A self-declared "Human Rights Activist", Mr. Ziadeh is currently Washington's favorite Syrian and can usually be found attending meeting and events at the State Department and auditioning for a role as the Ahmad Chalabi of Syria. He's very liberal, very pro-American government -- basically everything America likes. Before presenting Mr. Ziadeh with the July 2011 Ikhras Shoe let's take a look at how the Syrian Hakawati and inspirational, fiery orator beat out the competition for this prestigious award. . . . Ziadeh has been affiliated with, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) which earlier this month presented him with a "Democracy Award." . . . It's expected, and common sense dictates, that any group or individual associated with and supported by the NED would be closely linked to US (Neo-liberal) economic, diplomatic and military policies and initiatives. This was evident in Ziadeh's appearance on Aljazeera this week in which he defended anti-Syrian, pro-Israel US policies. He also expressed satisfaction with the flagrant violation of diplomatic protocol by the US Ambassador to Syria earlier this month, called for replacing the Syrian regime with one more friendly to Western governments and the Neo-liberal economic model, and argued for increased US intervention (did not exclude military) and meddling in Syria. In addition to lecturing at the NED, maintaining a relationship with the State Department, and promoting US policies on Arabic language news channels, he also travels internationally claiming to be drumming up support from the "International community" to bring "freedom" and "democracy" to Syria. In reality he is operating as a global lobbyist for the US government's anti-Syrian policies. His role was clearly on display during a recent trip to Moscow to lobby the Russian government and try to win its support for any US action targeting Syria in the UN Security Council. . . . Ziadeh also recently appeared before the rabidly anti-Syrian, racist Zionist group The American Jewish Committee (AJC). . . .

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