Public needs to know about School of the Americas

Article published Apr 11, 2007

Jack Gilroy / Guest Column

Some parents, not wanting to reveal certain information, tell their children, “You're on a need-to-know basis, and you don't need to know this.”

That may be the right of a parent, but as citizens, we need to know more about what our elected government officials are doing. The revelations of Americans torturing other people at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo were a shocker to most of our citizens. But it was no surprise to those of us who have known for many years that the U.S. Army taught torture and assassination to Latino students at the U.S. Army School of the Americas at Ft. Benning, Ga.

A member of my immediate family graduated from the Senior War College in Washington, D.C. When I told him 10 years ago that the SOA was a school of assassins, he was outraged at me. He insisted the United States would never stoop to teach torture or assassination. Just weeks later, he sent me clippings from The Washington Post with an apology. The article (from September 1996) told how Spanish language manuals were used at the SOA to teach Latino soldiers methods of psychological torture, physical torture and assassination.

A group of citizens calling themselves School of Americas Watch (www.soaw.org) investigated the SOA through the Freedom of Information Act. The evidence of torture and assassination was striking. When our legislative work in Congress came close to closing the SOA in 2000, the Pentagon decided to hand over the school to the Department of Defense. The SOA was closed on Dec. 17, 2000 and reopened one month later with a new name, the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC).

“New Name, Same Shame” was our response to the claims of the closure of the SOA. Sen. Paul Coverdale, the Republican senator from Georgia when the school took on the new name, said, “Simply cosmetic.” Democratic Rep. Joe Moakley of Massachusetts, who had headed a movement to close the SOA, said the name change “was like pouring perfume on a toxic dump.”

United States citizens need to know WHINSEC is a toxic place where Latino soldiers are dumped to learn diplomacy through combat arms. SOA Watch has been working with Congress for years to close the SOA and its clone, WHINSEC. Last year, we lost in Congress by just 15 votes. In the November election, 35 who voted against us lost their congressional seats. This year, we may win our case. In our area, Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-22nd District, has consistently voted to close the school. Former representative Sherwood Boehlert always voted to close the school, and we need to bring on his successor, Rep. Michael Arcuri, D-24th District. Rep. Jim Walsh, R-25th District, has always voted with us. Rep. Paul Kanjorski, D-11th District, voted last year to close the school. SOA Watch Scranton is urging Rep. Christopher Carney, D-10th District, to sign on to HR 1707, the new bill just introduced in Congress.

Citizens need to know their tax dollars are being used for a school that has produced thugs, thieves and killers. They need to know that teaching democracy out of a barrel of a gun does not work. The people of Latin America need jobs, not guns. If young Latinos are taken to this country for education, teach them human rights and economic justice.

Binghamton SOA Watch will have an uplifting, hopeful and fun-filled concert of awareness with folk singers Charlie King and Colleen Kattau at 8 p.m. April 14 at First Congregational Church, Front and Main streets in Binghamton.

Would Terrorists from Iraq Follow U.S. Troops Home?

March 19, 2007

The Bush administration, desperate for justifications to buy a little more time with the American people for its failed adventure in Iraq, markets the idea that if the United States rapidly withdraws from Iraq, the “terrorists will follow us home.” A closer examination of this assertion—like the rest of the administration’s fear mongering—demonstrates it is baseless.

U.S. State Department statistics show that historically, North America has had the lowest incidence of terrorism worldwide. The American public’s shocked reaction to the catastrophic 9/11 attacks was due, in part, to the infrequency of past terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. After the unique events of 9/11, terrorism in North America has resumed its historical modest trajectory.

North America has been a relative safe haven from terrorism for several reasons. The United States is far away from the world’s centers of conflict. Although the United States is roundly hated in the world because of its unneeded meddling in faraway conflicts, most anti–U.S. terrorism is perpetrated on U.S. embassies and military facilities overseas—not on the American homeland. Terrorists, like conventional armies, have trouble operating in the United States because it is so far from their normal bases of operations. In addition, the United States does not have many militant foreign populations that could provide sanctuary and support for imported terrorists of the same ilk.

According to Ohio State political scientist John Mueller, the lifetime probability that international terrorists will kill any one American is a miniscule one in 80,000—about the same as the same person being killed by a comet. Of course, the chances are even lower if you are an American living in America (instead of overseas) and not residing in New York, Washington, Chicago, or Los Angeles.

But the average American, especially after the luck that the hijackers benefited from on 9/11, should not be blamed for overestimating the danger of terrorism. The U.S. security agencies, to get more funds and authority for their bureaucracies, have constantly used color-coded warnings and other techniques of fear mongering to keep the anxiety generated by 9/11 alive in the public consciousness. The U.S. media, getting high ratings from sensational reporting on terrorism, has been a willing accomplice to the administration effort.

The “Islamo-fascist” scare has worked. The already massive U.S. defense budget has increased by 50% and the budget of the recently created Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has doubled. The DHS budget request for fiscal year 2008 is $46.5 billion, much of which goes to fight terrorism. Spending all that money to combat a threat that is as rare as a catastrophic comet hitting the United States makes little sense. If NASA were able to use the same scare tactics as DHS, perhaps the space agency could persuade a reluctant Congress to give it the paltry $1 billion (by comparison) for its equally absurd Spaceguard Survey program, which tracks asteroids and comets that have an equal probability of killing Americans as terrorists do.

If the probability of Americans in the United States being killed by international terrorists remains low even after 9/11, would it increase if U.S. forces withdraw rapidly from Iraq and chaos there turns into bloody mayhem? Most likely not. According to U.S. counterterrorism experts, about 90% of al Qaeda fighters in Iraq are Iraqis, not foreign fighters. These experts believe that these fighters emphasize local concerns and would have their hands full fighting the more numerous Shi’a when U.S. forces—one of their current major targets—withdraw.

Instead of being anxious about such Bush administration canards, the American people should worry about things that have a greater chance of killing them—for example, the average American’s lifetime chances of being killed in an auto accident are one in 100. Instead of focusing on potential terrorism in the homeland emanating from a post–U.S. Iraq, Americans who want to have the greatest probability of living longer lives should eat right, exercise, and wear their seat belts, and avoid smoking and excess worry (especially about jihadists following U.S. soldiers home from Iraq).

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Ivan Eland
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Ivan Eland is Director of the Center on Peace & Liberty at The Independent Institute and Assistant Editor of The Independent Review. Dr. Eland is a graduate of Iowa State University and received an M.B.A. in applied economics and Ph.D. in national security policy from George Washington University. He has been Director of Defense Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, Principal Defense Analyst at the Congressional Budget Office, Evaluator-in-Charge (national security and intelligence) for the U.S. General Accounting Office, and Investigator for the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
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Muslims Mute on Terrorism?

Sunday, March 18, 2007

It is very easy to give simple answers to difficult questions. Anyone can do it, even George W. Bush. Why do they hate us? Because we elect our leaders. Why Muslims kill Muslims? Because they hate each other. Why young Muslims turn into suicide bombers? Because they hate life. Why no progress in the Middle East? Because Arabs are born lazy and backward. Why Islamic terror? Because Islam inspires violence and condones terrorism. Where is the Muslim outrage? Don’t hold your breath! They all support terror.

Past victims included Jews, blacks and Native Americans. Jews were demonized to justify discrimination and extermination. The African brain was “found” to be less capable. Millions were enslaved, misused and killed because they were lesser humans. “The only good Indian is a dead Indian,” the invaders discovered. So genocide claimed the lives of millions of natives in North America.

Now it is the Muslims’ turn. Push them to the limit; if they fail it is because of their religion and race; if they react stupidly or violently, it must be their faith and genes. Either way, you win.

Since those who fight back follow the same faith or come from the same race, we are all responsible. We should not only dissociate and condemn them, but also fight them along with the invaders. Neutrality is no longer an option. The problem is if we do so our people will curse us, if we don’t the crusaders who are looking for an excuse to oppress us will find one.

The bottom line is we are damned if we do and damned if we don’t.

American columnist Thomas Friedman, in a recent article, wants to know why Muslims are mostly mute toward suicide bombing. He fully knows why 1,300 million Muslims are angry, and he also knows that only a few thousand Muslims are in a violent mode. As an “Israel-First” American, he must have known that his uniformed terrorists in Iraq, Lebanon and Afghanistan kill thousands of civilians for every enemy combatant they eliminate, and destroy towns and villages for every enemy cell they demolish.

The terrorists in nice suits and cool uniforms are the ones who drive young men and women to so much desperation that life equals death to them. Some find no weapons to fight back the superpowers of the day but their own bodies. In World War II, the European resistance fighters were called martyrs when they jumped the enemy’s guns. The Japanese, who did similarly, were called maniacs. In our case, they are called terrorists. Victor’s justice includes name-calling.

“Where is the outrage?” Friedman “innocently” asks. Answer: The public outrage due is against your wars on Islam and Muslims. Our terrorists fight us as much as they fight you, and we are fighting them back. Listen to our mosques and follow our media and you will find lots of battles, speeches, fatwas and articles against them — that is if you don’t limit your readings to Israeli MEMRI (founded and run by a former Mossad colonel).

This is our outrage, but where is yours? Where is the outrage against the US soldiers who randomly shot and killed 16 Afghan civilians on a highway in revenge for an earlier Taleban attack? Or against the Marines who raped innocent Iraqi women and killed family members in retaliation for a roadside bomb? Or against the killing, maiming and displacing of a million Lebanese civilians in response to the capturing of two Israeli soldiers?

We are fighting our terrorists, but are you fighting yours? Our bad and ugly are taken to court, humiliated and hanged; when are yours going to be tried and punished? We call our terrorists “terrorists,” you call yours presidents, prime ministers and patriotic “men and women in uniforms.” We don’t blame your religion and race for the crimes against us, but you blame ours to justify collective punishment.

Yes, we have our hate speakers and fear merchants, but they are mostly in caves and prisons, hunted and doomed. Yours, however, are members of legislative bodies. They lead legitimate governments, businesses, churches, synagogues and media organizations. Friedman is trying to compete with a league of villains like Ann Coulter, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, James C. Dobson, and Franklin Graham. Google them out and see what kind of hate speeches they make against Arabs and Muslims every day. Our extremists are civilized in comparison. If you want us to go out of our way to denounce our extremists, you should show us the way by denouncing yours. It takes two to tango.