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(More customer reviews)I can still recall my curiosity as a young girl hearing the cryptically delivered advice from one woman to another: "Honey, what you do in the dark will certainly come out in the light, e---ver--y time." Today, the quotation comes immediately to mind as I think about Lesley Gill's investigative book, The School of the Americas: Military Training and Political Violence in the Americas. Perhaps my juxtaposition of Gill's book and the chatter between women appears as an unlikely pairing, but her disclosures of US involvement with Latin Americans, particularly up and coming military officers, certainly reveals North America's clandestine activities illuminated by an astute writer.
Gill, an Associate Professor of Anthropology at American University, prevails as the consummate teacher who seamlessly employs vocabulary for both the novice and the experienced student of international affairs. Her ease of language serves as a major draw in understanding how American leaders exploited the School of the Americas, located first in Panama and later in Columbus, Georgia, to underhandedly endorse corrupt Latino governmental officials. Having also authored Teetering on the Rim: Global Restructuring, Daily Life, and the Armed Retreat of the Bolivian State and Precarious Dependencies: Gender, Class and Domestic Service in Bolivia, Gill is well armed (pardon the pun) in Latin American study and the myriad dimensions of corrupt political rule. Beginning with the school's inception in 1941 and progressing to its name change to the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, in 2001, Gill delivers a comprehensive overview for her readers. While her expertise lies mostly with Bolivian culture, Gill adroitly summarizes the SOA's political tentacles in Peru, Argentina, Honduras, Bolivia and Nicaragua. Each re-telling of the personal stories from military officers and the disavowed personalizes her message for both her supporters and distracters.
Gill attacks what's done in presumed darkness. According to Gill, the United States grants tacit approval to innumerable human rights violations by its support of foreign enrollment at the SOA. It is obvious, right from the start, that she's appalled by the contradictory message of a nation founded on the principles of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" endorsing an institution like the SOA. When interviewed by Aaron Mandel for the magazine, American Prospect On-Line, Gill emphatically states "there is no useful purpose for the institution. It's symbolic, really, of the abusive practices from the Cold War right up to the present. It would be better closed and made into a museum to commemorate the lives of the people murdered by SOA graduates."It's almost unbelievable that given the wide ranging influence of the school, virtually no one has heard of it, including many seasoned military personnel bur that fact evolves as a major tenet of Gill's thesis. Gill clearly illuminates the long kept secret and its ancillary political, economic, and even psychological impact on SOA graduates. Students and instructors labor under the SOA motto: "all for one and one for all." Gill, however, discloses, that the motto more aptly describes the impunity (a word she uses a great deal) enjoyed by the cliquish bureaucracy.
Is Gill waging her own war? Yes, seemingly. She zealously delivers evidence to support her views and in an almost recruitment mode, appears to invite readers to align against SOA personnel and students. Readers seeking a balanced perspective might find this distracting and Gill may very well loose possible recruits because of the obviously liberal leanings of the book. Fervency may appear as propaganda and likened to SOA proponents. In fact, some of her fellow armor bearers have created a web-site that not only lists previous graduates, but features a logo of a skull wearing a graduation cap with a lynch man's noose substituted for the traditional tassel. Lest there be any question about its meaning, "Shut down the SOA" is blazoned across the logo of the school which websters renamed the "School of the Assassins." I If one is to believe the numerous atrocities (as I do) then anything less than total conviction by the author would appear shallow and yet, too much emotion lends itself to hell and damnation preaching. Fortunately, for her readers, Gill has not ascended to the pulpit, albeit, a call close at times.
To her credit, Gill moves a step beyond the women in my mother's kitchen who simply recited admonitions. She acts. Gill sends a warning to governmental and military leaders who wield too much power against the powerless that she will be a torch bearer against continued human on human atrocities.
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