Sept. 30: Lecture: Abu Ghraib and the Hidden History of CIA Torture

Lynndie England,22, the U.S. soldier notorious for holding a naked inmate by a leash in Abu Ghraib prison, was sentenced by a US military court yesterday after being found guilty of six counts of abuse.
Iraqis claim the punishment would have been far harsher if her crimes had been committed against Americans.
"America should be ashamed of this sentence. This is the best evidence that Americans have double standards," said Akram Abdel Amir, a retired bus driver from Baghdad.
"There are Iraqis in jail without any charge, just based on suspicion. But when it comes to Americans, the matter is totally different."

Although this is all quite true, it would seem that she is being made into a sacrificial lamb to protect those who were in charge and clearly share responsiblity. 


Sept. 30, 5:30 -10:00 pm

1st ANNUAL HARVEY GOLDBERG LECTURE & DEDICATION OF THE HARVEY GOLDBERG CLASSROOM
The Road to Abu Ghraib: The Hidden History of CIA Torture

Alfred W. McCoy

The Brecht Forum
451 West St.
(Betw Bank & Bethune)
(212) 242- 4201

(#1,2,3 A,C,E to 14th st.
14A and 14D buses to Abingdon Square/12th Street
L to 8th Ave @14th st.
F,V to 14th St. B,D,Q to W. 4th)


Doors open at 5:30 for registration & veiwing of the Harvey Goldberg Classroom.
At 6:00 pm, promptly, the First Harvey Goldberg lecture
At 7:30 pm we will dedicate the Harvey Goldberg Classroom and have a reception with light refreshments.

The photos from Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison are snapshots, not of simple brutality or a breakdown in discipline, but of CIA torture techniques that have metastasized, over the past 50 years, like an undetected cancer inside the U.S. intelligence community.
From 1950 to 1962, the CIA led massive, secret research into coercion and consciousness that reached a billion dollars at peak. In 1963, their work was codified in a succinct, secret instructional booklet on torture-- the "KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation" manual. In the following decades these techniques were spread through the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Public Safety program to train police forces in Asia and Latin America as the front line of defense against communists and other revolutionaries.
McCoy will explore the history of U.S. involvement in the practice of torture and its implications in the post-9/11 political climate.

McCoy is director of the Harvey Goldberg Center and professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the author of The Politics of Heroin, an examination of the CIA’s alliances with drug lords, and Closer Than Brothers, a study of the impact of the CIA’s psychological torture method upon the Philippine military.

This is a Benefit for the Brecht Forum