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For Your Information Halifax International Security ForumThe Halifax International Security Forum (HISF) is one of an international series of annual "security forums" organized, amongst other places, in Munich, Berlin (Bundestag Forum), Kiev, Bucharest, Brussels and Tbilisi and, most importantly, on the sidelines of NATO Summits (Riga, Istanbul, Bucharest, etc.). The German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMFUS) was the organizer with NATO as a partner. Funding of the individual forums is individually sourced. It was the GMFUS that organized the first Halifax Forum in 2009 and again in 2010 as one of its programs, funded by the Department of National Defence and the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, providing 90 and 10 per cent respectively, with NATO as a partner. In June 2011, the GMF disappeared from the picture, replaced by a newly-established Halifax International Security Forum with headquarters in Washington, DC. Of the four members listed on its board of directors, only one is from Canada; the others are from the United States. Similarly, of the 10-member staff of the HISF, only President Peter Van Praagh is a Canadian. It appears the bulk of his career has been spent at the National Endowment for Democracy, the National Democratic Institute and GMFUS. Van Praagh worked for GMFUS when he organized the 2009 and 2010 forums at a salary of $228,134 as of 2012. He was previously a senior advisor in 2006-07 to then foreign affairs minister Peter MacKay. The Secretary of the HISF was David Kramer, former deputy assistant of the U.S. Secretary of State in 2008-10, then a "fellow" of the GMFUS before being appointed president of Freedom House in 2010, as a "human rights" director of the McCain Institute in 2014, and a board member of the International Republican Institute by Sen John McCain in 2018. By whom and how the people who run the HISF are appointed is not publicly known nor are the funding arrangements. This is all secret. What is known is that Canada's role is defined by the U.S. Even the Government of Canada has no independent voice, let alone the Canadian people. For instance, in 2009, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced at the HISF that U.S. Marines would henceforth exercise in the Arctic to "defend Canadian sovereignty." In 2013, U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced there that Canada had signed a still secret protocol to join Obama's Asia Pivot strategy aimed at China and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. At the HISF in 2017, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg attempted to give the Trudeau Liberals credit for NATO's nefarious activities to convince women -- who are in the front ranks of the opposition to the Halifax War Conference and to aggression and war -- that the "equal opportunity" offered for recruitment as soldiers, police or spies on behalf of NATO and its members, and to bolster its attempts to make war and aggression are "progressive." The HISF further announced a "Halifax Peace with Women Fellowship" in 2017: "This 3-week program will initially be offered to between 6 and 10 women from allied militaries. It will give them the opportunity to visit Ottawa, Waterloo, Silicon Valley, and Washington, DC with the aim of studying how Canada and the United States approach strategic challenges." The 2018 conference inaugurates the "John McCain Prize for Courage in Public Service, " referring to him as a "moral beacon." The late U.S. Senator, a nine-time participant in the HISF, was second to none in using the conference to champion wars of aggression against Libya, Syria and Iran. His credentials as a champion of U.S. imperialist aggression go back to his participation as a pilot in the Vietnam War.[2]
Notes1. GMFUS was launched in 1972 with 41 million marks provided by the West German government. According to Bloomberg, the GMFUS has over $233 million in assets under management, providing funds and cadre along with other agencies for the series of "colour revolutions" in Yugoslavia, Ukraine, Georgia and Belarus, amongst others. It is sometimes falsely described as a "philanthropic organization" by the media when referring to the central role it has played in building international institutions and networks in Europe as an instrument of U.S. intervention and the expansion of NATO. In addition to its headquarters in Washington, GMFUS has seven offices in Europe: Berlin, Brussels, Paris, Belgrade, Warsaw, Bucharest and Ankara. GMFUS has smaller representations in Bratislava, Turin, Stockholm and Morocco. The GMFUS has close links to U.S. intelligence. Board member Suzanne Woolsey is the wife of former CIA director James Woolsey, who attended the HISF in 2009 and 2010 and was an adviser to Donald Trump. GMFUS President Karen Donfried, member of the Council on Foreign Relations known as the imperial brain trust, worked for the U.S. State Department's Policy Planning Staff from 2003 to 2005, then as the national intelligence officer for Europe on the National Intelligence Council and then at the National Security Council as a Special Assistant to the President in the Obama White House, and as the director of European affairs. 2. According to his own testimony, given while held in a Vietnamese prisoner of war camp, McCain participated in the operation called "Rolling Thunder" -- bombing Hanoi 27 times, dropping some 500 bombs on the city. During the U.S. bombing of Hanoi in 1967 some 70,000 of its residents were killed. The U.S. believed that saturation bombing, pacification black ops like the Phoenix Program and chemical warfare would make the leaders of Vietnam raise the white flag of surrender. Five hundred billion dollars and the lives of more than 60,000 U.S. personnel were allocated to this aim, which ended in ignominious defeat for the U.S. imperialists. Despite this, McCain is championed as a hero, including by Canada which was allegedly neutral during the Vietnam War. Nothing can justify the great crime against humanity that was the Vietnam War, which, amongst the many losses, cost 3 million deaths and injuries, which continue to this day as third generation children continue to suffer the effects of Agent Orange.
(With files from Tony Seed, NATO, GMFUS, news agencies.) (November 17, 2018 - No. 40 ) Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca |
The GMFUS's budget is substantially funded by the U.S. state,
U.S. and German foundations, and NATO bloc governments and reflects their interests. According to the under-stated figures posted on its website, the top two financial sponsors, at more than $1 million each per year, are the U.S. government's
soft-power arm the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the German Foreign Office (Auswärtiges Amt). In reality, it receives multi-million dollar grants for its programs from USAID and U.S. (and to a lesser extent German) private foundations, which themselves have multi-million dollar
budgets.[