Wikileaks: Latest US Death Squad Operations Manual

Well, that certainly sheds some light on your claims. We train death squads like we have trained pedophiles. Whatever gets you through your day, I guess.

 

Is that it? That just sounds like some propaganda from the US Dept of Defence. I was actually expecting you to formulate some kind of argument not just repeat what I could get from any pro US military website. All I can is that I am disappointed by your post and also just as a side point,when they went in to get Bin Laden they killed a few unarmed people,now that is called murder of course I expect you have some made up fancy military name for it but that does not change the fact it was murder and one was a women.

 

Wow. That's not what I said. Omg. Go away.

 

The Third Man, et al,

No, that is not it.

(COMMENT)

I always take a breath before I proceed, after paying respects to such an elegant orator - as yourself. Besides, I had to run to the VA Clinic this morning.

That first piece was just the PREFACE to the issue, as mirrored by the tone of your accusations.

(CONTINUATION)

ALLEGATION:

Originally Posted by The Third Man

• The Americans train death squads, have done it for years and years... ... ...

​

(REBUTTAL #1)

Where ever the US intervenes, the first things that happens is that the opposition attempts to discredit the US by claiming that US trained military and paramilitary forces have operated "Death Squads." Is it true? The answer is yes. Many of the countries the US has supported in the past have degenerated into a state that has incorporated these tactics. Was the US actively teaching that, as part of the Internal Defense and Development (IDAD), forces should engage in torture, murder and disappeared (presumed dead)? No! This was the natural development of an aggressive nature of third-world forces that are constantly immersed in hostile action. These forces, although trained and equipped by the US, are not under the control of the US.

The brutality, often seen displayed almost universally throughout Central & South America is not a result of the overwhelming influence over the continents. It is an outcome formed by the similar cultures and economies of those lands and territories. There is no US lead effort to conduct some murderous operation. No one has claimed the US conducted those operations. While it may be the case that Americans may have observed atrocities, it was neither directed or inspired by the US>

The brutal nature of these particular military and police activities is, and has been widely known to be, counterproductive to the US attempt to win popular support. While it has always been important to suppress the insurgencies that invariably arise from the struggle for power and control in these regions, suppression cannot come at the expense of losing the support of the general population. This is a basic tenant in the counterinsurgency effort.

Most Respectfully,
R

 

This is a fantasy. The USA has had people on the scene when people have been tortured and that is a fact and the US has been prosecuted in the International courts for terrorism. I suggest you do some more research before posting absolute rubbish up.

Nicaragua v USA in the International Court of Justice.

Decides that the United States of America, by training, arming, equipping, financing and supplying the contra forces or otherwise encouraging, supporting and aiding military and paramilitary activities in and against Nicaragua, has acted, against the Republic of Nicaragua, in breach of its obligation under customary international law not to intervene in the affairs of another State.

http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/?sum=367&code=nus&p1=3&p2=3&case=70&k=66&p3=5

 

Ok, I already posted plenty showing the opposite of everyting you're claiming here. I suggest you go back and look. I feel like I just wasted my time putting all that together. I dont understand what makes some people determined to defend the government no matter what. This is just silly. You simply dont know what you're talking about. What you just said here turned my stomach and made my toes curl.

 

The Third Man, et al,

Yes, I am very well aware of the case.

(REBUTAL #2)

This legal case is about the intervention. The US was slapped on the hand by the court for "intervening." Notice how wide the opinions vary. But the one thing that was almost universal, is that the US was not held accountable for any of the self-inflicted atrocities. In fact the words torture and murder are not used once in the finding.

Note: Findings did include:

I am also very aware of the testimony provided by Sister Nancy Donovan (I was around in those days). In no instance during her testimony or during the case, Sister Nacy or anyone else say or claim that US personnel (civilian, military or otherwise) engaged in the activity she was describing. We sponsored one side, the communist sponsored the other.

There is, and has been for some time, a growing naivete that somehow, there is a good side and an evil side to counterrevolutionaries movements or counterinsurgency struggles. But the sad thing is (in this case) it was the popular, left-wing, Sandinistas 'vs' the US-backed anti-communist “contra” (counterinsurgency); or Nicaraguan 'combating' Nicaraguan (not US against Nicaraguan). The Somoza's National Guard was the primary "contra" force and the point of association for US intervention. The National Guard was once described by Noam Chomsky as: "had always been remarkably brutal and sadistic;" and " it was carrying out massive atrocities in the war against the Sandinistas, bombing residential neighbourhoods in Managua, killing tens of thousands of people." While aid was provided, the funding for the operations came from the Nicaraguan Treasury; nor did the US endorse the operations. The US was an observer who remained silent. In fact, when Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza fled the country with the remainder of the Nicaraguan Treasury, the National Guard collapsed (lack of funding); facilitating Sandinista takeover. It was another case of Fourth Generation Warfare the US lost because of the proxy.

Yes the US provided training for the material it provided to the National Guard, and yes it provided counterinsurgency training, but in the end, it was "Nicaraguan 'combating' Nicaraguan." And that was a political decision during the "Cold War." US Forces didn't kill or torture anyone.

It is US Policy to intervene, and in doing so - we take a side. And in choosing a side, it is not always the case of "Good 'vs' Evil." Sometimes it is a case of "Evil 'vs' Evil;" and the US selects the "less of two evils" which best fits US interests (not necessarily the people). That is America and that is our Policy. That is the nature and reality of a Policy of Intervention. One day a dictator is our friend and the next day our enemy - if that is what is in our best interest of the Ruling Elite.

These events were three decades ago, but the policy has not changed; we merely updated the name to "Regime Change." Most recently the target was Iraq, but we also had a limited roll in Libya --- and there is a lobby to intervene in Syria. In both cases, we either picked a side, or will pick a side. But, here again, we see that a counterrevolutionary struggle by the governments in power is/was no different from what was experienced in Central and South America. The Regime turns brutal in a desperate attempt to maintain power. It is what dictators do. It has nothing to do with US training. It is a dictatorial reflex action to a threat to power.

Many people, in a very inexperienced or unsophisticated way, think that the forces of these socially backward and repressive regimes just blindly accept the ethical limitations of the US during our training. While there are anecdotal examples that we can point, the training that sticks is generally what conforms to what they believe in as a culture. And these backwater, Banana Republics are no different than the gritty sand loving, Sun scorched Islamic Republics exhibit. Just as violent and just as brutal. And if it is in Americas best interest to cover their eyes while our side engages in activities that disturb our sensitive nature - we will cover our eyes.

I encourage you to be less self righteous and indignant about the Political implementation of your countries Foreign Policy; and even less naive about these self inflicted atrocities that the Nicaraguans committed upon themselves. While it is not intuitively obvious, it is embedded in there culture and part of their survival instinct to do those very thing to themselves. And it is in our culture to wring our hands and shake our finger at that reality and somehow pass the blame onto our own - those trying to make a difference.

Most Respectfully,
R

 

Do the people "allow" said leadership or is said leadership trusted upon them? I know that it is the latter instead of the former.

Are you "working with them" out of a sense of attrition or obligation or are you actually seeing that plans are being fulfilled in your grand geo-political scheme for the region(s)? Again, I know that it is the latter instead of the former. I say this because all evidence leads towards such conclusions.

 

Ahem. . .
Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN):

After reading the excerpt, it is safe to say that your vaunted saint, El Criminal, I mean Ronald Wilson Reagan had not become involved in the affairs of El Salvador, Nicaragua or the entire region, MS-13 would not be that much of a problem, if a problem at all. So what I stated is still correct. MS-13 is blowback from the 1980s.

Geo-politics kills in more ways than one.

 

Please do not bypass my posts on this issue.

http://www.politicalforum.com/terro...test-us-death-squad-operations-manual-13.html

The entire page is devoted to it. You are wrong.

 

Im gonna have to spoon feed more of this stuff. I know it. Here we go. One at a time.

Newsweek Magazine covered some of the training exercises at the US Army School of the Americas in Ft Benning Georgia:

Now take a minute to absorb that info to gain some level of knowledge and understanding. A lot more on the way.

Continued..

 

Ok, now say "aaahh"

Washington's Santa Fe Report equated "liberation theology" (segments of the Catholic Church) with Marxist-Leninism for it's "preferential option for the poor." The document declared, under the title "Internal Subversion," that:

See also, Covertaction information bulletin, Issues 18-24

Latin American Working Group: Central America update, Volumes 1-7

An official set of School of the Americas talking points in 1999 stated:

So they define liberation theology as Communism.

Continued..

 

The US terrorist war in Central America was in large measure a war against the Church - "Communists," in the technical sense, once the Bishops had adopted "the preferential option for the poor."

Human Rights Watch reports:

 

Major Joeseph Blair is a former instructor at the School of the Americas where he served from 1986-89. He is a career political military officer who specialized in Latin America and has been awarded the Bronze Star and five Meritorious Medals. In 1993, he publicly criticized the school and called for its closure. Since then, he has been a vocal opponent of the School of the Americas and of U.S. foreign and military policy.

Blair observed:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5L1VdlktOw"]War on democracy - School of Americas[/ame]

In a seperate interview, Major Joseph Blair stated that:

Continued..

 

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gscKnNAxBpE"]Bush's War Against Liberation Theology[/ame]

The Atlacatl Battalion: The "Yankees' Battalion”​

The Oxford Essential Dictionary of the U.S. Military states that:

Human Rights Watch (formerly Americas Watch) noted:

In November 1989, six Jesuit priests, their cook and her daughter, were murdered by the "Yankees Battalion:"

The Los Angeles Times pointed out that:

Continued..

 

As is typical, labor activists are a primary target. In violation of congressional legislation, the US Trade Representative rejected a Human Rights petition to review El Salvador and informed Human Rights Watch that, "it was appropriate for the El Salvador armed forces to arrest, interrogate, and imprison trade unionists whom the US Department of State considered opponents of the Duarte government."

Human Rights Watch [formerly Americas Watch] reports:

Continued..

 

Its exactly what you said.

But I can understand why you now want to distance yourself from such silliness

 

What I meant by the "same thing" is that it's been a global imperial power since 1948. Your desperate attempt is silly.

 

From the 1993 UN Truth Commission report on El Salvador:

 

LOLOLOL, Yeah because being an imperial power is just "like when a pedefile gets out of prison and moves into your nieghborhood". You are a joke, desparately grasping for irrelevant tangents in a pathetic attempt to hide the fact that you cant even begin to support your assertions in your opening post.

 

Im way out of your league on these issues. Just go away. You're acting like an idiot.

 

Horhey, et al,

Humm, so you are an authority of some sort. Your attitude is quite striking and descending from dignity.

(COMMENT)

Most of your references, are the result of data mining alla Google. You come up with a list of atrocities committed by Armies of Central and South American strong men on their own indigenous population, repeating the claim that the International Court asked, answered and rejected. You're trying to spread guilt by association. The US did not export barbarism. It was already their in the people of Central and South America. It is still there today, and is recognized in all shapes, forms and fashion. There is no Country in Central and South America that is known for the ethics in governance. They all have corrupted governments, personally inspired by the leadership. Most have direct connections with organized crime and drug cartels. There many be one or two anecdotal changes. But in general, the same brutal personalities and leadership types that dominated the scene in the last quarter of the 20th Century are still represented today. the form may have changed, but they are still there.

No matter what association you make between the US Army, The School of the Americas, and the Crimes Against Humanity you cite, in the final analysis, the facts of the matter remains unchanged and is, the crimes were committed by the Host Nation (no matter which country you jump around to) on the citizens of the Host Nation; barbaric as it sounds. They kill and torture their own. While there are many that would try to thrust the blame elsewhere, there is little doubt that they killed their own and appeared to do it with some lust and efficiency.

There are a couple of points you raised that are worth mentioning.

(INTERESTING POINT #1)

You raise the point and the article about MAJ Joe Blair (USA Retired). The article you cite is a bit sensationalized and stretching the truth just a bit. Remember a Major (O-4) is the most junior of field grade officers. It is not a senior officer of anything. It is one step above a company commander, but insufficient to be a battalion commander; an O-4 is a staff officer. Most people know that when you retire at the rank of Major, generally speaking, you were passed-over three times for command (LTC O-5). The Phoenix Program, mentioned, ended in 1972.

Having said that, I retired the same year as MAJ Blair. He would have join the military between 1968-69. Counting the training (the Basic Officers Course, Infantry School, Jump School, SF Qualification, etc), he could not have been in Vietnam much before 1971. The bulk of the 5th Group had departed in DEC 1970. The Phoenix Program, would have been a Special Operation for experienced officers, not new guys; with little or no experience. I doubt if he had any experience with it at all (the article doesn't say - but mentions the program).

As far as the school of America's go, it is "admittedly" one of the more controversial programs the US Army ran; but by no means the only one. In that period, the sensibilities and squeamishness of the leadership was much - much less then, than it is today. The manuals which are being referred to should be put in context of the time. They were essentially the reverse manual of that material taught in Survive, Evade, Resist, Escape (SERE) School; survival fieldcraft, evasion techniques, resistance to interrogation and escape. However, in the hands of a brutal and sadistic foreign military apparatus in Central & South America, taken to extremes they became problematic. It should be noted that the 1986 ICJ hearings had these available for review. But they became so controversial, that the manuals were recalled and discontinued. However, they did not teach anything that was not incorporated in our own training; from a reverse perspective.​

(INTERESTING POINT #2)

You mention the struggle (in late 1960's vernacular) "liberation theology" (segments of the Catholic Church)." This is a much more difficult concept to explain. But I'll give it a shot.

The clergy, no matter what religion, sect or denomination, tended to be a class of pious and righteous characters that were self injected into the fray. After a prolonged immersion into the culture, plus their predisposition to be sympathetic to the people they minister to, the trauma of war (the insurgency/counterinsurgency/countrevolution) - and the personal proximity to atrocities committed by one side or the other, the clergy begin to express empathy and develop positive views along the lines adopted by those they minister. As the exposure continues, they begin to denounce any segment that tends to harm or associated with that harm. In reality, there is no such thing as "liberation theology" --- but there is this psychological phenomenon the clergy have to identify with their ministry initially as a defensive mechanism to the continued violence and the challenge it presents to the belief structure. Eventually, they lash-out. This phenomenon has been observed many, many times where the clergy has been immersed and fully assimilated into the local social structure. As an example, Sister Nancy Donovan was in her late 50's when her transformation became meteoric.

There was never any war against a religion, a specific religious sect, order or denomination. That was a theory and claim spread by anti-American indigenous opponents to the side supported by America. It is a form of foreign propaganda designed to discredit the US and its goals and objectives.
​

(INTERESTING POINT #3)

Since the 1960's, there has been the development of two minds sets that tend to demonize the other.​

• One the one hand, you have the interventionist in the name of national security and national interests. They have the tendency to promote the idea of expanding the American politico-military hegemony. Often, this takes the form of combating the spread of communism; but since 911 it has focused on terrorism directed against US and allied interests.
  
  
• On the other hand, there is the much smaller, but ever growing, movement that furthers the idea that each nation has the right to choose its own destiny; and that the US, no matter what the cause, should not intervene unless there is a clear and eminent threat demonstrated.

They are the two sides to the same coin. It is important that the US try to maintain balance between the two competing views. One side argues the other is advocating isolationism - while the other argues that we interrupt the normal course of development and should allow such civil wars to play-out to a natural outcome (mass casualties, genocide or not). Many take this view to avoid the furtherance that America is somehow deriving some benefit from these atrocities and encouraging them. It is one of the reasons that the US did not want to get to ivolved in the ground war in Libya and Syria. I suspect that neither view is totally correct, but only time will tell.​

Most Respectfully,
R

 

I will cover this piece first and will get back to the rest of your post later as I have to work.

Dianna Ortiz.


Sister Dianna Ortiz is an American Roman Catholic nun of the Ursuline order.

A native of New Mexico, she was abducted by members of the Guatemalan military while serving as a missionary in Guatemala in 1989 and brutally tortured. Among other torments she states[1] being exposed to were gang-rape and over 100 cigarette burns. Sister Ortiz chronicled her experiences and recovery in the book (co-written with Patricia Davis), The Blindfold's Eyes: My Journey from Torture to Truth

From here testimony she says that an American pretending to be a native was present and had the power to get her out of there. The guy was sat in watching people being tortured and killed and thrown in a pit.She staes that he was in charge. It is pretty obvious to a two year old that this guy was an American government official whether it be CIA or what ever. I believe that this one example dismisses your claims that the Americans were not hands on and just stood on the side lines.

and I quote.

The policeman raped me again. Then I was lowered into a pit full of bodies— bodies of children, men, and women, some decapitated, all caked with blood. A few were still alive. I could hear them moaning. Someone was weeping. I didn’t know if it was me or somebody else. A stench of decay rose from the pit. Rats swarmed over the bodies and were dropped onto me as I hung suspended over the pit by the wrists. I passed out and when I came to I was lying on the ground beside the pit, rats all over me.

The nightmare I lived was nothing out of the ordinary. In 1989, under Guatemala’s first civilian president in years, nearly two hundred people were abducted. Unlike me, they were "disappeared, gone forever". The only uncommon element of my ordeal was that I survived, probably because I was a U.S. citizen, and phone calls poured into Congress when I was reported missing. As a U.S. citizen, I had another advantage: I could, in relative safety, reveal afterwards the details of what happened to me in those twenty-four hours. One of those details: an American was in charge of my torturers.

I remember the moment he removed my blindfold. I asked him, "Are you an American?" In poor Spanish and with a heavy American accent, he answered me with a question: "Why do you want to know?" Moments before, after the torturers had blindfolded me again and were getting ready to rape me again, they had called out in Spanish: "Hey, Alejandro, come and have some fun!" And a voice had responded "(*)(*)(*)(*)!" in perfect American English with no trace of an accent. It was the voice of the tall, fair-skinned man beside me. After swearing, he’d switched to a halting Spanish. "Idiots!" he said. "She’s a North American nun." He added that my disappearance had been made public, and he ran them out of the room.

....He kept telling me he was sorry. The torturers had made a mistake. We came to a parking garage, where he put me into a gray Suzuki jeep and told me he was taking me to a friend of his at the U.S. embassy who would help me leave the country. For the duration of the trip, I spoke to him in English, which he understood perfectly.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dianna_Ortiz

 

The Third Man, et al,

Yes, this is quite the famous account. I will say, up front, that I cannot explain her story. I have my suspicions, but nothing I can defend against.

(NOTATION)


CASE 10.526 THE INTER-AMERICAN COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS
Dianna Ortiz v. Guatemala, Case 10.526, Report No. 31/96, Inter-Am.C.H.R.,OEA/Ser.L/V/II.95 Doc. 7 rev. at 332 (1997).

(COMMENT)

The person, reportedly called "Alejandro" was never subsequently identified. It was distinct impression that Sister Ortiz had, based on the dialect of Spanish, the accent, and the fluency in English, that made her come to believe the individual was American. But this person, whoever it was, quite possibly saved her life.

This individual could have been an American or Honduran ex-patriot; or a Honduran with extensive experience in or around the US. We simply do not know, and neither does she. Again, I certainly cannot explain this anomaly.

Most Respectfully,
R

 

It never had anything to do with communism or terror. The threat of terror is not high priority for them. Latin America was forced to accept what was called the Economic Charter for the Americas, that would "eliminate economic nationalism in all its forms" and the history of the region until today revolves around efforts to enforce those rules which are to apply elsewhere as well:

The Woodrow Wilson Foundation, warned that the primary threat of so called "New Nationalism", "Communism" or what Washington now refers to as "Radical Populism" is:

A CIA National Intelligence Estimate warned of the threat of the indigenous populations using "our raw materials" for their own purposes:

Continued..