If Gore had won the middle he would not have to worry about the Greens. If he panders too much to them he would lose anyway. That really is a nonsensical approach. If 99% of the graduates follow their training NOT to commit human rights violations and to allow for civilian rule, despite the norm in LA, the school as a whole is a good thing. And further your position assumes the school has some control over these graduates, which they most certainly do not. In addition, NONE of the abuses cited by the 'watch' have happened in the post Cold War world, meaning not in THE LAST DECADE. On a conceptual level the military being under civilian rule, and no playing a part in political decisions is antithetical to the norm in Latin America. A school that teaches them that the military should be removed from that process can be nothing but good in that situation. Finally, the only counterinsurgencies still being fought in Latin America are with narco-terrorists like FARC. As far as most Americans are concerned, they are hardly worth saving. We can go round and round about whether these 'union leaders etc' were social workers or communists, but the facts are that the Cold War world was a different place. If you polled Americans during the Cold War whether or not we should be helping LA military officers fight communist insurgencies you would lose in that poll. Pure and simple. In today's world they are not fighting a tide of communist insurgencies as they were then, and we are not in a global war against communism, as we were then, and the school does not have the same agenda it did then. If you showed the American population what the school has taught in the post Cold War world there is not doubt they would not object. Even yourself, a proponent of the closing the school cannot make a single argument that is RELEVANT to today's world nor today's school. Which military based governments are you speaking of? If the argument is that they will do what they please than how do you lay ANY human rights violations at the doorstep of the school? Are you so foolish as to believe that these LA militaries would not be able to kill or torture or whatever without the school? That is ridiculous. School of Assassins does sound cool, though. I wonder if you can sign up for classes if you aren't in a LA military?
HS, thanks for your civil and thoughtful reply. You are making my point. The US is training LA militaries who will go on to kill and torture. They will just do a better job, thanks to Uncle Sam. Note that I am not saying the US is turning peaceful LA militaries into killers, just honing their skills. You might want to consider the long view. Pick a LA country with a bumpy past wrt juntas (eg Guatemala). Over the next 20-30 years what is the likelyhood of another junta (followed by a purge and supression of the opposition). The US is empowering that LA military to do some very nasty thing to their fellow countryman. The point here is that the argument that these US trained LA militaries haven't done anything bad lately may not hold true in the future (given the track record of some of the LA countries). I am just a pinch hitting progressive here, so I am probably not making all the points that can be made. It is too bad that there are no hard core liberals on this board who will pick up the ball I am dropping and run with it.
My point is that this is a concern from the past, when the US engaged actively in some sketchy activities as a result of our overarching anti-communism. This is no longer the case, and has not been for some time. Whether or not the SOA refined the skills of LA militaries to torture etc I could not say definitively, since I have no first hand knowledge. I DO know that the US military has continuously championed our system of separation between military and civilian rule, and that such a perspective is beneficial for LA. Also that the US military DOES have an inherent respect for that arrangement, and that they are not the 1970s CIA teaching assassination techniques. The Army may indeed have made the LA militaries more effective at fighting communist insurgencies, but THAT WAS THE POINT at the time. The likelihood of juntas in the future is low as compared to the 60s and 70s. But the closer ties developed between the US military and the LA militaries, and the more training they receive from professional standing militaries, the less they will act like warlords, and the more influence we will have on the outcome of such situations. I think people probably just realize this is like arguing whether we should support the Shah. Uh, the dude is DEAD. That was a long time ago. We are pursuing those policies less and less as time goes by. Lets concentrate on issues that are relevant.
Here we will have to disagree. I do not share your optimism. I wish I did. The socio-economic reasons for the juntas in the past are still present today. Those in power in LA countries still use their military to protect themselves from their own people (or why have standing militaries at all?) Doing the little research I have to respond coherently to your replies was a bit eye opening. Some LA countries with very troubled pasts have been quite well behaved as of late, which is very good indeed. Unfortunately the reverse is also true. I was surprised to read about the the failed Venezuela coup of April 12, 2002. The point you make about the US military championing our system of separation between military and civilian rule is good one. Despite whatever good intentions the US military have though, the US trained LA military may be used by their leaders for ulterioir purposes.
The Venezuelan example disproves your theory. A government seen as legitimate by the people was protected by the people, and the coup failed. In almost every instance of a coup detat in the last 50 years in LA, the cause was a swell of communist sentiment amount the government, and that issue is no longer present. There are many reasons for a standing army, and many rivalries among the States that necessitate their existence. For instance, there are narco-terrorist groups like FARC and the Shining Path that wage war on the people and the governments, and an army is necessary to keep those in check. You are assuming that LA militaries cannot torture effectively without outside assistance. Historically, the LA states ability and willingness to do so has NOTHING to do with the United States. Look at Cuba. It does not take US Army training to learn how to shove a cattle prod up someone's yahzoo. However, there are undeniable benefits from US training, so at worst the pros outweigh the cons. Anyway, I think we both acknowledge that this is far from a hot button issue for the Democrats to pursue. Not to mention it would seem to be anti-defense, and anti-strong foreign policy, which is exactly the strategy that got the Democrats creamed in the recent elections.
Venezuela is a model country in LA. Their economy is not based solely on agriculture and includes some heavy industries. They have a middle class. They also have a relatively free press. One would expect that Venezuela of all the LA countries would be out of the woods wrt juntas/coups. The fact that a coup was attempted by the opposition party indicates to me that their politicos still see coups as a viable means to an end. This is what I found surprising and disappointing. To categorize church members, union leaders, and human rights activists who have been disappeared in LA as communist is a broad overstatement. Note that the examples you are giving as examples groups internal to a LA country, versus one LA country needing to protect itself from another LA country. It is an open question what types of checks and balances (if any) exist to safeguard the innocents. Using your logic if the US normalized relationships with Cuba, the SOA could then accept Cuban military students. Some of these students would certainly return to Cuba armed with better skills in terrorizing the Cuban populace. In the eyes of the Cuban citizens, the SOA would then be seen as a terrorist training camp. This is not a hot button issue. I only see it as fig leave to the far left, which may very well be off of everybody else's radar. The world would not end if the far right jumped into the fray and had to defend the SOA.
No Worries, I fail to understand the sympathy shown for Chavez in regards to the attempted military coup against him in Venezuela earlier this year. Frankly, he would an impossible candidate for the United States Presidency if he was an American. I couldn't see him running for the office of U.S. President as the candidate of any respectable political party............even the Progressive.
Considering the long history of LA militaries being involved in politics, I think its fairly naive to think things would change overnight. Again the fact that it failed proves the massive transition LA politics made. In addition, if we examine a country that has NOT had training at the SOA, like Cuba, we see that NOTHING has changed. By your loose standards of logic I think you are at a dead end. Uh, it is not a stretch at ALL to categorize union members in the 50-early 80s in LA as communists. But again the Cold War world was a different place. To say that all of those you speak of were caught up in the conflict with communism is simply fact. Why are we still talking about this? How is this relevant to the SOA and what they have been doing for quite awhile? And again where is the logic in your belief that the SOA was integral to these disappearances? LA militaries were quite capable of making people disappear without SOA training. There is NO indication ANYWHERE that absent training those people you write about would not have met the same fate, or that there is ANY connection AT ALL between the training and the disappearances. Not sure how this is relevant. At least my examples have happened in the last 20 years. And FARC, for example, is an intranational threat, as was the Shining Path until recently. You act as if there have never been conflict between LA nations, which is simply incorrect. Not sure how this doesn't feed my argument, that outside influence on LA militaries are a GOOD thing. Especially as it pertains to their conduct. The more professional they are the less likely they are to commit atrocities. What? You are just being silly, and you are proving my point. The Cubans already terrorize whoever they want, in many unspeakable ways including those you would site like torture and imprisonment and execution. The only thing US training could possibly do is convince the Cuban military that they should NOT be committing these violations and that they should NOT be kingmakers, as such. I have no idea why the Democrats would give a fig leaf about the far left. All they have to do is recapture the same people who voted for Clinton, which is most of the middle of the spectrum, and they'll be back in power. Abandoning the middle for the far left would be an even bigger disaster than what they just experienced. Why would the far right have to jump in? They public would recognize this issue for what it is, the far left knee jerk reacting against ANYTHING to do with the military. This is ridiculous. The US Army brings in officers from LA military units and trains them with specific emphasis maintaining human rights and the role of the military in a democracy, and the Left STILL makes the same objections, the exact same objections, as they did when the SOA was supposedly the 'School of Assassins.' Wake up, its groundhog day for the far left. The left has been regurgitating the same lines everyday for the last thirty years. People aren't buying it.
