Stunning Photos from School of the America's Protest- WOW!!

More Here:
http://www.soawne.org/05SOAPhotos/05SOAVigilPhotos.html

It was a great experience. Please write and call your congresspeople to cosponsor HR1217, to close and investigate the School of the Americas, or School of the Assassins.

I confess, to my shame, I am not familiar with this organization.
I certainly am now. (Nothing in the media, I presume.)

Thanks for posting

About the SOA/ WHINSEC

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. (See Talking Points, Critique of New School, Vote Roll Call.)

In a media interview, Georgia Senator and SOA supporter the late Paul Coverdell characterized the DOD proposal as a "cosmetic" change that would ensure that the SOA could continue its mission and operation. Critics of the SOA concur.


SOA Watch is a nonviolent grassroots movement that works through creative protest and resistance, legislative and media work to stand in solidarity with the people of Latin America, to close the SOA/WHINSEC and to change oppressive U.S. foreign policy that institutions like the SOA represent. We are grateful to our sisters and brothers throughout Latin America for their inspiration and the invitation to join them in their struggle for economic and social justice.

http://www.soaw.org/new/index.php

:)

Useful info.

Unfortunately, (or perhaps, fortunately) there doesn't appear to be a "rictus" smiley icon. I don't often post smileys, but the death's head emblem of the Nazi SS "Totenkopf" batallion might have served here.

People standing up! Damn beautiful!

Cher

to expose the activities of their government like this??? Really and truly, they should not even have to consider such activities to reign in the insanities that shouldn't exist.

Because democracy requires participation and there has been a notable lack of participation in government for a long, long time.

Much of America is asleep at the switch when it comes to government. We know that from the passive way this country has reacted to bushco's takeover. They represent corporate interets and now more and more people are aware of just who they are.

So yes, unfortunately we do have to do things like this to make up for the fact that citizens were, a long time ago, converted to consumers.




Cher

Unfortunately, the greatest threat to our democracy isn't the complicit corporate media, or the corruption of politicians, or campaigns financed by corporations, or even our corrupt election process...it's the masses not paying attention.

....always getting arrested? They're NOT the criminals! :mad:

They either crawled under or over the fence at Fort Benning. So they were trespassing.

41 people chose to take part in that this year.

I applaud them.

But it's also not like there were cops walking around looking to bust people for no reason.
The S.O.A. protest isn't like that at all.

Okay okay, look... yes the occupation of Iraq is bad. The war is a result of careful neocon manipulation of public opinion and the judicial branch.

But to say "Study War No More" is downright naive and stupid. As long as there are divided nations in this world, there will always be the need for a strong military that is versed in tactics, strategy, military tradition, honor, and ethics.

Unfortunately, it seems that the last three items I mentioned previously may be missing from the cirriculum.

to make a point about waging war, not to actually encourage ignorance of history and strategy.

Down By the Riverside

Gonna lay down my sword and shield
Down by the riverside
Down by the riverside
Down by the riverside
Gonna lay down my sword and shield
Down by the riverside
Ain't gonna study war no more.

refrain

I ain't gonna study war no more,
I ain't gonna study war no more,
Study war no more.
I ain't gonna study war no more,
I ain't gonna study war no more,
Study war no more.

n/t

It's easy to see what the curriculum is and why it needs to be closed down.

10/27/04

From Honduras
Former Honduran military intelligence chief Col. Juan Lopez Grijalba, is facing trial in US federal court early in 2005. Six plaintiffs, five of whom
reside in the United States, allege that Lopez Grijalba is responsible for the torture, disappearance, and extrajudicial killing of Honduran civilians during the 1980s. After heading the Direccion Nacional de Inteligencia(DNI), the primary operations division of the military-controlled national police force, Lopez Grijalba then became the armed forces chief of intelligence in 1982. Lopez Grijalba was an SOA student on four separate occasions between 1963 and 1975. After the existence of the murderous Battalion 3-16 became public and Lopez Grijalba was implicated in its activities, he was still invited to speak at the School of the Americas in 1991 and 1992. Lopez Grijalba moved to the Miami area in 1998 where he lived until immigration officials arrested him in 2002.


From Mexico
An October 22, 2003 article in The Brownsville Herald (TX) reported that the
notorious Gulf Drug Cartel has hired 31 ex-Mexican soldiers to be part of
its hired assassin force, The Zetas. According to the Mexican secretary of
defense, at least 1/3 of these deserters were trained at the SOA as part of
the elite Special Air Mobile Force Group. Their highly specialized and
dangerous weapons, training, and intelligence capabilities are now being
used to increase the availability of the drugs and terrorize the region. The
Mexican attorney general’s office implicates them in dozens of shootouts,
kidnappings and executions of police officers.

From Venezuela
In April 2002 two SOA graduates, Army Commander in Chief Efrain Vasquez and General Ramirez Poveda, helped lead a failed coup in Venezuela. Additionally, Otto Reich, who was named to the "new" school’s Board of Visitors, met with the generals in the months preceding the coup. During the coup Reich advised business leader Pedro Carmona, who subsequently seized the presidency.

From El Salvador
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.

more...
http://www.soaw.org/new/article.php?id=205

"I ain't gonna study war no more" in a speech about Vietnam.

It's a sincere sentiment.

And if you loved that speech you can see/hear it here -
<http://www.ericblumrich.com/mlk2005.html>.

His voice sends chills through me. He died because of his anti-war messages. It scares people to hear that God wants them to be brave enough to put down the guns. No more talk of strategy and defense. Put down the guns.

I also remember learning about Muhammed Ali saying he wasn't going to go to Vietnam because no Vietnamese had ever done anything to him.

The words are tremendous. The voice is God's -
<http://www.ericblumrich.com/mlk2005.html>

I disagree. What there is a desperate need for is for people brave enough to study war no more.

Picking up guns, building rockets and nuclear weapons, dropping white phosphorus from planes, training people to assassinate leaders of other countries that seek democracy -- these are the ways of cowards.

"Study War No More" is downright naive and stupid if someone means it for real - but it's okay if it is just some religious saying? Are you religious? Do you think people should live their religion or just talk it?

I am with Dr. King - it is time for a revolution of the soul.

It is time to drop the curtain on the American Empire, to draw all US troops back onto US soil, to put our energy into caring for our planet and each other.

We took pictures, but the CD's are in the hands of the publisher of a local liberal weekly at the moment.

Hubby is working on a story to go with.

Your photos and story when you get them back.

Here's to ya' :toast:

:toast:

Many of them are 60 or older.

One sharp, funny lady of 93 was in her words "pissed off" that she was unable to get arrested. She also said she'd been arrested at protests, throughout her career, more times than she could remember.

And of course, I send out a double
:woohoo: :woohoo:
for Father Roy.

:toast:

They could use all the words of comfort they can get.

Here it is:

http://www.soaw.org/new/article.php?id=1228

6-months and 9-months, respectively, after protesting at the SOA. Their experience in jail was harrowing - the young woman had to work on a job in which she made very small containment cages for other prisoners; the young man managed to talk his way out of several attempted rapes.

"One person, Ed Lewinson, 73, a retired professor, crossed onto the base for a third time. Again this year, Mr. Lewinson was not charged, probably because the government fears the bad publicity associated with prosecuting a person who is blind. Mr. Lewinson’s courage and persistence sets an example for all of us."

:patriot:

A Film by Rebecca MacNeice
http://www.truthout.org/multimedia.htm
Rebecca MacNeice reports from the 16th annual School of the Americas protest at Fort Benning, GA. 20,000 people participated in the protest, including 41 who were arrested. The protesters focused their attention on the School because of its involvement in the training of many Central American military officers who went on to commit human rights abuses.

who took part in this protest. It is not easy to stand alone among the majority who may stand against you only out of ignorance.
I recommend this thread for the spirit lifting sight of these photos.
This is what democracy looks like.

I would say to the poster above who feels the 'study war no more' poster is a little naive, well yes I guess it is. We as a nation seem to have a really good grasp on the necessity for a strong military. It is suspicious however that we have no institutions that are devoted to peace and that our administration is only one of many that finds the United Nations oh so unnecessary. We will study war until the bitter end unless we begin to pursue the unimaginable.

How peculiar, yet refreshing, to see crosses in the service of peace and not as props for the military.

staunch supporter of The SOA?

Wesley Clark Vigorously Defends the US Army's 'School of Assassins'
CONCORD, NH -- Retired General Wesley K. Clark sometimes downplays his Army ...
The US Army School of the Americas, created in 1946, has been located since ...

www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0117-01.htm

maybe some Clarkies will show up to 'splain it to us. :kick:

Julie

And he doesn't go out of his way to support the place, except for the one year when it fell under his command while Clinton was President and he was helping clean it up after Reagan/Bush had their foul way with it. It's not exactly Clark's personal pet project, but if he's asked a direct question about it he won't duck answering it. When asked Clark has defended the current Schools stated mission, which is very far removed from the practices seemingly condoned there under Reagan/Bush.

It's an institution that has been supported and funded by Democratic and Republican Presidents and Democratic and Republican Majorities of Congress over decades. They are the ones who decide which programs to support and who voted on this. Under Republican Presidents it becomes an institution that they abuse. The CIA is running secret torture prisons right now, but the CIA continues when Democrats are in power also, and many in the CIA are upset to see the CIA being used the way it is by Bush.

Clark's position is similar to how some might defend the CIA's stated mission without defending their current torture prisons. While campaigning in 2003/2004 Clark pledged that, if he became President, if any evidence was uncovered that that institution was currently promoting the types of human rights abuses that the protesters are protesting, he would shut it down. That is not the same as saying that he would shut down the Institution simply if any graduate of it were found to engage in systematic Human Rights abuses. The latter standard, strictly applied, would be the equivalent of promising to shut down a Police Academy if an individual cop or cops who graduated from it later got convicted of engaging in police brutality.

Almost all of the worst abuses emanating from the then named SOA took place while Reagan/Bush were misusing that institution to help prop up dictators in Central and South America. I shudder to think what we will discover went on there under George W. Bush. But it is the intent ultimately that we need to deal with. If the intent to do evil exists, and if those who have that intent hold power, evil will exist. Where there's a will there's a way. If Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld types remain in power they will pursue their illegal agendas one way or another. Nixon started his "Plumbers" when the FBI wasn't docile enough for him. Reagan had his Ollie North/Poindexter "back channels" and Cheney started his own Intelligence Agency when he wasn't getting what he wanted from the CIA. We can shut down the Son of SOA tomorrow, and I think at this point that would be best, but if Bush/Cheney want to organize and aid death squads in South America, that won't stop them from doing it.

since its inception. Same for the SOA. Clark knows the insides of US foreign policy particularly military ops. Clark is aware of what the SOA has been involved in and should say it simple- shut it down.

On Edit:
"Wesley Clark is a big booster of the controversial "School of the Americas"-which critics charge has history of graduating Latin American soldiers accused of rape, murder and torture. Clark fought for years to keep the school at Fort Benning, Ga., open, even testifying on its behalf in Congress, despite graduates like imprisoned Panamanian ex-strongman Manuel Noriega.

Clark's backing of the school-whose curriculum once included teaching torture, execution, kidnapping & blackmail-puts him at odds with many Democrats and groups like Amnesty International, who want the school closed.In response to complaints, the Pentagon "closed" the school in 2000, but reopened it in 2001 under a new name.

Clark isn't embarrassed about ties to the military installation-his campaign website features a commencement speech he delivered there a few years ago. "There is nothing going on in these institutions that you in the US Congress wouldn't be extraordinarily proud of," Clark once testified to Congress."
Source: Vincent Morris, New York Post Dec 18, 2003

http://www.issues2002.org/Wesley_Clark.htm

http://www.soaw.org/new/article.php?id=1223

I'm especially fond of #1. Sunday's vigil.

btw

For those unfamiliar with this, most of those crosses you see are inscribed with the name of a person killed through actions connected to graduates of the SOA.

And a ghastly percentage of the names are those of infants and children.

edit to add the link...duh

thanks and gratitude to all.