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TechnoratiShut the Doors on a Disgraced Military School
Human rights activists, religious leaders, and military veterans will descend on Fort Benning, Ga. this weekend to demand the closing of a notorious military training facility that has tutored some of Latin America's most brutal soldiers and dictators.
The U.S. Army School of the Americas, renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation in 2001, has a long and shameful history of teaching torture, extortion and execution to infamous graduates like Manuel Noriega, the former dictator of Panama. Nearly 60,000 alumni have returned to Bolivia, El Salvador, and Nicaragua to suppress human rights leaders, political dissidents and innocent civilians swept up in the region's often violent struggles for social justice.
Two former instructors at the school, Col. Alvaro Quijano and Maj. Wilmer Mora, were arrested last August for supporting the leader of a Colombian drug cartel who is on the FBI's most wanted list. Last year, Bolivia's government joined Costa Rica, Argentina, Uruguay and Venezuela in announcing it would withdraw soldiers from the school. Bolivia has good reason to end its affiliation with this disgraced facility. Hugo Banzer Suarez, who ruled Bolivia in the 1970s under a brutal military dictatorship, attended the school in 1956 and was later inducted into its "Hall of Fame." In 1989, six Jesuit priests, their co-worker and her teenage daughter were massacred in El Salvador. A U.S. congressional task force reported that those responsible were trained at the School of the Americas.
Interrogation manuals used by the facility and declassified by the National Security Archive shed light on a grim litany of "coercive techniques" similar to those used by U.S. military officers to abuse detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Several torture survivors from Latin America will be among the 15,000 nonviolent protestors at Ft. Benning gathering for prayerful vigils, rallies and workshops organized by School of the Americas Watch, founded by Fr. Roy Bourgeois, a Maryknoll Catholic priest. Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts and Rep. John Lewis of Georgia have sponsored legislation to cut off funding to the facility. Last June, 203 members of Congress supported the McGovern-Lewis amendment, only six votes shy of the number needed to pass.
President-elect Barack Obama spoke eloquently on the campaign trail about the need to reclaim America's moral standing in the world. He can start by issuing an executive order to shut down the school, heralding a new direction for U.S.-Latin America foreign policy. It's long past time to close the doors on a facility that is emblematic of how unchecked U.S. militarism often spreads violence and instability around the world. According to the Congressional Research Service, the U.S. is the leading supplier of weapons to the developing world with over $10 billion in arms sold. When lofty rhetoric about planting seeds of democracy is undermined by destructive foreign policies the world has reason to view our nation as hypocritical and dangerous rather than a shining beacon of freedom. As award-winning New York Times foreign correspondent Stephen Kizner reports in his book Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq, our government has for many years pulled the strings of military, political and economic power in foreign lands with devastating consequences.
A new model for international engagement guided by a commitment to the global common good and social justice is needed in our rapidly shrinking world. This means choosing diplomacy over unilateralism, fair trade agreements, debt cancellation for impoverished nations and comprehensive immigration reform that addresses the connections between poverty and migration. The Catholic priests and nuns, union leaders, students and committed peacemakers who will stand together in solidarity at the School of the Americas bring the best of their minds and hearts to these profound moral struggles of our time. Those of us who still believe that another world is possible should join them.
17 Comments so far
Show AllThose trained in this school, perhaps are some of the "jackals" sent in to eliminate 3rd world leaders, like Omar Torrijos, that don't "play ball" with the "economic hit men" sent in by the US/global corporations intent on exploiting their natural resources on the cheap, as described in the book "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man."
This 'US Training School for Terrorists' is not the only one with such mission. Harvard, Yale, MIT and some others have trained and educated the ones (e.g., Friedman, G.W. Bush and many, many others) who are wrecking the planet; stealing from you the possibility of happiness and a simple, peaceful way of life; and perpetuating the unsustainable status quo. This immensely rich and well established training apparatus is just a status-quo keeper and more (Freidman’s actions and mindset will impact us for decades). It's all about short-sightedness, lack of genuine intelligence, love of money, stupidity, and perhaps, to a degree, British genes. When the U.S. falls, the monetary systems' fallacies be evident to the layman, and the Earth is regionalized into a 1,000 regions (erasing from the face of the Earth the poor concept of government) human beings will not attain peace and become an authentically happy species. Educate your children—away from the prevailing U.S./American way—practice true common sense, attempt to be smart and wise... Look beyond your presumptions, and acknowledge and be humble about the damage you have helped to create with your taxes, purchasing habits, isolationism, and lack of true education and culture. It’s just pitiful seeing the rich and a great portion of the middle class blinded by the desire for more; unhappy, thinking happiness and smart and extraordinary living is there… But they don’t know better.
Start with yourself and your children. Act extraordinarily in your own right.
[Thank you to all people who help see things clearer posting comments here and those who founded and support Common Dreams]
It would indeed be a good thing if Obama defunded. If the good Sister starts a petition I will sign it!
Just as a reminder, Bill Clinton was President for eight years, and Jimmy Carter for four years, two so called Democrats who left SOA open despite the petition of numerous peace groups. The late Oscar Romero, Catholic Bishop of El Salvador wrote numerous letters to Carter to stop funding the military dictatorship before he was murdered by a hit squad funded and trained at SOA while he was saying Mass. Don't put your money on Obama either. So far his actions and appointments reflect the old corporate, military advisors of the status quo.
If you have further interest in Oscar Romero the events of his life are dramatically documented in the Film Romero.
"When lofty rhetoric about planting seeds of democracy is undermined by destructive foreign policies the world has reason to view our nation as hypocritical and dangerous rather than a shining beacon of freedom."
The shining beacon of freedom has metastasized into a rapidly spreading cancer.
Thank you, Marie Dennis, for this excellent commentary!
This school should be closed, and this should be the Congress to close it.
Your final line is a call to join this weekend vigil: "Those of us who still believe that another world is possible should join them". I'll see you there.
Bill in Dubuque
While it might be a question of semantics, the fact is it was a DISGRACE to open this school in the first place , rather then it having disgraced itself.
It Orwellian how the Military and or Governmnet invents names for these institutions that have little to do with what their defined purpose is.
This school predates GW Bush. It merely an illustration as to how institutionalized the violation of Human rights in the United States has become and HAS BEEN for decades.
The problem is systemic.
I agree
Bravo for the sentiment and suggestion--for it's entire history this school has been a disgrace to the country. What concerns me is that if the Ft. Benning complex is closed will its function just be outsourced to some Blackwater subsidiary. This is the exact same problem facing the closihg of Gitmo--it is meaningl;ess unless the extraordinary rendition program is halted.
Poet
This is very true and we hope it happens soon.
Also: Shut the doors on a disgraced church that wants to excommunicate Fr. Roy for participating in the ordination of a woman priest.
http://ncronline3.org/drupal/?q=node/2545
See Fr. Roy interviewed by Amy Goodman on Democracy Now show from today. He speaks about his excommunication.
As the Western Hemisphere's preeminent fascist thug training academy, the SOA has a sordid history that is long overdue on being past tense. It should be part of a long list of things that President-Elect Obama will have to address.
www.wunderman-comics.com
This school, along with most of our military, will be privatized in the future. This will free the government from any responsibility and allow the murderous activities to continue in the name of the United States of Everything.
Hoa binh
Defund Mammon.
This is a very important topic. Most USAans do not know about this 'school'. I always refer to it as the "US Training School for Terrorists". We should not allow them to propagandize the purpose of the school by giving it such a nice name.
The Congress can close this school for terrorists by simply not funding it.
Make George Wanker Bush the superintendent. He can walk around in his Mission Accomplished flightsuit (complete with codpiece) and wear a shoulder holster cradling Saddam Hussein's pistol (after he retrofits it with ivory handles, a la Patton). He can address each graduating class saying things like, "The Muslims are the enemy! Wade into them! Spill their blood! Shoot them in the belly!" However, you'll have to change the name of the place to The School of the Murkas.
Maybe some good news for a change as there is a lot of anecdotal evidence that this year could be the last for the SOA.