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unhappycamper

(60,364 posts)
Tue Jun 3, 2014, 07:01 AM Jun 2014

Covert US Military Training Goes to Africa

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/24065-covert-us-military-training-goes-to-africa

New US plans for training security forces in four African countries recall similar programs around the world, which often ended in the hand-picked trainees slaughtering civilians or staging military coups.

Covert US Military Training Goes to Africa
Sunday, 01 June 2014 11:40 By William R. Polk, Consortium News | Op-Ed

~snip~

Without much of the rhetoric of Mr. Sheehan and General Donahue and on a broader scale, we have undertaken similar programs in a number of countries over the last half century. Iran, Turkey, Indonesia, Guatemala, Egypt, Iraq, Thailand, Chad, Angola to name just a few. The results do not add up to a success almost anywhere.

Perhaps the worst (at least for America’s reputation) were Chad where the man we trained, equipped and supported, Hissène Habré, is reported to have killed about 40,000 of his fellow citizens. In Indonesia, General Suharto, with our blessing and with the special forces we also had trained and equipped, initially killed about 60,000 and ultimately caused the deaths of perhaps 200,000. In Mexico, the casualties have been smaller, but the graduates of our Special Forces program have become the most powerful drug cartel. They virtually hold the country at ransom.

Even when casualties were not the result, the military forces we helped to create and usually paid for carried out the more subtle mission of destroying public institutions. If our intention is to create stability, the promotion of a powerful military force is often not the way to do it. This is because the result of such emphasis on the military often renders it the only mobile, coherent and centrally directed organization in societies lacking in the balancing forces of an independent judiciary, reasonably open elections, a tradition of civil government and a more or less free press.

Our program in pre-1958 Iraq and in pre-1979 Iran certainly played a crucial role in the extension of authoritarian rule in those countries and in their violent reactions against us.


--

Why are we exporting School of the Americas terror training to Africa?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Hemisphere_Institute_for_Security_Cooperation

The Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), formerly known as the US Army School of the Americas,[1][2] is a United States Department of Defense Institute located at Fort Benning near Columbus, Georgia, that provides military training to government personnel of Latin American countries.

The school was founded in 1946 and from 1961 was assigned the specific goal of teaching "anti-communist counterinsurgency training," a role which it would fulfill for the rest of the Cold War.[3] In this period, it educated several Latin American dictators, generations of their military and, during the 1980s, included the uses of torture in its curriculum.[4][5] In 2000/2001, the institute was renamed to WHINSEC.[6][7]:233

History

The US Army School of the Americas was founded in 1946. From 1961 (during the Kennedy administration), the School was assigned the specific Cold War goal of teaching "anti-communist" counterinsurgency training to military personnel of Latin American countries.[3] At the time and in those places, "communists" was, in the words of anthropologist Lesley Gill, "... an enormously elastic category that could accommodate almost any critic of the status quo."[7]:10

During this period, Colombia supplied the largest number of students from any client country.[7]:17 As the Cold War drew to a close around 1990, United States foreign policy shifted focus from "anti-communism" to the War on Drugs, with narcoguerillas replacing "communists".[7]:10 This term was later replaced by "the more ominous sounding 'terrorist'".[7]:10

In 1999, the School of the Americas website said in its FAQ section, "Many of the [School?s] critics supported Marxism -- Liberation Theology -- in Latin America -- which was defeated with the assistance of the U.S. Army."[3]

WHINSEC

By 2000 the School of the Americas was under increasing criticism in the United States for training students who later participated in undemocratic governments and committed human rights abuses. In 2000 Congress, through the FY01 National Defense Act, withdrew the Secretary of the Army's authority to operate USARSA.[8]

The next year, WHINSEC was founded as a successor institute. U.S. Army Maj. Joseph Blair, a former director of instruction at the school, said in 2002 that "there are no substantive changes besides the name. [...] They teach the identical courses that I taught and changed the course names and use the same manuals."[1]

But in 2013 researcher Ruth Blakeley concluded after interviews with WHINSEC personnel and anti-SOA/WHINSEC protesters that "there was considerable transparency [...] established after the transition from SOA to WHINSEC" and that "a much more rigorous human rights training program was in place than in any other US military institution".[9]
Participation

In 2004, Venezuela ceased all training of its soldiers at WHINSEC[10] after a long period of chilling relations between the United States and Venezuela. On March 28, 2006, the government of Argentina, headed by President Néstor Kirchner, decided to stop sending soldiers to train at WHINSEC, and the government of Uruguay affirmed that it would continue its current policy of not sending soldiers to WHINSEC.[11][12]

In 2007, Óscar Arias, president of Costa Rica, decided to stop sending Costa Rican police to the WHINSEC, although he later reneged, saying the training would be beneficial for counter-narcotics operations. Costa Rica has no military but has sent some 2,600 police officers to the school.[13] Bolivian President Evo Morales formally announced on February 18, 2008, that he would not send Bolivian military or police officers to WHINSEC.[14] In 2012, President Rafael Correa announced that Ecuador would withdraw all their troops from the military school at Ft. Benning, citing links to human rights violations.[15]

In 2005 a bill to abolish the institute, with 134 cosponsors, was introduced to the House Armed Services Committee.[16] In June 2007, the McGovern/Lewis Amendment to shut off funding for the Institute failed by six votes.[17] This effort to close the Institute was endorsed by the nonpartisan Council on Hemispheric Affairs, which described the Institute as a "black eye" for America.[18]
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Covert US Military Training Goes to Africa (Original Post) unhappycamper Jun 2014 OP
Well, I guess it is just what we do best, installing puppets in undeveloped nations. nt bemildred Jun 2014 #1
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