A Tale of Two Schools

This is the tale of two schools, the Latin American School of Medical Sciences and the School of the Americas. The Latin American School of Medical Sciences (LASMS) is the product of a Socialist society -- Cuba -- and the School of the Americas of a Capitalist society -- the United States of America.

It was Fidel himself who in the late 1990s came up with the idea for this school, which trains doctors from throughout the Americas, not just in the ABCs of medicine but in the need for health care for the struggling masses.

The LASMS is, to be sure, a pure piece of propaganda. It is meant in no small part to show the outside world the moral superiority of Socialism. But while it is doing the propaganda work of a flawed social and economic system, it is also -- undeniably -- doing objective good in the world.

The Cuban government offered full scholarships to poor students from throughout the region, and many, including 90 or so from the United States, have jumped at the chance of a free medical education, even with a bit of socialist theory thrown in. "They are completing the dreams of our commandante," said the dean, Dr. Juan Carrizo Estévez. "As he said, they are true missionaries, true apostles of health."

The Gospel of Matthew says, "Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them." (Matthew 7:17-20)

Still, Cuban authorities are eager to show off this exporter of Cuban doctor-philosophers as a sign of the country's compassion and clout in the world. The sympathetic portrayal of Castro, whom the United States government tars as a dictator who suppresses his people, is sinking in among some students.

"In my country, many see Fidel Castro as a bad leader," said Rolando Bonilla, 23, a Panamanian who is in his second year of the six-year program. "My view has changed. I now know what he represents for this country. I identify with him."

It is not just the Panamanian and other Latin American student who get the message.

Tahirah Benyard, 27, a first-year student from Newark, New Jersey, said it was Cuba's offer to send doctors to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, which was firmly rejected by the Bush administration, that prompted her to take a look at medical education in Cuba.

"I saw my people dying," she said. "There was no one willing to help. The government was saying everything is going to be fine."

In the United States of America, we have the School of the Americas, recently reformed and renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. Like the Latin American school of Medical Sciences, it takes in students from the Americas and sends them home to do the work they have been trained to do. "Ye shall know them by their fruit." (Matthew 7:17) Here is some of the fruit that has been borne by graduates of the School of the Americas:

In Guatemala, last week a court ordered the capture of the SOA graduate Angel Anibal Guevara, the former Defense Minister, and for SOA graduate German Chupina, the former head of the feared National Police, for their involvement in homicide, terrorism and kidnapping during Guatemala’s civil war. The brutal School of the Americas counterinsurgency strategies that were implemented in Guatemala left over 200,000 people dead and no SOA official has ever been held accountable.

In Mexico, a repression campaign is being unleashed against the people of Oaxaca who are struggling for direct democracy and justice. At least 18 high-ranking SOA graduates have played key roles in civilian-targeted warfare against indigenous communities in the states of Chiapas, Guerrero and Oaxaca.

In Colombia, the largest customer of the SOA, 2,000,000 people have been killed or displaced by massacres and assassinations carried out under the direction of SOA graduates. Earlier this year, General Montoya Uribe was named the head of the Colombian military. Gen. Montoya has a history—dating back 30-years—of collaborating with the paramilitaries in killing innocent peasants, massacring villages. He was also a student, and later, in 1993, a teacher, at the SOA. The killing in Colombia continues.

In Argentina, when SOA graduate Leopoldo Galtieri headed the military, 30,000 people were killed or disappeared. And in Chile, 10 of the officers indicted with Pinochet for crimes against humanity were trained at the SOA.

In Honduras, 19 of the ranking officers of the notorious Battalion 316 death squad were SOA-trained. And in Nicaragua, over 4,000 soldiers were trained at the SOA for Somoza’s National Guard death squads.

In El Salvador, SOA-trained soldiers massacred over 900 men, women and children in the village of El Mozote, assassinated Archbishop Oscar Romero, raped and murdered four U.S. church women and massacred 14 year old Celina Ramos, her mother Elba and six Catholic priests, professors of the University of Central America in San Salvador.

In Venezuela, in April 2002, graduates of the School of the Americas were key players in an attempted coup against the democratically elected government. Democracy prevailed as the people took to the streets. One hundred people died in the violence during the coup attempt.

In Bolivia, people across the country protested in October 2003 against unjust economic policies. The government responded by sending the troops - many under the command of SOA graduates to suppress the dissent. The people stood strong and prevailed. The president fled to the United States. Eight-five people were killed in the preceding repression campaign.

The Latin American School of Medical Sciences is the work of Fidel Castro. He is a Socialist. Therefore, we in the United States of America know little about it. The School of the Americas is the work of every American President since Harry S. Truman. The work that is done there, quite frankly, is evil. Therefore, we in the United States of America know little about it.

"Ye shall know them by their fruit."

20,000 Protest the School of the Americas

An estimated 20,000 people--the largest crowd in the 16 year history of the protest--gathered outside of the gates of Fort Benning in Columbus, Georgia, to demand the closing of the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), until 2000 known as the School of the Americas, and still known as the "School of Assassins."

41 people were arrested in acts of civil disobedience as they trespassed US Government property to call attention to the continued existence of a "school" that has trained thousands of Central and South American soldiers and paramilitary troops behind some of the most unconscionable murders in recent history.

The peaceful protest was carried out by Americans of all ages, from all walks of life, and from a variety of faith traditions. Considering the nature of the crimes committed by SOA graduates (the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador in 1980, the murders of four American religious women there in 1980, the murders of six Jesuits, their housekeeper and her daughter in 1989), it is not surprising that there was an overwhelming presence of Christian and Catholic groups at the SOA protest--the protest was, in fact, begun in 1995 by Fr. Roy Bourgeois, a Maryknoll priest and missionary who was friends with two of religious women killed in El Salvador.

Despite the peaceful nature of the protest (it would not be unfair to describe the atmosphere of Sunday's procession as "reverential"), the city of Columbus, Georgia, was somewhat less than welcoming. City police and Georgia state troopers were out en masse, and it was possible to see, on a stretch of road a hundred yards long, four or more cars or vans (some carrying college students to the protest) pulled over and the occupants being questioned. It appeared to more than one observer as harrassment.

Many participants were treated by locals with scorn and told to "go home." Many were described as "tree huggers," or "commies," or "nuts." American (and Confederate) flags were prominently displayed throughout the city of Columbus. A police tower near the speaker's stand videotaped the rally. And everywhere hovered the ominous presence of the surveillance helicopter.

Speaker after speaker, many survivors of the "dirty wars" of the 1980s, gave witness to the fact that the SOA--by whatever name--is still active in training assassins. Particularly interesting were the stories of the "new" death squads in Colombia--paramilitary groups not officially tied to the Colombian military, but commanded nonetheless by SOA graduates--who continue to kidnap, murder, mutilate, and disembody dissidents, human rights workers, and labor organizers. Recent reports directly link the US military to these paramilitary death squads.

My wife Mary Pat and I brought a van load of students from Dominican University in River Forest, Ilinois, to this year's protest. It was an eye-opening, exhausting, and very moving experience.

I'll have more to tell you about it in the days ahead.

For a really nice Flash slideshow of Sunday's protest and procession, click here. For a Flash slideshow of the arrest of "prisoners of conscience" at Sunday's procession, click here. For a slideshow of Saturday's rally, click here. All slideshows from the School of the Americas Watch website.

Update: Here's a moving video of one prisoner of conscience at Sunday's protest by Rebecca MacNiece and Jeff Rich from truthout.com.

Will the Africa Center for Strategic Studies Become the Next "School of the Americas?"

The Africa Center for Strategic Studies looks, from the outside, harmless enough. Even its website, with its dot org URL, makes it appear to be merely another think tank working to improve the largest continent's developing nations.

But the ACSS is not merely another think tank, any more than the Project for a New American Century is just another think tank. The ACSS was launched in 1999 by the United States Department of Defense -- that's right, the Pentagon, not the State Department -- with a goal of, among other things, fostering "informed and productive inquiry on the military's role in a democracy among non-government civilian leaders, government officials and military officers."

In the years since the attacks of September 11, 2001, however, a primary goal of the ACSS has been assisting the US in its so-called "war on terror":

The Africa Center for Strategic Studies supports the efforts of the Department of Defense and other U.S. agencies to counter ideological support for terrorism... (and to) Build understanding and support for the War on Terror.

Now, all this is fine in and of itself. It is curious, I think, that we have largely if not entirely ignored Africa up until now, and continue to ignore many African crises, such as the one we witness in Darfur. When one considers, too, that Africa's total, global, external debt is less than two-thirds of what the United States has spent in the last three-and-a-half years in its invasion and occupation of Iraq, it is impossible to wonder if "ideological support for terrorism" would be most easily countered by a global policy of debt forgiveness (as urged by the late Roman Catholic Pontiff, the Holy Father Pope John Paul the Great).

But that is not the way this administration works.

In 2003, US agents began training operatives for four North African countries - Morocco, Egypt, Algeria and Tunisia. ACSS has begun classes in counter-terrorism operations that seek to "share best practices and lessons learned regarding counter-terrorism policies and programs." (Presumably, "best practices" include physical abuse "tantamount to torture," suspension of fundamental human rights such as due process of law, kidnapping suspects, etc.) And in 2005 George W. Bush called for the US military training of 40,000 African troops to combat terrorism and "keep peace" in Africa.

Again none of this, on the surface, raises eyebrows. That is, perhaps, one of the reasons so little has been reported about the ACSS. But the parallels to the School of the Americas are frightening. The SOA began as a counter-insurgency training institute for Latin American military. It became, by the 1980's, a school for assassins and death squad leaders.
It isn't right. Write your Congressional Representatives and demand sufficient oversight.

ACTION ALERT : Help Shut Down the SOA!

Urge your Congressman/woman to spoonsor Rep. Jim McGovern's Latin America Military Training Review Act

Legislation was introduced last month to shut down the SOA (School of the Americas or Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC).

Either name will do really; evil is evil.

In case you don't know, the SOA is an US Army facility at Fort Benning in Columbus, Georgia. It is a training facility operated in the Spanish language especially for Latin American military personnel.

"The SOA has been attacked for training members of governments guilty of serious human rights abuses and advocating techniques that violate accepted standards. Graduates of the SOA include men such as Hugo Banzer Suárez, Leopoldo Galtieri, Manuel Noriega, Efraín Ríos Montt, Guillermo Rodríguez, Omar Torrijos, Roberto Viola and Juan Velasco Alvarado. For this reason, the school's acronym is occasionally reparsed by its detractors as "School of Assassins"."

The SOA trains members in military techniques such as sniper training, commando and psychological warfare, military intelligence and interrogation/torture tactics. Once they get back to there home countries in South America graduates of the SOA use these tactics to abuse there own people.

Murder, rape, and torture are the order of the day for graduates of the SOA.

It is deplorable that the United States, a country founded on the idea of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, would allow such a lack of reponsibility in the way that it handles members of the SOA.

Why,then, does the SOA continue to exist?

"From its beginning, the mission of the SOA has been to train soldiers to protect the interests of multinational corporations and maintain the economic status quo for the few rich and powerful in the US and their cohorts in Latin America. Labor leaders and union organizers have always been among the primary targets of SOA violence."

But there is hope and people are aware.

Ever year in November groups from all across the country decend on Fort Benning to protest the SOA. Many of these groups are from religious communities and universities. (Including my Alma mater). The people that protest the SOA are people of good faith and concience and not the nutty moral majority right wingers who have highjacked this country. Consequently, to make their point protestors of SOA will cross over on to the government property and are promptly arrested.

However, if this legislation gets pushed through it would be a huge victory for for human rights.

AN UPDATE BY DR. FALLON (4/20/05, 11:25 CDT):
To contact your Congressional representative, click here. And then e-mail this post (using the little envelope icon below) to as many people as you can, urging them to contact their own Congressperson. This is really important, and if enough of our reps understand that their constituents hate the fact that we train war criminals here in the United States of America, we can actually get this place closed down once and for all.

A Letter from the School of the Americas Watch

Just got this:

Dear Friends in the Struggle for Peace and Justice,

As reports continue to come from the Gulf, we continue to be saddened and angered by what we hear. As Hurricane Katrina pounded the Gulf Coast we received reports from SOA Watch activists who were stranded. Some could not leave and some stayed to be with those who had no way of leaving. In the days that followed, after the levees broke, we continued to hear from friends in New Orleans who were trapped in the city. The reports were difficult to hear.

We also learned that over the last three years the monies that were allotted to reinforce the levees in New Orleans were cut by the Bush Administration as the budgets increased for Homeland Security and the Pentagon. We see U.S.-funded wars waged in places like Colombia and Iraq resulting in great loss of life. We see the funding of military training schools, like the SOA, resulting in Latin American soldiers returning home to bring suffering to their own people. We are angered that money for fixing the levees was cut and resources to assist survivors did not materialize in the days that followed Katrina. New Orleans was destroyed not by Hurricane Katrina, but by levees that could have been fixed.

We see National Guard Units in Iraq while we needed to see them and their equipment at home. Our anger grew as we learned of how many people were trapped and how many people would continue to die because rescuers were not on the way.

The federal government abandoned black people and poor people. The media showed images of people of color carrying food and reported that they were "looters;" nearly identical images of white people finding food carried captions describing the people as "finding food."

Clearly, institutional racism in our government caused people to die, and institutional racism in the media criminalized people of color as they were struggling to survive.

SOA Watch adds its voice to the outrage that millions are feeling in our country now. We demand accountability from a government that would take our money to fund a murderous foreign policy in the Persian Gulf while neglecting our infrastructure at home - neglect that is responsible for killing thousands on the U.S. Gulf Coast.

SOA Watch believes that our country would be more secure by no longer training assassins in the Americas and by no longer sending our troops to wage war on people of color abroad. We believe that a true homeland security will be achieved not by funding war, but by supporting a global security where our country's deteriorating infrastructure is repaired and all around the globe people have access to education, a living wage and healthcare.

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, we were inspired to hear your stories of the true heroism, generosity and mutual aid that occurred in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

In recent days you've shared with us how you've taken this struggle for life into your own hands. You told us that some of you were in the Gulf and continue to remain there adding your hands to the thousands who stayed to help others. We continue to hear that many of you are coordinating food and clothing drives, that you're finding housing for displaced people in your area or that you've left for the Gulf with groups like Veterans for Peace to volunteer in some of the areas that need our help most.

We will all continue to assist the survivors in the Gulf, to find homes for the displaced and to respond to this catastrophe as we hold onto our anger and sadness. We will carry our outrage and grief as we demonstrate in Washington this September - and we will take it with us as we remember and resist at the gates of Fort Benning this
November 18-20.We are a part of the millions in our country who believe that love is more powerful than prejudice, that hope will prevail over despair and that our hands united are building a world where respect for life triumphs over political interest.

Yours in the Struggle for Life,

Asha, Carmen, Christy, Eric, Hendrik, John, Pam and Roy The SOA Watch Staff

If you are as outraged by the events of the past two weeks (to say nothing of the lies of the last three years) as most Americans are, I urge you NOT to just sit back and let the Bush administration carry on "business as usual." PLEASE e-mail, call, or write your congressional representatives TODAY and urge them to begin an impeachment inquiry against George W. Bush.

You can find your representative here.

Chavez : Negroponte a "Professional Killer"

An update on the "New Axis of Evil"^TM

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - President Hugo Chavez on Sunday said he believes enemies including the CIA are out to kill him, and called U.S. diplomat John Negroponte a "professional killer.''

The CIA does have a history of coups and assassinations in Latin America (1954 Guatemala coup against Jacobo Arbenz, 1961 coup against J. M. Velasco Ibarra of Ecuador, a 1963 coup against Juan Bosch in the Dominican Republic, the 1973 coup against -- and assassination of -- Salvador Allende in Chile, the 1983 CIA establishment of the "Contra army" in Nicaragua, as well as the entire history of death squads emerging from the School of the Americas). John Negroponte as a "professional killer" is certainly hyperbole, and it is doubtful that the Assistant Secretary of State ever killed anyone himself. However, as US Ambassador to Honduras (1981-85), Negroponte oversaw the establishment of death squads in Honduras and El Salvador as well as the US-supported "Contra war' against Nicaragua's Sandinista government.

Chavez said Venezuelan officials have intelligence that associates of jailed Cuban anti-communist militant Luis Posada Carriles also are involved in plotting to assassinate him.

He said the death plot idea has "gained weight'' due to various factors, including the recent appointment of Negroponte, the former director of national intelligence, as deputy to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Here and here is the entire FOIA file on Luis Posada Carriles from the National Security Archives at George Washington University. Here is the file on John Negroponte. Read them and decide for yourself if Chavez is being paranoid.

"Who did they swear in...there at the White House as deputy secretary of state? A professional killer: John Negroponte,'' Chavez said.

Chavez did not elaborate, but his government has previously accused Negroponte of playing a key role in the Contra war against the leftist Sandinista government of Nicaragua when he served as ambassador to Honduras - a haven for clandestine Contra bases - from 1981 to 1985.

U.S. Embassy officials could not immediately be reached for comment, but they have denied Chavez's repeated accusations that they are plotting to oust him.

Of course they have. What else would they say? Logic -- and ethics -- demands we acknowledge the fact that none of this proves anything. Chavez may be lying, he may be crazy, he may be manipulating the media. Or he may be telling the truth. My point is that our history in Latin America suggests that he is not, at the very least, crazy.

Chavez was asked about reports of assassination plots during a televised interview.
"'They have assigned special units of the CIA, true assassins, who go around not only here in Venezuela, in Central America, in South America,'' Chavez said, without elaborating.

He added that while Posada Carriles, a former CIA operative, remains jailed in the U.S. on immigration charges, "Posada Carriles' people are very active in Central America and searching for contacts in Venezuela ... They are going around searching for explosives in large quantities, thinking about a sort of car bombing or searching for ground-to-air missiles, thinking about the presidential plane.''

Chavez did not give details. His government has demanded that the U.S. extradite Posada Carriles, a naturalized Venezuelan, to stand trial for allegedly masterminding the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people. Posada Carriles denies involvement in that incident.

Posada's involvement is documented in recently declassified CIA papers. Posada's FOIA files can be seen here and here, and the actual declassified CIA memo that refers to his involvement in the bombing can be seen here.

The CIA documents also show that Posada worked with another terrorist, former CIA operative Orlando Bosch. Bosch was pardoned by the first President Bush in 1990.

This, my friends, is our "war between good and evil."

US Wants to Bar Posada Testifying About CIA Resume in His Upcoming Trial

An Update on "America's Terrorist"^TM

The US Government doesn't want the upcoming trial of terrorist Luis Posada Carriles to draw a lot of attention to the fact that he worked for many years for the CIA.

In a nine-page motion filed with a federal tribunal in El Paso, Texas, state prosecutors claimed Posada Carriles's relationship with the Central Intelligence Agency ended more than 30 years ago and that as testimony or questioning about those ties were not relevant to his trial on immigration charges.

Not relevant? Not relevant? Recently declassified CIA documents (viewable here and here) show that the man planned the mid-air bombing of an airliner, killing 76 people, many of them students. How in the world is this not relevant to his trial on immigration charges? And why is he charged only with illegal entry into the United States?

And his tenure as either a CIA operative or associate did not necessarily end in 1976. Even though he was employed as a CIA agent in 1965, he was trained in 1961 (at the School of the Americas) in sabotage and explosives and took part in the CIA-planned and sponsored Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. While still a CIA agent, Posada bacame the Chief of Operations of the Venezuelan Intelligences Services. The CIA believed at this time that Posada was trafficking in cocaine, but he remained on the payroll until 1976.

Imprisoned in Venezuela in 1977 for the 1976 bombing of Cubana Flight 455, Posada escaped to Chile, where he was again jailed. With help from the Reagan administration-funded -- and ultra right-wing -- Cuban American National Foundation, Posada again escaped and settled in El Salvador. Here he worked on regional programs during the 1980s sponsored by the Reagan administration, including selling arms to Iran in exchange for US hostages, the money going to fund (illegally) the Contra war in Nicaragua.

In 1997, Posada was implicated in a number of bombings of tourist hotels in Havana, and indicated that even though he no longer worked directly for the CIA, benefitted from a "tolerant attitude" on the part of US law enforcement.

Why are we fighting a so-called "war on terror" but refusing to extradite a man who we know to be a terrorist? Why are we rushing to deport immigrants who do essential work in the United States, but refusing to extradite that same man who we know to be a terrorist?

On September 23, 2003, President George W. Bush addressed the UN General Assembly and spoke about the so-called "war on terror." Among other things, he said:

“All governments that support terror are complicit in a war against civilization.” – President Bush's UN speech, 9/23/03

In training people sabotage and explosice techniques, we are supporting terror. In supporting right-wing death squads, or supporting governments that support right-wing death squads, we are supporting terror. In selling arms to Iran in order to illegally fund a revolutionary army, we are supporting terror. In allowing Luis Posada Carriles to walk the streets free, we are supporting terror. In trying him for illegal entry into the United States, we are supporting terror. In refusing to extradite him to Venezuela to stand trial for variouos crimes he committed there, we are supporting terror.

The Bush administration's so-called "war on terror" is a sham.

IMPEACH!!!

Write Your Senator: NO! on Negroponte

John Negroponte was the US Ambassador to Honduras (1981-1985) during the Reagan administration, during which time he was instrumental in overseeing the illegal "contra" revolutionary insurgency against the Sandinista government of Nicaragua, and "denied or downplayed" serious abuses of human rights by Honduran government and contra military forces. According to Conn Hallinan, "At the time Negroponte was denying human rights violations in Honduras, the military's notorious Battalion 3-16, a secret unit trained by the CIA, and headed by Gen. Gustavo Alverez Martinez, a graduate of the U.S.'s School of the Americas, was kidnapping and murdering opponents of the government."

According to Wikipedia's bio on Negroponte:

Negroponte supervised the construction of the El Aguacate air base where Nicaraguan Contras were trained by the U.S., and which some critics say was used as a secret detention and torture center during the 1980s. In August 2001, excavations at the base discovered 185 corpses, including two Americans, who are thought to have been killed and buried at the site.

Andre Couteris of Non-violence International has called Negroponte a "state terrorist." Sister Laetitia Bordes, a Catholic Sister of the Society of Helpers, points to the fact that Battalian 316, the clandestine Honduran death squad, operated with impunity during Negroponte's tenure as Ambassador, and this "was well known to ambassador Negroponte."

Alberto Gonzales's nomination was approved by the Senate on a largely partisan vote, all 36 "no" votes coming from Democrats or Independents. The Senate did not see fit to approve unanimously a man who could justify meaures that could conceivably be construed as "torture." Will they see fit to approve a man who--at the very least--turned a blind eye to murder?

Please, write, call, or e-mail your Senator now and tell them you don't want a man with Negroponte's credentials overseeing not just intelligence gathering, but clandestine operations, abroad and at home, of all American intelligence agencies.

Cubans Insist That Washington Shields An International Terrorist

Cubans Insist That Washington Shields An International Terrorist:

Luis Posada Carriles is a Cuban-born exile who once both was an alleged CIA agent and head of the Venezuelan secret police before the rise of Hugo Chavez. He was trained at the School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Georgia.

Posada was arrested and convicted of bombing a Cuban airliner in 1976, killing 73 people, but escaped in 1985. He has been supported by right-wing Cuban exiles in Florida, and used as a CIA asset in El Salvador (fighting leftist guerillas) and Nicaragua (aiding the CIA funded and trained "contras"). During this time, he was also involved in the alleged smuggling and sale of cocaine to support the contra war.

He is now living secretly in the United States and seeking asylum.

THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION'S WAR ON TERROR IS A SHAM.

Things I'd Like the US Media to Tell Me More About...

• How about Daniel Ortega's plan for free education in Nicaragua?
• How about the fact that, just a few weeks back, 22,000 people protested outside Fort Benning to close the School of the Americas -- the biggest protest ever?
• How about the fact that Afhanistan is coming apart at the seams?
• How about the fact that both poverty and homelessness are on the rise in the US?
• How about the fact that the US has been harboring a terrorist (Luis Posada Carriles) for almost two years now, and that Defense Secretary designate Robert Gates worked with him in the 1980s?
• How about the fact that the US is still the biggest arms dealer -- including "weapons of mass destruction" -- in the world?

Just wondering when we'll be hearing these on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, FOX, etc....

Gone to Protest the SOA

I'll be gone for a few days (Friday until Monday) with my beautiful wife, Mary Pat, and some students, staff, and faculty of Dominican University in River Forest, Illinois, to protest the continued operation of the School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Georgia.

Unless my fellow bloggers pick up my slack, there'll be a bit of silence here during my absence. I plan to file a full report on the protests when I get back (probably on Tuesday).

God bless you all.