Reuel Marc Gerecht

Presently

Director of the Middle East Initiative at the Project for the New American Century
Resident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute
Contributing editor at the Weekly Standard Magazine

Past portfolio

Consultant on Afghanistan, CBS News, 1999-2000
Political and consular officer, U.S. Department of State, 1985-1994
Middle Eastern specialist, Central Intelligence Agency,1985-1994

Education

M.A., Islamic history, Princeton University
The American University of Cairo and Cairo University
University of Edinburgh, The Muir Institute of Islamic Studies
B.A., History, Johns Hopkins University
Fluent in Farsi

Gerecht is a frequent author of content for periodicals including, The Atlantic Monthly, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Front Page, The International Herald Tribune, The New Republic, the New York Times, Playboy, Talk, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and The Weekly Standard.

A vocal proponent of War on Iraq, Iran and Syria well before 9/11, and a frequent guest on news shows defending Bush Administration Policies. He often takes the position that the best strategy against the Arab terrorist is aggressive war, but as a CIA Mid East Operative in the late 80s, probably held a different position regarding Arab Mujahadin when they were fighting the Soviet Army in Afghanistan.

Gerecht is not above attempts at marginalising serious issues in his articles.

General Taguba's public version of his initial investigation into the abuses of prisoners by American military personnel at Abu Ghraib included, amongst many other acts, the following:

Forcing groups of male detainees to masturbate themselves while being photographed and videotaped;
Positioning a naked detainee on a MRE Box, with a sandbag on his head, and attaching wires to his fingers, toes, and penis to simulate electric torture;
Credible reports by detainees about being sodomised with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick.

Many acts of abuse that went on at Abu Ghraib are still kept secret from the American public. It was reported on May 14, 2004, that Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) stated after seeing some of the classified evidence,

"The American public needs to understand we're talking about rape and murder".

Yet in an article published by The Weekly Standard on May 24, 2004, Gerecht mused,

"Have the chances of democracy in the Middle East really been set back because sexually sensitive Muslims are so revolted that they won't embrace representative government?"

Who's Afraid of Abu Ghraib?, Weekly Standard - 05/24/2004

External resources

Reuel Marc Gerecht

Contents