Puppetista activists @ SOAW Nov. 16th

[ElsewheresDaughter]

Run time: 06:47 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHIqgqlqu_4   Posted on YouTube: November 02, 2006 By YouTube Member: supersonicavengers Views on YouTube: 1882   Posted on DU: November 14, 2006 By DU Member: ElsewheresDaughter Views on DU: 602

 
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1107-20.htm

Why I'm Going to the SOA Protest
by John Dear


Each year around Nov. 16, nearly 20,000 people gather at Fort Benning, Ga., outside the gates of the notorious "School of Americas." The school has trained some 64,000 Central and South Americans, many of whom have gone on to commit murder and torture as members of Latin American death squads -- a sinister distinction that has earned the place the more infamous title, the "School of Assassins." The yearly protests are by now as rooted as the Georgia pines and have the Pentagon on the defensive. The Pentagon's first official response was a PR move. A name change came down. They now call the place "The Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation."

The name has changed, but nothing else. The place still trains the aristocracy's thugs to brutalize the campesinos. There soldiers enroll in such courses as Counterinsurgency, Psychological Warfare, Military Intelligence and Interrogation Tactics. There soldiers study how to target Latin American educators, union organizers, catechists, student leaders, human rights workers, priests and nuns.

We train Latin American soldiers how to arrest, torture and behead. They learn how to stealthily assassinate a solitary target and massacre dozens in a village. To learn the art of killing, the SOA is the place to go.

I've gone four times already and was arrested with thousands of others in 1998 and 1999. But why go again? What good comes of it? I'm going for several reasons.

"Every known terrorist training camp must be shut down," said George W. Bush. I'm going to demand just that. Let the SOA be the first one to close. Immoral, inhuman, illegal, demonic -- this terrorist school has no right to exist. It's part and parcel of the web of lies, murder and massacres that the U.S. inflicts in Iraq every day. The SOA brings no democracy to our sisters and brothers in Latin America. It brings only death. A truly democratic institution would ensure the well-being of every adult and child through only nonviolent methods. A school promoting democracy would teach nonviolence and proudly embrace the name "Institute of Nonviolent Cooperation."

I'm going because some months ago I visited Colombia, where I witnessed the sinister fruits of the SOA. There I met Jesuits who suffer under daily death threats because they publicly work for human rights. There I met hundreds of mountain villagers who survived the massacre of their villages -- and their loved ones. Their blood stains the hands of death squads, soldiers and paramilitaries -- trained by the U.S. at the SOA.

[aaronbees]

1. Great, creative protesting....

Recommended :)