Seymour Hersh, who is widely considered to be the best investigative journalist of our time, will be speaking at Connecticut College on the April 3 in Evans Hall. He will be the fourth speaker in the anonymously funded Human Rights Lecture series. The talk, entitled, “This Day in History: Reflections on U.S. Foreign Policy and Human Rights Practices,” will begin at 4:30 p.m. Other speakers in the series have included New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, the founder of the North American chapter of Doctors Without Borders, Richard Heinzl and Program Director of WITNESS.org Sam Gregory.
Seymour Hersh gained renown with his exposé on the My Lai Massacre in 1969 and the military cover-up that followed to protect the troops who participated in the slaughter of as many as 500 civilians. In the aftermath of the story, the army went on to indict and convict a platoon leader of murder, Thomas Calley. In writing this story, Hersh had followed up on tip from an antiwar attorney and ended up revealing a huge breach of human rights as well as mysterious cover-up activity by the army during the court-martial.
Seymour Hersh also broke the story of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal on May 10, 2004; in his article, he did not feign away from blunt honesty regarding the horrific nature of American soldiers abuses of Iraqi inmates. Once again, Hersh revealed a multi-rank attempt within the military to keep the truth from coming out. Earlier this semester, Connecticut College Amnesty International hosted an event that screened the film “Ghosts of Abu Ghraib.” This event gave students who attended a background in preparation for Hersh’s upcoming talk. Acclaimed human rights lawyer Susan Burke spoke on Friday, March 28 on the same issue.
Amnesty International has supported the decision to bring Seymour Hersh to campus, and consequently created many awareness-raising, Abu Ghraib-centric events leading up to Hersh’s address. “Amnesty International’s goal,” said Treasurer Molly Bangs, “is not only to raise awareness but to enhance the greater human rights narrative and conversation at Conn. As this spring marks the ten year anniversary of Hersh’s story that broke the Abu Ghraib story, we thought honing in on issues such as torture was particularly relevant.”
Lectures such as the Latin American Lecture Series on Social Justice last semester have focused on inequity in the world and how our actions in the US affect people worldwide. Amnesty International works to continue this pattern of eye-opening lectures to feed the awareness and conversation on the significance of human rights.
Associate Professor of Government Tristan Borer advises the Amnesty International club and has also played a large role in bringing Seymour Hersh to campus. In addition, Borer is one of a few professors who will interview Hersh after his talk. The hope is that along with speaking about his role in breaking the story of the My Lai massacre, Hersh will also address the topic of Abu Ghraib and the United States military a decade later.
In an interview with Brook Gladstone from On the Media, Seymour Hersh was critical of American leadership questioning its ability to learn from and react to the past. In that same interview, Hersh admits that there are some justifiable parallels between My Lai and Abu Ghraib, the biggest difference being that at Abu Ghraib, they were not killing people. He describes a similar process of revealing the atrocities at Abu Ghraib to that of My Lai. Hersh also acknowledges the existence of intense rage present in the military towards the civilian population that is seen in both the Vietnam and Iraq wars.
Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has played a huge role in working to reveal the truth about injustices and human rights abuses committed across the globe. His focus on the United States government is crucial in helping to contain the massive force that is the Government and the U.S. military. His experiences lend an important narrative to the extensive power and above-the-law mentality expressed in the American military and the importance of awareness when it comes to human rights. •
