Sindawe
Member
In other words, the ends justify the means.
What happens when the rule of law breaks down...
- Thread starter Preacherman
- Start date
- Status
carebear
Member
Or the proper means can be perverted into the wrong means by those who think the ends do and lack any other framework to control their behaviour.
CARRY'IN
member
Guatemala was certainly a "dark spot." As for maintaining the status quo by taking to the streets with firearms; I for one am not excited about playing vigilante when I could end up raped in prison. Isnt that what keeps most of the American middle class terrorized and submissive? Fear of being sent to prison? I did a paper on rape in prison and just about everything you have heard about it is true.
The School of the Americas was never shut down. 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. A terrorist training camp by any other name...
Such as subverting constitutionally-elected governments? Destroying free (or at least semi-free) societies, and imposing dictatorships in their stead? Sponsoring civil wars? Manipulating elections? Undercutting the rule of law at home and abroad? Creating, financing and directing death squads?
Just "a few dark spots" on the road to freedom and democracy, eh?
Further reading: American Connection: State Terror and Popular Resistance in Guatemala by Michael McClintock. (Zed Books: 1985).
---
"A police state is a small price to pay for living in the freest country on Earth." C. Montgomery Burns
Derby FALs
Member In Memoriam
CAFTA will fix everything in Guatemala. No way would Bush sign an agreement with a country that had such a low regard for women's rights.
Last edited:
fjolnirsson
Member
Good gods, man! You might want to bone up on them. MS-13 has its roots in El Salvador. They are busily taking over many inner city gangs, and spreading across America at an incredible rate. Violent and power hungry, with seemingly no fear of the authorities. I'll see if I can dig up a link or two...
MS-13
Clusty Search Results
Nasty folks...
CARRY'IN
member
I had something not nice posted here, I apologize. Nevermind. I am mad at derby about something. I will get over it. Or maybe not. Whatever.
Derby FALs
Member In Memoriam
In my opinion we should have no trading with any country with serious violations of human rights. Instead our elected leaders continue to give these countries a quickie under the table for a chance to line the pockets of their "sponsers". Good enough?
OK. I'll delete the
Sindawe said:
I was stationed at Ft Benning (not at SoA) while after the SoA was moved there and was still named SoA. Mostly, the SoA cadre tried to professionalize thier pupils. Remember, most of the S American military establishment was/is corrupt with cronyism, bought comissions, & the like. They are not of the quality we see in our armed services (<--candidate for "Understatement of the Year").
The SoA cadre did the best they could with what they were given to work with. If a student was found to be corrupt, sadistic, or just plain incompetent, they were not in a position to take away their comission and make them civilians. After all, their comission was bought and paid for in their home country.
All this talk about how they "teach torture" at SoA is just so much a$$-wind promulagted by the mouth-breathing ignorant and anti-military types we have known & loved since Vietnam. Like our guys could teach THEM anything about sadism and cruelty.
GoRon wins the kewpie doll. Unluckily for the US, some of our allies & "allies" are not up to our standards in the military & human-rights-sense. Luckily for the US, most every other military is not up to our standard. A doctorate is sadism does not wind battles vs the US Army.GoRon said:
I think I coverd this "A terrorist training camp by any other name..." horse flatulence above.javafiend said:
Every year the moonbat moral exhibitionists would protest outside the gates of Ft Benning. I always wondered: was their ignorance greater than their anti-Americanism or was their anti-americanism greater than their ignorance? Or maybe they just wanted to be seen protesting so as to score with moonbat slut-puppies?
CARRY'IN
member
Excellent. Why were you so.......unpleasant on that concealed carry vs open carry thread? Dont answer that.
As for blockading countries whose governments are doing things we dont like, it is just the common people who suffer. We sanction them and their choice is either suffer or rise up and put their lives on the line in a rebellion. If they rise up they are then doing our bidding. It's a no-win.
Derby FALs
Member In Memoriam
I'll answer it. I wasn't trying to be unpleasant. I would class it more as fervent desire for the acceptance of my God given Right...
My worry is that PRK sets the trend for a lot of this legislation and I don't really want to see a revolt. Generally the good ole boys here just thumb there noses at the more idiotic laws.
No need for a blockade. Just tell them no aid or trade until they mend their ways, and stick to it. That also goes for any other country that continues to trade with them. The corporate sponsers wouldn't like that would they? It's not that American goods cost too much. We just can't compete on a level playing field when the competition uses slave labor.
As far as what they do to these women. That's just plain evil. I don't see how we can make them change otherwise.
carebear
Member
I don't think anything we do will make them change.
You can lead a horse to civilization but he'll only drink when you beat him into submission.
Sanctions don't have the moral authority of a boot on their necks.
You can lead a horse to civilization but he'll only drink when you beat him into submission.
Sanctions don't have the moral authority of a boot on their necks.
CARRY'IN
member
Being a fanatic must be a real bitch.
Fletchette
Member
I believe that a long time ago we made a little .45 single shot pistol AND a nice little four barrelled shotgun, both aptly named the "Liberator" for situations like Guatemala. Put these into the hands of women and the rapes and murders would go down overnight.
Too bad we don't have the same attitudes towards dictators and corruption that we did when those firearms were produced.
Too bad we don't have the same attitudes towards dictators and corruption that we did when those firearms were produced.
Would that be in the Gitmo or the Abu Ghraib sense of the term "US human rights standard"? Just wanted to clarify.
Their training was paid for by US tax dollars. Many of the pupils come from countries whose militaries are in fact massively dependent on US aid.
Some of the most notorious violators of human rights in the Western Hemisphere have passed through the SoA. Among the SOA's nearly 60,000 graduates are notorious dictators who seized power in their countries undemocratically after attending the school. Men such as 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.
To take just a single example, in 1983, Colonel Francisco del Cid Diaz (then a 2nd Lieutenant) commanded a unit that forcibly removed 16 residents from the Los Hojas cooperative of the Asociación Nacional de Indígenas, bound and beat them, shot all 16 at point-blank range and threw their bodies in the Cuyuapa River. This is a very well known, very high profile and notorious massacre, and cited in the annual State Department Human Rights Country Reports throughout the 1980s. The case was also investigated by, and included in the final report of, the El Salvador Truth Commission established under the Salvadoran Peace Accords.
The El Salvador Supreme Court granted amnesty to all defendants, but in 1992 the OAS Inter-American Commission on Human Rights stated that there was substantial evidence that Col. del Cid Diaz and the other ranking officer present gave the orders to execute, and recommended that the Salvadoran government bring them to justice. Instead of facing justice, we find that Col. del Cid Diaz was at the WHINSEC in 2003, and was also enrolled in SOA in 1988 and 1991.
Just a few bad apples? I don't buy it. The record shows that US military and police aid tends to flow to regimes which repress their own populations.
Further reading: The American Connection: State Terror and Popular Resistance in El Salvador by Michael McClintock (Zed Books: 1984).
Inevitable Revolutions: The United States in Central America by Walter Lefeber (W. W. Norton & Company: 1993).
The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism (Political Economy of Human Rights, Vol 1) by Noam Chomsky (South End Press: 1979).
GoRon
Member
Javafiend feverishly working on bagging the moonbat slut puppies again
At least now I understand the motivation behind the "United States is responsible for all the worlds ills" mantra
At least now I understand the motivation behind the "United States is responsible for all the worlds ills" mantra
Art Eatman
Moderator In Memoriam
The thing about getting old is that you get a bunch of "Hell, I Was There" stuff built into you.
Now, I wasn't in Iran or in Guatemala or several other places back in the 1950s/1960s/1970s. But I followed as much of the news--and from varied sources--as the average fella could.
Aside from Korea and Vietnam, we lost a lot of guys during the Cold War. The October issue of Soldier of Fortune mag lists our casualties 1945-1991, and the actions. They summarize as 359 KIA plus "hundreds of airmen" killed by the Soviets.
We were in a conflict for survival. Trying not to have Russian as our Official Language. Stalin's and Krushchev's folks were not Nice People; nor were Mao's or Ho's or Kim's.
So, yeah, we hooked up with anybody who professed to be anti-Communist. Anybody who would reduce the pressure on us as we developed our containment strategy.
In order to get the cooperation which eased pressures, we gave away way too much money that wound up in Swiss bank accounts. We trained people from the various inner circles of some sorry trash leaders, such as those from places like Guatemala.
As oppointed out above, we didn't teach sadism. That was already built into either the particular culture of some country as to how the elite treated the serfs, or was already part of the character of those we were ordered to train.
We probably could have refrained from dealing with brutal bastards. We could have worked harder at being nice guys.
Nice guys finish last, sez a cliche that's older'n I am.
When you're in a war for survival, 2nd place really sucks.
Art
Now, I wasn't in Iran or in Guatemala or several other places back in the 1950s/1960s/1970s. But I followed as much of the news--and from varied sources--as the average fella could.
Aside from Korea and Vietnam, we lost a lot of guys during the Cold War. The October issue of Soldier of Fortune mag lists our casualties 1945-1991, and the actions. They summarize as 359 KIA plus "hundreds of airmen" killed by the Soviets.
We were in a conflict for survival. Trying not to have Russian as our Official Language. Stalin's and Krushchev's folks were not Nice People; nor were Mao's or Ho's or Kim's.
So, yeah, we hooked up with anybody who professed to be anti-Communist. Anybody who would reduce the pressure on us as we developed our containment strategy.
In order to get the cooperation which eased pressures, we gave away way too much money that wound up in Swiss bank accounts. We trained people from the various inner circles of some sorry trash leaders, such as those from places like Guatemala.
As oppointed out above, we didn't teach sadism. That was already built into either the particular culture of some country as to how the elite treated the serfs, or was already part of the character of those we were ordered to train.
We probably could have refrained from dealing with brutal bastards. We could have worked harder at being nice guys.
Nice guys finish last, sez a cliche that's older'n I am.
When you're in a war for survival, 2nd place really sucks.
Art
Derby FALs
Member In Memoriam
Yes, but someone has to do it.
CARRY'IN
member
Pathetic excuse making for what is wrong wrong wrong. Why cant we just admit our government has done some really bad things and learn from it?
Gordon Fink
Member
Art Eatman said:
But do you have to play dirty when the other side is guaranteed to fail?
~G. Fink
javafiend:
Sorry to disturb your feverish moonbat delusions of the SoA.
Sorry to disturb your feverish moonbat delusions of the SoA.
I guess in some crowds, that qualifies as a choice bit of snark. To most, however, it is merely an exercise in exhibitionist ignorance too dense to penetrate before work.javafiend said:
So, has your position changed from the SoA being, "A terrorist training camp by any other name..." to "Some of the most notorious violators...have passed through the SoA?" Which is it? Do they break out the thumbscrews & cattleprods for advanced tutorials at SoA? Got any video of such ocurring at Benning? Or are they content with anatomically-correct dolls and Powerpoint presentations to pass on the lessons of torture and repression taught at SoA?javafiend said:
He's a clue I'll sell at discount: up until quite recently, almost all countries in latin america repressed their own populaitons. The only question was/is, "How repressive?" Is it decades-long totalitarianism (Cuba) or merely a fading authoritarianism (Pinochet's Chile)? Maybe its a decades-long corrupt oligarchy (Mexico). In such an environment, the US did not have the luxury of staying home and refusing to work with our corrupt neighbors to the south, especialy when the issue at stake was one of the existence of our nation and the West.javafiend said:
And you when were able to inform the Truman administration of this? Did you save your insight for before or after the USSR rolled over eastern europe? Maybe you informed the generals of the divisions of hte German Army in the closing days of WWII, "Not to worry. The Russkies are guaranteed to fail."Gordon Fink said:
Art Eatman
Moderator In Memoriam
CARRY'IN, I don't argue as to ultimate responsibility at the high levels of government, but do you really think that the word of what was going on in the various coutnries like Guatemala ever got to a higher level of responsibility than, say, Colonel, at the time such things were happening? Remember all the bits and pieces about "deniability"?
People do what they think they have to do in order to achieve some goal. Always have, always will. None of the Bad Stuff was official policy; policies may be even more restrictive, now, but that doesn't change people.
****************
"But do you have to play dirty when the other side is guaranteed to fail?"
Gordon, that's 20/20 hindsight at its absolute finest.
Until the "illegal" dockworker strike at Gdansk and the rise of Lech Walesa, there was a justifiably reasonable fear of the military power of the Kremlin-led Warsaw Pack forces.
Art
People do what they think they have to do in order to achieve some goal. Always have, always will. None of the Bad Stuff was official policy; policies may be even more restrictive, now, but that doesn't change people.
****************
"But do you have to play dirty when the other side is guaranteed to fail?"
Gordon, that's 20/20 hindsight at its absolute finest.
Until the "illegal" dockworker strike at Gdansk and the rise of Lech Walesa, there was a justifiably reasonable fear of the military power of the Kremlin-led Warsaw Pack forces.
Art
71Commander
Member
Now the question is, what can be done about the situation?
Sometimes we have to wait years or decades later for documents to be declassiefied, for principals to write their memoris, etc., in order to get a better sense of the truth.
On during the night of November 16, 1989, a squad of 26 soldiers of the El Salvadoran army stormed the rectory at the University of Central America (UCA) and proceeded to murder in cold blood six Salvadoran Jesuit priests, their housekeeper, and her teenage daughter. Of the 27 soldiers cited for that massacre by a 1993 UN Truth Commission, 19 were SOA graduates.
The victims weren't Stalin's people, Ho's people, etc. Communists? Actually they were Catholics. This atrocity was committed by a death squad that was armed and trained by the US government. I have a real problem with US tax dollars sponsoring terrorism, especially against my fellow Catholics.
No one is claiming that the US "is responsible for all the world's ills."
May I suggest that you read the history of that region and see how many of those repressive dictatorships were installed with the help and encouragement of the USG?
There's the overthrow of democracy in Guatemala in 1954. See The CIA in Guatemala by Richard Zimmerman. (University of Texas Press: 1983). See also Secret History: The Cia's Classified Account of Its Operations in Guatemala, 1952-1954 and Bitter Fruit: The Story of the American Coup in Guatemala by Kinzer and Schlesinger.
As for US teaching torture, see Hidden Terrors by A. J. Langguth about the CIA's Office of Public Safety program.
In Brazil in 1964, the CIA carried out a putch against the elected government of Joao Goulart in 1964. Do your research and you will see similar involvement by the USG throughout Latin America.
In Chile the USG terminated a long tradition of constitutional democratic ruel in 1973. See The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability by Peter Kornbluh.
Did you know that in Chile, sexualized torture of female prisoners was routine. The DINA (secret police) would even train their dogs to rape female political prisoners. If you want to whitewash such as regime as "fading authoritarianism," then so right ahead. The facts are there for anyone unafraid of where they lead. Apologists for the US government may not like it, but the truth is the truth.
The US had the option of simply not overthrowing elected governments, not installing dictatorships, not training, supplying and directing death squads, not sponsoring terrorism.
Come on, Art, stop kidding yourself. We have the notes from meetings where Kissinger, Nixon, Haldeman, and Helms sat around the table and planned these things. We have declassified National Security Action Memoranda. We have declassified cable traffic. There's quite a bit that is now part of the public domain. America is still a free (or semi-free) country, and any literate person can take the time to find out the essential truths, even if some of the most damning details (such as the precise relationship between CIA and DINA) remain classified for reasons of state.
shermacman
Member
- Joined
- Dec 30, 2002
- Messages
- 1,751
Its OK, javafiend, I was a Liberal once, too. I once believed all that Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky garbage. Distortions, lies, and the surreal emphasis of quoting exact numbers, names and dates of things that you don't know anything about.
- Status
