Clark supports the School of the Americas?

[lefty_mcduff]

Listening to Malloy via the Internet and he's ranting (rightfully so, if true) that Clark backs the School of the Americas. Pissed about Michael Moore's endorsemenr if true. Haven't seen any info regarding this - true or no?

[Say_What]

1. A lot of discussion about this in LBN...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=319593&mesg_id=319593

[lefty_mcduff]

4. Thanks.

n/t

[Democrats unite]

2. Oh God not again!

There have been at least 5 different threads on this.

[lefty_mcduff]

3. Sorry.

First I've heard about it.

(Edited to take out uncalled for snipe...)

[cprise]

10. Only five threads?

Time to get a move on...

[DuctapeFatwa]

5. That is a very mainstream position. Most voters, regardless of party

understand the need for such an institution, especially in light of events in Venezuela and Brazil, it is important to remember that the School of the Americas empowers Latin American military leaders with the skills needed to root out anti-Americanism and enforce support for US policies.

Besides, they changed its name.

[Say_What]

9. Hundreds of thousands of tortured and/or dead would also agree

that the SOA, now the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHISC) enforces US interests in Latin America.

For all those pathetically naive enough to believe that the SOA teaches foreign soldiers about democracy and human rights, a suggestion to see the documentary Hidden in Plain Sight. 10,000 people demonstrate each year at the SOA in Fort Benning, many of them victims of the SOA. These annual protests have been going on for more than 10 years.

<clips>

HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT is a feature-length documentary that looks at the nature of U.S. policy in Latin America through the prism of the School of the Americas (renamed, in January of 2001, the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation), the controversial military school that trains Latin American soldiers in the USA.

http://www.hiddeninplainsight.org/main/home.html

[DuctapeFatwa]

13. Clark's support of this key element of the war on terror will help him

The voting class understands that in order to protect US business interests in its properties around the globe, or as the terrorists call them, "other countries," sometimes aggressive methods are required to break the will of rogue elements who would seek to rob the simple child-like natives of the most important human right of all - placing the interests of US business entities above one's own selfish concerns. That is what Democracy means.

[Say_What]

17. Kinda like what they're doing TODAY in Colombia --same as they did in

Central America. More than 10,000 of Colombia's military have been trained at the SOA and Colombia is the worst abuser of human rights in the Western Hemisphere. I'd say that's quite a few *rotten apples* or whatever stupid statement the general made to pacify the sheeple. But hey, gotta protect all that oil. </sarcasmoff>


<clips>

In Colombia, 20 people a day die in political violence, and 2.7 million people have been displaced since 1985. Human rights advocates, union organizers, university students, and religious leaders are among the many people living under death threats or forced into exile. Often linked to these human rights crimes are Colombian military trained at the US Army School of the Americas located at Ft. Benning, Georgia.

Deadly Links

Since 1997, the US has provided more than $2.2 billion in aid to the Colombian military. Noted human rights reports document the extensive ties between the US-supported Colombian military and rightwing paramilitary forces. The paramilitaries are responsible for nearly 80% of the human rights abuses committed in Colombia. The Colombian army regularly facilitates the gruesome work of the paramilitaries or looks the other way as violence occurs. SOA-trained Colombian army officers are among the most egregious offenders.

Calima Front

“ Ties that Bind," a Human Rights Watch report released in 2000, links Colombian SOA graduates to the formation and operation of paramilitary groups. The report names SOA-trained, Brigadier General Canal Alban, who commands the 3rd Brigade. Canal's troops helped establish a paramilitary group known as the "Calima Front," and supplied the Front with weapons and intelligence. In 1999, the Calima Front executed community leader Noralba Gaviria Piedrachita, and weeks later, authorities found the dismembered bodies of seven men killed by the paramilitary group. The Front set up by Canal's brigade is responsible for 2,000 disappearances and at least 40 executions since 1999.

11 Massacred and 47 Homes Burned in One Town

The report also cites SOA-trained General Carlos Ospina Ovalle, former commander of Colombia's 4th Brigade, which has ties to paramilitary groups involved in human rights abuses. Ospina commanded the Brigade when troops massacred at least 11 people and burned 47 homes in El Aro. Further, a recent State Department Report on human rights in Colombia cited two other SOA-trained officers in the 4th Brigade for the 1999 murders of peace commissioner Alex Lopera and two others.

http://www.colombiamobilization.org/article.php?id=38

[DuctapeFatwa]

18. Like Venezuela, Colombia has oil

And like many Latin American nations, the socio-economic structure serves to give Estadosunidenses a sneak peek into the conditions their grandchildren will grow up in.

[Say_What]

20. Right. And isn't it a coincidence that most of the atrocities carried out

by the RW paramilitaries against the indigenous people are in the oil rich departments of Colombia.

<clips>

Oil development is at the center of Colombia's bloody 4-decade-old civil war. Oil is Colombia's most profitable export and provides a source of revenue for all the armed factors either through war taxes, extortion or outright theft. Likewise oil infrastructure is one of the main battlegrounds of the war. In an effort to disrupt the economy, guerilla groups frequently bomb oil pipelines, while 1 in 4 Colombian soldiers are deployed to defend oil infrastructure. It has become a brutal truism that in Colombia oil development and violence spread hand in hand.

In the case of Siriri, as the U'wa had predicted, violence accompanied the oil project. In 1997, an U'wa leader was threatened and beaten severely when he refused to sign agreement permitting oil exploitation on U'wa land. Two years later, two Indigenous women and an American rights advocate three American humanitarians working with the U'wa were kidnapped and executed. Peaceful road blockades by a coalition of local farmers, students, union members, and hundreds of U'wa to prevent drilling equipment from entering U'wa territory were met by violent police crackdowns, leaving In the past two years, violent police crackdowns on peaceful road blockades near OXY's exploratory drilling site by local farmers, union members, students, and thousands of U'wa left many injured and at least three indigenous children dead. Beginning in the summer of 2001, paramilitary groups began to enter into the oil-producing region of Arauca. A string of brutal massacres has followed in the region and terrorized the local population.

Less than a quarter of Colombia's potentially oil-bearing regions have been explored, giving rise to exploration activities to secure access to potential reserves in the far corners of the country. Tragically these regions are often home to Colombia's approximately 800,000 indigenous peoples. Colombia has an incredibly diverse population with 84 different indigenous cultures speaking more than 64 different languages spread across 50 million acres of titled land.

The location of much of Colombia's oil beneath indigenous territories has increasingly put indigenous communities directly in the crossfire. The militarization that accompanies oil development has led to increased violations of the basic human rights of indigenous communities and caused the forced displacement of many from their ancestral homelands. Despite indigenous organizations voicing their own neutrality and repeated pleas for peace, their resistance to resource extraction and militarization has often made them targets of political violence. The situation has reached such a crisis that in June 2001 the Latin American Association for Human Rights estimated that half of Colombia's indigenous peoples face annihilation from encroaching violence.

http://www.amazonwatch.org/amazon/CO/uwa/index.php?page_number=6

[PSR40004]

6. All good repubs do...

And old habits are hard to beat...

[SeveneightyWhoa]

7. Ouchies! And to think..

..that I used to like Mike Malloy. Hmmm.

[1songbird]

8. Clark himself commented on this specific issue.

He said that there have been some students of this school that have gone on to do horrible things but he did not want to see the entire school punished because of a few bad graduates. He gave an analogy of the Enron execs some of whom graduated from Harvard and went on to do dishonorable things. Nobody holds Harvard responsible for these graduates however.

[cprise]

11. They used to get information on how to target civilians?

I remember reading something to this effect. I recall this is the main reason why some people (many here on DU) refer to the US as a rogue state sponsoring terrorism.

It would be worth a look.

[1songbird]

14. This school has been funded by both Democrats and Republicans

in Congress. I guess we are all complicit.

[Say_What]

12. LOL the lamest excuse I've ever heard to try to whitewash the POS

SOA and it's graduates.

<clips>

SOA Atrocities

Rape and Torture of Sister Dianna Ortiz
1989. Guatemala. Sister Dianna Ortiz, a United States citizen, while working as a missionary, abducted and brutally tortured by Guatemalan security agents. "My back was burned over 100 times with cigarettes. I was gang-raped repeatedly. I was beaten, and I was tortured psychologically, as well--I was lowered into a pit where injured women, children, and men writhed and moaned, and the dead decayed, under swarms of rats. Finally, I was forced to stab another human being. Throughout the ordeal, my Guatemalan torturers said that if I did not cooperate, they would have to communicate with Alejandro. Hector Gramajo, former Guatemalan defense minister, a SOA graduate, was found liable in United States court. Cited in H. R. 611, introduced by Congressman Kennedy Feb 5, 1997, calling for the closure of the School of the Americas.

Colombia Death Squads
1992-1993. Barancabermeja, Colombia. At least 57 people were murdered in and around the city of Barancabermeja. Eyewitnesses have linked these murders to killer networks run by the Colombian navy. The killer networks in turn were created as the result of a 1991 Colombian intelligence reorganization in which a U.S. Defense Department and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) team worked with Colombian military officers. Human Rights Watch Report: Colombia’s Killer Networks--The Military-Paramilitary Partnership

Assassination of Archbishop Romero
March 24, 1980, San Salvador, El Salvador. While celebrating the Eucharist, Archbishop Oscar A. Romero was shot and killed at the altar by a death squad assassin. As Archbishop of San Salvador, Father Romero was a source of strength and hope for the poor and for the oppressed of his country, working with and for them, taking their struggles as his own. Romero wrote and spoke passionately and publicly of the need for Christians to work for justice, frequently faced with threat and danger from those who opposed his ideas. Introduction to Archbishop Romero
Or see Longer biography by Craig Johnson. Two of the three killers were SOA graduates. Cited in H. R. 611, introduced by Congressman Kennedy Feb 5, 1997, calling for the closure of the School of the Americas.

El Mozote Massacre
December, 1980. El Mozote, El Salvador. U. S. trained Salvadoran battalion massacred 800 men, women and children in El Mozote. Robert Parry, "Lost History: 'Project X' and School of Assassins. The Consortium. Ten of the twelve officers responsible for the murders were SOA graduates. Cited in H. R. 611, introduced by Congressman Kennedy Feb 5, 1997, calling for the closure of the School of the Americas.

http://www.geocities.com/~virtualtruth/soa_atro.htm

---

105th CONGRESS, 1st Session, H. R. 611, To close the United States Army School of the Americas.


The United States Army School of the Americas graduates include some of
the worst human rights abusers in our hemisphere, including:

(A) El Salvador death squad leader Roberto D'Abuisson.

(B) Panamanian dictator and drug dealer Manuel Noriega.

(C) Haitian coup leader Raoul Cedras.

(D) Nineteen Salvadoran soldiers linked to the 1989 murder of six Jesuit
priests, their housekeeper and her daughter.

(E) Col. Julio Roberto Alpirez, Guatemalan officer linked in the deaths of
an American innkeeper.

(F) Hector Gramajo, former Guatemalan defense minister found liable in
United States court for abduction, rape, and torture of Sister Dianna Ortiz,
a United States citizen.

(G) Argentinian dictator Leopoldo Galtieri, leader of the `dirty little war'
responsible for the deaths of 30 civilians.

(H) Two of the three killers of Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador.

(I) Ten of the twelve officers responsible for the murder of 900 civilians
in the El Salvadoran village El Mozote.

(J) Three of the five officers involved in the 1980 rape and murder of four
United States churchwomen in El Salvador.

http://www.gmu.edu/org/ireland32/hr_611.html

"The U.S. Army School of the Americas … is a school that has run more dictators than any other school in the history of the world. … They boast about the fact that 10 separate heads of state throughout Latin America were graduates of the School of the Americas. Not one of them was elected through a democratic election, and in many cases they actually overthrew the civilian governments that brought them into power. They tell us now that the school changing, but we know and understand … that the school is continuing the kind of modus operandi that left us with the legacy of being associated with some of the worst human rights abusers on the face of the planet." — Rep. Joseph Kennedy, 5/20/94

[1songbird]

16. I suspect that you went out of your way to write letters to congress

objecting to the SOA. If you did then good for you otherwise we are all complicit.

[Say_What]

19. That *a few bad apples* excuse is the standard lie supporters of the SOA

tell US sheeple.

<clips>

...THEY SAY: Only a few "bad apples" have committed human rights abuses. The majority of SOA graduates have gone on to have respectable military careers.

WE SAY: Every time a human rights report comes from Latin America, SOA graduates are "front and center." For example, over 2/3 of the Salvadoran officers cited by the United Nations Truth Commission Report for human rights abuses are SOA graduates. Over 50% of the Colombian officers cited in a definitive human rights report on Colombia are SOA graduates, and 40% of the cabinet members under three brutal Guatemalan dictatorships were SOA graduates. It’s not just a "few bad apples."

THEY SAY: SOA-connected abuses -- if they happened at all -- are a thing of the past. Closing the SOA is old news.

WE SAY: Not true: The February 2000 Human Rights Watch Report on Colombian military implicates seven SOA graduates in 1999 crimes including kidnapping, murder, massacres and setting up paramilitary groups. The 1998 and 1999 US State Department Reports on Human Rights in Colombia provide information implicating SOA graduates in abuses including a 1997 massacre, an illegal raid on a human rights group in 1998, and involvement in kidnapping and murder in 1999. Furthermore, the Colombian 20th military brigade, which was disbanded in 1998 for human rights abuses, was commanded by an SOA graduate.

THEY SAY: The SOA is key to the war against drugs. Counter-narcotics training is the new SOA mission.

WE SAY: The drug-scare tactic is just a smoke screen to allow the School to keep functioning as it always has. For example, although Colombia is in a drug crisis, only 5 of the 141 Colombians trained at the SOA in 1999 took the counter-narcotics course. In total, less than 5% of the SOA soldiers took counter-narcotics in 2000. This is down from 8% in 1998. The vast majority took the same old SOA commando and combat courses -- the training that has had such devastating human rights consequences in the past. "Cold War, Drug War, whatever they call it, it’s still a War Against the Poor."

THEY SAY: The now-infamous "torture" training manuals released by the Pentagon in 1996 contained only a few egregious passages and were otherwise consistent with US law and doctrine.

WE SAY: These manuals used at the SOA are brimming with anti-democratic content, far beyond just a few passages. From start to finish, they advocate the infiltration of opposition political parties, youth groups, and labor unions. They even view political campaigning as subversive. Instead of promoting democratic ideals, these manuals undermine democracy and weaken civilian institutions. (See www.soaw.org for texts of the manuals.)

http://www.soawne.org/TalkingPts.html

[jonnyblitz]

15. good i am glad the word is getting out!

:thumbsup:

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