Those were all good guesses! Of course, the ones that were a bit more southern geographically were closest.
However, and unfortunately, they're all wrong.
Sorry, Charlie!
What you're about to read & see will be new. It may also be shocking. You may be repulsed, you may be angered, or you may simply toss up your arms in complete abandon saying, 'who cares?'
For several years, the Department of Defense has, through the auspices of the United States Army, conducted a school neighboring Alabama in southern Georgia.
The location is no secret. The name, however, has been changed... to protect the guilty.
Here's a small taste from their website:
Acerca de Nuestros EstudiantesNuestro amplio y diverso cuerpo de estudiantes, viene en su mayoría de los países del Hemisferio Occidental -desde América latina y del Caribe hasta los Estados Unidos y Canadá. Los estudiantes cuyo numero oscila entre 800 a 1000 por año, reflejan una mezcla de sociedades de la región. Ellos son elegidos entre militares, policias y civiles de las organizaciones gubernamentales y no gubernamentales.Oh? Your Español's not too good? No problemo! Just cruise on over to the Anglais side! (The two websites are identical, the original is in Español. Both urls are posted at the bottom.)
But, would it amaze you to know that the nations wherein the recruiting is done don't want any more recruiting done in their nation, and in fact, want the school closed?
It's true!
The nations of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Paraguay and Peru all want the school closed. Canada and Ireland do too! And the nations of Venezuela, Argentina and Uruguay have all ceased sending students there.
What else would you think if you found out that graduates of the school are among the finest and most illustrious people on Earth... such as "Maximum Leader of the Panamanian Revolution" Omar Torrijos, cocaine trafficker, racketeer, and money launderer Manuel Noriega, Ecuadorian dictator Guillermo Rodríguez, "President of the Revolutionary Government" Juan Velasco Alvarado former military dictator of Peru, and others?
Historical figures not withstanding, it was reported as recently as late October 2003 by the Brownsville (TX) Herald that the notorious Gulf Drug Cartel hired 31 Mexican military deserters whom were trained at SOA and former members in the Special Air Mobile Force Group! The Mexican attorney general’s office implicates them in dozens of shootouts, kidnappings and executions of police officers.
In late February last year, thee children were among eight people of the José de Apartadó Peace Community in Urabá, Colombia massacred by soldiers led by SOA grad General Héctor Jaime Fandiño Rincón, commander of the 17th Brigade of the Colombian army.
Not only do your tax dollars support the teaching of terrorism, but partial funding for the school comes from selling weapons to the graduates! "...the government-to-government method for selling U.S. defense equipment, services, and training." (http://www.dsca.osd.mil/home/foreign_military_sales.htm)
So, exactly what is this Spanish-only speaking school supported by YOUR tax dollars (and weapons sales) that Congress has tried to shut down several times?
Formerly known as the "School of the Americas," the name has been changed to the "Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation." Sounds kinda' nine-eleven and Big Brother-ish, doesn't it?
In 1989, a 27 member military death squad massacred six Salvadoran Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her teenage daughter at the University of Central America (http://www.uca.edu.sv/) in San Salvadore. Of that number, 19 were graduates of the School of the Americas.
And recently, one of the convicted gang leaders, sub-lieutenant Gonzalo Guevara Cerritos, of the notorious Atlacatl Battalion, was again arrested... this time, in the United States.
According to the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, he entered the U.S.A. illegally in January 2005, and is now being held in a California detention facility.
Cerritos was convicted in El Salvador in 1991 by a jury for "instigation and conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism," and was sentenced to two years of house arrest.
In 1996, the Pentagon was forced to release "how-to" torture manuals circulated in the school. In them, they advocated torture, extortion, blackmail and the targeting of civilian populations. And, in a memorandum dated 10 March 1992 to Dick Cheney, then-Secretary of Defense, the use of such manuals entitled "Revolutionary War and Communist Ideology" (which illustrates "the recruitment and control of HUMINT (Human Intelligence) sources, refers to motivation by fear, payment of bounties for enemy dead, beatings, false imprisonment, execution and the use of truth serum") was not discouraged. (http://www.soaw.org/new/article.php?id=98)
How-to manuals on Terrorism?
You be the judge.
¿Qué el sello de WHINSEC significa?
https://www.infantry.army.mil/whinsec/es/sobre.asp?id=133Would you please pick up the Anglophone?
What does the WHINSEC seal mean?
https://www.infantry.army.mil/whinsec/about.asp?id=36