A high-profile New York Times article today trumpets the story that Russian NGOs are “crowdfunding” the Ukrainian Civil War, raising money to subsidize the various rebel factions in Eastern Ukraine to resist the invasion by the US-backed government.
The report villainizes this, naturally, and complains that the funding must have the Russian government’s tacit support since the NGOs haven’t been shut down yet. Yet this is far from a unique situation, and crowdfunding wars seems to be a growing situation the world over.
Terrorist groups have been crowdfunding for years, and would-be ISIS recruits are regularly using crowdfunding to pay for their trips to Syria to join them. It’s not even just the one side in the ISIS war, a US-based NGO made up of former special forces has been crowdfunding an effort to pay for “humanitarian” aid to Kurdish groups, which broadly defines humanitarian aid to include “combat training.” Assyrian Christian groups on the outskirts of Mosul have similarly crowdfunding their own army to resist ISIS.
Crowdfunding has become such a thing that seemingly every war lately ends up having efforts to crowdfund on their side. A group in Canada aimed to raise money during last summer’s Gaza War to buy an Iron Dome missile for the Israeli military.
While it’s gotten bigger and more distributed with the advent of the Internet and social media, private funding for foreign wars is an extremely old tactic dating back centuries. Americans have been involved in this off and on, including ever-hawkish Rep. Peter King (R – NY), who for years fundraised for IRA terrorists as part of the Noraid movement, backing attacks against “British imperialism.”
Civil wars and insurgencies are the most likely types of wars to receive this sort of funding, as these groups tend to have less traditional funding through taxation to pay for their wars. It’s unsurprising, then, for the Ukraine war’s rebels to be getting such support from NGOs abroad, and hardly an example of blazing new trails.
This is something the Syrian government should look into.
Greenwald and Scahill are planning a big expose on Omidyar's crowdfunding the destabilization of kiev and complicity in the CIA coup
Crowdfunding is a good way for orgs and governments to covertly slip money into rebel or any other activities .
Murder is also common enough to be "unsurprising" in many countries (not least the US!). That justifies neither murder in itself nor the murder of any given individual. The underlying "logic" of Mr Ditz's argument is that because A murdered B, C is entitled to murder you!
Your template — make up an "argument," attribute it to Jason Ditz even though he said no such thing, then pretend to explode that "argument" — is getting kind of tiresome.
Nuland admitted that US so-called "NGO's" spent $5,000,000,000 crowdfunding regime change in Ukraine (culminating in a putsch) I didn't see you condemning that! Why don't you get back under your bridge.
Nothing worse than people/governments funding chaos and mayhem while sitting safely at home. Imagine what it must be like sitting in the ruins of your home, all your possessions destroyed, family members missing while some over over-stuff arse is worried about his "cholesterol number" or whether "he'll be ready when the moment is right" .
Since Louis XIV the French have periodically crowdfunded the expansion of their Navy. Ships were named after the communities that sponsored them.
In the US Civil War, many regiments were raised by crowdfunding, and went off with unique equipment and uniforms to show it.
Before WW1, Turkey crowdfunded the rebuilding of its Navy, including two battleships bought from Britain.
In the Second World War, crowdfunding raised money for specific US planes and tanks, which were then displayed for fundraising with names painted on them. I vaguely recall other nations did the same. Russia in WW2 did for sure.
The Contras in Nicaragua were crowdfunded, because Congress had cut off Federal funds.
I'm sure there are many more examples than I've listed here. I just wanted to show that it has been done for a long time in a lot of places.
Might also be worth mentioning the fundraising in Boston that paid for the IRA's weapons for so many years.
Further to that: I recall when I was at business school in the 80's with a classmate who was a former British Army officer who had served in Northern Ireland; another classmate- from Boston- remarked that her father, of Irish ancestry, contributed to "Irish" (read: IRA) fundraisers. "Does you Dad know that that money is used to kill British soldiers?" he asked her. "I guess that he does," she replied sheepishly.
There was a story a while back that the "Black Hawk Down" Somalis were funded by exactions against Somalis living in Ottawa. They were paying a third of their welfare payments back to the mother country to buy arms.
The Ukrainian government relies on similar support from expatriots in a number of places. Probably number one for funding is Canada – which has 'fund raising drives' featuring imported Ukrainian fighters and politicians making regular personal appearance tours. Among the latest were Ukrainian security minister and 'Maidan hero' Andriy Parubiy and the mother of imprisoned 'Joan of Arc' Nadya Shevchenko.