Det danske Fredsakademi
Kronologi over fredssagen og international politik 15. maj 2003 / Time Line May 15, 2003
Version 3.005/15/2003
Folketinget vedtager
beslutningsforslag om 'dansk deltagelse i en multinational
sikringsstyrke i Irak'.
05/15/2003
EU vil undersøge sagen omkring det nedstyrtede amerikanske
bombefly ved Thulebasen i 1968, skriver Dagbladet Arbejderen.
05/15/2003
Stop the Nomination of Daniel Pipes to the US Institute of Peace
(USIP)
Demand Full Hearings of the Senate Committee on Health, Education,
Labor and Pensions.
Take Action Now!
- http://www.actsofconscience.net/Pipes/stopthenomination.html
Background: On April 2, 2003 the White House officially nominated
right-wing extremist Daniel Pipes to the Board of Directors of the
United States Institute of Peace (USIP), and the nomination has
been referred to the Senate Committee on Health Education, Labor
and Pensions for approval. As the Washington Post has written, when
many first heard the news they thought it was a joke. Pipes,
perhaps best-known recently for launching "Campus Watch", a
surveillance network and website reminiscent of the McCarthy era,
has not only been widely criticized as a racist, particularly with
respect to Arabs and Muslims, but noted for advocating the use of
force and fear rather than negotiation as the means of choice for
conflict resolution.
With Campus Watch, "a showcase for the signature distortions on
which Pipes has built his twenty-five- year career..Pipes and
supporters have been able to expand their attacks into a virtually
limitless campaign of harassment and intimidation"
"I know," writes Yale Professor of History, Glenda Gilmore in a
recent article,"because I have been branded a traitor. I wrote an
op ed in the Yale Daily News and received death threats and rape
wishes...Within a month, Daniel Pipes had reached millions of
people around the world." Gilmore and Columbia History Professor
Eric Foner together have characterized this in kind with the most
"shameful anomalies in the history of civil liberties".
When Jim Sleeper, who also teaches ethics and political science at
Yale warned of the "neo-Stalinism wafting up" from these activities
he, too, found himself on the pages of Campus Watch, and subject to
a national smear campaign. Similar stories from other campuses are
easy to find.
In addition, taken by many to be a virulent racist, and often
labeled as a "âEUR*Muslim-basher and
âEUR~IslamophobeâEUR*"(6), Pipes, who has written in
the National Review that "Western...societies are unprepared for
the massive immigration of brown-skinned peoples...maintaining
different standards of hygiene" (1) and that there is "a
well-established tradition of American blacks who convert to Islam
turning against their country" (7) has claimed that "up to 15% of
Muslims are "potential killers" (8).
In a recent interview on a nationally syndicated radio show he
refused to condemn the internment of Japanese- Americans during
World War II (8). Understandably, the nomination has been
strenuously opposed by leading Arab-American groups such as the
American-Arab Anti- Discrimination Committee (more here)
particularly on the grounds of Pipes' racism, violent views of
conflict resolution, and campaign of intimidation and
distortion.
His own personal website is run by an Israeli settler and Pipes,
who opposes negotiations with the Palestinians, is a regular
contributor to Gamla, "an organization founded by former Israeli
military officers and settlers that endorses the ethnic cleansing
of every Palestinian as "the only possible solution" to the
Arab-Israeli conflict"(1). Recently the Washington Post (9) and the
Dallas Morning News (10) have come out against the nomination.
Urgent Call for Action: The Say No to Pipes Campaign is a
grassroots effort to derail the nomination of Daniel Pipes. Time is
limited. On best information the nomination will not be considered
before May 9, 2003, and perhaps not for some time after that, but
it could happen very fast. Uncontroversial nominations to the USIP
are typically approved without public debate or hearings. This
cannot happen with this disastrous nomination.
Below is a letter which will be sent both electronically and by
courier (delivery confirmation required) to the Chairman and
Ranking Member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education,
Labor and Pensions, Senators Judd Gregg (R), and Edward Kennedy (D)
respectively, with electronic and hard copies to every member of
the Committee (see members here), the Majority and Minority Staff
Directors and Press Secretaries as well as members of the press.
PLEASE SIGN THIS LETTER, and then forward the link on to as many
people as you can. The "waft" of racism, neo- McCarthyism, or
neo-Stalinism, has already gotten way too strong. Let's stop this
nomination now.
THE LETTER
Health, Education, Labor, & Pensions Committee United States
Senate 428 Dirksen Senate Office Building Washington, DC
20510-6300
Re: Nomination of Daniel Pipes to the Board of Directors of the
United States Institute of Peace (USIP)
Dear Mr. Chairman, and Members of the Committee,
As American citizens we are deeply concerned about the nomination
of Daniel Pipes to the Board of Directors of the United States
Institute of Peace (USIP). His views are widely held to be deeply
racist, and many, including those from our most prestigious
universities, believe he is actively engaged in an attempt to
revive the tactics of McCarthyism, a most shameful chapter in our
nation's history, as a means of silencing free speech. In addition,
Mr. Pipes' often stated views on conflict resolution which favor
the use of force and fear over negotiations contradict the stated
purpose of the USIP whose mission statement is "to promote
international peace and the resolution of conflicts among nations
and peoples of the world without recourse to violence." Finally, at
a time when our government is already dealing with feelings in much
of the rest of the world that it is anti-Arab or anti-Muslim, the
fact that Mr. Pipes is widely seen as a radical anti-Arab
propagandist, as the Washington Post has put it, "is salt in the
wound." We stand with people of all backgrounds, ethnicities, and
religious persuasions who, in the interest of the most cherished
principles of our democracy, condemn this nomination. We trust
that, as the Washington Post has also put it,"if the White House
does not rescind the nomination", the Committee will "have the good
sense to turn it down." However, if for any reason the Committee
has doubts about rejecting the nomination, then we urge it
respectfully, in the strongest posssible terms, to hold full and
public hearings so that the nominee's extremist views and practices
may be brought out in the light of day in front of the American
people. Such an extreme and completely inexplicable nomination
cannot be allowed to be rushed through to approval without a chance
for the American public to be heard. In our view, however, the
widely known facts are way more than sufficient to warrant
immediate rejection of the nomination without any further
examination and we hope the Committee will do so.
Respectfully,
SIGN THE LETTER Privacy Statement: When signing the letter you will
be asked for your email address. Email addresses will not be
included with the list of signatories to the letter and will not be
given out to any other third parties either. Only signatures from
vaild email boxes sent by the boxholders can be counted. Contact:
Say No To Pipes Campaign
http://www.actsofconscience.net/Pipes/stopthenomination.html
Source: Email from Nancy Ries.
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