Feb. 23 Thompson Forum to explore moral costs of war on terror

U.S. foreign policy decisions in response to the Sept. 11 attacks and their consequences will take center stage Feb. 23, when veteran foreign affairs and political writer Mark Danner delivers the next lecture in the E.N. Thompson Forum on World Issues at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

He will present "Torture, Obama and Us: The Moral Costs of the War on Terror." The free lecture will be at 7 p.m. at the Lied Center for Performing Arts, 301 N. 12th St.

Danner, a longtime former staff writer at the New Yorker, has spent more than two decades investigating and writing about foreign affairs and international conflict. His focus for much of the last decade has been the Iraq War, including investigations into Abu Ghraib, a prison outside of Baghdad that became the site of a prison torture scandal prompted by U.S. soldiers' treatment of Iraqi detainees.

Danner brings great expertise to the topic, including the ability to address military policies toward detainees and CIA black sites -- secret prisons where al-Qaeda captives have been interrogated, said David Forsythe, UNL professor of political science.

Beyond his work at the New Yorker and for other national newspapers and magazines, Danner has written several books, is a frequent contributor to the New York Review of Books and co-wrote and helped produce two hour-long documentaries for the ABC News program "Peter Jennings Reporting." He also is a professor of journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, and a professor of foreign affairs, politics and the humanities at Bard College in upstate New York.

He has received several honors, including an Emmy, a National Magazine Award and three Overseas Press Club Awards. In 1999, Danner was named a MacArthur Fellow.

The upcoming lecture is the fourth in this season's Thompson Forum lecture series, which focuses on the theme of "Globalization's Promise."

To reserve free tickets, call the Lied Center at (402) 472-4747 or (800) 432-3231. Free tickets may also be picked up in person or ordered by downloading a form from the Thompson Forum website, http://enthompson.unl.edu.

Thompson Forum lectures will be available live online at www.unl.edu, on Lincoln TimeWarner Cable Channel 21 or 5, NETSAT 105, UNL campus Channel 8 and UNL's KRNU radio (90.3 FM). Live satellite broadcasts and follow-up discussion will be available in Kearney, Hastings, Columbus, McCook, North Platte, Omaha and Scottsbluff.

The series, established in 1988, is a cooperative project of the philanthropic Cooper Foundation, the Lied Center and UNL. It aims to offer all Nebraskans a better understanding of world events and issues.

WRITER: Jean Ortiz Jones, University Communications, (402) 472-8320