Re: mission accomplished, wonder how many innocents died today
Blackwater:<br />Blackwater USA is the most comprehensive professional military, law enforcement, security, peacekeeping, and stability operations company in the world.<br /><br />We have established a global presence and provide training and operational solutions for the 21st century in support of security and peace, and freedom and democracy everywhere.<br /><br />We customize and execute solutions for our clients to help keep them at the level of readiness required to meet today's military, law enforcement, peacekeeping, and stability operations challenges. We continually prove to be faster, better, cheaper, and more efficient and effective than conventionally managed forces.<br /><br />Our customers include local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies, the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, and most other federal agencies, multi-national corporations, non-governmental organizations, and friendly nations from around the world.<br /><br />Whether you require training, operational, or policy solutions, Blackwater can help you develop the right program for you to ensure success.<br /><br />We specialize in, but are not limited to:<br /><br /> * Basic and Advanced Law Enforcement and Military Training<br /><br /> * Design and Operation of Law Enforcement, Counterterrorism, and Military Training Facilities<br /><br /> * Counterterrorism, Antiterrorism, and Force Protection<br /> Programs<br /><br /> * Humanitarian, Peacekeeping, and Stability Operations<br /><br /> * Military Transformation Programs<br /><br /> * High-threat Security Operations (Ambassadors, Generals, CEOs, etc.)<br /><br /> * High-value Asset Security and Threat Assessment<br /><br /> * Fixed and Rotary-wing Aviation Operations and Logistics Programs<br /><br /> * Training Doctrine and Policy Development<br /><br /> * Foreign Internal Defense Missions<br /><br />School of Americas - Closed December 15, 2000:<br />School of the Americas/<br />School of Assassins, USA<br /><br /> <br />The School of the Americas<br /><br />World War II was the "good war". After that conflict, most Americans believed that US intentions in the world were noble -- the US was the punisher of aggression and a warrior for freedom. This image was for generations of Americans the measure by which they judged their country in world affairs. The war in Vietnam ended the illusion that America was always on the "right side". Today, America's image as a defender of democracy and justice has been further eroded by the School of the Americas (SOA), which trains Latin American and Caribbean military officers and soldiers to subvert democracy and kill hope in their own countries.<br /><br />Founded by the United States in 1946, the SOA was initially located in Panama, but in 1984 it was kicked out under the terms of the Panama Canal Treaty and moved to the army base at Fort Benning, Georgia. Then-President of Panama Jorge Illueca called it "the biggest base for de-stabilization in Latin America," and a major Panamanian newspaper dubbed it " The School of Assassins."<br /><br />Today, SOA instructors and students are recruited from the cream of the Latin American military establishment. The School trains 700-2,000 soldiers a year, and since its inception in 1946, more than 60,000 military personnel have graduated from the SOA.<br /><br />If the SOA concentrated its training on protecting country borders from foreign aggression or safeguarding citizens from invasion by outside enemies, it would be considered an exemplary institution, worth the cost of American tax dollars and US prestige. But, the SOA has very different goals. Its curriculum includes courses in psychological warfare, counterinsurgency, interrogation techniques, and infantry and commando tactics. Presented with the most sophisticated and up-to-date techniques by the US Army's best instructors, these courses teach military officers and soldiers of Third World countries to subvert the truth, to muzzle union leaders, activist clergy, and journalists, and to make war on their own people. It prepares them to subdue the voices of dissent and to make protesters submit. It instructs them in techniques of marginalizing the poor, the hungry, and the dispossessed. It tells them how to stamp out freedom and terrorize their own citizens. It trains them to destroy the hope of democracy.<br /><br />The School of the Americas (SOA) has been given other names -- "School for Dictators", "School of Assassins", and "Nursery of Death Squads". And, countries with the worst human rights records send the most soldiers to the School.
