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Three cheers for President Arias for deciding to remove Costa Rican police trainees from the infamous School of the Americas in Ft.Benning. It seems to be mostly a gesture since there were only three police there but it is still a good move.
http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=20070517202323245Speaking of police, I know there are too few in Costa Rica. Perhaps that explains the “casual road block” technique I noticed in San Ramon. At the entrance to town, about 5 or 6 officers pull over vehicles they don’t immediately recognize and check credentials. I was pulled over and I asked what the reason was. The officer replied “Just checking”. With limited manpower, it may be an effective method to police an area.
I was just at Ft Benning yesterday!
“Though U.S. defense officials closed the original school, a Latin American military training facility, in 2000 and reopened it a year later under the new name and with a new curriculum, critics say the change was purely cosmetic.”
I wonder who these critics are? Do they have the up to date info on what the school teaches?
It’s always been known as the School of the Assassins. Read those links I posted to your other comments about how the Latin American Death Squads weren’t trained by the US. They were, in fact, trained at Ft. Benning.
The world has changed since the 80’s
Today the tactics that are being taught are not what they were in the past.
This school also has help many countries learn how to run their police force and protect their countries.
Countries such as Costa Rica need the education that the U.S. offers and provides and that is what this school evolved into.
The school that you are refering to used to be in Panama!
It’s NOT in Panama anymore. It’s at Fort Benning. And yes, they train police forces. . . in all manner of controls whatever they may be. It also trains assassins, uh, er, death squads, the ones you say weren’t trained by the US.
Maybe the Costa Ricans should be the ones training foreign police forces, including ours! Waco & Rodney King come to mind.
While I would like to think that Scott B is right that the school has “evolved”, given our apparently softened stance on torture and due process, I truly wonder.
Furthermore, let’s be frank. Just as the true political goal of the “School of the Americas” was to counter the spread of communism during the Cold War, the void left by the fall of the USSR was hastily filled by the “War on Drugs”, which in my opinion is simply a perpetual and unwinnable war on human nature. It was inevitable – too much peace means presidents have to think about pressing and politically difficult domestic issues – what a drag!
This new war has done nothing but make drug lords more powerful and profitable than whole governments, undermined democracy, enriched street gangs, overwhelmed court systems, corrupted police forces, swollen prison populations, and offered large revenue streams to terrorist organizations. Many countries are now hostages to their drug mafias, and our own national and neighborhood security is threatened as well.
You can bet that the emphasis of our new and improved school is all about drug interdiction.
Oh, but I’m soooo out of date! I totally forgot our newest venture – the “War on Terror” – another perpetual and unwinnable war which is further destroying freedom and democracy around the world. I say unwinnable, because military might is the wrong way to fight a political/religious movement. Just as our War on Drugs has strengthened the drug lords, our War on Terror has strengthened the terrorists. What kind of lame president can possibly make us look worse in the world court of public opinion than cold-blooded baby killers?!
One definition of war is a failure of politics, and I’m afraid George Bush has helped Bin Laden achieve his dreams. Never before has the Arab world been so strongly aligned against the U.S. Never before has the rest of the world turned against us so as they have now. Never before have we helped foment an all out religious war against “western values”, whatever that is.
Now we have a “War Czar”. Tell me, when will we have a “Peace Czar”?????
And where is the “University of Peace”? In Ciudad Colón, Costa Rica, of course!!!!
Our world is upside down.
What soft stance on torture and due process? Alberto Gonzo believes in torture, that’s why we rendition those we want to torture to some place like Egypt or Syria. We can torture all we like in those places. As for due process. . . does it even exist today with the erosion of civil rights since 9-11? Not if the govt deems you to be an enemy combatant, which could be almost anybody according to their definition. I think it is really interesting that we’re training the CR police force — makes me wonder if we’ll now see cops at the side of the road wearing riot gear and wielding batons as they hail over motorists! You are so right when you say the world is upside down. It hardly resembles the world as I knew it 25 years ago.
For those of you who would like to know more about this new school, check out the Center for International Policy’s site on it:
http://www.ciponline.org/facts/soa.htm
I tried to go right to the US Army’s official site (https://www.infantry.army.mil/WHINSEC/), but my virus protection software tells me that “There is a problem with this website’s security certificate”. How ironic is that? Or maybe Big Brother just wants to keep track of who’s visiting?
Then look at the University of Peace’s website:
Check out their Annual Report to see how much money the US contributed to them in 2005 – NOTHING!
You can call a pig a camel, but it doesn’t make it less of a pig. Same thing with WHINSEC and School of the Americas. plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose.
The U.S. should give millions to the University of Peace. Then they can set up internships and classes in Iraq. I think that would solve the problem and then we can bring are military home. I can’t believe Bush didn’t think of that before going in to Afghanistan and Iraq. What a waste!
And do what, put Halliburton out of business? It’s a good idea, but it ain’t gonna happen. Peace isn’t profitable, but was is!
No,,, I belive that they should put that internships and classes in Saudi Arabia,
Would you volunteer????
HTTPS link and Security:
The S in that link is for a site with a secure certificate. Unless you are making a financial transaction all this warning meant is that either the site did not have a secure cert, the address was incorrect (www.sitname.com and sitename.com are different addresses to a secure cert) AND if the certificate is issued by ANY company other than a few that have deals with you Browser’s authors then it will be treated as “unfamiliar”.
In this case, IF you examine the certificate, it was issued by the DoD. This is not a “recognized” insurer of certs. All this means is that the government doesn’t have a “deal” with Microsoft and issues their own secure certificates.
Anyone with a server and the know how can issue a secure cert in their own name. The connection transaction is JUST AS SECURE as one from any “recognized” authority. The only difference is that SOME issuers do credit and background checks on the people they issue certs to AND they charge a lot of money. I bailed out of this game a couple years ago when I found that thieves could get a cert easier than I could because they had good credit! Now I use a cheap no-frills cert issuer who only knows that I do legally own my domain.
As to the safety of that particular URL. The .MIL ending is only issued to US military sites and none other. Its like .GOV. The U.S. holds the keys to the Internet and does not issue these domain extensions to anyone else. There is no such thing as a UK.GOV or UK.MIL or France.GOV. . . ONLY the US government can use these extensions (at this time).
What you DO have to be careful of when you go to various links is that the end of the URL is BEFORE the first slash / NOT a period. Phishers commonly embed trusted addresses buried in theirs like so
http://www.bankamerica.com.IAMATHEIF.ir.co/lots_of_confusing_paramaters/
In the example above the URL is IAMATHEIF.ir.co. NOT bankamerica.com.
Learn to read the URL’s and you will be much safer on the Internet.
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