cannabisnews.com: CIA and School of the Americas





CIA and School of the Americas
Posted by FoM on December 01, 2001 at 08:25:52 PT
By Raymond Ker, Cape Town, South Africa 
Source: Daily Star 
America’s evil actions in the past are backfiring on its own citizens today. The Taleban and bin Laden were the creation of the CIA who in 1979 recruited the most vicious and radical fundamentalist fanatics from Saudi Arabia and other Arab and Muslim countries and utilized the enormous budget allocated by the US Administration to train, arm and finance them. Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was Jimmy Carter’s National Security Advisor during that era, admitted that the intention was to unleash the mujaheddine on the Russians, who were supporting the government in Afghanistan. 
This furthered the Americans’ Cold War agenda but resulted in the destruction of Afghanistan. It also illustrates the shear inhumanity, racism and stupidity of US foreign policy. These terrorists soon became autonomous of their US masters and almost immediately started pursuing their own fundamentalist vision in North Africa (assassination of Anwar Sadat), Middle East, Chechnya, Bosnia, Kashmir, South East Asia, etc And then, finally, the World Trade Center. There are several reasons why have they turned on their American masters in such a spectacularly horrific way. The first really sore point is their perception that the holiest sites of Islam have been defiled because of the establishment of permanent US military bases in Saudi Arabia. This has been a recurring theme of bin Laden’s broadcasts on the Al-Jazeera TV channel. Another major reason for their anger is the incessant bombing of Iraq and the embargo which has resulted in the deaths of 500,000 children from malnutrition and lack of medicines, and the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of civilians. US support for the brutal totalitarian regimes in Arab and Muslim countries, which viciously thwart any democratic or progressive economic reforms, is also high on the list of grievances. Osama referred to “a long series of crusader wars against the Islamic world” from the occupation of Palestine by the British, US support for the Zionist occupation and excesses in Palestine, to the assault on Bosnia. This pattern of CIA activity can be traced throughout the Third World and can be extrapolated ad nauseum but is seen most graphically in Latin America. Most people are fairly familiar with the exploits of the CIA over the past half-century but few know a great deal about the terrorist training camp in Fort Benning, Georgia, named euphemistically: the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, WHISC. It was formed in Panama in 1946 and named the School of the Americas (SOA) in 1963 under John F. Kennedy. It was then moved to Georgia in 1984 under terms of the Panama Canal Treaties. This delightful venue has trained 60,000 Latin Americans from whose ranks were spawned the most vicious torturers, homicidal maniacs, state terrorists and despots, who have terrorized and perpetrated genocidal warfare against the civilian populations of Central and South America for five decades. These are the front-line troops enforcing the US “full spectrum dominance” in the economic, political and military arenas. This includes the death or disappearance of 200,000 Guatemalans and innumerable other atrocities. In Colombia 2 million have been displaced and thousands are still reliving the horrors of their torture ­ not surprising since, with 10,000 graduates from the SOA, Colombia is the school’s largest customer and has the worst human rights record on the continent. This is underpinned by the $1.3 billion US-funded aid package of which 75 percent is lavished on the Colombian security forces. The El Salvadorean truth and reconciliation commission found that more than two-thirds of the worst human rights violators were graduates cum laude of the School of the Americas, while the Guatemalan Truth Commission Report stated that 93 percent of human rights violations were perpetrated by the military or death squads linked to the SOA, rather than by insurgents. The record shows that these model students also turned up in the security apparatuses of the murderous dictators of this tragic continent: Noriega (Panama), Galtieri (Argentina), Pinochet (Chile), Rodriguez (Ecuador), Fujimori and Alvarado (Peru). But this is still happening today. Human Rights Watch only last year implicated seven of the school’s darling graduates who were directing the exploits of the paramilitary torturers and murderers in Colombia, who have American support and succor. And what a fascinating spectacle the world was treated to when in 1996 the US Administration was compelled to reveal seven of the School’s diabolical training manuals which outlined interrogation techniques including torture, blackmail and execution. In January 2001, when the School of the Americas’ colors were pinned to the mast, the House of Representatives’ fancy footwork merely entailed renaming it WHISC, effectively defeating a bipartisan amendment to close the school by a narrow 10-vote margin, and it was business as usual. Paul Coverdell, the Georgia Senator, labeled this a “cosmetic” change while protesters chanted: “New name, same shame.” The school has more aptly been dubbed School of Assassins by Eric Robison, who is currently on a hunger strike while serving a six-month sentence for protesting on the premises. Another hunger striker drew attention to the irony of US President George W. Bush’s call for all-out war against those who “inspire, support and finance” terror when he has not closed down his school. Hardly any mention was made in the mainstream media of the scrupulously nonviolent protest on Nov. 19 by 10,000 at the entrance to Fort Benning, when 3,600 of these crossed the line onto base property as part of a solemn funeral procession honoring those killed by SOA graduates. Many were arrested and also face 6-month sentences. Now what do you think the Bush administration’s response would be to a demand from Latin American countries to extradite the trainers at WHISC for complicity in gross human rights abuses and crimes against humanity? This brutality is becoming more endemic in the new millennium: The US Administration now plans to “unleash” the CIA to perpetrate political assassinations, torture and a string of human rights violations (as though they ever refrained from these dastardly deeds!); “physical interrogation” (read: torture) is recommended by the venerable Newsweek magazine; and Bush orders the institution of military tribunals for suspected terrorists in camera and without a jury. But there is also a corresponding urgency noted in activists and civil society to confront and reverse this cynical trend. If the enormous untapped energies of the billions, especially in the Third World, can be focused in this area, a miracle will unfold in the current century. Source: The Daily Star (Lebanon)Author: Raymond Ker, Cape Town, South Africa Published: December 1, 2001Website: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/Contact: opinion dailystar.com.lbForum: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/post/Related Articles & Web Sites:SOA Watchhttp://www.soaw.org/Human Rights Watchhttp://www.hrw.org/Backyard Terrorism - Guardian Unlimited http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread11223.shtmlSchool of Americas Reforms Are Ploy, Nun Says http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread5785.shtml
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Comment #5 posted by Zero_G on December 01, 2001 at 15:59:24 PT:
Bin Laden
A discussion of American involvement into the creation Bin Laden cannot start at the time of the Mujahadeen reaction to the Soviet invasion.The family fortune comes from construction, in Saudi Arabia. The family has/had extensive business dealings with the Bush family, among others. The Best Enemies Money Can Buy http://www.copvcia.com/stories/oct_2001/carlyle.html 
full articleFrom Hitler To Saddam Hussein to Osama bin Laden – Insider Connections and the Bush Family’s Partnership with Killers of AmericansBrown Brothers, Harriman - BNL- and the Carlyle Group
Michael Ruppert[...]Since the WTC attacks the Wall Street Journal has reported (Sept. 28, 2001) that, “George H.W. Bush, the father of President Bush, works for the bin Laden family business in Saudi Arabia through the Carlyle Group, an international consulting firm.” The senior Bush had met with the bin Laden family at least twice in the last three years – 1998 and 2000 -- as a representative of Carlyle, seeking to expand business dealings with one of the wealthiest Saudi families, which some experts argue, has never fully severed its ties with black sheep Osama in spite of current reports in a mainstream press that is afraid of offending the current administration.The Nation, on March 27, 2000 – in a story co-authored by David Corn and Paul Lashmar – wrote, “In January former President George Bush and former British Prime Minister John Major paid a social call on Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Abdullah…” This story confirms at least one meeting between the elder Bush and Saudi leaders, including the bin Ladens. That the bin Ladens attended this meeting was confirmed in a subsequent September 27, 2001 Wall Street Journal (WSJ) story. The January 2000 meeting with the bin Ladens was also later confirmed by Bush (the elder’s) Chief of Staff Jean Becker, only after the WSJ presented her with a thank you note sent by Bush to the bin Ladens after that meeting.James Baker visited the bin Ladens in 1998 and 1999 with Carlyle CEO Frank Carlucci. [...]------------------------------------------------------------
Not that the Bush family has any Covert Intelligence connections, or anything like that, of course. Of course.Also, it should be taken into account that Zibignew Brzezinski admitted in an interview that the US CIA, working with the Pakistani ISI infiltrated Afghanistan prior to the Soviet invasion, in a diliberate attempt to draw them in. see inverview here:http://www.emperors-clothes.com/interviews/brz.htmAlso of interest:Anatomy of a Victory: CIA's Covert Afghan WarBy: Steve Coll, 'Washington Post', July 19, 1992A specially equipped C-141 Starlifter transport carrying William Casey touched down at a military air base south of Islamabad in October 1984 for a secret visit by the CIA director to plan strategy for the war against Soviet forces in Afghanistan. Helicopters lifted Casey to three secret training camps near the Afghan border, where he watched mujaheddin rebels fire heavy weapons and learn to make bombs with CIA-supplied plastic explosives and detonators.During the visit, Casey startled his Pakistani hosts by proposing that they take the Afghan war into enemy territory -- into the Soviet Union itself. Casey wanted to ship subversive propaganda through Afghanistan to the Soviet Union's predominantly Muslim southern republics. The Pakistanis agreed, and the CIA soon supplied thousands of Korans, as well as books on Soviet atrocities in Uzbekistan and tracts on historical heroes of Uzbek nationalism, according to Pakistani and Western officials."We can do a lot of damage to the Soviet Union," Casey said, according to Mohammed Yousaf, a Pakistani general who attended the meeting. Casey's visit was a prelude to a secret Reagan administration decision in March 1985, reflected in National Security Decision Directive 166, to sharply escalate U.S. covert action in Afghanistan, according to Western officials. Abandoning a policy of simple harassment of Soviet occupiers, the Reagan team decided secretly to let loose on the Afghan battlefield an array of U.S. high technology and military expertise in an effort to hit and demoralize Soviet commanders and soldiers. Casey saw it as a prime opportunity to strike at an overextended, potentially vulnerable Soviet empire.Eight years after Casey's visit to Pakistan, the Soviet Union is no more. Afghanistan has fallen to the heavily armed, fraticidal mujaheddin rebels. The Afghans themselves did the fighting and dying -- and ultimately won their war against the Soviets -- and not all of them laud the CIA's role in their victory. But even some sharp critics of the CIA agree that in military terms, its secret 1985 escalation of covert support to the mujaheddin made a major difference in Afghanistan, the last battlefield of the long Cold War.How the Reagan administration decided to go for victory in the Afghan war between 1984 and 1988 has been shrouded in secrecy and clouded by the sharply divergent political agendas of those involved. But with the triumph of the mujaheddin rebels over Afghanistan's leftist government in April and the demise of the Soviet Union, some intelligence officials involved have decided to reveal how the covert escalation was carried out.The most prominent of these former intelligence officers is Yousaf, the Pakistani general who supervised the covert war between 1983 and 1987 and who last month published in Europe and Pakistan a detailed account of his role and that of the CIA, titled "The Bear Trap."[...] full article here:http://emperors-clothes.com/docs/anatomy.htm------------------------------------------------------------One should never make light of the Leninist, Stalinist Gulag system, (nor the encroaching Amerikan Gulag either) but to relate that system to the writing's of Karl Marx is as far as modern Globalism is to Adam Smith. Marx cannot be blamed for all the ills of the Soviet state anymore than Smith can be for Globalism's.
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Comment #4 posted by Lehder on December 01, 2001 at 14:02:04 PT
USSR and atheism
Interesting comment, EJ. We know the reasons why the US government persecutes mj users - and there are several of them. But why was the USSR so paranoid of religion? What does the Russian government fear now? I've been reading about Falun Gong, a totally peaceful organization whose members meditate. And that's about it. There are about 70 million of them, mostly in China, but groups can be found throughout the world and the US too. In China, these people are hunted, and they are tortured to force renunciation of their beliefs ( they believe mainly in meditating and abstaining from medicines; they are not political). More than 300 have been tortured to death for failure to recant.I can find no reason why the Chinese authorities should fear these people except, maybe, that they would fear any organization able to attract millions of adherents, no matter how innocuous. Or maybe they just dislike people thinking so hard.
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Comment #3 posted by E_Johnson on December 01, 2001 at 12:16:55 PT
Why we can't forget the Soviet Union
Because the Drug War is turning us into them.
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Comment #2 posted by E_Johnson on December 01, 2001 at 12:15:07 PT
Karl Marx as a Drug Warrior
Marx declared that religon was the opiate of the people, and the Soviets took up this call and really did treat the purveyors of religion as common criminals, as drug dealers are treated in America and Russia now.The CIA has been guilty of many sins and many acts of stupidity that was sinful, but the Soviet Union was not the force of good and light in the world.The Soviet Union was a place that locked people in prison for five to seven years holding sunrise prayer meetings in the woods. I can list their names here if need be.And these people were convicted of the crime of "violating the rights of religious freedom." The Soviet government claimed that anyone who held a prayer meeting in the woods was violating the rights of atheists to practice atheism.It was not the American CIA that gave devout Muslims the idea that the southward spread of Soviet borders was a thing that had to be resisted to the point of extreme violence.I am no friend of the CIA but there WERE worse things in the world back then than them.
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Comment #1 posted by E_Johnson on December 01, 2001 at 11:58:40 PT
500 years of history down the tubes here
Bin Laden was not "created" by the CIA and neither were the Taliban. Bin Laden showed up in Peshawar in 1979 with his own organization at his command, financed by his own immense family wealth and the immense wealth of other rich Saudis. 
They never needed the CIA to seduce them into fighting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Just look at any historical map of Russia between 1500 and 1979. Just look at the direction of expansion of Imperial Russia and the Imperial Soviets. That provided motive enough. America's realtionship with the Soviet Union cannot compare to the pessure that islamic people felt with the borders of SlavicOrthodox Russia steadily expanding for 500 years in their direction.This idotic myth that we "created" Bin laden merely because we were allies in Peshawar is the same kind of simple minded finger pointing that establishes a "link" between the cannabis clubs in California and international terrorism. Naive-minded "linkism" is that the drug warriors are always practicing against us, and I don't think we should take up that weapon on our own.There are plenty of good reasons to oppose the School of the Americas, but propagating the simple-minded and frankly racist myth that any Arab working in Peshawar was necessarily an American creation or an American lackey is not going to lend credibility to that struggle.Bin Laden's operation in Peshawar was funded a lot more liberally than that of the CIA. The Federation of American Scientists has said that his operation outclassed the CIA's to the extent that the CIA became a marginal operator in the region.I think it's racist to assume that wherever white Americans are working, they are necessarily in charge.Bin Laden was already running several multinational corporations by 1979. He has resources for summoning fighters, and for organizing support and supply operations, for his cause, that the CIA never could have tapped into for all their efforts in the world.And stopping the southward spread into Islamic lands of the Russian/Soviet Empire was a cause that he cared about far more than anyone in the CIA ever could have cared about. That was a 500 year struggle for the Muslim people in the region.There is enough ignorance to go around in the world, let's not make reproducing even more ignorance part of this struggle.Bin Laden is a bad man, but he got to that place because of his own deep and extensive efforts in that direction. The 500 years of Russian and Soviet expansion into Muslim lands mattered more to the story of Bin Laden than the very brief period of CIA attempts to intervene in Afghanistan.
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