Criticism
It has been alleged that Jamestown is a neoconservative agenda driven think-tank with ties to the CIA and United States government. The eXile columnist Philby Burgess commented: "Most of the bitterly anti-Russian journalists who publish with these rightwing lobbies are from the small countries surrounding Russia, and they are animated by a deep hatred of their former conqueror."
The Jamestown Foundation categorically rejects all claims that link it with the neoconservative or any other specific ideological movement. In the past, Jamestown's board of directors has included Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski, former National Security Advisor to U.S. President Jimmy Carter. Jamestown's current board includes Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Bruce Riedel, who has served in the Bill Clinton White House and in 2009 was tasked by President Barack Obama to overhaul U.S. policy on Afghanistan and Pakistan. On December 8, 2011, Ambassador Daniel Benjamin, State Department Counterterrorism Coordinator for the Obama administration praised Jamestown for its research and analysis of terrorism issues. In his keynote address given at Jamestown's Fifth Annual Terrorism Conference, Amb. Benjamin remarked: "Because of its commitment to serious scholarship and analysis on terrorism issues, I can't think of a more appropriate place to do an end-of-year reckoning on Al-Qaeda – an assessment that is particularly timely after such a remarkable year."
In 2007 Moscow accused the research institute of spreading anti-Russian propaganda by hosting a debate on violence in the Russia's turbulent region of Ingushetia. According to a statement by the Foreign Ministry of Russia: "Organisers again and again resorted to deliberately spreading slander about the situation in Chechnya and other republics of the Russian North Caucasus using the services of supporters of terrorists and pseudo-experts. Speakers were given carte blanche to spread extremist propaganda, incite ethnic and inter-religious discord." The Jamestown Foundation responded by saying that Russia felt threatened by it and was trying to intimidate it. Foundation president Glen Howard claimed that "they're intimidated by the power of the free word and this goes against the state manipulation of the media in Russia."
Read more about this topic: The Jamestown Foundation
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