Can one learn the truth from history ?
Or from a manual ?
In 1996, the US Department of Defence released declassified excerpts of a manual entitled, The Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual.
The manual had been a standard textbook for students at the US Army School of the Americas (SOA); an American military training academy set up in Panama in 1946, which trained Latin American soldiers using techniques that were compatible with United States military customs and traditions.
The manual is specifically concerned with interrogation techniques, and advocates the use of fear, beatings, false imprisonment and executions. More than 60,000 Latin American soldiers have been trained at the School of the Americas, and in all, 11 dictators have attended its courses – among them, some of the region's most notorious human rights abusers: dictators, death-squad leaders and even drug traffickers.
Despite a truly shocking list of human rights abusing alumni, US army officials identify these men as “a few bad apples”, and the school still exists today.
Or from a manual ?
In 1996, the US Department of Defence released declassified excerpts of a manual entitled, The Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual.
The manual had been a standard textbook for students at the US Army School of the Americas (SOA); an American military training academy set up in Panama in 1946, which trained Latin American soldiers using techniques that were compatible with United States military customs and traditions.
The manual is specifically concerned with interrogation techniques, and advocates the use of fear, beatings, false imprisonment and executions. More than 60,000 Latin American soldiers have been trained at the School of the Americas, and in all, 11 dictators have attended its courses – among them, some of the region's most notorious human rights abusers: dictators, death-squad leaders and even drug traffickers.
Despite a truly shocking list of human rights abusing alumni, US army officials identify these men as “a few bad apples”, and the school still exists today.
This military training manual is an institutional record: part of an archive, one generated by the actions and processes of the implementation of power - the bureaucracy of warfare.
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