Link without Title} It is listed as a "pro-war" organization by Globalsecurity.org with regard to its stance on Iran's nuclear program. {Link without Title} EXTERNAL LINKS Official Sites Related Sites
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