Posted on 10/08/2005 4:10:28 PM PDT by 68skylark
Aaron Shuman — activist, journalist, prisoner of conscience — spoke on the boundaries between political activism and journalism, as well as how American policy regarding events in this hemisphere set precedents for global U.S. actions last night at Ithaca College. Shuman’s incarceration at the Atwater Federal Prison from March to July 2004 inspired his lecture. “Some people go to college to read. Some people go to prison to read. The one nice thing about being in prison was I got to read,” Shuman said.
Shuman was incarcerated for his role in protesting the U.S. Army School of the Americas (SOA), re-named the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHISC) after the House of Representatives voted to close the school in 2000. A major public relations campaign to improve the school’s image and disguise its past followed announcement of the name change, Shuman said.
This military training school was initially founded in the “spirit of cooperation” and to “lend [U.S.] support” to foreign countries, said Dana Brown, coordinator of CUSLAR, the Committee on U.S.-Latin American Relations. The group has sponsored protest trips to WHISC, which opened as the SOA in 1946 in Panama and is now located in Fort Benning, Ga. The controversy surrounding WHISC lies in the fact that it doesn’t teach just normal army procedures, but torture techniques, Brown said. Other courses include counterinsurgency, psychological warfare, military intelligence and interrogation tactics. Graduates of the school have been behind and connected with Latin American massacres.
“U.S. taxpayer dollars fund this, which trains other people to suppress their own people,” Brown said. “It’s hideous; we’re not just teaching them standard operations but horrible, horrible techniques,” she added.
Shuman actively works with SOA Watch, the main protester group against WHISC. SOA Watch holds an annual vigil and protest in remembrance of the six Jesuit priests, their co-worker and his daughter who were killed by SOA graduates on Nov. 16, 1989.
“I went to the protest two years ago with CUSLAR and am interested in going again,” said Sara Beau, a senior at I.C.
“Whatever your political issue is, you can get something out of coming down this November,” Shuman said.
Shuman related protests against WHISC to the actions of the St. Patrick’s Four. SOA had a wall of fame, also known as the wall of shame, and 11 of the people on the list are dictators, Shuman said. The founder of SOA Watch, Roy Bougeois, threw his blood on the wall, a symbolic gesture used also by the St. Patrick’s Four, he added.
“The history of the SOA Watch is a rich resource for people talking about war crimes in Iraq,” Shuman said. Shuman said the negative repercussions of the Iraq war and WHISC show that the U.S. needs “to establish responsibility of U.S. commanders.”
“I’ll definitely be e-mailing my dad about it but of course his vision’s going to be skewed,” said Julia Finn, also a senior at I.C. Her father is in the Civil Affairs Section of the National Guard.
Buzzsaw Haircut, I.C.’s independent magazine, sponsored the talk.
There are so many stupid things in this article that they aren't worth pointing out.
Watch out for this writer -- she'll be producing network TV newscasts soon, or writing for the NY Times upon graduation. And if not, she can always spill her hatred for this country over at DU or the Daily Kos.
Some people go to prison to read
Mein Kampf, The Communist Manifesto etc etc
Just checking - the moonbats still think sleep-deprivation is "torture", right?
Just what qualifications does a criminal in prison have?
The School of the Americas has been closed since 2000, under President Clinton.
...yet they still protest President Bush for it today.
A new school, the WHISC, doesn't do the things that SOA did, either...but that hasn't stopped radical leftists from going off half-cocked about it.
The Cornell Daily Thought From Where TheSun Dont Shine online
Fortunately very little is going right for those people ~ maybe one bomb in Oklahoma.
It'd still be a good idea to stuff him back into jail. Frankly, I don't feel safe with him loose, or his lackey, the writer of that piece.
Yeah, it's one of those cherished myths on the left. And their stories about the school get more and more lurid with every retelling.
and cornell teaches Communism... it's not called "BIG RED" for nothing.
I had a teacher when I went to high school who was arrested for protesting at SOA.
I used to like him before I realized he was a Socialist
During the familiar annual processing ritual for School of the Americas protesters this year, new information surfaced about a comprehensive plan devised by the U.S. Army .
The testimony, in the form of documents comprising the institute’s “Strategic Communications Campaign Plan,” was offered by defendant Aaron Shuman, who said he was acting as a journalist when he received the documents from Army public affairs officer Lee Rials. He said the interview took place two years ago at Fort Benning, where the institute is located and where the annual protests of School of the Americas Watch are held.
Shuman has clearly crossed the line to activism, and his use of the plan for his defense failed. He was convicted and sentenced to 120 days in prison and given a $500 fine.
One of Aaron's "friends" getting arrested at the School of the Americas.
By the way, has anybody heard anything about Scott Ritter lately. He crawled into a hole after his last child-molestation bust.
They'll list a couple hundred people who attended the school and were later charged with human rights violations. They can't explain how another 56,000 people went through there and somehow never felt a need to torture and kill innocents.
There's also a page from the traning manual that says, if there are revolutionaries trying to overthrow the government, you make a list of them, and then capture or kill them. Horrifying stuff. I presume the protestors would simply go to the rebels and talk them into giving up their quest.
"Some people go to prison to read
Mein Kampf, The Communist Manifesto etc etc"
The Koran....
I will never understand how the left has built up this mystical fairy tale about the school of the americas or why they even believe it.
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