LATEST NEWS

Dear Friends and Signatories of the Say No To Pipes Campaign,

On August 22, 2003 President George Bush undemocratically by-passed the Senate by making a recess appointment of Daniel Pipes to the Board of the US Institute of Peace. By so doing he avoided both facing a Senate rejection of the nomination as well as a full public hearing where the violent extremist views of the nominee would have been unavoidably brought out in front of the American public. It also means, however, that Pipes as a recess appointee will serve for only 18 months instead of the usual 4 years. That the President was both willing to nominate and then push this candidate through by such methods should sound a loud alarm to anyone who still believes that real democratic principles grounded in civil and human rights and international law are not just the only moral choice, but the only possible hope for real peace and security. Signatories to the letter (below) should know that their efforts and willingness to stand up against this nomination played a very key role in action taken by Senator Kennedy and his colleagues (particularly Senators Harkiin, and Dodd). They deserve appreciation for taking the stand they did as do all you and everyone who participated in this campaign. Unfortunately, that such a nominee is in, if only for 18 months, and surrounded by right-wing supporters within the administration only underscores the fact that we are in a time where the very core of our democracy is at risk and the need to be outspoken and expand the sphere of informed and outspoken people is perhaps more urgent than ever before.

Many thanks from all of us to all of you for joining with us on this. It has been a privilege.

PEACE!

SAY NO TO PIPES CAMPAIGN
August 24, 2003
AUGUST 18 - STOP THE MOVE TO BYPASS THE SENATE AND AVOID A PUBLIC HEARING
FAX TO PRESIDENT BUSH

SUBJECT: OVER 500 ACADEMICS FROM COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES ACROSS THE U.S. PLUS MORE THAN 5,000 ADDITIONAL SUPPORTERS ASK THAT THE DANIEL PIPES NOMINATION TO THE USIP BE REJECTED. PLEASE DO NOT BYPASS THE SENATE AND TAKE AWAY ITS DEMOCRATIC PREROGATIVE BY MAKING A RECESS APPOINTMENT OF THIS NOMINEE Read FAX HERE
July 22, 2003- Senate HELP Committee meets to consider the nomination and a vote is put on hold to give members additional time to consider the "CONTROVERSIAL NOMINATION" as SENATORS KENNEDY, DODD, AND HARKIN speak out strongly against the nomination (see excerpts, release, and send emails of support HERE)
July 22, 2003- Day before Senate HELP Committee set to convene to review nomination Pipes publishes tract in NY Post also syndicated and distributed to right-wing groups and outlets widely calling for an escalation of violence in American Foreign policy and "discarding the rules of war". Genocidal comments amplifying and supporting his view are published on his website the same day (see excerpts from the article, comments, and Say No To Pipes release HERE)
Letter to Boston Globe Boston, MA., June 29, 2003- A much-truncated letter to the Boston Globe from the Say Not to Pipes Campaign was published in Sunday's Globe today (read letter as edited and published by the Globe HERE, and HERE for full letter as submitted with full list of signatories) July 10, 2003 Letters sent to editors of major newspapers from academic signatories asking them to come out against the nomination (see letter and list of signatories HERE)
Washington, D.C., June 17, 2003- The Say No to Pipes Campaign delivers the "Say No" letter (see "THE LETTER" below) signed by NOW OVER 500 ACADEMICS FROM COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES ACROSS THE COUNTRY and over 5,000 co-signatories from all walks of life to the US HELP Committee. An addendum included a partial list of some 50 ACADEMICS READY TO TESTIFY against the nomination should public hearings be held (see list HERE). Further actions are planned and the campaign will continue to take signatures online until the nomination comes before the Committee which could be any time (see the June 17 release HERE; see full list of universities with signatories HERE).
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” (1). “I know,” writes Yale Professor of History, Glenda Gilmore in a recent article (2),”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” (3). 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 (4), and subject to a national smear campaign (5). Similar stories from other campuses are easy to find.

In addition, taken by many to be a virulent racist, and often labeled as a “’Muslim-basher and ‘Islamophobe’”(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. Thanks to the many concerned citizens voicing their condemnation, the nomination is temporarily on hold, but a vote 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,
SORRY BUT NO LONGER TAKING SIGNATURES