The International Peace and Conflict Resolution Program at Arcadia University 

Arcadia University
450 South Easton Road
Glenside, PA 19038-3295
Phone: 215-572-2900
Website: http://gargoyle.arcadia.edu/ipcr/

 

·        Offers a Masters of Arts degree in International Peace and Conflict Resolution to Arcadia University graduate students

·        Curriculum and faculty is marked by strong anti-American bias

 

International Peace and Conflict Resolution (IPCR) is a Master’s degree program at Arcadia University (formerly Beaver College) in Glenside, Pennsylvania. An interdisciplinary program ostensibly dedicated to teaching graduate students about issues of war and peace, IPCR allows students to develop a “concentration within the discipline, build a network of contacts within the field of peace and conflict resolution, and gain practical field experience.” The program reportedly combines the disciplines of Political Science, Anthropology, Economics, Sociology, Psychology, and Biology, and asks its students to focus on a specific area, such as: International Law; development and mediation; public health; human rights; peace education and peace-building; or the environment.

IPCR’s Master of Arts (MA) program is divided into three parts. The first component of the program requires students to take eight foundation courses on Arcadia’s suburban Philadelphia campus. These courses include: Introduction to Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution; Migration and Human Rights; Introduction to International Law; Treaties and International Law; Economics, the Environment and Development; Research Methods in Conflict Analysis and Peace Science; Post-Conflict Relief; Development Mediation and Dispute Resolution; and Health and Human Rights.

The second element of the program requires students to travel abroad and take courses at affiliate schools, including: the Program in Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Ulster in Belfast, Northern Ireland; International Law or Gender Studies at the University of Helsinki in Finland; or peace studies at the University of Salvador in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Finally, the third part of the program has students working in internships that reflect their particular areas of concentration. They can choose to work with radical groups such as the American Friends Service Committee, or, with approval from the program’s administration, another organization of the students’ choosing.

Serving as director of the MA program is Warren Haffar, who has been candidly pessimistic about the War on Terror, and often uses his interviews with the media to condemn the manner in which the war is being conducted. Following the December 2003 capture of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, Haffar said, “Bush is certainly helped politically [by the capture of Saddam], the morale of our troops is high and the American people are proud that this mission has been accomplished. But a month from now, how will things be different? We will probably still be at war and our ground troops, because of the capture, may be at even more risk.” Haffar also predicted that Saddam’s capture would stir up additional resentment among Muslims, stating, “Video shows this disheveled old man, who had been living the high life, being pulled from a hole at the hands of the Americans. Symbolically this could do harm.”

In stating his views on why Germany and France opposed America’s 2003 invasion of Iraq, Haffar asserted that those two nations “believe [the U.S. has] fallen off the moral high ground in this situation.” “The United States is going against a United Nations policy that has worked for decades,” said Haffar. “When you do that, it could appear that you have a vendetta.” However, when one views German and French resistance to the war through the lens of what both countries stood to gain from that opposition, Haffar’s assessment loses validity. It has been reported that France had controlled over 22.5 percent of Iraq’s imports, and that in 2001, France became Iraq’s largest European trading partner, with roughly 60 French companies doing an estimated $1.5 billion in trade with Baghdad under the U.N. Oil-for-Food program in 2001 alone. It has also been reported that direct trade between Germany and Iraq amounted to an estimated $350 million annually, and that Hussein ordered Iraqi domestic businesses to show preference to German companies as a reward for Germany’s “firm positive stand in rejecting the launching of a military attack against Iraq.”

Haffar also questions the validity of the “terrorist” label that is commonly applied to groups such as al Qaeda and Hamas, whose tactics he likens to those of the early Americans who fought for independence. “Look at the strategies and tactics that were used at the time of the [American] Revolution – and that were responsible for our winning,” he writes. Beheading infidels? Massacring innocents? Not quite: “Rebels were jumping out of the woods and using guerrilla tactics.”

Haffar likens international terrorists to the American Indians, observing that, historically, “they were looked upon as savages. And increasingly in the media, we look upon terrorists as savages.” Haffar also cautions Americans not to succumb to their instinctive impulse to demonize Osama bin Laden. “Often times,” says Haffar, “these people stick around and we have to look at them, deal with them in a different capacity.” Haffar says that the United States spent years demonizing Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat but eventually found it necessary “to reconstruct his identity in a way that [was] positive.”

Another faculty member of IPCR is Barbara Simmons, whose extracurricular work includes her role as executive director of the Peace Center in Bucks County, where she was responsible for the creation of Project PEACE, a program that “encourages optimal learning through academic and social growth.” This program was developed with the aid of the Philadelphia chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility (PPSR), an anti-war, anti-nuclear group that in recent years has sought to limit gun ownership, promote taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand, and lift the U.S. embargo on Cuba. Unwilling to give President Bush any credit for having helped Iraqis hold their first free political election after decades of Saddam Hussein’s tyranny, Simmons condemned the U.S. war effort and declared that “war that does not create democracy.”

Simmons is also the executive producer of “Peace Talks: Exploring the Alternatives to Violence,” a radio project that has aired on both National Public Radio and Public Radio International. “Peace Talks,” which Simmons founded in 1999, is hosted by former CBS news anchor Walter Cronkite. On its website, “Peace Talks” states that it “will explore in-depth issues, ideas and practices that are at the heart of the global struggle for peace and justice.” The website also promotes a number of organizations with radial anti-American and anti-Israel agendas, including the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom; Peace Action Network; Amnesty International; B'Tselem; Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions; and the International Solidarity Movement.

IPCR itself links a number of politicized leftwing organizations on its department website, including the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom; Amnesty International; Human Rights Watch; and the Open Society Institute.