Dirty Wars: The World is a Battlefield

The Nation at The New School - Jeremy Scahill on Dirty Wars: The World is a Battlefield

Nation Books and The New School present Nation Books author and Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow Jeremy Scahill in conversation with Spencer Ackerman, a national security reporter and blogger for Wired magazine.

The New School for Public Engagement is a division of The New School, a university in New York City offering distinguished degree, certificate, and continuing education programs in art and design, liberal arts, management and policy, and the performing arts. THE NEW SCHOOL FOR PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT | http://www.newschool.edu/public-engagement

In Scahill's newest book, Dirty Wars: The World is a Battlefield (Nation Books, April 2013), he takes us inside America's new covert wars.

The foot soldiers in these battles operate globally and inside the United States with orders from the White House to do whatever is necessary to hunt down, capture, or kill individuals designated by the president as enemies. Drawn from the ranks of the Navy SEALs, Delta Force, former Blackwater and other private security contractors, the CIA's Special Activities Division, and the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), these elite soldiers operate worldwide, with thousands of secret commandos working in more than one hundred countries.

Funded through "black budgets," Special Operations Forces conduct missions in denied areas, engage in targeted killings, snatch and grab individuals, and direct drone, AC-130 and cruise missile strikes. While the Bush administration deployed these ghost militias, President Barack Obama has expanded their operations and given them new scope and legitimacy.

Dirty Wars follows the consequences of the declaration that "the world is a battlefield," as Scahill uncovers the most important foreign policy story of our time. Through his brave reporting, Scahill exposes the true nature of the dirty wars the United States government struggles to keep hidden. Jeremy Scahill is the National Security Correspondent for the Nation magazine and the author of the New York Times best-seller Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army (Nation Books, 2007).

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Scahill has reported from Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, the former Yugoslavia, and elsewhere across the globe. Scahill is a frequent guest on a wide array of programs, appearing regularly on The Rachel Maddow Show, Real Time with Bill Maher, Democracy Now!, and Bill Moyers Journal.

Scahill's work has sparked several Congressional investigations and won some of journalism's highest honors. He was twice awarded the prestigious George Polk Award, in 1998 for foreign reporting and in 2008 for his book Blackwater. He is also a producer and writer of the film Dirty Wars, selected for the US documentary competition at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival.

The event is co-sponsored by VICE, the Nation, Haymarket Books, Democracy Now, Civic Bakery, The Center for Constitutional Rights, The Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at the NYU School of Law, The Institute of International Humanitarian Affairs at Fordham University, The New School, and Democrats.com.

Location: Tishman Auditorium, Alvin Johnson/J.M. Kaplan Hall
Friday, May 31, 2013 at 7:00 pm

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