Would you still support Gore if he made a commencement speech at Bob Jones University praising its graduates? What if the University had a long, well documented record of producing over 200 brutal killers that terrorized over a dozen different countries, and Gore never apologized for his supportive speech? General Wesley Clark made a commencement speech at the School of the Americas, or the SOA, whose reputation for producing torturous thugs became so well known that they've had to change their name. Clark states- "I think you know in your command structures who the school of the Americas' graduates are and you know that they are respected" - - [
http://www.carlisle.army.mil/...] Maybe he should have added "respected and FEARED", because the SOA graduates have been responsible for the most gruesome acts in Latin American history.
I'm going to go over just a few of those graduates, and give the link to the CIA's own report on them below.
There are well over two hundred graduates from the SOA that have committed the most atrocious terrorist acts in several different countries. They burned churches with people inside of them in Haiti and assassinated Archbishop Romero in El Salvador. The drug smugglers and kidnapers that graduated from the SOA are too numerous to list, and it frankly it makes Liberty University or Bob Jones University look like a nursery full of puppies in comparison. INMO, if you complain about politicians speaking at those places of intolerance, but support Wesley Clark even though his commencement speech praises SOA's graduates, you are a hypocrite, plain and simple.
COL Mario Davico, 1971, Military Intelligence Officer Course Advisor, Honduran Battalion 3-16, 1980's: One of several Argentinean military advisors present in Honduras during the early 1980's. The Honduran Armed Forces, particularly Battalion 3-16, were taught the "Argentine Method" of extreme repression practiced successfully during Argentina's "dirty war' (1976-1983). Techniques included arbitrary detention, torture,
extrajudicial executions, and methods of disposing of the bodies of the victims. (Americas Watch Report: The Facts Speak for Themselves, 1994) Clark made the speech in 1996, after the SOA's torture manuals were investigated by the Pentagon.
You want the real source that talks about Battalion 3-16? Check the CIA's own reading room for reports on Wesley Clark's friends, you know, the graduates that he is so proud of for their long record of military service. - [http://www.foia.cia.gov/] type in "Guerrilla Warfare" in the "Document Search" section.
Read the second document result, titled "Selected Issues Relating To CIA Activities In Honduras in the 1980's". On the first page it identifies battalion 3-16 specifically, and it states on page 2 of the report (page 13 of 238 -of the full document) that the their review found "The Honduran military committed hundreds of human rights abuses since 1980, many of which were politically motivated and officially sanctioned;"
Page 11 (page 22 of 238) lists the SOA specifically and mentions a graduate, but then a whole bunch of blacked out lines surround it.
Maybe, just maybe, the reason why Wesley Clark is so proud of those SOA graduates is contained in all of those blacked out sections in that CIA report. Think about that for a moment. Usually the US didn't support lazy South American dictators or officers- nope, they supported the really "active" ones, that did "things" to help the US's political and strategic interests. Let me make this clear, the SOA isn't a school that trained the Latin American killers for all these decades, it is THE ONLY school that has done this. There are no others with this record, none. General Manuel Noriega was a graduate of the SOA, is Wesley Clark proud of him?
In his speech, Wesley Clark says
And you know that the degree of respect carries with it responsibilities and expectations, not all of that is earned because you studied here...because you were special before you came here. Your countries chose their best to come to study together at SOA. And your leaders will expect a great deal from you. Because they remember the tactics block themselves. They'll expect you to improve on doctrine as many of them have. And you're going to follow in their footsteps
Wesley Clark is correct to say that the US and the repressive military leaders of those countries would expect much from the graduates, because it is asking a lot to commit those barbarous acts against their own people.
COL Franck Romain, 1956, MP Officer St. Jean Bosco Massacre: On Sept. 11, 1988, armed men broke into the St. Jean Bosco church while Fr. Jean Bertrand Aristide was saying mass and killed 12 parishioners and wounded at least 77. The doused the church in gasoline and set it on fire. Witnesses identified at least two of the gang members as deputies of Col. Romain, who was then Mayor of Port-au- Prince. Col. Romain later publicly justified the massacre as legitimate. (Americas Watch Report: The More
Things Change... Human Rights in Haiti, 1987)
Wesley Clark, in his speech to the SOA graduates states,
I think that together we have shared interests, shared institutions, and shared dreams. Our interests are paralleled and equivalent. A common desire for economic growth in our countries is steady and strong.
I would be very concerned about that statement if I were a Wesley Clark supporter, because when he made that speech the record of US involvement in Latin America was quite clear. What the SOA graduates did was not honorable and nothing that someone, especially someone running for president, should be proud of. To support the SOA as Clark did, is to prefer a repressive military solution for Latin America's problems. That legacy is still shaping Latin American policies today, the victims, widows and orphans still remember what those brutal military regimes, trained in the SOA, did to thier people. Wesley Clark's past praise and current silence on the issue should worry a genuine American citizen concerned with American foreign policy.
For everyone that thinks it's really brave and candid of Krugman to come clean on Lieberman or McCain, dream on, those are the easy picks and long overdue (I love Krugman and am glad he's doing it, but really it's not that controversial). It's a little more difficult to take a step back and question our own supposed "heroes".
GEN Juan Rafael Bustillo,1965, Counterinsurgency Orientation Jesuit massacre, 1989: Planned and covered-up the massacre of 6 priests, their housekeeper and her daughter. (United Nations Truth Commission Report on El Salvador, 1993)
Torture, rape, murder of French nurse, 1989: Bustillo (with 3 other SOA graduates) is wanted in France in connection with the torture, rape, and murder of 27-year-old Madeleine Lagadec in El Salvador in 1989. Her raped, bullet-riddled body was found with its left hand severed. (Associated Press, 4/29/95) Clark made his speech in 1996.
Labor union murders: Members of a school teachers' union claim that the Air Force, under Bustillo's control, targeted union members for torture and murder, including Maria Cristina Gomez and Miguel Angel Lazo Quintanilla (Amnesty International Report, Latin America: Human Rights Violations Against Trade Unionists, March 1991)
In a post 9-11 world, where arbitrary detentions, torture and human rights violations are real problems, we should not consider a candidate who not only overlooked, but apparently is proud of such actions in the past. Latin America will continue to be an issue for American foreign policy, so do Clark supporters agree with the SOA's solutions, like Clark does? Clarks praise for these torturers will be an issue in 2008 if the netroots support him. He will be "swift-boated", for his SOA support but this time, the charges will be well founded and well documented.
Do Clark supporters want our party to overlook this? Do Clark supporters think that having a US President that praised the SOA and its graduates won't be known, or that it doesn't matter? Frankly, Wesley Clark as President will not restore Americas reputation in the world, and people will know what he praised and supported in the past.