S.O.A

[Summerian]

The School of the Americas (SOA) began in 1946 in Panama as a US Army
training school for Latin American soldiers, and moved to Ft. Benning,
Georgia in 1984. Over its 54 year tenure, the SOA has trained over 60,000
Latin American soldiers in so-called "low intensity conflict" (LIC). Supporters
and critics agree that the purpose of the SOA always has been to train Latin
American soldiers in the effective implementation of US foreign policy
throughout their home region. The crux of our disagreement concerns
the real goals of that foreign policy.

Low intensity conflict involves counter-insurgency tactics, including
commando training and psychological operations, which are intended to
intimidate and suppress truly popular movements toward economic justice
and democracy. So it is hardly surprising that numerous human rights
reports have identified human rights advocates, labor organizers, teachers,
clergy and health care workers as frequent targets of these tactics -- as well
as numerous randomly chosen men, women and children. Nor is it surprising
that those same reports identify at least 500 SOA graduates as having been
implicated in massacres, political assassinations, rape, torture and
"disappearances" throughout Latin America.

The LIC strategy seeks to ensure that Latin American soldiers can function
effectively as proxy armies in protecting US corporate interests (i.e., replacing
US troops). Indeed "low-intensity" refers not to the experience of the victims,
but to the hiding of that victimization from the US taxpayers who foot the bill
for it. The intent is to keep proxy wars out of the news, and therefore out of
our collective awareness as US citizens, thereby ensuring our complicity.

SOA officials, however, deny that they are conducting a war against the poor.
Rather they maintain that the real intent behind their commando curriculum is
to foster a respect for democracy, human rights and civil authority. They
claim that graduates who have violated human rights are but "a few bad
apples" who have strayed from their training in "the rule of law." But as
already mentioned, UN and other statistics show that there are many more
than "a few," and additional evidence shows that indeed those notorious
graduates have learned their lessons very well !

The 1993 UN Truth Commission Report on El Salvador, for instance,
cites 66 Salvadoran officers as being responsible for a wide assortment of
war crimes; of those 66 soldiers, 47 were trained at the SOA. That same
year the report titled State Terrorism in Colombia was released; of the 247
soldiers similarly cited for violations, 124 were trained at the SOA. The high
preponderance of SOA grads in these reports was at least partially explained
in 1996, when the US Defense Department was forced to release seven
training manuals which had been used at the SOA from 1982-1991. These
manuals advocate arbitrary detention, kidnapping, extra-judicial execution,
blackmail, torture, and even the arrest of family members of those who are
uncooperative during interrogation.

Furthermore, more recent human rights reports, including Guatemala:
Nunca Mas in 1998, the 1999 UN Truth Commission Report on
Guatemala, the 2000 Human Rights Watch Report, and even a 1998 report
from the US State Department, continue to implicate SOA grads in human
rights violations. Perhaps most ominously, Mexican and Colombian
graduates of the SOA currently are helping to fight what are being called
"drug wars" in their countries. But once again the evidence shows that these
are actually wars against the indigenous poor, many of whom are living on
coveted, oil-rich lands.

In December of 2000, in response to mounting public and Congressional
criticism, the Pentagon and Department of Defense received Congressional
permission to "close" the SOA (long known throughout Latin America as the
School of Assassins). Then, the following month the same doors re-opened
as a "new school," called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security
Cooperation. (Supporters use the acronym WHINSEC; critics prefer the
more natural and descriptive WHISC -- as in the little broom used to sweep
things under the rug.) But whatever the name, critics will not stop until the
SOA / WHISC is truly closed.
(http://poetics.org/DaytonPOR/introsoa.htm)
By Margaret Knapke

[Summerian]

America's evil actions in the past are backfiring on its own citizens today. The
Taliban and bin Laden were the creation of the CIA who in 1979 recruited the
most vicious and radical fundamentalist fanatics from Saudi Arabia and other
Arab and Muslim countries and utilized the enormous budget allocated by the
US Administration to train, arm and finance them.

Brzezinski, who was Jimmy Carter's National Security Advisor during that era,
admitted that the intention was to unleash the mojahedin on the Russians who
were supporting the government in Afghanistan. This furthered the Americans'
Cold War agenda but resulted in the destruction of Afghanistan. It also
illustrates the sheer inhumanity, racism and stupidity of US foreign policy.

These terrorists soon became autonomous of their US masters and almost immediately
started pursuing their own fundamentalist vision in North Africa (assassination of Anwar
Sadat), Middle East, Chechnya, Bosnia, Kashmir, SE Asia, etc. And then, finally, the
World Trade Centre.

There are several reasons why have they turned on their American masters in such a
spectacularly horrific way. The first really sore point is their perception that the holiest
sites of Islam have been defiled because of the establishment of permanent US military
bases in Saudi Arabia. This has been a recurring theme of bin Laden's broadcasts on the
Al-Jazeera TV channel.

Another major reason for their anger is the incessant bombing of Iraq and the embargo
which has resulted in the deaths of 500,000 children from malnutrition and lack of
medicines, and the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of civilians. US support for the
brutal totalitarian regimes in Arab and Muslim countries which viciously thwart any
democratic or progressive economic reforms is also high on the list of grievances. Osama
referred to "a long series of crusader wars against the Islamic world" from the
occupation of Palestine by the British, US support for the Zionist occupation and
excesses in Palestine, to the assault on Bosnia.

This pattern of CIA activity can be traced throughout the Third World and can be
extrapolated ad nauseam but is seen most graphically in Latin America.

Most people are fairly familiar with the exploits of the CIA over the past half- century
but few know a great deal about the terrorist training camp in Fort Benning, Georgia,
named euphemistically: the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation -
WHISC. It was formed in Panama in 1946 and named the School of the Americas
(SOA) in 1963 under John F. Kennedy. It was then moved to Georgia in 1984 under
terms of the Panama Canal Treaties.

This delightful venue has trained 60,000 Latin Americans from whose ranks were
spawned the most monstrous torturers, homicidal maniacs, state terrorists and despots,
who have terrorized and perpetrated genocidal warfare against the civilian populations of
Central and South America for five decades. These are the front-line troops enforcing
the US "full spectrum dominance" in the economic, political and military arenas. This
includes the death or disappearance of 200,000 Guatemalans and innumerable other
atrocities, including the Gerardi assassination and genocide perpetrated by former
dictators: Generals Montt and Rodriguez.

In Colombia 2 million have been displaced and thousands are still reliving the horrors of
their torture - not surprising since, with 10,000 graduates from the SOA, Colombia is the
school's largest customer and has the worst human rights record on the continent.

This is underpinned by the $1.3billion US-funded aid package of which 75% is lavished
on the Colombian security forces, e.g. to fund the Blackhawk helicopter fleets which are
used so devastatingly against the population (and the training of helicopter pilots is based
at the Helicopter School Battalion at Ft. Rucker, Alabama, which is an appendage of the
SOA). The Colombian 20th military brigade, which was disbanded in 1998 for human
rights abuses, was commanded by a SOA graduate.

The El Salvadorean truth and reconciliation commission found that more than two thirds
of the worst human rights violators were graduates cum laude of the School of the
Americas, while the Guatemalan Truth Commission Report stated that 93% of human
rights violations were perpetrated by the military or death squads linked to the SOA,
rather than by insurgents.

In addition, it was noted that 40% of the cabinet ministers under three brutal Guatemalan
dictatorships were SOA graduates. When the Bolivian regime privatized its water system
in April 2000, the resultant price escalation of water caused thousands to protest. The
President, Hugo Banzer, who is also a SOA graduate, declared a "state of siege" and
ordered his troops to attack the civilians.

The record shows that these model students also turned up in the security apparatuses of
the murderous dictators of this tragic continent: Noriega(Panama), Galtieri(Argentina),
Pinochet(Chile), Rodriguez(Ecuador), Fujimori and Alvarado(Peru).

But this is still happening today: Human Rights Watch only last year implicated seven of
the School's darling graduates who were directing the exploits of the paramilitary
kidnappers, torturers and murderers in Colombia who have American support and
succour.

And what a fascinating spectacle the world was treated to when in 1996 the US
Administration was compelled to reveal seven of the School's diabolical training manuals
which outlined interrogation techniques including torture, blackmail and execution. In
January 2001, when the School of the Americas' colours were nailed to the mast, the
House of Representatives' fancy footwork merely entailed renaming it WHISC,
effectively defeating a bi-partisan amendment to close the school by a narrow 10-vote
margin, and it was business as usual.

The Pentagon had previously responded to grassroots pressure to close the School by
changing the names of some of the most notorious courses, such as Psychological
Operations, and substituted more euphemistic titles like Peace Operations! Detailed
examination revealed that little had changed, e.g. "Peace Operations" included military
intelligence, psychological operations and methods controlling the civilian population.

Paul Coverdell, the Georgia Senator, labeled these "cosmetic" changes while protesters
chanted: "New name, same shame".

The School has more aptly been dubbed School of Assassins by Eric Robison who is
currently on a hunger strike while serving a 6-month sentence for protesting on the
premises. Another hunger striker drew attention to the irony of George W Bush's call for
all-out war against those who 'inspire, support and finance' terror when he has not closed
down his School. Hardly any mention was made in the mainstream media of the
scrupulously non-violent protest on 19 November by 10,000 at the entrance to Fort
Benning, when 3,600 of these crossed the line onto base property as part of a solemn
funeral procession honouring those killed by SOA graduates. Many were arrested and
also face 6-month sentences.

Now what do you think the Bush administration's response would be to a demand from
Latin American countries to extradite the trainers at WHISC for complicity in gross
human rights abuses and crimes against humanity? There is no doubt that many of the
thousands of CIA operatives who fanned out across the Third World were trained at or
had connections with the SOA.

This brutality is becoming more endemic in the new millennium: The US Administration
now plans to 'unleash' the CIA to perpetrate political assassinations, torture and a string
of human rights violations (as though they ever refrained from these dastardly deeds!);
"physical interrogation" (read: torture) is recommended by the venerable Newsweek
magazine; and George W Bush orders the institution of military tribunals for suspected
terrorists in camera and without a jury.

But there is also a corresponding urgency noted in activists and civil society to confront
and reverse this cynical trend. If the enormous untapped energies of the billions,
especially in the Third World, can be focused in this area a miracle will unfold in the
current century.
(http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/KER112A.html)
by Raymond Ker

[Iluminado]

Excellent post Summerian!!

CIA + SOA = terrorism, murder, and hypocrisy.

[Marmaduke]

Good post Summerian That 'school' is a truely frightening outfit.

A good site about it: http://www.soaw.org/new/

[Summerian]

Thanks Iluminado and thank you to Jasperthecat, especially for the link. It was a real good one.
Going to check it out now...