Please note the letter below. Not that it necessarily demonstrates anything, but seemed then - as now - a logical assessment of my own feelings, based on my own expereinces.
24 JUL 1998
Senator Feinstein:
I've addressed this issue to your office once before and received no response, but I think it's important, so I'd like to do so once more.
I am disturbed by comments made yesterday I believe (7/23) by Congressman Joseph P Kennedy regarding his campaign to close the US Army School Of The Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia. He claims that human rights abuses perpetrated by SOA graduates in Latin American countries are doctrinal to the US Army training those officers have received at the school. My experience as an Army Vietnam combat veteran compels me to think this is not true. For as many human rights abuses as were committed by US troops in that conflict (and there were many), NONE were doctrinal. Rather they were human. If you recall the massacre at My Lai for example, it was finally stopped by a US Army helicopter crew who were determined not to let it continue. It is this concern for what is right that is constantly inculcated into US armed forces personnel, the contrary committed by a relative few notwithstanding.
What disturbs me furthermore about Kennedy's comments is how easy a target the military is for someone with a broader agenda. This is somewhat akin to the recent "Tailwind" fiasco at CNN: Sure, go ahead, disinform on the military. Who's going to say anything. Well...we know how that turned out...at least to a somewhat more constructionist extent. It's always much easier to tear something down than to build it up or try to improve upon it. Should Harvard University, or wherever Kennedy went to school, be closed because a relatively small minority of its alumni has at some point engaged in criminal or other anti-social behavior?
I am not saying that military activities should not be monitored. This is essential to a democracy and civilian governance. But to insist on closing the School of the Americas based on a very concerted campaign of disinformation does no service whatsoever to the United States and Latin America. Rather, I strongly feel it is in our country's best interests to foster strong military ties with as many other countries in our hemisphere as we can, knowing that it is also in our interests to "understand" the military thinking of their leadership as well for an obviously wide variety of militarily related reasons.
One other important point: If we don't take the most pro-active role in training and working with the military forces of Latin American nations, there are many other countries not necessarily friendly to US interests who would be only too happy to fill such a void.
Thank you very much.
"onedoug"
Los Angeles
From a letter Mr. "onedoug" sent to his Senator -- letter provided by Mr. "onedoug" to USARSA on 28 July 1998)