Its Time to Close Americas School for Terrorists and Assassins Rhetta Akamatsu Rhetta Akamatsu, Yahoo Contributor Network May 8, 2007 Share your voice on Yahoo websites. Start Here. More: Fort Benning Assassins FlagPost a comment Do you know where many of the worlds terrorists learned their skills? Where they learned to make bombs? Assassinate? Intimidate? Subjugate? Right here in America, in my own home state of Georgia, at the former School of the Americas, near Fort Benning, renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation in 2001 This renaming was an obvious and pitiful attempt to remove the stigma attached to the school often referred to as the school of assassins. For 59 years, The School of the Americas has trained Latin American soldiers to be snipers or commandos, to use counterinsurgency measures, and even to employ psychological warfare. In 1996, intense pressure from the public forced Congress to release training manuals from SOA. These manuals advocated targeting civilians, blackmail, torture, and extortion. The contents pages of these manuals are available at the SOA Watch website, so that anyone who cares can read them for themselves. And many of the graduates of this school have used their training against human rights workers, women, educators, religious workers, and anyone else they consider dangerous to their interests. In recent days, for instance, former Peruvian military officers Telmo Hurtado and Juan Rivera Rondon were arrested for having taken place in the 1985 massacre of 69 men, women in children in a Peruvian village. They graduated from The School of the Americas a few years before the massacre. Former SOA instructer Mario Montoya has been connected, according to the Los Angeles Times, to paramilitary operations in Colombia that have been labeled terrorist organizations by the U.S. government. According to the Times, this information came from a CIA report. Other graduates have been arrested in the past year for heading or participating in massacres and acts of terrorism in Chile, Spain, El Salvador, and elsewhere in Latin America. A visit to the SOA watch website will supply the names of many. The SOA supplies some other names you may recognize among the over 60,000 graduates of SOA: 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. In 2001, The Guardian newspaper quoted George Bush, from the day he began bombing Afghanistan: If any government sponsors the outlaws and killers of innocents, they have become outlaws and murderers themselves. And they will take that lonely path at their own peril. Its time our own government took those words of warning to heart. Its time we stopped nurturing and training vipers in our own bosoms. It is time to close WHISC! If you paint a ticking bomb in pyschedelic colors, its still a ticking bomb. If you give a school for terrorists and assassins a fancy new name, its still a school for terrorists and assasins. According to the Guardian article, several U.S. Congressmen took a stand in 2000 and tried to shut SOA down. They were defeated by only 10 votes. Since then, there have been many protests and many pleas by concerned citizens who want to see this abomination closed. And how did the government respond to all this so far? They changed the name. Its time to take action. You can do it without even the cost of a call or a stamp. Go to Democracy in Action.org and send a message to your representative today, urging him to co-sponsor HR 1707, the bill currently aimed at suspending operations of WHISC. Published by Rhetta Akamatsu Rhetta is the author of The Irish Slaves, published October 2010, and Haunted Marietta, published by History Press in September, 2009. She also has several other books, Ghost to Coast,Ghost to Coast Tours a... View profile A Parents (Positive!) Perspective on Moorestowns William Allen Middle SchoolProud of their designation as a Blue Ribbon school district, Moorestowns William Allen Middle School is considered by many to be the best school in the entire district! School Supplies Made Easy: Schoo... How to Add School History to You... Free Internet Security Software:... Related Content America Should Stand Against Israel Against Terrorism 10 Tips for the Writers of Foxs 24: Avoid Jumping the Shark John Edwards Barn-Storming Tour: Democratic Underdog Takes to the Turf to Get the... Sick Sad Week: An Urgent Call to End the Coulterization of Debate at Associated Co... Top 10 Things to Look Forward to from the DCU in 2007 The Sopranos Made in America 5 Tips to Help You Save on Back to School Shopping Resources Takeaways soaw.org SOA Watch Post a Comment as
Posted on: Tue, 26 Nov 2013 01:04:43 +0000
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