Looking for Clarkie input

[JNelson6563]

I thought this thread was really interesting.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5462393

I've noticed a big effort to inform folks on issues in relation to Clark recently and I thought this was a good issue to get the facts out on. School of the Americas.

I would like to see the facts on Clark and his views and relationship with this and I am sure many other DUers might also.

Thanks,
Julie

[Tom Rinaldo]

1. I'll come back later, promise

Don't have much time at this very moment. For one thing it's not exactly Clark's personal pet project. This is an institution that has been supported and funded by Democratic and Republican Presidents and Democratic and Republican Majorities of Congress over decades. They are the ones who decide which programs to support and who voted on this. Under Republican Presidents it becomes an institution that they abuse. The CIA is running secret torture prisons right now, but the CIA continues when Democrats are in power also, and many in the CIA are upset to see the CIA being used the way it is by Bush.

Clark has defended the current Schools stated mission,which is very far removed from the practices seemingly condoned there under Reagan/Bush. It is similar to how some can defend the CIA's stated mission without defending the torture prisons. Under Clinton, Clark was among those involved, for a short period of time, in trying to clean up the act there. While campaigning in 2003/2004 Clark pledged that, if he became President, if any evidence was uncovered that that institution was currently promoting the types of human rights abuses that the protesters are protesting, he would shut it down. That is not the same as saying that he would shut down the Institution simply if any graduate of it were found to engage in systematic Human Rights abuses. The latter standard, strictly applied, would be the equivalent of promising to shut down a Police Academy if an individual cop or cops who graduated from it later got convicted of engaging in police brutality.

Almost all of the worst abuses emanating from the then named SOA took place while Reagan/Bush were misusing that institution to help prop up dictators in Central and South America. I shudder to think what we will discover goes on under Bush. But it is the intent ultimately that we need to deal with. If the intent to do evil exists, and if those who have that intent hold power, evil will exist. If Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld types remain in power they will pursue their illegal agendas one way or another. Nixon started his "Plumbers" when the FBI wasn't docile enough for him. Cheney started his own Intelligence Agency when he wasn't getting what he wanted from the CIA.

[JNelson6563]

2. Many thanks Tom

And I certainly didn't mean to infer it was Clark's "pet project" or that he was the one that brought it into existence. I am aware of some of the institution's history but didn't clearly recall the discussion re: Clark and his relation to SOA. His name was mentioned in the thread I linked to which reminded me of all that. If Clark's running again it is sure to come up.

Thanks again Tom,
Julie

[Dread Pirate KR Read]

3. CLARK’S INVOLVEMENT WITH THE SCHOOL OF THE AMERICAS (SOA)

This is adapted from my archived files,... not sure if originally written/posted by Tom....

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CLARK’S INVOLVEMENT WITH THE SCHOOL OF THE AMERICAS (SOA)

Southern Command
http://www.exeter.edu/communications/pr/Clark.html

From 1996 to 1997, General Clark served as Commander in Chief of the United States Southern Command, Panama, where he was responsible for the direction of U.S. military activities in Latin America and the Caribbean.

However, Clark was in charge from June 1996 to July 1997. That’s one year, but the institution has been around Since 1963, and the atrocities associated with SOA dateback to the '80s and before.

Therefore, Clark's main "support" for the School came in 1996, when he was the CinC of Southern Command for 1 year.

Second, by the middle of the Clinton Administration, the U.S. had started to clean up its act significantly, with even State Department officials admitting that "they had done a lot of bad stuff in South America" in the '50s-'70s. The School now has a mandatory democratic education and civil rights component. It is a military training center that helps train officers from South American countries. By the 1990s, most of the countries in South America had become developing democracies, as opposed to the authoritarian regimes the U.S. had supported in the '50s -'70s. The SoA also went through further reform, with an external independent oversight board. It's supported by countries like Canada.

The School is now renamed the Western Hemispheric Institute for Security Cooperation, from a non-partisan and progressive research institute's project on South America.

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