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December 10, 2004
Abu Ghraib 101 at BMCC? Read all about it.
While a former New York police chief Kerik assumes control of the Department of Homeland Security, it is probably a comfort to him to know New York colleges and universities have his back. As reported by Abram Negrete, in Abu Ghraib 101 at BMCC, a proposed Security Management Program at CUNY’s Manhattan Community College is now in the process of being adopted.
He writes:
In the special Homeland Security issue of the AACC’s Community College Times (28 September), [Manhattan Community College] President Perez writes that the attacks of September 11, 2001 were the first salvo of what one observer has called World War IV. He goes on: Community colleges need to be in the vanguard of those institutions helping to prepare our nation and its defenders to respond to attacks.
The proposed 30-credit BMCC security management certificate consists of ten required courses. Top of the list is the Homeland Security course. It features a guest speaker from the New York State Department of Homeland Security and readings from Tom Ridge’s Big Brother agency. Noting that trends clearly demonstrate increased demand for investigative services and surveillance systems, the course defines national security as protecting national values, interests, and institutions. This requires understand[ing] current threats against domestic and international assets. Like what, political protests and Third World insurgencies? You bet.
Next on the list of classes is Security Management Principles, which includes Intelligence gathering and Interview and interrogation techniques. Readings include an interrogation textbook written by a top lie-detector expert together with a former FBI agent and member of the Philadelphia police. Also on the syllabus: Undercover Investigations in the Workplace. That’s the kind of investigation employers carry out against union organizing drives.
How about the CIA interrogation handbook for Central American death squads? Is that going to be on the reading list as well? Or will Col. Perrone of Guantanamo come to lecture on interrogation techniques? After all, he told Rochester TV (15 December 2003): The time to retrieve...information is generally in the first few days of captivity. He could also lecture on the use of hoods, shackles, prisoners being forced to kneel for days at a time, and other ways to retrieve information. And who will they choose for subjects for interrogation? Members of student governments who have lost elections, perhaps?
Then we come to the proposed BMCC course on Terrorism and Counterterrorism. This part of the certificate program uses the feds definition of terrorism as any violent act against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian populations, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives. So a militant labor struggle, a march against racist police brutality or protest of military recruiters can be branded terrorist. The proposed course defines counterterrorism as any act intended to combat, control, or resolve terrorism. This is the No. 1 pretext for torture in the world today, so Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib would fit right in.
As the article continues, Negrete traces the growth of this course to a national Homeland Security effort linked to participants in CIA and Mossad activities.
In a world where the religious right is attacking evolution, the military right is taking over college curriculum, and the university right are undermining unions (witness Temple University’s latest labor struggle), progressive teachers more than ever need to do more than just teach radical literature. They should join in the struggles of public school students, university students, and adjunct faculty. Such a move is underway at Manhatten Community College. Stay tuned……
Posted by sparks at December 10, 2004 9:33 AM
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