Shut down the School of the Americas

November 20-22, 2009 – Converge on Fort Benning, Georgia

Mass Mobilization to Shut Down the School of the Americas (SOA/ WHINSEC)!

The military coup by SOA graduates in Honduras has once again exposed the destabilizing and deadly effects that the School of the Americas has on Latin America. The actions of the school’s graduates are unmasking the Pentagon rhetoric and reveal the anti-democratic results of U.S. policies. It is time for a change towards justice.

From November 20-22, 2009, thousands will vigil at the gates of Fort Benning, Georgia, to stand up for justice, to shut down the School of the Americas and to end the oppressive U.S. foreign policy that the school represents.

The campaign to close the SOA is in a crucial phase right now. Despite promising comments from President Obama during his election campaign, the SOA/ WHINSEC is still in operation and the Pentagon is moving forward with plans for new U.S. military bases in Colombia. With a Democratic administration in the White House, it appears that some Democrats in Congress are becoming timid when it comes to opposing the Pentagon.

It is up to us to keep up the pressure and to hold them accountable. People power is going to win over Pentagon lobbying!

It is tremendously important that we have a strong showing at the gates of Fort Benning for the annual vigil and nonviolent direct action, in order to demonstrate that we won’t go away until the SOA is shut down and the U.S. government has stopped turning to “military solutions” (or political-economic interventions) to enforce its oppressive foreign policy in Latin America. Too many people have suffered and died at the hands of SOA graduates.

You can take a stand for solidarity and justice now! Join hundreds of organizers around the country and start planning for the November vigil. Contact your local unions, universities, workers centers, social justice organizations and faith communities and ask them to re-commit to the struggle to close the School of the Americas.

To download the SOA Watch November organizing packet, for a travel guide and a hotel listing, as well as information about accessibility and information for people without U.S. citizenship and more, visit www.SOAW.org/november

and you will be surprised how many DUers were against changing anything. No wonder the rightwing runs them over every time. Appeasement never works.

It not only includes training foreign troops to repress their own people, it has the subtler goal of turning the allegiance of Latin American military officers away from their own countries' and peoples' interests and creating loyalty to US corpo/fascist interests. In the current situation--with the US planning to establish seven new US military bases in Colombia--a country with one of the worst human rights records in the world, including thousands of murders of union leaders and others, by rightwing paramilitary death squads with close ties to the Colombian military and government--the US reconstitution of the US 4th Fleet in the Caribbean, the US rightwing-supported military coup in Honduras (which secured the US military base in Soto Cano, Honduras, and concerning which a top Honduran general stated that, by their coup, they had "prevented communism from Venezuela reaching the United States"), and other signs and portents, pointing to an oil war, with the main targets being Venezuela and Ecuador (both with huge oil reserves adjacent to Colombia, both members of OPEC and both with leftist governments)--the SOA becomes a means by which to enlist Latin American soldiers against Latin American sovereignty and democracy, and, indeed, to enlist them in a US planned war against Latin American countries.

It is a diabolical program, with a very ill purpose--and so is the huge amount of US taxpayer money being shoveled to the Colombian military, and, until recently, shoveled to the Honduran military (which the US says that it has frozen because of the coup, but for which there is no independent verification--and the Honduran military continues to be funded by somebody as a tool of that rightwing coupsters), and also to Peru (where the money is being used to shoot indians who are defending the Amazon against multinational mining and logging), and to Mexico, where it has escalated the bloodiness of the US "war on drugs" so badly that even the rightwing president of Mexico has revolted against it.

US taxpayers are just suckers who have been sold a lying 'bill of goods' about the illicit drug problem. The illicit drugs never stop coming, and these billions and billions of dollars have nothing whatever to do with drug interdiction. The US "war on drugs" is a war profiteer project, with an oil war plan piggybacked onto it, by the Pentagon. The plan is probably Rumsfeld's, but it is still in motion, with war assets being put in place all over the "Big Board." The SOA is how the war is to be localized--as with the "Vietnamization" of the war on Vietnam, back in the 1960s. A local military (the South Vietnamese army) is created as a front for US military operations. That is what is occurring in Colombia right now, and probably in Honduras--which has a history of being used as a US "lily pad" country for aggression against other Latin American countries (notably Nicaragua and El Salvador--which have both recently elected leftist governments).

I don't know that ending the "School of the Americas" (WHINSEC) would scuttle this war plan, or in any way change the clientelist relationship between the Pentagon and the militaries of the worst, most fascist countries of Latin America. Unless there is a fundamental change for the better in US policy in Latin America, led by the President, the Pentagon would find a way around any strictures placed on them. But it is nevertheless a good issue to rally around, and by which to expose both bad US intentions and war plans. What the hell are we doing training officers of foreign militaries in Latin America?! Why is that any of our business? And how is it that the militaries that we "train" are the ones committing horrendous atrocities against their own people, and plotting rightwing coups? What is wrong with our "training" that it results in thousands of murdered union leaders and others, by the Colombian military, and the overthrow of democracy in Honduras, with the very officers we "trained" shooting up the elected president's home, kidnapping him at gunpoint and flying him out of the country (with a refueling stop at the US air base)?!