Warning from Dennis Kucinich on Washington Think Tanks

Think tanks are taking a beating these days.  Here is the latest from former congressman Dennis Kucinich, who wrote a piece for The Nation entitled "Why Is the Foreign Policy Establishment Spoiling for More War?  Look at Their Donors.":

Washington, DC, may be the only place in the world where people openly flaunt their pseudo-intellectuality by banding together, declaring themselves “think tanks,” and raising money from external interests, including foreign governments, to compile reports that advance policies inimical to the real-life concerns of the American people.

The DC think tanks provide cover for the political establishment, a political safety net, with a fictive analytical framework providing a moral rationale for intervention, capitol casuistry. I’m fed up with the DC policy elite who cash in on war while presenting themselves as experts, at the cost of other people’s lives, our national fortune, and the sacred honor of our country.

Any report advocating war that comes from any alleged think tank ought to be accompanied by a list of the think tank’s sponsors and donors and a statement of the lobbying connections of the report’s authors.

The full piece can be read at the link above, and Mr. Kucinich's website can be found here.

It is the latest in a slew of articles that have recently come out detailing and/or lamenting the rampant pay-for-play at many major think tanks.

DC Insider Speaks Candidly About Pay-for-Play at Think Tanks

Investigative reporter Ken Silverstein recently spoke with an unnamed think tank insider who has been a donor to think tanks and held multiple board positions at various think tanks.  Here are some excerpts:

He who pays the bills, calls the tune, as much as people try to deny it. There’s a vicious competition in this town for money. The foreign segment is relatively new and important. Before most of that money was Israeli but now it’s much more diverse and you begin to see more and more donors pushing for very distinct and specific causes.

The competition is getting tougher and tougher and so think tanks are becoming more and more reckless. Things are done now that would’ve been impossible in the past. The boundaries are being eliminated.

The means of payment are sophisticated. There is no straightforward bribery. Maybe you work at a think tank but you also have a position at another unrelated company or maybe you have a girlfriend who has a business that’s totally unrelated to the think tank. Maybe you have a company that holds events around town and that company gets hired and is overpaid for some unrelated work by 25%. The money doesn’t go directly to the think tank, it goes to one of these other projects and the money moves from some offshore Singapore account to that unrelated company account.

Think tanks are now weapons of personal and mass destruction. They have become part of the lobbying community; that was always the case to some extent but now they’ve become very specific lobbying weapons.

Governments and gangsters are the two biggest clients for these think tanks — not corporations but governments, and not European Union governments but Third World governments.

Wow.  That is some pretty strong language.

Mr. Silverstein said that more is coming soon from this person (will he go on record?), so we are definitely looking out for that...

In the meantime, here (and here and here and here and here and here and here) is some more from Mr. Silverstein on pay-for-play at think tanks.

Pay-for-play at think tanks has gotten a significant amount of renewed attention after a damning New York Times exposé in August unveiled fresh examples of just how rampant the problem has become.

Atlantic Council Faulted for Awarding African "Dictator"

This is from a Foreign Policy opinion piece by Thor Halvorssen and Alex Gladstein (both of the Human Rights Foundation) entitled "Why Did the Atlantic Council Even Consider Giving African Dictator Ali Bongo Ondimba a Global Citizen Award?":

Gabonese President Ali Bongo Ondimba was scheduled to attend a swanky gala on Monday hosted by the Atlantic Council, a well-known Washington-based think tank, to accept an award for “his life of public service and efforts to improve the lives of the people of Gabon.” Unfortunately for the dictator, he was forced to cancel at the last moment because of mounting unrest in his country — the bloody fallout from a likely stolen election on Aug. 27.

Days of violent protests followed. At least 50 people were killed, and more than 1,000 were arrested by security forces, according to the opposition. Gabon remains under a 12-hour-a-day curfew, but the Atlantic Council has not officially rescinded the award, which it previously bestowed on the likes of Robert De Niro and Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos. In a letter to Human Rights Foundation, Atlantic Council President Frederick Kempe said his organization respects Bongo’s “decision to forgo receiving his Global Citizen Award this year due to the overriding priorities he has in his country.”

Yet it’s not clear how Bongo was ever considered a worthy candidate for the award in the first place. The notoriously corrupt leader has ruled Gabon since 2009, when he succeeded his father, Omar Bongo Ondimba, in a fraudulent election.

By recognizing him with a Global Citizen Award, the Atlantic Council is helping Bongo shed his image as an outrageously corrupt autocrat. The democratically elected leaders of Japan and Italy, Shinzo Abe and Matteo Renzi, respectively, will receive their awards on Monday as scheduled at a gala at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Had Bongo not been busy putting down a protest movement opposed to his rule, he would have been able to present himself as a similarly legitimate leader. And since the Atlantic Council hasn’t revoked the award, he may still be able to do so at a later date.

The Atlantic Council has long trumpeted its objectivity and independence, but feting Bongo is just the latest in a series of troubling developments at the think tank that raise questions about its commitment to transparency and ability to keep business interests separate from its research and policy operations. Gabon is not the only dictatorship the Atlantic Council has cozied up to: The Kingdom of Bahrain is listed on the organization’s website as a six-figure donor, and it has received financial support from the governments of Azerbaijan, Saudi Arabia, and Kazakhstan. Alexander Mirtchev, one of the directors of Kazakhstan’s sovereign wealth fund, sits on the executive committee of the Atlantic Council’s board of directors and is listed as a six-figure donor.

The piece goes on to note that it is "difficult to discern the precise nature" of the Atlantic Council's relationship with the Bongo regime, and questions if someone from the government (or someone on behalf of the government) has donated money to Atlantic Council.  The authors say that until these questions are answered, the "credibility of one of Washington's most venerated think tanks will remain in question, and its Global Citizens Award will remain a joke."

In what appears to be pushback from the think tank, Foreign Policy issued a correction at the end of the article saying that a previous version of the article noted that the Atlantic Council does not publicly disclose all of its funders, or the size of their donations (found here).  However, many think tanks say that they publicly disclose all of their donors, when it practice, many do not.

The Telegraph also wrote about this issue on September 11.

Here is an Atlantic Council statement on President Ali Bongo Ondimba not being able to accept the award this year.

But the Gabonese President was able to make it to the think tank earlier in 2016 for a breakfast to honor him.  And he also gave a keynote speech at the think tank in 2011.

Here is a Human Rights Foundation (HRF) letter sent to Atlantic Council saying that HRF is "unaware" of the qualification of a Global Citizen Award but "unless kleptocracy, nepotism, and repression are given high marks," giving the award to Ali Bongo is a "monumental mistake."

Think Tank Watch should note that it is not illegal for think tanks to take money from (most) dictators, although some may consider it ethically questionable.  And as previously reported, Gabon funds US think tanks.

Update: Here is another piece from Mr. Halvorssen.