The Guardian's Laughable Coverage of Russia Blacklisting National Endowment for Democracy

[MattSh]

Russian Duma dares to limit Imperial power | OffGuardian

In a brazen move, designed to ensure that Russia is ruled by Russians, the Duma has passed laws limiting the powers of Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) to operate inside Russia. The first target being the National Endowment for Democracy. This is a terrible blow for freedom around the world, according to The Guardian, because the NED is simply an oasis of decency in Putin’s Empire of Evil:

The National Endowment for Democracy, a Washington-based nonprofit funded largely by the US Congress, has become the first group to be banned in Russia under a law against “undesirable” international nongovernmental organisations.

According to its website, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is “dedicated to the growth and strengthening of democratic institutions around the world” and has funded local non-governmental organisations in more than 90 countries. But in a statement on Tuesday, the prosecutor general’s office said it “poses a threat to the constitutional order of the Russian Federation and the defensive capability and security of the government”. [our emphasis]

Really? Really Guardian? In order to inform us about what the NED is you just went to their own website and did copy/paste? Even the HuffPo, which is no one’s idea of hard-hitting investigative journalism can do better than that. Here’s an article it published by Mark Taliano about the NED:

Complete story at - http://off-guardian.org/2015/07/29/russian-duma-dares-to-limit-imperial-power/

[sibelian]

1. Guardian's gone a bit.... odd...

Used to be a lot better.

[djean111]

2. This topic was covered here in more detail a few days ago.

That website seems to exist only to pick at The Guardian.
One thing about the Guardian - it answers to no one, it has quite a huge amount of money and cannot be bought or influenced, just threatened by the UK government.

[bemildred]

3. Yeah, it's a bit forced, this criticism.

Going to an organization's web site to find out what it has to say is pretty straightforward I would think, even if it is the NED.

It is much more to the point to show that it is a NGO in name only, it lives on US government money and is a US government tool.

[djean111]

4. Uh-oh. Now you are a Putinista!

I think Putin is dreadful, but I don't know whether to laugh or sneer at the astonishment some have that anyone, in any country, puts their country first, and does not bow to the US.

[bemildred]

5. It is kind of unreal, that assumption that everybody ought to just do what we say.

I understand it as a propaganda device, they all claim moral authority, but we seem to actually expect it to convince our enemies or something like that, our foreign policy wonks rely on it.