Read the FAQ, read the links, read the articles.
And then TELL me WHY, specifically, that this place is not a training camp for terrorism. Explain to me why they PUBLISH manuals on the use of torture and terror on civilians, if they do not train terrorists.
Explain to me WHY it was okay to try and overthrow democratically elected officials, and replace them with brutal fascist military regimes.
And then explain to me how that does not contradict everything this country stands for.
Everytime I see you post, I always wonder what leftest drivel you shall drop upon us.
So my answers are:
1)It’s all leftest bullshit. Torture was not never taught there. The fact that some true assholes went through the school does not mean that they learned to be assholes there anymore than my former classmates who are now in prison were taught by my high school to kill pizza delivery boys with a shovel.
2)Cause it’s already closed.
http://www.aerotechnews.com/starc/2000/120800/School_Closes.html
My sources say it’s still open, but under a different name.
Leftist bullshit. Thanks. I guess those manuals were on how to teach the peasants to knit.
No no no! LEFTISTS are terrorists! Right-wingers are FREEDOM FIGHTERS or, in the case of the graduates of the SOA, The Legitimate Government! Won’t you ever learn the difference? 
Well, because it isn’t. They aren’t teaching “Terrorism” there, despite what the WWW site would have you believe.
International military training isn’t something new or secret. There are thousands of foreign soldiers in the USA rght now training with US soldiers, and thousands of US soldiers abroad training with other soldiers. They’re doing Army training, not attending a “Training camp for terrorism.” If some soldiers went on to be thugs, take it up with their governments, not the US Army guys who learned how to dig trenches with them. Many dictators went to Oxford University, too, or Cambridge. Are they terrorist training centers?
Or are you saying that all military training is terrorism? After all, most terrorism is just applying MILITARY acts to CIVILIAN targets. In the Army I learned to fire an M-16 rifle, but M-16s have been used in terrorist attacks - so was I given terrorist training? I learned how to use bombs, mines and boobytraps; does that make me a terrorist? Please. Is all flight training terrorist training now?
I see no evidence presented in your link to suggest that SOA is anything other than a legitimate Army training center no different from any one of dozens of Army training schools.
What distiguishes a terrorist from a soldier isn’t the skills they learn. It’s how they apply them.
For all I know they were manuals on knitting. I do not trust your sources. It’s quite obvious they have a political axe to grind and the setbacks of the socialists in Central America do not sit well with them.
And yes, there is a new school for teaching Latin American soldiers such horrid things as Human Rights courses. It’s called the Defense Institute for Hemispheric Security Cooperation. It doesn’t really roll of the tongue during a rally, so I expect folk will continue to use the name “School of Americas.”
I am embarrassed that the phrase “not never” appeared in my above post. Yeesh.
Then why the manuals on how to subdue the population? On how to use terror and fear to their advantages?
Again, I quote:
WE published this. Sounds like a terrorist tactic to me.
http://www.webcom.com/pinknoiz/covert/tacayantoc.html
I suggest you read this CLOSELY. This does not sound like benign proper military tactics manual. If it is, then perhaps the military isn’t the proud defense force I thought it was.
That’s the point, isn’t it? Latin American militaries have been targeting students, unions, leftists, and agricultural workers for decades, and leaders in those militaries are alumni of the SOA. What did they go to the SOA for, if not to learn military tactics? To me, there is a definite connection.
Please, Guin, it is your responsibility to gather all facts and make an educated opinion. Putting a website with an obvious political bias hardly shows that effort.
Have you taken a trip down to Benning? The Freedom Of Information Act can help, if you want to get into some deep research on the subject. Or, do you have another agenda in mind, and is this, in fact a Rhetorical Question Thread? I’ve seen your views on non-violence and your stance on the actions the US is taking on terrorism, here in the Pit. You have convictions, and the right to your viewpoints. Do you honestly equate our nation as a sponsor of terrorism, in the same vein as Libya, Iran, etc.?
In my military career with the USAF, I had a chance to work with several Latin American Air Force personnel in the SOA. I lectured and taught subjects pertaining to internal security, tactics, investigative techniques, and counter-insurgency. Any single one of these, or all of these subjects, as RickJay pointed out, can be used to repress and intimidate.
We did not train our Latin American counterparts to repress and violate civil populations. Now, Guin, you don’t know me from Adam, so you can just take that for what it’s worth, but maybe you should research further into this subject, if that is your true intentions. If you can’t stomach the fact that the present war on terrorism is a just and righteous cause, then at least refrain from the political rhetoric like most Americans are doing now. Give blood or donate to the Red Cross. You don’t have to fly the flag and scream for Bin Laden’s head on a plate to support your homeland.
Baseless accusations are tiresome, whether it’s from Jerry Falwell or yourself.
Thanks for the link.
Hmmm. After looking over the site, it doesn’t strike me as a reliable source of information. Their liberal slant is too great, and I can’t help but think I’m only being given half of the story. As it is, I feel like the Latin American soldiers have a legitimate reason to train with U.S. forces, since the Organization of American States is as legitimate a defense coalition as NATO.
The quotes from that manual sound to me like standard fare at wartime. When things get extremely hairy, no one is treated particularly well – enemy soldiers as well as civilians.
“Proper military tactics” in this day and age, are probably not what you have been led to believe they are. Two armies do not line up face-to-face on a broad battlefield anymore. Guerilla warfare and terrorist tactics ARE what “real” war is today. Has been since WWI, at least.
The military may well not be the “proud defense force” you thought it was. So be it. War is hell – always was hell, and always will be hell. That cannot not change.
Perhaps you don’t undertand that I’m reluctant to trust that materials hosted on site called “pinknoiz” have not been tampered with. But I’ll cast my pink prejuidice aside and try to soldier on.
The quote you list was taken out of context. It deals with how to handle an informent -ie a spy- that the opposing force is using to track the guerrillas movements. Spies are not civilians. They are recon for the opossing side and failure to stop them will get your side killed.
In my brief perusal I found this:
I think some of the confusion must come from the military’s use of terms like “armed propaganda.” But this piece specifically states that improving the behaviour of the population is not achieved by force.
I did not equate our country with Libya or Iran. I simply said that we had used terrorists in the past.
Look, maybe the site does have a slant. I’ll agree to that.
BUT, is it not a fact that some of the people we supported were like those in Libya and Iran?
(Pinknoiz, btw, if you go to the main site, is a graphics/art company, from what I could see).
I’m sorry. I understand I’m naive and very idealistic. At the same time, I can’t help but feel that something is wrong. Aiding people who kill innocents is wrong. It doesn’t matter if they’re in Latin America, or Afghanistan or Ireland or the moon.
I for one do not believe our nation is terrorist like Libya or Afghanistan. I do believe, however, that in our zeal in the past against certain enemies, we often see things as black and white. If so and so was anti-communist, that was often good enough for us. If so and so was influenced by Marx, then that person was scum on earth. Which wasn’t true. We often ignored human rights abuses that our allies committed, telling ourselves that that was okay, because they were against what we were against.
I’m not saying that we are like Libya or Iran. BUT, we are not entirely one hundred percent pure and good. We are better than they are, but we do have our own faults.
It hurts me to read some of the attrocities committed by our government especially, because we are supposed to be against this, and when we fail, we fail our convictions and everything our country stands for.
What’s wrong with seeing the fact that our country is flawed? Does that mean I’m un-American?
Then don’t teach them military tactics, or restrict enrolment in SOA courses to soldiers from democracies. Of course, that won’t prevent them from killing innocent civilians, since you don’t really need any training to do that. Killing other soldiers is hard. Killing helpless, terrified civilians is rather easy, as long as you’re sadistic enough to want to do it.
But fine; if you don’t want to associate with dictatorial contries, don’t do so. (Of course, Latin American dictatorship are becoming fewer and fewer in number.) That’s a valid position. It doesn’t make the SOA a “terrorist training school,” however. It’s still just an army training school like any other. I don’t hear anyone calling Fort Drum or Fort Meade “terrorist training bases.” I’m an ex-Canadian soldier who once did a military intelligence exercise in Albany with the US Army; is Albany a terrorist training base? Am I a terrorist?
No, but you freely admit that you taught methods by which civilian populations could be repressed and violated. You may not have explicitly said “Go, use these methods to terrorize and kill trade unionists, priests who preach liberation theology, dissident students, and leftist organizations of any stripe”, but you taught them the means to do so.
What is the difference? The fact that you perhaps didn’t intend for your students to use what they learned in the manner they did?
Perhaps I’ve missed something you said, but would you hold a driver’s education teacher responsible if one of his students runs down a trade unionist now that he knows how to drive a car?
Have you burned Canadian towns to the ground and mutilated, raped, or slaughtered the inhabitants for supporting the government that overthrew the one you liked? Have you done such things to fellow Canadians because they supported a growing insurgency? Have you shot Catholic priests because they spoke out against the Canadian government for its repressive measures, whether perceived or real?
No? Then you are not a terrorist.
The SOA, whatever name it may bear now, probably has never actually explicitly instructed any of its graduates to go out and commit terrorist acts. But it certainly gave them the means to do so. And the US would not bring representatives of foreign militaries into its military schools if it didn’t think those graduates would go home and act in support of US interests back home. Ergo, whether that was the intent or not, the SOA trains terrorists.
Ummm, Guin -
I think you should take a slightly closer look:
*Originally posted by Guinastasia *
What this is saying is that people are afraid of guns. They will feel terror at the fact that YOU have a gun. If this terror does not become explicit, that is, if you do not start shooting them, then positive results can be expected.
Aside from the contextual point that Blackclaw made, (that this involves a scenario with a spy), I parse that they’re discussing how to put a PR spin on the fact that they just killed someone in front of everyone else. That does NOT sound like terrorism to me. Terrorism would be “we will shoot you again until you cease supporting our political/religious rivals”.
Yes, Some of the people that we trained have ended up on the other side. The law of unintended consequences is alive and well. Besides, when one needs to learn, it is strategically sound to learn from your enemy.
And I think bordelond had a very good point: War is and always has been and always will be hell. It is good that you be shocked and horrified by what war entails. But war is necessary, in certain situations, and to shirk war because it is horrific is to ultimately destroy yourself. Blind pacifism is just as naive and SELF-destructive as blind agression.
Yes, we’re not saints. We still have to learn. I also get a bit disgusted with over-patriotic, fundamentalist Americans 
. In a way, there’s as much arrogance in that view as the Fundies have, and classically the SDMB is not all that receptive to that kind of person. But right is not the same as perfect: America needn’t be perfect in order to be right, and just because we’re right doesn’t make us perfect.
Who said you’re un-American?
Along these notes:
*We should have disbanded the Marines in 1963. Lee Harvey Oswald learned how to fire a rifle from the Marines, and used that knowledge to assassinate the President. Therefore, the Marines obviously are really responsible for the President’s death.
*Olentzero obviously has the equipment and know-how to have sex. Therefore, he must be watched most carefully as a potential rapist.
Actually, yes, that is a BIG difference. Especially because I assume Bluepony ABSOLUTELY did not intend for them to use what they learned like that. I have as much problem with automatically assuming the school was created with the intention of creating oppressors as I would were someone to deny that some of its students used some of their training to become BETTER oppressors. I am happy that the focus, as reported on many news services, changed in recent years to include more human rights. That change is already visible in Central and South America, where things seem to be going well for more people than it has in many years.
No, of course not. A car was not specifically made to be a weapon. It can kill people, but that is not its purpose.
Military training’s purpose is to teach people how to fight war. War’s purpose is to kill the enemy. You may not intend for someone to use the skills they learned against a civilian population, but if you teach someone how to kill the enemy and they use what they’ve learned, no matter who or what their target is, you are responsible for them having learned the skills to accomplish that goal.