the US terrorist-training camp in Ft.
Benning, GA. You had commented on it b4. Baldur picked up the story.
Message 17979945
End terrorism, start with US
by Marc Becker
October 2, 2001
yachana.org
Our war on terror begins with al Qaeda, but it does not end there.
It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has
been found, stopped and defeated.
- President George W. Bush, Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the
American People, September 20, 2001
In recent years, the U.S. Army School of Americas (SOA) has come
under intense scrutiny for its use of terror to achieve foreign
policy objectives. In a pathetic attempt to dodge this growing
criticism, in January the army renamed the school the Western
Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHISC).
The mission of this school which is based in Fort Benning, Georgia,
however, remains the same: to train Latin American soldiers in combat,
counter-insurgency, and counter-narcotics.
The SOA has trained virtually the entire "who's who" of brutal dictators
who are responsible for many of Latin America's worst
human rights abuses. Among its nearly 60,000 graduates is Panamanian
strongman Manuel Noriega who was a CIA operative
until he became "disposable" and the United States removed him
in a 1989 invasion, killing thousands of civilians in the process.
SOA graduates led the September 11, 1973 military coup against
Chile's democratically elected government. They worked as
heads of the secret police, operated concentration camps where political
prisoners were tortured, and ran a "caravan of death" that
rounded up opponents slit their bodies open and dumped them from
helicopters over the Pacific Ocean. In 1976, SOA grads also
assassinated former Chilean ambassador Orlando Letelier, blowing his
car to bits on Embassy Row in Washington, D.C. Previous
to this September 11, that event had the distinction of being the worst
act of terrorism committed in this country's capital, but the
U.S. never showed much interest in finding or punishing the perpetrators.
The school also trained the leaders of the "dirty wars" in Argentina and Bolivia
in the 1970s. Their systematic use of terror
decimated popular movements and undermined democracy in those countries.
The United States trained Hugo Banzar who
sheltered Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie in Bolivia, promoted drug
trafficking, and developed a plan for silencing religious dissent
which became a blueprint for repression throughout Latin America.
The SOA trained Anastasio Somoza's brutal National Guard
in Nicaragua in the 1970s. The CIA developed a euphemistically
entitled "Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual" that described coercive
techniques including the systematic intimidation
of the civilian population and the assassination of political leaders for use in its proxy
war against Nicaragua's democratically
elected government.
In the 1980s, graduates participated in the worst human rights abuses
during El Salvador's civil war, including the massacre of
900 civilians at El Mozote and the summary execution of Archbishop Oscar
Romero while he was saying mass on March 24, 1980.
Another graduate was convicted this summer for the brutal murder
of Guatemalan Bishop Juan Gerardi. Gerardi was killed in
1998 two days after releasing a report in which he linked the Guatemalan
army to most of the atrocities committed during the
country's civil war.
In Colombia, SOA grads have been linked with kidnapings,
murders of peace commissioners and other civilians, repression of
press freedoms, participation in paramilitary death squads and brutal
massacres, etc. More Colombian military officers have
trained at the SOA than personnel from any other country, and the result
has been one of the worst human rights records in the
world.
Yes, let's universally and permanently stop and defeat the use of terror
wherever and however it is practiced, and let us begin
right here at home by closing the U.S. Army School of the Americas
It would be the best moral example the United States could
set for the rest of the world.
Americans are asking, why do they hate us? They hate what we see
right here in this chamber - a democratically elected
government. Their leaders are self-appointed.
- President George W. Bush, Address to a Joint Session of Congress
and the American People, September 20, 2001
Let's see. Bush lost the election but people who his father named to
a high court appointed him president. Corporate
contributions have a much larger influence in
selecting governmental officials than popular will. The result is huge tax cuts for the
filthy rich, and a paltry $300 for those of us struggling to get by in Kirksville.
A democratically elected government? What a good
idea, but I guess that is the subject of another essay. |
