Bulletin N° 227

Subject: On Anti-War Movements Past, Present, and Future in France and America : FROM THE CENTER FOR THE ADVANCED STUDY OF AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS, GRENOBLE , FRANCE .

26 March 2006
Grenoble, France

Dear Colleagues and Friends of CEIMSA,
I began bicycling more than half a century ago, and it was just thirty years ago next July that I set off for a trip across North America. It took me 40 days, traveling against the prevailing continental wind currents, before I arrived in Livermore , California , doing "camping sauvage" in cemeteries and forests along the way. This is my only claim to fame. I've done nothing else of comparable significance since.

Nevertheless, bicycling subcultures do teach you a thing or two about life : Perhaps the most important lesson is that if you let people bully you (se laisser faire)  --on the highway, these people are often the arrogant drivers of sports cars and trucks--  they will grow bigger and bolder, and they are likely to brutalize you (and others like you) even more. So, there exists a standard international rule among bicyclers to resist bullies whenever they can. John Locke was right : people create the governments they deserve, usually by "tacit consent." This is the history of Benito Mussolini, this is the history of Adolph Hitler, & it is the history of my high-school basketball coach in south Texas . Tyrants, large and small, are of our own making, and for this we must assume responsibility.

Recently, our research center has received many disturbing items of information. We live in an information-rich society today, and the avalanche of news each day is daunting. There exists the real danger of "drowning the fish" : By depriving ourselves of our own perspectives, we surrender the possibility of experiencing a gestalt which would permit us more "oxygen", i.e. help us locate our own interests in the total picture of what is going on. Usually we, "the public", are abstracted out of this picture which is  carefully crafted by the mainstream media to depict world events as some sort of spectator sport. Our only link to global events, we are reminded endlessly by media outlets, is our role as a paying costumer, seeking tickets for good seats at the next spectacle.


CEIMSA-IN-EXILE is busy organizing an
International Conference on Pacifist Movements at the Université de Savoie campus in Chambéry (on April 5, 6, & 7). This meeting  will bring together Peace Activists and Scholars from Europe and the United States of America to discuss the lessons of wars and war resistance over the past century and more. We hope you will accept our invitation to attend this important international event, with speakers coming from San Francisco , Boston , Paris , Berlin , Stockholm , and Pontivy. We have invited an impressive variety of participants, collectively representing literally several centuries of experience both as observers and as actors in anti-war movements. Students and non-students attending this conference are invited to participate in this exercise for the wisdom of citizenship which will be conducted at Chambéry, in a couple of weeks. The objective is to gain an immediate understanding of the roles that we, in fact, are playing in contemporary events, whether consciously or unconsciously. [For a complete Program of the April Conference at Chambéry, please visit the CEIMSA-IN-EXILE web site, which is located temporarily at The University of California : <http://dimension.ucsd.edu/CEIMSA-IN-EXILE/> .


Below, is a series of articles and essays sent to us by scholars and specialists who have much experience in social movements themselves, and who have generously selected information to share with us, information that could well change our lives, or at least our opinions about our lives.

Item A., sent to us by Professor James Cohen, is a brief description of Master Sergeant Jimmy Massey's decision to refuse to slaughter members of his own species in Iraq .

Item B., from Professor Richard Du Boff, is a copy of a "working paper" first published at Harvard University 's JFK School of Government. This scholarly research paper represents a major step toward the definitive study of The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy.

Item C., also sent to us by Dr. Du Boff, is a retrospective essay on War Resistance in France : Claude Bourdet, Gone 10 years !

Item D., again from Dr. Cohen, is a video link access to coverage of the historic Latino March for Peace on the West Coast earlier this month.

In item E. Richard Du Boff shares with us an economic analysis of possible Euro-American neo-imperialist ventures against the rest of the world: Endless War and endless profits !

Item F. is from William Blum, whose experience in the U.S. State Department in the 1960s, prior to his resignation because of the criminal activities of the United States government during the Vietnam War, is an invaluable source of information. In this essay which he sent us, he suggests that there are "some things you need to know before the world ends", such as how we got into this mess in the first place, and where we are heading if our leaders are not held accountable for their actions. . . .

Diane Johnstone, in item G., has chosen for us an important critique of the corruption in journalism, and the failing credibility of the U.S. Media, written by Sherrie Gossett, who comments on a speech made by former New York Times reporter, David Binder, in which he suggested that "the 1993 Pulitzer Prize awarded to the New York Times and Newsday for reports by John F. Burns and Roy Gutman on the Balkans wars "should in all honesty be revoked...."

And finally, item H. is an essay by Ralph Nader, who is calling for immediate resignations of key members of the Bush administration because of their "incompetence" and their "crimes against humanity."


Sincerely,
Francis McCollum Feeley
Professor of American Studies/
Director of Research
Universié Stehdhal-Grenoble 3
http://dimension.ucsd.edu/CEIMSA-IN-EXILE/

______________________
A.
from Jim Cohen :
20 March 2006
Subject : un objecteur US et une femme irakienne.


Dear Francis,
Two speakers worth checking out . . . .
Jimmy Massey, conscientious objector and Iraq veteran;
Naba S. Hamid Al Barrak, Iraqi profesor, representing “New Horizons for Women”

On Jimmy Massey, Staff Sergeant , U.S. Marines :

A self-described "good old boy" born in Texas , Massey was honorably discharged from the Corps in December 2003 after 12 years of active duty. Trained as infantry, he was stationed in Parris Island as an infantry instructor for three years, then moved on to recruiting duty, then was deployed to serve as Staff Sergeant in Iraq in command of more than 35 men. During his tour of duty in Iraq he and his troop killed approximately 30 unarmed civilians, including children. Staff Sergeant Massey was unable to reconcile his training, US rhetoric regarding the "liberation of Iraq ", and traditional American values with the orders he was given in Iraq . He refused to continue killing and asked to be seen by a psychologist who sent him back stateside immediately for treatment. Jimmy was ultimately granted an honorable discharge and a diagnosis of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

He describes the U.S. invading force invading Iraq like "a bunch of pit bulls loose on a cage full of rabbits" right from the very beginning, and that is what turned the Iraqi people against the U.S. occupiers, the killing of innocent civilians.  For example he tells of receiving orders from higher command to open fire on a non-violent demonstration of Iraqis with M-16s and 50-cal. machine guns. 

When he went to his superiors about his changing feelings regarding the war, he was offered a desk job away from combat, he responded to this offer by saying “Thank you sergeant major, I don’t want your money anymore. I don’t want your benefits. You killed some civilians, and you’re gonna have to live with it partner, and I’m gonna tell the truth.”  Massey hired a good lawyer which meant that he was discharged rather than court-martialed.  Since his discharge, he has been telling the truth. 

His conviction is this: "I’m not going to kill innocent civilians for no government. ...  I was taught and raised by parents and relatives that there are certain things you don’t do, and killing innocent civilians is one of them."

Website:
 
www.jimmymassey.com 

http://www.mvtpaix.org/agenda/descriptif-initiative/tournee-irak.php

 Jim

_______________________
B.
from Richard Du Boff :
24 March 2006
Subject : 
The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, by John Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt.  John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University , Research Working Paper 06-011, March 13, 2006.

click here : http://dimension.ucsd.edu/CEIMSA-IN-EXILE/publications/Scholars/2006.1.html.pdf

Francis,
This paper has not been withdrawn from the JFK School website  
http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/ , despite protests from the Israel lobby Inc. Ltd. etc.  But it has been removed from its most obvious locations on the website--News & Press  and  Read All Current News Stories--even though it is less than two weeks old, and relegated to the Working paper archives.  To access it there, go to  Research  on the left, then to  Working papers  on the bottom left, and then  to  Search  under Walt.

Let me know if you want me to send you the PDF directly. It's not very long by PDF standards (1830K), but I don't want to stuff your mailboxes at first

A week after it was first published, this was added to the title page:  "The two authors of this Working paper are solely responsible for the views expressed in it. As academic institutions, Harvard University and the University of Chicago do not take positions on the scholarship of individual faculty, and this article should not be interpreted or portrayed as reflecting the official position of either institution.

An edited and reworked version of this paper was published in the London Review of Books 28 (March 23, 2006), and is available online at 
http://www.lrb.co.uk

The two authors told Corine Lesnes, Le Monde 24 March 2006 that "no American publication has agreed to run it."     http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-3222,36-753823,0.html

Richard

_______________________
C.
from Richard Du Boff :
22 March 1996
Subject : Claude Bourdet: Gone ten years.
New York Times

http://www.ordredelaliberation.fr/fr_compagnon/131.html
http://www.peacenews.info/issues/2402/pn240215.htm

Claude Bourdet, 86, Leader of French Resistance and Leftist Editor
By LAWRENCE VAN GELDER

Claude Bourdet, a Resistance leader who emerged a starveling from the Nazi concentration camp at Buchenwald to become a leader of France 's postwar non-Communist left, died yesterday at his home in Paris . He was 86. A founder of the newspaper Combat and the political weekly L'Observateur, Mr. Bourdet was one of only a few hundred heroes to be designated a Compagnon de la Liberation by Charles de Gaulle for his membership in the National Resistance Council and his leadership of the Resistance movement Combat. He was also an outspoken intellectual and cold-war neutralist unafraid to condemn French repression in Algeria and a resurgence of French anti-Semitism. On a spring dawn in 1956, when Mr. Bourdet was editor of L'Observateur, he was arrested at his home, handcuffed and hauled off to be strip-searched at Fresnes Prison, where the Gestapo had taken him upon his arrest in 1944. The 1956 seizure followed a series of articles in which Mr. Bourdet attacked the French campaign to destroy the guerrillas battling for Algerian independence and condemned plans to call up 100,000 military reservists. "One hundred thousand young Frenchmen are threatened with being thrown into the 'dirty war' of Algeria, with losing the best years of their lives, perhaps with being wounded, indeed killed, for a cause that few among them approve, in a kind of combat that revolts most of them," he wrote. At sundown Mr. Bourdet was released, and in his first post-prison editorial, he observed: "When somebody rings your bell at 6 A .M. and it is the milkman, you are in a democracy." In 1958 he wrote that "anti-Semitic gangrene" had reappeared in France and noted that non-Jews had been attacked as Jews merely because they disagreed with emotional opinions on the war in Algeria . From such assaults, he inferred, "these anti-Semites today feel sufficiently encouraged and protected to give public effect to the violence of their sentiments." Known as a "progressist" -- liberal without being identified with the Communist line -- Mr. Bourdet joined eminent French writers like Andre Gide and the actor Louis Jouvet in 1949 in calling upon the French Government to conduct a plebiscite in Indochina under the auspices of the United Nations to end the fighting in its colony. In 1945, when he was liberated by Americans from Buchenwald , Mr. Bourdet weighed just 90 pounds . But he had been trained as an engineer, and so he was named director of Radiodiffusion Francaise, the French broadcasting system. A few months later he joined the newspaper Combat, which had been founded by his underground organization and sought to retain the spirit of the Resistance.
During the war Mr. Bourdet conceived one of the most inspired Resistance plans -- to infiltrate all public administration offices in France . As a result, Resistance fighters were to be found in the post offices, among the police and on the railways. In 1947, he succeeded Albert Camus as editor of Combat. He resigned in 1950 to found L'Observateur, which later became Le Nouvel Observateur. Mr. Bourdet also served as a member of the Paris Municipal Council and with various peace and disarmament organizations. He remained active well into his 70's, writing books and articles and commenting on world affairs.

When Germany was reunified in 1990, he sat in his elegant two-story apartment on Avenue George V and addressed the question of whether its people had changed in 50 years."I'm hesitant to say because I don't think there is an evil character in the German soul," he replied. "I don't think the Germans are any worse than anyone else. I think the danger comes in the extraordinary power of obedience. I think that explains the Nazis and the Third Reich. You never know about tomorrow."

Mr. Bourdet, who was born in Paris on Oct. 28, 1909, was the son of a prominent dramatist, Edouard Bourdet, and the former Catherine Pozzi, a poet. He was trained at the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich , and from 1936 to 1939 served with the office of the French Economics Ministry. In 1940 and 1941 he managed a soap and oil company.

Mr. Bourdet was married in 1935 to Ida Adamoff. They had three children, Nicolas, Catherine and Louis.


________________
D.
from James Cohen
25 March 2006
Subject : Latino March for Peace (from Tijuana to San Francisco )


Francis,
Good little video (6:40 min) for those equipped to watch it.
jim
 

VIDEO SPECIAL | Latino March for Peace
A Film by Scott Galindez and Ted Sapphire
http://www.truthout.org/multimedia.htm

On March 12, 2006, Fernando Suarez del Solar and Pablo Paredes started a march with a coalition of the willing across 240+ miles in a quest for peace that aims at raising the Latino voice of opposition to the war in Iraq. The March will run from Tijuana , Mexico , all the way to the mission district of San Francisco, making strategic, symbolic and ceremonial stops along the way. The 241-mile march is inspired by Gandhi’s 1930 Salt March protesting British imperialism and will serve as a loud cry for an end to the bloodshed in Iraq .


_______________
E.
from Richard Du Boff :
15 March 2006
Subject : Dream come true--endless war!


The Guardian  ( London ) Wednesday February 15, 2006 : Special Report on " America 's Long War".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,1710030,00.html

US Introduces Radical New Strategy
by on Tisdall, Ewen MacAskill and Richard Norton-Taylor

Concern is growing in Europe about US plans to involve governments in an expanded, all-out campaign against Islamist extremism from north Africa to south-east Asia , using beefed-up special forces, hi-tech weaponry and more intrusive surveillance and intelligence gathering.

The Pentagon plan, designed to fight what it describes as "The Long War", envisages "long-duration, complex operations involving the US military and international partners, waged simultaneously in multiple countries round the world".

The post-Iraq rethink, known as the Quadrennial Defence Review, was published last week, and calls on existing allies such as Nato and "moderate" governments in the Muslim world "to share the risks and responsibilities of today's complex challenges".

Measures proposed, to be funded through $513bn (£295.6bn) in US defence spending for 2007, include boosting the number of special operations forces and unmanned drones used for surveillance and targeted assassinations, the creation of special teams trained to detect and render safe nuclear weapons anywhere in the world, and a long-range bomber force.

Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, in north Africa this week, said the US was increasing cooperation with Algeria and others, including through possible arms sales, to help create "an environment inhospitable to terrorism". Echoing the US thinking, Jack Straw, said while on visit to Nigeria yesterday: "The terrorist threat to and from Africa is likely to grow in the next 10 years.

"The biggest risk is not of a generation of homegrown African terrorists. It is the ability of external terrorists to use Africa as a base from which to launch attacks on African and western interests in Africa and beyond."

European governments are still digesting the contents of the US report and are expected to give full responses in the next few weeks. But initial reaction appears to be one of caution.

The Ministry of Defence said yesterday it had been consulted by the Pentagon as the review was drawn up and was pleased to see references to working with allies. As the consultation took place, Royal Marine commandos arrived at their base in southern Afghanistan yesterday at the start of a mission described in the Commons by government opponents as confused and unclear.

But British commanders expressed concern that increased attacks on suspect terrorists using drones - in which decisions are made rapidly by secret watchers based thousands of miles away - could have legal implications. They also highlighted potential infringements of sovereignty and the bypassing of political controls and of established rules of engagement.

Lord Garden , a retired air marshal and the Liberal Democrat defence spokesman in the Lords, said there was a "widening gulf" between US and European approaches: "The US wants the Europeans to do more at the hard end while Europe sees Nato as a post-conflict stabilisation organisation."

Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, has backed the idea of Nato moving beyond its borders, as it has in Afghanistan . But she suggested there should be limits on future military operations.

Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, Nato secretary general, said: "Nato is not a global policeman but we have increasingly global partnerships."
The French government, anxious not to reignite pre-Iraq tensions with Washington , reacted cautiously. Michèle Alliot-Marie, the French defence minister, said: "The key word is complementarity in our actions and not to expect the submission of one to the other."

The report proposes increased training and financing of security forces in the Muslim world for counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency operations, and relaxation of arms export controls and national legal regulations. It also projects a big propaganda effort.

US analysts, including former Pentagon staff, said the plan reflected a positive evolution in US strategic thinking that contrasted with past unilateralism.

"Previously the emphasis was 'we'll do what we have to do, and it's nice to have allies', but now it's seen as essential to what we are trying to do," said Carl Conetta, a military specialist at the Massachusetts-based Project on Defence Alternatives.
But Professor Paul Rogers of Bradford University, a columnist for the openDemocracy website, said the long war "is hugely convenient in that it simplifies everything into a 'them and us' global confrontation ... This is clearly a global war and the world as a whole is involved, whether or not it wants to be."


_____________
F.

From: BBlum6@aol.com
22 March 2006
Subject: Anti-Empire Report, March 22, 2006

http://members.aol.com/bblum6/aer31.htm

___________
G.
from Diane Johnstone :
22 March 2006
Subject: Fw: Former NY Times Reporter:  "The '93 Pulitzer Should be Revoked", by Sherrie Gossett

http://CNSNews.com

Former NY Times Reporter: '93 Pulitzer Should Be Revoked
By Sherrie Gossett

Washington (CNSNews.com) - Castigating the press for "journalistic crimes" committed during its reporting on the Balkans wars of the 1990s, retired
New York Times reporter David Binder claims the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting awarded to both the Times and New York 's Newsday
"should, in all fairness and honesty, be revoked."

Binder was speaking at a press conference for the release of a new book criticizing the war reporting. Binder wrote the foreword to the book by
Peter Brock, titled "Media Cleansing: Dirty Reporting, Journalism and Tragedy in Yugoslavia ."

"What we're looking at here is a series catalogued by Peter Brock of journalistic crimes," said Binder. Before mentioning the reporting of the
Times' John F. Burns and Newsday's Roy Gutman, Binder evoked the memory of what he called Walter Duranty's "phony reporting" for the New York Times in the 1930s as an example of an undeserved Pulitzer. Duranty was criticized for having been too deferential to Joseph Stalin and his plan to
industrialize the Soviet Union .

"What Peter [Brock] has unraveled and disclosed in this book involves at least a couple of Pulitzer prizes that should in all fairness and honesty
be revoked." Binder confirmed to Cybercast News Service that he was referring to the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for international reporting, awarded
to Burns of the New York Times and Gutman of Newsday for their reporting in the Balkans. Brock devotes considerable space in his book to criticizing
the reporting of Burns and Gutman.

Binder noted that the Times has gone through "agony" in recent years over the "terrible professional behavior of its staff members" and with "what
has gone on under its masthead."

"[E]xposure is the best remedy," said Binder.

"I think Peter Brock's book helps a great deal to confront these egregious crimes of journalism. I think it should be shoved under the noses of
editors all across the press, at least the editors who are dealing with foreign news ..." said Binder.

The Pulitzer Board at first voted to award the prize solely to Gutman, according to Binder. "The New York Times got so agitated that John Burns
was passed over that they started lobbying the board. The Pulitzer is an extremely political award in many if not all cases. There are all kinds of
backstage manipulations that go on."

The centerpiece of Burns' Pulitzer entry was a seven-hour interview with a captured Bosnian Serb -- Borislav Herak -- who in graphic statements to
Burns, confessed to dozens of murders, including eight involving rape. Burns' Nov. 27, 1992, article was described by the New York Times as
offering "insight into the way thousands of others have died in Bosnia ."

However, more than three years after the publication of Burns' story, the Times on Jan. 31, 1996, described Herak as "slightly retarded" and reported
that Herak had retracted his confession and claimed it had been beaten out of him by guards.

"I was tortured, forced to confess," said Herak. By that time his testimony already had been used to convict Sretko Damjanovic for the killing of two
Muslim brothers who were later found alive. Both Herak and Damjanovic, who also said he had been "tortured" into providing a false confession, were
sentenced to death by firing squad.

Author Peter Brock described Burns' interview with Herak as "a manipulated confession and interrogation in which Burns was the key participant." Brock faults Burns for failing to tell readers that the interview took place with a Sarajevo video production crew present and that "interrogations were
conducted by [government] investigators and by Sarajevo film director Ademir Kenovic."

He also argues that "vital pieces" of Herak's story were missing. "[T]here was no evidence, corpses or victims, or eyewitnesses to implicate Herak,
except for hearsay from Bosnian government 'investigators,'" Brock writes.

Brock also faults Newsday's Roy Gutman for being unduly influenced by government propagandists including one source who operated under four
different aliases. Gutman was criticized for not exercising enough scrutiny before repeating allegations of atrocities and statistics of the dead and
tortured.

Gutman won his Pulitzer partly for "electrifying stories about 'concentration camps'," notes Brock, who criticizes the reporter for the prominence of "hearsay" and "double hearsay" in his stories, as well as gratuitous use of the language of the Nazi Holocaust.

Gutman's first five stories about the alleged Omarska concentration camp in Bosnia were actually filed from Zagreb , in Croatia , Brock complains. It was
Gutman's sixth story on the subject that finally carried an Omarska dateline, Brock wrote, and that was after the prison had been shut down.

Both Binder and Brock accuse the press of falling into "pack journalism" and playing the role of "co-belligerent." The reliance on Croat and Bosnian
Muslim propaganda resulted in distorted reporting that exaggerated the Serb role in the three-sided conflict and ignored ethnic cleansing of Serbs,
according to Binder and Brock.

Brock went so far as to say the $3,000 Pulitzer Prize money awarded to Burns and Gutman was "blood money."

"What we're talking about in terms of what I call crimes of journalism was only ten years ago," said Binder. "It wasn't so long ago that these, I
think revolting things, were happening -- revolting bias, revolting suppression of other sides of the story."

During his recent appearance at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., Binder said it would take "at least a decade" before historians
"clear out that wretched underbrush of lies and concoctions" from "despicable" politicians "like Richard Holbrooke," an international
negotiator during the administration of former President Bill Clinton and "certainly the journalists" criticized in Brock's book. The rise of blogs
and media watchdog groups offers a "corrective" for the public now, Binder contended.

In his call for the revocation of the Pulitzer Prize Peter Brock said that "in all fairness, if [the Pulitzer board] is not going to revoke the prize,
they ought to give Janet Cooke's Pulitzer back." Cooke was a Washington Post reporter who won a Pulitzer for a fabricated 1980 story about an
eight-year old heroin addict.


___________________
H.
from Ralph Nader :
26 March 2006
Subject
: Impeachment or Resignation: Pick Your Poison

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12493.htm

*********************
Francis McCollum Feeley
Professor of American Studies/
Director of Research
Université de Grenoble-3
Grenoble , France
http://dimension.ucsd.edu/CEIMSA-IN-EXILE/