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On Apr 10, 2007, at 1:09 AM, Bernard Cleyet wrote:
I find it not surprising that the AIP refused to embargo, and that the
ACS embargoes.
The American Chemical Society (ACS) <http://www.acs.org/> has once
again
pioneered, under its "zealot" interpretation of "embargo" by
Department
of Treasury's Office of Foreign Asset Control, by terminating
membership
of its long-time members in Iran; many of these members are past Ph.D.
Alumni of American universities. Several years ago, the ACS
undertook a
similar unilateral measure, unprecedented by other sister professional
societies, and under the same law, when it unilaterally stopped
accepting scholarly and research manuscripts from Iranian scientists
for the three dozen periodicals in its publication division.
"... Paradoxically, and as in the past, the American Physical
Society in
contrast states, 'We have NO plan to do anything similar, and continue
to serve our members in Iran.' Judy Franz of the APS further stated
that, "We would resist having to obtain a license to the extent we
can.'"
Actually I was present at some APS/AIP discussions related to this
while sitting on a relevant committee. The physics community seems
to relish standing up to the govt. An important consideration is
that JUST receiving manuscripts by Iranian (or Cuban, N. Korean or
Libyan) authors, reviewing them, marking them up for publication,
laying them out, then publishing (all activities adding value) as
well as redistributing back to the countries of origin can ALL be
possibly construed as "trading with the enemy" in violation of US
law. Many foreign researchers work for foreign univs and their
govts. I believe the AIP/APS decision was actually to ignore AIP/APS
legal counsel.
If you belong to the AIP/APS/AAPT (in 2006 both AJP and TPT published
ms. from Iranian authors) then possibly you should be aware that
your associations are possibly deliberately breaking US law, and I
strongly believe that you should be proud of them for doing so.
The physics community _possibly_ learned about the necessity of
standing up to the govt during the cold war (maybe; with many
exceptions, tragedy and much pain). Physics had the fortunate
examples of Sakharov and Einstein (amongst others) in peace activism,
and the APS regularly makes several different awards explicitly
promoting social agenda and policies (Sakharov received one). Note
that the Nobel prizes themselves were founded by a chemical "merchant
of death" (c.f. Wikipedia on Nobel Prize) with at least one award
explicitly promoting social agenda.
I can entirely see why ACS has chosen the route they have. The ACS
decision is not due to zealotry on the part of the ACS, but zealotry
on the part of the US govt. How you vote has serious consequences.
The above are my personal opinions and interpretations only; though I
like to share them :^).
Dan MacIsaac, Associate Professor of Physics, SUNY-Buffalo State College