About the School of the Americas / Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation

The US Army School of Americas (SOA), based in Fort Benning, Georgia, trains Latin American security personnel in combat, counter-insurgency, and counter-narcotics. SOA graduates are responsible for some of the worst human rights abuses in Latin America. In 1996 the Pentagon was forced to release training manuals used at the school that advocated torture, extortion and execution. Among the SOA's nearly 60,000 graduates are notorious dictators Manuel Noriega and Omar Torrijos of Panama, Leopoldo Galtieri and Roberto Viola of Argentina, Juan Velasco Alvarado of Peru, Guillermo Rodriguez of Ecuador, and Hugo Banzer Suarez of Bolivia. Lower-level SOA graduates have participated in human rights abuses that include the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero and the El Mozote Massacre of 900 civilians. (See Grads in the News).

In an attempt to deflect public criticism and disassociate the school from its dubious reputation, the SOA was renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC) in 2001. The name change was a result of a Department of Defense proposal included in the Defense Authorization Bill for Fiscal 2001, at a time when SOA opponents were poised to win a congressional vote on legislation that would have dismantled the school. The name-change measure passed when the House of Representatives defeated a bi-partisan amendment to close the SOA and conduct a congressional investigation
by a narrow ten-vote margin.

More evidence of the national security state that has coopted the experiment in government of, by and for the people.

@Harry,

I had missed it, but now have read it.

BLOCK: What else did he say in that article that shed any new light, do you think, for what was going on at the time?

Mr. THALE: What the story makes clear is that D'Aubuisson and a loose network of former military officers, former National Guard and security forces people, with support and connections to political actors and financing from Salvadorians abroad as well as people in the country carried out a wide set of politically targeted killings.

And the story keeps talking over and over again about, oh, you could complain about your dentist and you might find your dentist dead the next day. And so it's clear there's a network of these people, that they're organized, that they're active and that they conducted a lot of targeted assassinations.

BLOCK: What questions, for you, are the key ones that are still unanswered now, 30 years after this assassination?

Mr. THALE: The big questions really have to do with who was the power structure, who were the decision makers behind those who carried out these killings? There were a set of actors, primarily people from the military and wealthy families, who were the decision makers in that process.

So what is unmentioned? That Roberto D'Aubuisson was a graduate of the School of the Americas, and had extensive ties to US intelligence...

re: when thom returns: Peter says Mon, web site says Tues.

Get real, Peter B. Do you REALLY think that today's parents, who've demonstrated their lack of responsibility by mortgaging themselves to the hilt, are actually going to ACCEPT responsibility for their children's failures, when Teachers make such a convenient and nearly prefect scapegoat?

Can the Newspapers be Trusted?

Certainly not the ones owned by NewsCorp!

@Robert S.

re: FOTD - You're entirely welcome. :-)

re: this administration is only continuing the crimes of the previous -

Too true - This administration is deathly fearful of what will happen to themselves once they're out of office if they attempt to "settle the nation's score" with the previous acministration.

Very, sadly, true.

Not only does this undermine the foundation of our justice system, it encouages other, likely more dangerous, criminals to join and take advantage of the system.

Does congress even hold hearings on such matters any more?

Bush ‘knew Guantanamo prisoners were innocent’

Former US president George W. Bush and his top aides were accused Friday of covering up that many Guantanamo Bay detainees were innocent, amid fears releasing them could harm the 'war on terror'.

The allegations were made in a document by Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, once chief of staff to Bush's first secretary of state, Colin Powell, in a lawsuit filed by a former Guantanamo inmate and published by The Times in London.

Wilkerson alleged Bush's vice president, Dick Cheney, and defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld knew that most detainees held at the US detention camp in 2002 were innocent but believed it was "politically impossible to release them".

They were also keen to avoid revealing the "incredibly confused" detention operation, Wilkerson said, claiming prisoners were often rounded up by Afghan and Pakistani forces in return for cash, with little or no evidence as to why.

He alleged Cheney "had absolutely no concern that the vast majority of Guantanamo detainees were innocent... If hundreds of innocent individuals had to suffer in order to detain a handful of hardcore terrorists, so be it".

more: http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0409/bush-knew-guantanamo-prisoners-innocent/

This is so wrong, and this administration is only continuing the crimes of the previous. Until we hold to account those who would take a nation to aggressive and illegal wars on a pack of lies we are collectively responsible.

mstaggerlee:

I have to disagree with you in part. We know what the problem(s) are. How do you fix them? By firing all the male priests and replacing them with women, as the Newsweek article obliquely suggests? This is a cultural issue that the Church has to address. How do you make the church more "attractive" to those who want to live "normal" lives, like most other Christian denominations allow? By allowing marriage in the priesthood. You are not going to protect children from pedophiles by continuing to allow a "celibate" priesthood in a "don't ask, don't tell" world.

@mstaggerlee

<i>Picture this if you can ... Dan Quayle and Sarah Palin as contestants on "Celebrity Jeopardy"! :-D</i>

<i>The only problem with the above ... where do we find someone dumb enough to occupy the 3rd contestant's chair? ;-)</i>

MMMmmmm.....Texas!

@mstaggerlee,

Thanks for the reminder of that verse from FOTD, reminds me of the time I saw Mr. Hunter introducing Staggerlee, with "changes I copped from the New Lost City Ramblers," before the GD version came out.

The proxy votes for the CitiGroup Annual Meeting in NYC are out. None of it is a surprise — but it is breathtaking to see these banksters in action. Check out the Board of Director's voting recommendations:

The CitiGroup B.O.D. recommends share holders vote against:

#8. Stockholder proposal regarding political non-partisanship.

#9. Stockholder proposal requesting a report on political contributions

#10. Stockholder proposal requesting a report on collateral for over-the-counter derivatives trades

#11. Stockholder proposal requesting that stockholders holding 10% or above have the right to call special stockholder meetings

#12. Stockholder proposal requesting that executive officers retain 75% of the shares acquired through compensation plans for 2 years following termination of employment

#13. Stockholder proposal requesting reimbursement of expenses incurred by a stockholder in a contested election of directors.

BUT they recommend shareholders vote for:

#5. The proposal to approve Citi's 2009 executive compensation. (Approval of compensation during ANY period Citi is provided assistance under TARP.)