Ansel Herz Nov 17, 2009 article

I have great respect for George Salzman as someone who's been a force for progressive causes long before I joined the ranks.  But he could not easily have known that the blog posts to which he's provided links above actually offer a distorted view of Peter Ackerman, my colleague who was a co-founder with me of the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC).   They also misquote me. So, to set the record straight:

First, the Louis Proyect article is very titillating but fortunately (for those of us who value Peter Ackerman's scholarship and work on nonviolent struggle) very little in it is true.  Examples:

- Peter Ackerman could not "model himself" on George Soros, because when Peter started his career by entering The Fletcher School at Tufts in 1969, Soros was not yet known; he made his reputation much later.

- The International Center on Nonviolent Conflict couldn't have been "responsible for helping to promote, fund and advise the colored revolutions in Eastern Europe," because the downfall of Milosevic in Serbia occurred two years before ICNC even existed, the only assistance given by ICNC to Georgians or Ukrainians were copies of its films (which have been disseminated in over 80 countries), and its operating guidelines prohibit giving funding or advice to any resistance campaigns or movements.

- Proyect's charge that Peter Ackerman "managed to avoid criminal charges" stemming from his work for Drexel Burnham Lambert is a bit like saying that I managed to avoid execution in the state of Virginia when I was given a warning instead of a ticket for attempting an illegal right-hand turn in traffic two weeks ago.  Except Ackerman wasn't even given a warning.  In fact, he was not charged or cited for any violations of any laws or regulations.

- Peter Ackerman is no longer chair of Freedom House.  He left that position in 2008 after failing to persuade its board to lessen its reliance on U.S. government funding (which is ironic in view of Proyect's claim that he has worked with the U.S. government, which is also untrue).

- Peter Ackerman never trained Iranian-Americans who worked for Reza Pahlavi.  I'm not sure who invented that particular myth, but of course that doesn't prevent it from rocketing around the blogosphere.

- Contrary to a claim quoted by Proyect, ICNC has never worked with the National Endowment for Democracy.

- Back before the Iraq war, I never told any "university crowd" that the "peace movement had no right to oppose the invasion of Iraq". What I actually said -- to many audiences -- was that Saddam Hussein's regime could have been effectively opposed by Iraqis in the same way that more than 40 successful transitions from authoritarian to democratic governments were accomplished during the last 30 years of the 20th century, by the use of mass nonviolent resistance.  This was why I believe that military action against Saddam was unnecessary and should not have been taken even if it was justifiable for wanting him out of power.

There are lots of other departures from reality in the Proyect article, but factual refutations are less exciting than incendiary if untrue allegations, so I'll cut this short.

The other link provided by George Salzman is to a web page that indicates that Peter Ackerman spoke to the Herzliya Conference in Israel one year.  He was asked to speak on the relevance of nonviolent resistance to the challenge of radical violent movements, and he pointed out that as struggles for rights shift from usually ineffective violent to more effective civil resistance, the resort to violence will go down. That is a message that ICNC has taken to many different kinds of forums and conferences, because we think that even those who are surprised by it should hear it.

ICNC's mission is pretty simple: We offer knowledge about how civil resistance has worked historically to propel people's movements -- for human rights, political freedom and social justice -- to historic victories, and we've provided that knowledge through workshops and films and other tools to Palestinians, Guatemalans, Egyptians, West Papuans, Maldivians, Nigerians, Guineans, Congolese, Ethiopians, and numerous other peoples engaged in struggles with governments supported by the U.S., as well struggles against authoritarian regimes opposed by the U.S. government. We want to universalize access to the knowledge of how to do what Abraham Lincoln recommended as long ago as 1848:  "Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better.  This is a most valuable and sacred right, which we hope and believe is to liberate the world."

Given all the very real intrigues of imperialists and other ruling elites, it is very disappointing that George Salzman would waste his considerable talents to write an entry so full of misleading information and outright falsehoods.  Quite a few people are aware of the reality of ICNC and its work, so in reading this bizarre conspiratorial nonsense, I fear that -- in the manner of the boy who cried "wolf!" -- people will start questioning many of his valid analysis as well.

First of all, I want to confirm the accuracy of everything Jack DuVall posted in his comment, above.

Secondly, in addition to Al and myself, there are quite a number of other radical anti-imperialist scholars and activists associated with ICNC, including Stellan Vinthagen, Cynthia Boaz, Michael Nagler, Phillippe Duhamel, Kurt Schock, Kevin Clements, Tom Hastings, Janet Cherry, and others.  It's hard to imagine that people like this would support the kinds of things ICNC and Peter Ackerman are accusd of if there was any truth in them whatsoever.

Thirdly, ICNC's annual summer program at the Fletcher School, rather than being a training ground of CIA spooks, provides activists, journalists, NGO leaders and others with a richer understanding of the history, theory, and dynamics of strategic nonviolent action which could support various struggles for freedom and human rights.  The participants have included Palestinians, Western Saharans, Egyptians, West Papuans, Colombians, and others struggling against U.S.-backed regimes.  Leading progressive activists have been among the wide array of lecturers which have made presentations at the program.