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Politics : The Donkey's Inn -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Patricia Trinchero who wrote (4532)	9/11/2002 9:05:35 PM
From: Raymond Duray	Respond to of 15516

"What Happened?" Why, it's just bidness as usual in the new "Land of Fruits and Nuts": gregpalast.com

To: Patricia Trinchero who wrote (4532)	9/13/2002 2:57:53 PM
From: Mephisto	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 15516

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.

To: Patricia Trinchero who wrote (4532)	9/18/2002 10:22:20 PM
From: Mephisto	Respond to of 15516

US terrorist training camp at Fort Benning, Georgia is mentioned in an article in the Guardian. What the writer says is scary. Author claims SOA or School of America is responsible for the disappearance of 90,000 people in South America! See following story:

To: Patricia Trinchero who wrote (4532)	9/18/2002 10:25:43 PM
From: Mephisto	Respond to of 15516

Remembering September 11 1973 Were the lives of those killed at the World Trade Centre more valuable than the innocents murdered in Chile's US-backed coup, asks Tito Tricot Monday September 16, 2002 The Guardian "After all, we in Latin America have ample experience with US terrorist tactics. In our continent alone 90,000 people disappeared as a direct result of the operation of the School of the Americas and US "counterinsurgency" policies - 30 times more than the victims of the World Trade Centre. " Our dreams were shattered one cloudy morning when the military overthrew the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende. Twenty-nine years later, at midday, Chile's's firemen sounded their sirens paying tribute to thousands of men and women who lost their lives without really understanding what was happening. It was a moment of remembrance, not for the victims of the military coup, but for those killed at the World Trade Centre in New York. Sad as that might have been, it is even sadder that Chilean firemen have never sounded their sirens to remember our own dead. And there are thousands of them, including many children, who were murdered by the military. It is not a matter of comparing sorrow and pain, but for the past year the US media has tried to convince us that north American lives are worth more than other people's lives. After all, we are from the third world, citizens of underdeveloped countries who deserve to be arrested, tortured and killed. How else are we interpret the fact that the military coup in our country was planned in the United States? The truth is that no US president ever shed a tear for our dead; no US politician ever sent a flower to our widows. The US government and media use different standards to measure suffering. It is precisely this hypocrisy and these double standards that make us sick, especially when on such a symbolic day for Chileans, the president of Chile, Ricardo Lagos, attended a memorial service at the United States embassy where the ambassador, William Brownfield, stated that "people who hate the United States must be controlled, arrested or eliminated". In what kind of a world are we living? Can we stand idly by while in the name of the fight against terrorism countries are bombed or invaded by the US war machine?I think not, especially because, irrespective of the horror of the World Trade Centre attacks, the US has no moral right to impose its will on our continent. After all, we in Latin America have ample experience with US terrorist tactics. In our continent alone 90,000 people disappeared as a direct result of the operation of the School of the Americas and US "counterinsurgency" policies - 30 times more than the victims of the World Trade Centre. One cannot - and should not - attempt to quantify suffering, but we do have the right to denounce this double standard. We also have the right to question President Lagos's assertion that "for the youth of today what happened in 1973 is part of history, which means we must undertake the task of looking to the future". Only a few hours after the president's speech, thousands of people - mostly young people- took over parts of Santiago and other Chilean cities to express their true feelings about this fateful day in Chile's history. They organised demonstrations, candle-lit vigils, concerts, meetings, seminars and put up barricades to defend themselves from the police. It was a way of saying: Neither the United States nor anybody has the right to steal our memory. No one has the right to steal our day, for September the 11 1973 is marked in our hearts with tears. guardian.co.uk