JEREMY SCAHILL

JEREMY SCAHILL

Independent Journalist and International Best-Selling Author Speaking about US Foreign Policy, The Military-Industrial Complex, and National Security

Wednesday, November 30th, 7:30 PM Ramo Auditorium FREE, no tickets required

** Reception with the speaker after the event **

Jeremy Scahill is recently back from Afghanistan and Somalia, which Scahill says are "two of the frontlines in the global US targeted killing campaign." He represents the exceedingly rare US journalist who independently conducts investigations abroad without being embedded with the US military or foreign governments. He spent two weeks in Afghanistan in October of 2010 in order to report the facts about the ongoing US war in that region. He also spent ten days in Somalia at the beginning of July of this year uncovering a secret CIA site built in Mogadishu. Jeremy Scahill returns from his trips with important and fascinating stories derived from first-hand observations, interviews, and videos about the status of the war in Afghanistan, about the role of the US in secret prisons, renditions, and torture in Somalia, and about the blowback that will come from such detrimental actions in both regions of the world.

Jeremy Scahill is the author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army, named by AlterNet as the best progressive book of the year. He is a frequent contributor to The Nation magazine, where he dispatches on wars, the military-industrial complex and national security, and is a correspondent for the national radio and TV program Democracy Now! He is currently a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow at The Nation Institute. Scahill has won numerous awards for his reporting, including the prestigious George Polk Award, which he won twice.

While a correspondent for Democracy Now!, Scahill reported extensively from Iraq through both the Clinton and Bush administrations. Traveling around the hurricane zone in the wake of Katrina, Jeremy Scahill exposed the presence of Blackwater forces in New Orleans and his reporting sparked a Congressional inquiry and an internal Department of Homeland Security investigation. He has appeared on ABC World News, CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, CNN, MSNBC, The Daily Show, PBS's The News Hour, Bill Moyers Journal and is a frequent guest on other radio and TV programs nationwide. Scahill also served as an election correspondent for HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher.

The views expressed by the speaker are solely those of the speaker. Presentations do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the California Institute of Technology, or Caltech Y Social Activism Speaker Series Committee and should not be taken as an endorsement by these groups.