[R-G] 'False accusations and major leaps of logic'

[Anthony Fenton]

[Note: I believe that Yoshie sent out previous threads in this  
debate; this is the latest, with links to backtrack with at the  
bottom...APF]

'False accusations and major leaps of logic'
http://www.greenleft.org.au/2007/735/38093
Michael Barker
10 December 2007


In the last instalment of a recent exchange that was sparked by Green  
Left Weekly’s interview with Eva Golinger (GLW #716, June 28, 2007),  
Professor Steven Zunes accused me of having made a “series of false  
accusations and major leaps of logic” in my critical assessment of  
the links that the non-profit International Centre on Nonviolent  
Conflict (ICNC) maintains with the United States’ leading democracy  
manipulators. (Online edition only: http://www.greenleft.org.au/ 
2007/727/37727). Taking into account that Zunes currently chairs the  
ICNC’s board of academic advisors, his distress over the facts I have  
revealed is understandable. Thus, in an effort to address all of  
Zunes’ unfounded concerns with my last article, I will work through  
each of the points he has raised concerning my critique of the ICNC.

Firstly, while the ICNC’s president, Jack DuVall, and the former head  
of the CIA, James Woolsey, briefly concurrently served on the board  
of directors of the Arlington Institute, Zunes claims that “they  
never once engaged in a one-on-one conversation”. This of course is  
hard for me to judge, but by highlighting this strange link I was by  
no means suggesting that DuVall and Woolsey were chums, rather I was  
pointing out that it was significant that someone at the Arlington  
Institute saw fit to have both of them on their board of directors at  
the same time. Moreover given the ICNC’s fleeting acquaintance with  
the CIA at the Arlington Institute, it is intriguing to observe that  
in late 2005 the ICNC’s founding chair, Peter Ackerman, became chair  
of the neo-conservative Freedom House, replacing none other than  
Woolsey (who had served in that same position since 2003).

In response to my critique of the ICNC, Zunes goes on to note that I  
was incorrect in noting that Ackerman was not a director of the  
Albert Einstein Institute “until recently”. He correctly points out  
that Ackerman relinquished this board position five years ago. I  
accept this point. Perhaps it would have been more accurate for me to  
have written that Ackerman was associated with the Albert Einstein  
Institute “until [fairly] recently”. Zunes adds that I did not  
explain why he [Zunes] was disingenuous for claiming that no  
operational ties existed between the ICNC and the Albert Einstein  
Institute. Yet, as he must realise, I simply stated that – given the  
obvious Ackerman link – he was being a little disingenuous (even if  
technically he was telling the truth) when he wrote that the ICNC  
“has never had a single operational meeting with anyone representing”  
the Albert Einstein Institute. Indeed, as I previously documented, in  
March 2005 the ICNC, “in collaboration with the Albert Einstein  
Institute” hosted a workshop for Venezuelans on non-violent conflict;  
furthermore, the ICNC’s current director of programs and research,  
Hardy Merriman, came to this position after working for three years  
at the Albert Einstein Institute with the institute’s founder Gene  
Sharp. Here it is interesting to briefly examine the sources of funds  
for the Albert Einstein Institute’s work.

Although a complete documentary record of the Albert Einstein  
Institute’s funding relationships is presently unavailable (online at  
least), a summary of its work between 1993 and 1999 provides a list  
of its supporters over this time period. The most ‘‘democratic’’ of  
these financial contributors included the US Institute for Peace  
(USIP), the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the International  
Republican Institute (one of the NED’s four core grantees), and the  
German-based Friedrich Naumann Stiftung. The Albert Einstein  
Institute also received aid from two other key democracy-manipulating  
liberal philanthropists, the Ford Foundation and George Soros’ Open  
Society Institute. (For further information on the problems  
associated with liberal philanthropy see Joan Roelofs’ excellent 2003  
book Foundations and Public Policy: The Mask of Pluralism.)

As a slight aside, it is worth noting that another (very) recent  
critique of liberal foundations’ co-optive strategies is INCITE!  
Women of Color Against Violence’s book, The Revolution Will Not Be  
Funded (2007). However, it is perhaps ironic that their book has this  
title because – as I and others have demonstrated in previous  
articles – revolutions are funded, that is so long as they serve  
imperial interests. Unfortunately, the aforementioned book is  
referring a forthcoming revolution in the US, which – as they  
correctly diagnose – will most certainly not be funded by liberal  
philanthropists or any other “democratic’’elites.

Sadly, the analyses presented by Roelofs and INCITE! are not new  
ones, but nonetheless they contain critically important ideas for any  
groups or individuals wishing to promote participatory democracy  
without elite interference. Indeed, one of the most important books  
exploring the detrimental influence of liberal foundations on  
progressive social change was Robert Arnove’s Philanthropy and  
Cultural Imperialism: The Foundations at Home and Abroad (1980). In  
the introduction to this edited collection Arnove notes that: “A  
central thesis [of this book] is that foundations like Carnegie,  
Rockefeller, and Ford have a corrosive influence on a democratic  
society; they represent relatively unregulated and unaccountable  
concentrations of power and wealth which buy talent, promote causes,  
and, in effect, establish an agenda of what merits society’s  
attention. They serve as ‘cooling-out’ agencies, delaying and  
preventing more radical, structural change. They help maintain an  
economic and political order, international in scope, which benefits  
the ruling-class interests of philanthropists and philanthropoids – a  
system which, as the various chapters document, has worked against  
the interests of minorities, the working class, and Third World  
peoples.”

Other important, but little mentioned, books that clearly document  
how the larger liberal foundations work hand-in-hand with the US  
foreign policy elites include Edward H. Berman’s 1983 The Ideology of  
Philanthropy: The Influence of the Carnegie, Ford, and Rockefeller  
Foundations, and Frances Stonor Saunders’ more recent (1999) title,  
Who Paid the Piper?: CIA and the Cultural Cold War. Another essay  
that has done much to raise awareness of such issues in the activist  
community is James Petras’ 1999 seminal article NGOs: In the Service  
of Imperialism.

While influential books like John Pilger’s The New Rulers of the  
World (2002) acknowledge how liberal foundations crafted the entire  
political arena – known as international relations – most mainstream  
books – like Pilger’s – do not subject the work of such foundations  
to any degree of sustained criticism. Thus, it is supremely ironic  
that progressive activists tend to underestimate (or at least do not  
write or talk about) the influence of liberal philanthropists, while  
simultaneously acknowledging the fundamental role played by  
conservative philanthropists in promoting neo-liberal policies.  
Indeed, contrary to popular beliefs amongst progressives, much  
evidence supports the contention that liberal philanthropists and  
their foundations have been very influential in shaping the contours  
of North American (and global) civil society, actively influencing  
social change through a process alternatively referred to as either  
channelling or co-option.

Returning to Zunes’ critique of my last article, he takes offence  
that I draw attention to the ICNC staff’s impressive military links –  
as outlined in my first GLW article. Again, he may have a point that  
the ICNC has no “current links” to the military, but I base my  
assertion upon the former links (and note that, if its staff do have  
current military ties, it is not expected that they would advertise  
them in their online biographies). To repeat my earlier statement on  
this subject: not including Duvall, three of ICNC’s six “principals  
of non-violence were trained within the heart of the military- 
industrial complex.
“ICNC vice-chair Berel Rodal was formerly director-general of the  
policy secretariat in Canada’s Department of National Defence; ICNC  
manager of educational initiatives Dr Maria J. Stephan, has worked  
‘at the U.S. Department of Defense and with the international staff  
at NATO Headquarters in Brussels’; and Shaazka Beyerle (former vice- 
president turned senior advisor of ICNC) is a founding vice-president  
of the European Institute (another group that is well linked to the  
‘democracy’ establishment).”

For those unfamiliar with the European Institute, this public-policy  
organisation presents a strange mix of liberals and warmongers which  
includes: board member R. Michael Gadbaw, who is a director of the  
NED/USIP-funded Partners for Democratic Change; director emeriti,  
Robert B. Zoellick, who was a signatory of the January 26, 1998  
“Project for the New American Century” letter sent to President  
Clinton; and advisory board member, Robert E. Hunter, who is also  
chairman of the Council for a Community of Democracies and acts as a  
senior international consultant to the largest arms manufacturer in  
the world, Lockheed Martin.

Zunes raises concerns about my suggestion that his affiliation to the  
ICNC serves to “insulate many of its anti-democratic funders from  
serious criticism”, as he is apparently “not aware of any ‘anti- 
democratic’ entities or individuals who fund ICNC”. I concede it  
would have been more accurate had I stated his affiliation to the  
ICNC helps insulate its two anti-democratic funders from serious  
criticism. Only two people, according to the ICNC’s latest IRS 990  
forms – Peter Ackerman and his wife Joanne Leedom-Ackerman – fund the  
ICNC. In fact, the ICNC’s IRS 990 forms demonstrate that the two  
Ackermans funded the centre to the tune of US$1 million each in 2003,  
then provided the centre with $1.6 million each the following year,  
and, most recently, in 2005 they gave the ICNC a massive $1.8 million  
each.

It is fitting that I should highlight why the two Ackermans are anti- 
democratic: I refer to them as being anti-democratic in the sense  
that they aim to promote low-intensity or neo-liberal forms of  
democracy rather than the more participatory kind of democracy  
usually favoured by progressive activists. Joanne Leedom-Ackerman has  
served on the board of the Albert Einstein Institute, and is  
currently a director of the International Center for Journalists  
(which receives funding from the NED, the Center for International  
Private Enterprise, and Boeing Corporation among many others). Joanne  
is also a director of International Crisis Group (ICG), a NGO  
catering to many of the same “democracy manipulators” as those found  
at the NED.

Unlike the NED, the ICG is a truly multilateral “democracy” venture,  
as evidenced by the wide variety of governments, foundations and  
corporations that fund its work: two key groups that finance its  
activities are the USIP and George Soros’ Open Society Institute. At  
the ICG, Leedom-Ackerman rubs boardroom shoulders with “democratic”  
notables like George Soros, NED director Morton Abramowitz; former  
NED directors Zbigniew Brzezinski and Wesley Kanne Clark; Ayo Obe  
(who is the chair of the steering committee of the NED-founded World  
Movement for Democracy); Kenneth Adelman (who has been associated  
with the Project for a New American Century, and is a trustee of  
Freedom House); Douglas Schoen (who is the founding partner of Penn,  
Schoen & Berland Associates – a firm that works closely with the  
NED), and the former president of the Philippines, Fidel V. Ramos,  
(who himself was a beneficiary of a NED-hijacked revolution in the  
late 1980s).

Likewise, Peter Ackerman is chair of the neo-conservative Freedom  
House, and sits on the USIP’s US advisory council. In addition, while  
serving as a director of the Albert Einstein Institute, Ackerman  
along with Jack Duvall co-authored the widely celebrated book A Force  
More Powerful: A Century of Nonviolent Conflict (2000). It is  
particularly interesting to note that despite Ackerman and DuVall’s  
associations with the NED crowd, they evince a highly selective  
memory of their “democratic” associates when it comes to their work –  
only mentioning the NED and USIP in passing in their book. The  
authors’ apparent lack of concern for interrogating the role of the  
principal manipulators of many successful revolutions since the early  
1980s makes more sense when it is understood that the USIP helped  
fund the production of the documentary version of their book: a  
documentary that was co-produced for PBS by York Zimmerman, Inc. and  
WETA of Washington (of which DuVall had previously been vice  
president for program resources). Not surprisingly, in recent years,  
York Zimmerman has been a major recipient of ICNC largesse, as in  
2003 it received US$1.3 million from the ICNC, while the following  
year this was upped to $2.2 million.

Further, Zunes rejects my well-substantiated evidence of “links  
between the ICNC and US foreign policy elites”, noting such links  
have never involved “anything more than occasional passing  
conversations at receptions and luncheons with State Department”. Why  
ICNC staff should be dining at the State Department is none of my  
business, but if this really is the true extent of their ties, why  
did the ICNC co-sponsor a conference earlier this year with a number  
of groups, most notable of which were the Canadian Department of  
Foreign Affairs, and the USIP? (This International Conference on  
Civil Resistance and Power Politics was held at Oxford University in  
the UK from the 15 to 18 March 2007.)
Other than Sharp and Ackerman, notably “democratic” speakers at this  
ICNC-sponsored conference included Abbas Milani (who is the co- 
director of the Iran Democracy Project at the Hoover Institution –  
incidentally the project’s two other co-directors are Larry Diamond  
and Michael McFaul, both of whom have intimate relations with the  
NED), Stephen W. Bosworth (who was formerly the president of the US  
Japan Foundation, and has served as the US ambassador to the Republic  
of Korea, Tunisia, and to the Philippines), Wang Juntao (who formerly  
published the NED-funded magazine Beijing Spring), Timothy Garton Ash  
(who is a former governor of the British version of the NED, the  
Westminster Foundation for Democracy, and is a member of an elite  
group of “human rights” activists that Herman refers to as The New  
Humanitarians), Lucy Austin Nusseibeh (who is the founder of the NED- 
funded group Middle East Nonviolence and Democracy, and is married to  
Sari Nusseibeh, an individual whom many Palestinians consider to be  
an Israeli collaborator), and Ghia Nodia (who serves on the steering  
committee of the NED-founded World Movement for Democracy).

Given Zunes failure to respond to many of the points in my previous  
articles, and that I addressed all of his comments in my last  
response, it is strange that he notes that I “failed to respond” to  
his “most important point” which challenged my (apparently false)  
contention that the ICNC’s “actual unstated objective… is to help  
promote revolutions in geo-strategically useful countries”. I dispute  
this, as the entire point of last few articles was to present  
substantiated evidence to support that contention. The fact that  
Zunes claims that I am “totally wrong” in asserting that he maintains  
associations with anti-democratic elites illustrates how blinkered he  
is to valid review. Zunes fervently believes that it is not possible  
for him to make such an elemental mistake as working alongside anti- 
democratic elites – despite actually doing so – thus, we have it on  
his word that any criticism is unwarranted.

Given his disinterest in acknowledging the problems of the ICNC’s  
“democratic” ties, it is consistent with his behaviour that Zunes,  
like Ackerman and Duvall, should employ a highly selective  
theoretical framework in his writings that only pays lip service to  
the work of the international “democracy promoting” community. Thus,  
in a book he co-edited called the Nonviolent Social Movements: A  
Geographical Perspective (1999), he concludes the introduction by  
noting that [t]he process of democratization is often coopted into  
programs of polyarchy (i.e., bourgeois democracy) and neo-liberalism  
by the United States and international financial institutions so as  
to prevent popular democracy from taking root (e.g., see Robinson  
1996).” So, given that he refers to Robinson’s seminal book,  
Promoting Polyarchy, it is strange that the rest of the book does not  
make any reference to Robinson’s work or the ideas promoted within it.

Of course, there are clear limits to my critique of the ICNC, and I  
freely admit that all I have done so far is demonstrate how its work  
is closely associated with that of key democracy-manipulating elites.  
It would, of course, be very interesting to see a list of all the  
groups that the Albert Einstein Institute and the ICNC have worked  
with in the past, and I would be happy to investigate the nature of  
these organisations if Zunes could kindly provide me with access to  
some of their internal files.

However, given the scarcity of publicly available information on the  
ICNC’s work, I am limited to using the little information available  
on its IRS 990 forms, which shows, for example, that in 2005 it paid  
the neo-conservative Freedom House to organise a series of  
educational seminars. (As I mentioned in a previous article, former  
ICNC director of programs and research, Kim Hedge, now serves as the  
program coordinator for Freedom House’s civil mobilization program.)

ICNC’s IRS 990 forms also illustrate that it hosted a workshop in  
Dubai (on April 18, 2005) – which was conducted by the Center for  
Advanced Nonviolent Action and Strategies – for Iranians selected by  
the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center. The ICNC’s choice of  
working with the latter group is particularly informative as in the  
2005 Financial Year the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center  
received $1 million from the US Department of States Bureau of  
Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. Unsurprisingly this group is also  
linked to the NED via one of their directors, Roya Boroumand, who is  
the executive director of the NED-funded Abdorrahman Boroumand  
Foundation which received NED grants in 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2006.

Given the unmitigated support Zunes provides for the ICNC, it is  
fitting that in his last article he should attempt to help shield the  
USIP from my criticisms (a group that may be considered the NED’s  
partner organisation). This is in spite of the fact that Zunes  
acknowledges that “much of USIP’s leadership comes from the US  
foreign policy establishment and much of its agenda reflects that”.  
Further, he is unable to believe that a (military/peace) organisation  
like the Orwellian USIP, might be, as Right Web notes, “mandated to  
conduct … operations traditionally conducted by intelligence  
agencies”. Why this should be a surprise is anyone’s guess. Right Web  
is referring to the type of support that the CIA used to provide to  
leftist groups (a topic covered in depth by Roelofs, Berman, and  
Saunders), that is, providing selective support to more conservative  
activist groups to help undermine the promotion of participatory  
democracy. So it is not really so surprising to observe that the USIP  
recently facilitated the creation of the Iraq Study Group, a group  
that Larry Chin (in 2006) described as “another official damage  
control apparatus, spearheaded by notorious Western political and  
corporate elites, former military-intelligence officers, and  
‘experts’ from right wing and intelligence-connected Western think  
tanks – one of which is the US Institute for Peace itself.” Moreover,  
in a (very) recent article, I demonstrate the “democratic”  
connections of all ten members of the USIP’s Iraq Study Group.

There is no doubt that both the NED and the USIP support some  
progressive activists, however, arguably, the funding of such  
individuals and groups is an essential part of their modus operandi.  
In the same way, it is not surprising that in the 1960s while the  
Ford Foundation was supporting the more conservative elements of the  
US Civil Rights Movement (which played an important role in de- 
radicalising the movement), they were working closely with the CIA.  
Moreover, according to Naomi Klein’s new book The Shock Doctrine  
(2007), around this time the Ford Foundation was also the “leading  
source of funding for the dissemination of the Chicago School  
ideology throughout Latin America”. Thus Ford-funded institutions  
played a “central role in the overthrow of Chile’s democracy, and its  
former students… appl[ied] their US education in a context of  
shocking brutality. Making matters more complicated for the  
foundation, this was the second time in just a few years that its  
protégés had chosen a violent route to power, the first case being  
the Berkeley Mafia’s meteoric rise to power in Indonesia after  
Suharto’s bloody [1965-66] coup.”

Thus, in addition to helping shelter their less credible funding  
activities from critical enquiry, another particularly important  
reason why “democratic” financial contributors continue to fund  
progressive activists is evidently so they are up-to-date about the  
actions and thinking of their ideological opponents, that is,  
progressive groups. This reasoning explains why Zunes received a USIP  
grant in 1989 to study the Morocco-Western Sahara conflict.  
Naturally, the funding of “progressive” activities will always be, as  
Zunes correctly observes, “attacked by right-wing elements in  
Congress and elsewhere”, but then again those same elements also  
launch rabid attacks against members of their own party, so it is not  
astonishing that radical neo-conservatives have problems with the  
funding of peace research.

Finally, Zunes concludes by noting that he “support[s] international  
solidarity efforts by independent human rights and pro-democracy  
groups, as well as other global civil society initiatives, designed  
to support popular struggles for freedom and justice wherever such  
support is needed and requested.” In the light of this statement/ 
offer, perhaps progressive activists in developed minority countries  
like Australia and the UK could begin asking Zunes and the ICNC if  
they could also benefit from their well-funded services. Zunes can  
then help – as the NED spoof group the International Endowment for  
Democracy puts it – to “Promot[e] democracy in the country that needs  
it most – the USA.” (www.iefd.org)

[For background to this debate between Michael Barker and Steven  
Zunes, see:
Interview with Eva Golinger: US Continues Destabilisation Push in  
Venezuela (GLW # 716, June 28, 2007) http://www.greenleft.org.au/ 
2007/716/37169

Jack DuVall (President, ICNC), Gollinger Interview (Letter to the  
Editor,
GLW # 718, July 22, 2007) http://www.greenleft.org.au/2007/718/37304

Michael Barker, Promoting 'Democracy' Through Civil Disobedience (GLW  
# 722, August 25, 2007) http://www.greenleft.org.au/2007/722/37496

Stephen Zunes, Inaccurate and Unfair Attacks on the ICNC (GLW # 723,  
August
31, 2007) http://www.greenleft.org.au/2007/723/37520

Michael Barker, An Accurate and Fair Critique of the International  
Center on
Nonviolent Conflict (GLW # 725, 22 September 2007) http:// 
www.greenleft.org.au/2007/725/37638]