Most of the content of this article derives from earlier disinformation about the use of civil resistance, originated by those offering conspiracy theories to account for the success of nonviolent movements, as well as by mainstream media misreporting. The result is an entirely false picture of the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC) and its co-founder, Peter Ackerman. What follows are corrections of these false claims:

-       Maidhc O’Cathail says that the Centre for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies (CANVAS) “works closely” with ICNC. That is not true, although ICNC supported some workshops on nonviolent action held by CANVAS from 2006 to 2008.  None of those workshops had anything to do with Egypt, which is the subject of this article.

-       The article says that ICNC “has shared a number of staff members” with CANVAS, including Dr. Stephen Zunes.  Both of those assertions are also untrue.  ICNC has never shared staff members with any organization, and Dr. Zunes has never been a staff member of CANVAS either.

-       The article says that Peter Ackerman “indirectly funds CANVAS.”  That is false. As stated above, ICNC furnished support for certain workshops and related costs of CANVAS for a three-year period, which ended almost three years ago.

-        The article notes that Peter Ackerman was employed in the 1980’s by Drexel Burnham Lambert and cites “illegal activities” by that firm. In fact a small number of its people were cited for specific violations of financial regulations, but they did not include Dr. Ackerman. No allegations of wrongdoing have ever been made about Peter Ackerman or his work, contrary to the impression that Mr. O’Cathail conveys.

-        The article quotes an anonymous source cited in an American business magazine that Dr. Ackerman underwent “an improbable transformation from a junk-bond promoter back to scholar.” This distorted remark misrepresents Dr. Ackerman’s academic background, which Mr. O’Cathail did not bother to describe fully.  He obtained a Ph.D. from The Fletcher School at Tufts University prior to his career in finance, and his dissertation evaluated Gandhi’s leadership of the Indian independence movement and other historical aspects of nonviolent struggle.  With Christopher Kruegler, he wrote a book, “Strategic Nonviolent Conflict,” published by Praeger in 1993, which was immediately adopted as a textbook in many universities and inspired the subsequent television series, “A Force More Powerful,” which in turn indirectly led to the creation of the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict.  There was nothing improbable about Dr. Ackerman’s decades of contribution to the scholarship on nonviolent struggle.

-        Mr. O’Cathail notes that the documentary film “Bringing Down a Dictator” (of which Dr. Ackerman was executive producer) was viewed in Georgia prior to the “Rose Revolution” and cites one activist as saying that it was “most important” in inspiring activists in that country. What he does not say is that neither Dr. Ackerman nor the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict had anything to do with the presence or use of the film in that country, because it has furnished copies of that and other films as well as many other educational materials to hundreds of universities, nongovernmental organizations, teachers and students throughout the world – and this particular film has been translated into 19 languages and seen in over 50 countries.

-        Mr. O’Cathail attempts to do a mash-up of unrelated individuals in order to tie Dr. Ackerman to Ahmed Maher, a leader of the April 6 movement in Egypt.  He says that Maher collaborated with Mohamed ElBaradei, who happened to sit on the board of a nongovernmental organization that had nothing to do with events in Egypt, the International Crisis Group, and that Dr. Ackerman’s wife is on that board too.  Apart from its apparent attempt at some sort of guilt-by-association with a Nobel Peace Prize winner, Mr. ElBaradei, this offers no logical evidence of Mr. O’Cathail’s conspiracy theory related to Mr. Ackerman and Egypt.

-        Finally, Mr. O’Cathail notes that Dr. Ackerman spoke at the Herzliya Conference in 2008, as did people associated with Ariel Sharon and the later Netanyahu government, as if somehow Dr. Ackerman’s physical proximity to those speakers indicates that he is associated with their politics, which he is not.  Mr. O’Cathail uses this particular guilt-by-association reference to suggest that Israel was somehow pleased with the Egyptian revolution.  This reference to an Israeli connection reminds us of an earlier article by Mr. O’Cathail, in which he writes approvingly of those who have propounded conspiracy theories that Jews and Israel were behind the 9/11 attack on the United States:  http://www.veteranstoday.com/2010/04/03/maidhc-0cathail-whos-afraid-of-911-conspiracy-theories/  These speculations are about all the reader needs to know to gauge the credibility of Mr. O’Cathail’s article on Dr. Ackerman.

Peter Ackerman was not “behind” the Egyptian revolution. No non-Egyptian was “behind” the nonviolent movement and uprising in that country, because the history of civil resistance offers no evidence of any successful use of such resistance being inspired or propelled by people outside the country in which it occurred. Only those who are living under oppression can persuade their fellow citizens to take the substantial risks of joining such a movement, and only those who have had enough of that oppression can make it successful. Anyone who suggests that Egyptians are not responsible for events in their own country is insulting the Egyptian people, and like every other superficial observer of such events, is overrating what state actors and governments can do, and underrating what ordinary people – once self-organized and mobilized – can do to liberate themselves. In that position, their views resemble those of the very governments – including the Mubarak regime – which have tried to discredit the motives and actions of those who wanted to bring an end to the repression they suffered.