Talk:Education for Peace in Iraq Center

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Comments: 1. Regarding the books cited from EPIC's website, in all fairness, the organization clearly states "In pursuit of EPIC's goal to educate people at home in order to create more informed policies abroad, we have compiled this list of relevant books pertaining to Iraq, its history, and its future. Not all the opinions expressed in these books are representative of EPIC, however by showing a broad range of ideas and opinions we hope to foster informed debate." [1]

There does not appear to be any bias to the order in which the books are listed. As noted below, using amazon.com as the source, with the exception of Christian Parenti's book released in November 2004, the remainder of the 2004 releases predate Feldman's October 2004 release date; additionally, there is no particular order for this group of books, neither alphabetically by author or title or by release date.

  • What We Owe Iraq: War and the Ethics of Nation Building, Noah Feldman, Princeton University Press, [October] 2004
  • Blinded by the Sunlight: Surviving Abu Ghraib and Saddam's Iraq, Matthew McAllester, HarperCollins Publishers, [February] 2004
  • The Fall of Baghdad, Jon Lee Anderson, Penguin Group (USA), [September] 2004
  • The Freedom: Shadows and Hallucinations in Occupied Iraq, Christian Parenti, The New Press, [November 15] 2004
  • Chain of Command, Seymour M. Hersh, Harper Collins, [September 1] 2004
  • Disarming Iraq, Hans Blix, Pantheon, [March 9] 2004
  • Saddam City, Mahmoud Saeed, Saqi Books, 2004 [paperback March 2005]
  • The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq, Hanna Batatu, Saqi, [September] 2004

Nor does there appear to be any particular agenda as to authorship of the 2004 group of books or subsequent years which do follow in a descending year-by-year order down the list.

Ascribing some hidden agenda to the ordering of these books lacks credibility.

2. Source of the criticism:

As with the "Fake or Flake" category employed for Operation Truth, the one cited critic for EPIC appears, again, to be Stan Goff, who is transparently also present in the Socialist Worker article cited as the second source.

As I outlined in the talk section for OT, I fail to see the support for labeling any organization, albeit that we only have TWO so identified thus far in this very specific category, as "Fake or Flake."

IMO, this is really stretching a label and posting it on SW in service of an agenda. Artificial Intelligence 12:34, 26 Apr 2005 (EDT)

After reading the EPIC article and Artificial Intelligence's comments, I added some information to the article and took out some passages that were not relevant (e.g., Goff's "red-baiting" comment) and some that were not accurate (e.g., ascribing importance to book list order, especially when disregarding EPIC's disclaimer that they don't agree with all books listed).

Whether and how to call for military withdrawal from Iraqare obviously important issues and ones that EPIC's been publicly discussing, often in a way that's at odds with many in the U.S. peace movement. I hope that this article will continue to chronicle EPIC's role in that debate - as well as their other stances and work - in a way that is thorough and accurate.

-- Diane Farsetta, 21:46, 26 Apr 2005 (CDT)

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