Problems with SOA

It’s that time of year: the protest against the School of the Americas is coming up.† In a few days, thousands of people will converge on Fort Benning, Ga. to call for the school to be shut down.† Everyone should have a clear understanding of the school and the controversy behind it, so I’ll explain both. Please note: The school is no longer officially known as “School of the Americas.” In 2001 it was renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. But for clarity, I will refer to it by the acronym for its old name, since that is still how it is commonly known.

The main purpose of the SOA is to train soldiers (mostly Latin Americans) in various military fields. These include tactical operations such as counterintelligence and counterinsurgency, professional military leadership, peacetime operations like disaster response, and human rights.† Police officers and civilian officials attend the school in addition to soldiers.† The mission of the school during the Cold War was to prepare Latin American countries to fight communist threats; the focus has since evolved to preparing them to battle various insurgent groups. Military cooperation and sharing of knowledge between the U.S. and Latin America are also general goals.

Groups such as School of the Americas Watch, which organizes the annul protest against the SOA, paint a very dark picture of the school.† They charge that the school protects the interests of large corporations and instructs students in the targeted killing of teachers, union organizers, religious leaders and others.† Students are supposedly taught brutal interrogation techniques including beating and torture. Hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, says SOA Watch, have been tortured and murdered by those taught at the SOA.

There are a few problems with SOA Watch’s charges. First of all, while SOA Watch is quick to accuse the SOA with teaching war crimes, it is totally silent on the crimes committed by the narco-terrorists that SOA students are taught to fight.† The sheer greed of the various drug cartels is unfathomable, their cruelty notorious. Why is SOA Watch not vocally appalled by their crimes? They have caused immense suffering throughout the years, most recently in Mexico.† Wanton killings and kidnappings have become routine there as the cartels have waged a massive campaign of terror against the Mexican people.† Government officials who take a stand against the cartels are singled out in particular for elimination. The cartels’ sole aim in all this is the attainment of money and power. Groups like these are the real targets of SOA graduates.

Another problem with SOA Watch’s charges is the accusation that the SOA instructs students in human rights abuse.† This is completely false ó in fact, the opposite is true.† Congressional legislation stipulates that a portion of the school’s funds go toward courses that teach “effective military judicial systems and military codes of conduct, including the observance of internationally recognized human rights.”† This material is divided into four components: human rights, military justice, civilian control of the military and democratization. Human rights material is woven into every single course taught, accounting for at least 10% of each one. In total, SOA students receive about 1,000 hours of human rights instruction.

While it is not true that the SOA teaches human rights abuse, it is true that several of its graduates have committed an array of atrocities. Many of these crimes were heinous and absolutely deserving of punishment and condemnation. But SOA Watch seems to conclude that since SOA graduates have committed war crimes, they must have been taught how to commit those crimes at the SOA. That would be like concluding that since the Unabomber attended Harvard University, he must have learned how to mail bombs at Harvard. This is obviously unsound logic. The crimes were committed not because of SOA training, but rather in spite of it.

The School of the Americas exists in order to provide other countries with assistance in combating genuine security threats. All students are given extensive instruction in respecting human rights, and those who have committed atrocities constitute a small fraction of the tens of thousands who have received instruction at the school. It is natural to feel revulsion when hearing about those crimes ó for they are indeed deserving of revulsion ó but this should not stop you from distinguishing among fact, out-of-context fact, and falsity.† Keep in mind that much of the anti-SOA propaganda is of the latter two categories.