tell US sheeple.
<clips>
...THEY SAY: Only a few "bad apples" have committed human rights abuses. The majority of SOA graduates have gone on to have respectable military careers.
WE SAY: Every time a human rights report comes from Latin America, SOA graduates are "front and center." For example, over 2/3 of the Salvadoran officers cited by the United Nations Truth Commission Report for human rights abuses are SOA graduates. Over 50% of the Colombian officers cited in a definitive human rights report on Colombia are SOA graduates, and 40% of the cabinet members under three brutal Guatemalan dictatorships were SOA graduates. It’s not just a "few bad apples."
THEY SAY: SOA-connected abuses -- if they happened at all -- are a thing of the past. Closing the SOA is old news.
WE SAY: Not true: The February 2000 Human Rights Watch Report on Colombian military implicates seven SOA graduates in 1999 crimes including kidnapping, murder, massacres and setting up paramilitary groups. The 1998 and 1999 US State Department Reports on Human Rights in Colombia provide information implicating SOA graduates in abuses including a 1997 massacre, an illegal raid on a human rights group in 1998, and involvement in kidnapping and murder in 1999. Furthermore, the Colombian 20th military brigade, which was disbanded in 1998 for human rights abuses, was commanded by an SOA graduate.
THEY SAY: The SOA is key to the war against drugs. Counter-narcotics training is the new SOA mission.
WE SAY: The drug-scare tactic is just a smoke screen to allow the School to keep functioning as it always has. For example, although Colombia is in a drug crisis, only 5 of the 141 Colombians trained at the SOA in 1999 took the counter-narcotics course. In total, less than 5% of the SOA soldiers took counter-narcotics in 2000. This is down from 8% in 1998. The vast majority took the same old SOA commando and combat courses -- the training that has had such devastating human rights consequences in the past. "Cold War, Drug War, whatever they call it, it’s still a War Against the Poor."
THEY SAY: The now-infamous "torture" training manuals released by the Pentagon in 1996 contained only a few egregious passages and were otherwise consistent with US law and doctrine.
WE SAY: These manuals used at the SOA are brimming with anti-democratic content, far beyond just a few passages. From start to finish, they advocate the infiltration of opposition political parties, youth groups, and labor unions. They even view political campaigning as subversive. Instead of promoting democratic ideals, these manuals undermine democracy and weaken civilian institutions. (See www.soaw.org for texts of the manuals.)
http://www.soawne.org/TalkingPts.html