Foundation for the Defense of Democracies
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The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies is a non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C. that conducts research and education on the war on terrorism.
- We produce independent analyses of global terrorist threats, exploring the historical, cultural, philosophical and ideological factors that drive terrorism and threaten the individual freedoms guaranteed within democratic societies. FDD is a non-partisan organization. --from their website
Founding members and advisors include prominent conservatives such as Steve Forbes, Jack Kemp, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Frank Lautenberg, Newt Gingrich, and former CIA director James Woolsey.
FDD is a tax-exempt, non-profit institution, which claims to be nonpartisan although Forbes, Kemp, Kirkpatrick and Gingrich are prominent Republicans and Woolsey is a member of the neoconservative Project for the New American Century, and does not seek to advance any political party or views. It is funded by a diverse group of individual philanthropists and does not accept any government funding.
FDD's photo essay Terror in Israel: The Human Cost of Terrorism, released in February 2004 begins with a message from former ambassador Richard Carlson (director of Voice of America) on Palestinian suicide bombers and the Israeli West Bank barrier. The 16-page essay contains photographs of ordinary people burned, bloodied, maimed; a city bus burst-open by an explosion and immigrants from Ethiopia maimed and killed by terrorist attacks.
The essay is intended to sway opinion on the Israeli barrier. The FDD opposes the hearings in the International Court of Justice on the barrier and has filed an amicus brief to express its opposition.
External links
- Foundation for Defense of Democracies (http://www.defenddemocracy.org/)
- The Human Cost of Terrorism (http://www.humancost.org/)