WHY WE SHOULD CLOSE THE

(1) SOA’S TORTURE TRAINING—The SOA has been caught blood-red-handed, forced to release torture manuals it used at least from 1982-1991, manuals produced from previously used, still-unreleased CIA manuals. Of course, the SOA claims such things are no longer taught, but it would be foolish to believe them after 50 years of lies. Unsurprisingly, the best independent evidence is that the "human rights" changes since 1992 have been merely cosmetic.

(2) SOA’S ENORMOUS INFLUENCE—It is hard to find military atrocities in recent Latin American history that do not involve SOA grads. The SOA claims that there are only a few "bad apples" among its graduates. But these "few" (known criminals number in the hundreds, while total students number in the thousands) tend to be dictators, generals, and other high-ranking officers—the SOA consistently plants the seeds from these bad apples. It also tends to enshrine the worst offenders into its "Hall of Fame", to invite them back as guest speakers and instructors, etc. And every month the number of known villains grows, despite the closely guarded secrets of the CIA and the State Department, and the show-trials of the militaries.

(3) SOA’S HAVEN FOR THUGS—SOA visits are used to shelter soldiers who are under investigation for past crimes, frustrating the heroic efforts of new civilian governments to exercise control over the military.

(4) AT THE SOA, CRIME PAYS—SOA visits are also used as a reward for past crimes and an incentive for future crimes. Trips to Walt Disney World and Atlanta Braves baseball games, courtesy of the US taxpayer, and the opportunity to buy high-quality consumer goods, whet the soldiers’ appetite for continued power, to obtain more luxuries. Admission to the SOA is the foremost sign of US support for rising Latin American soldiers. The record shows this to be a very dangerous sign to give to ambitious people in positions of easily abused power.

(5) NO CREDIBLE THREAT—The US and the countries whose militaries the SOA trains face no "national security" threat to which the SOA could be a response, and they never have—notwithstanding endless scare tactics about Havana, Nicaragua, Russia, Czechoslovakia, drugs, etc. (The only serious military threat is posed by the US itself, which has invaded or destabilized every single one of the other countries.) The militaries themselves are the tools in the continuing war waged by the few local rich (and US business "interests") against the many poor (and ordinary US taxpayers). Until the militaries are reduced in power, yielding genuine control to civilian governments, there can be little hope for justice or peace.

(6) LARGER GOALS—Generating enough public support to close the SOA is a useful and currently feasible step toward larger goals, such as generating enough public support to abolish the CIA, and making it harder for military, industry, intelligence, PR, monopoly media, and school textbooks to manipulate public opinion.

SOA ACTIVITIES IN LATIN AMERICA:
Uruguay: How we crush nonviolent protest against a corrupt regime, using the SOA to undermine our own laws
Argentina: How dictators from the SOA "disappear" humans and their rights
Chile: How we destroy the oldest democracy in South America, and turn a peace-loving nation into a slaughterhouse

Brazil: How we invent communist threats to scare ourselves
Bolivia: How we use the SOA to build armies into democracy crushers
Peru: How SOA graduates heroically defend their right to murder civilian students

Grenada: How we continue to believe the hoaxes of our military establishment
Colombia: How the SOA shelters soldiers who face trial at home, and staffs the fake "War on Drugs" and other abuses, to this day
PanamaThe resumé of Manuel Noriega, the most famous graduate of the School of the Americas

Honduras: How the SOA sows a death squad, and reaps lecturers from it
El Salvador: SOA graduates on parade
Guatemala: How we continue the genocide of indigenous peoples, in the name of big business

HOW WE CAN CLOSE THE SOA:
US Media: Those who forget the past are condemned to believe Dan Rather
Washington, DC: Legislation to close the School of the Americas
Michigan: Some things you can do



EDUCATE YOURSELF FURTHER ABOUT THE SCHOOL OF THE AMERICAS.
   Web Sites:
      http://www.soaw.org/ (SOA Watch)
   Documentary Films:
      School of Assassins (18 minutes, Academy Award nominee)
      Inside the School of Assassins (54 minutes)
   Books:
      School of Assassins (Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer, 100 pages)

ABOUT THE LARGER ISSUE,
THE ONGOING WORLWIDE US EFFORTS TO CRUSH DEMOCRATIC SELF-DETERMINATION
IN FAVOR OF US MULTINATIONAL BUSINESS PROFITS:
   Web Sites:
      The Chomsky Archive - http://www.worldmedia.com/archive/
      WebActive (lots of RealAudio to play while you do chores) - http://www.webactive.com/
      Free Speech TV (lots of RealVideo to play while you do chores) – www.fstv.com
      Covert Action Quarterly - http://www.worldmedia.com/caq/
   Documentary Films:
      State of Siege
      The Panama Deception
   Dramatization Films:
      Romero
   Very short books/pamphlets:
      Noam Chomsky, What Uncle Sam Really Wants
      Mark Zepezauer, The CIA’s Greatest Hits
         [source of the cartoons in the country-links above]
   Longer books:
      Willliam Blum, Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II
         [source of most unattributed text in the country-links above]