Americas

In response to overwhelming evidence that the US Army School of the Americas has trained Latin American military personnel in civilian-targeted terrorism, representatives of the school have come up with numerous creative excuses and denials.  Perhaps the most commonly used argument is that the hundreds of SOA graduates who have become dictators and gross human rights violators are only "a few bad apples" out of the thousands who have graduated from the school. A brief overview of the involvement of SOA graduates in the most brutal period of Guatemala's counterinsurgency war shows that they were more than a few bad apples.  As is the case in most Latin American countries which have terrorized their civilian populations, the intellectual authors of systematic repression and the most brutal terrorists are graduates of the SOA.

For more than four years, the public has repeatedly been urged to ignore "outrageous" conspiracy theories about the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that set in motion the so-called "war on terrorism." However, the official explanation that has been provided - and widely embraced - also requires the acceptance of a theory, one involving a massive intelligence failure, 19 Muslim hijackers under the sway of Osama bin Laden, and the inability of the world's most advanced Air Force to intercept four commercial airplanes.

Preparations are underway for renewed US militarization and intervention in Latin America. To protect its own hegemony and economic interests, the US government is using the threat of terrorism as an excuse for military operations aimed at destabilizing leftist movements and governments and securing natural resources such as oil and gas.

By focusing on social programs in education, land reform and healthcare, many of the region's new leaders have put the needs of the people ahead of the demands of multinational companies. This leftist resurgence makes corporate investors and other harbingers of the free market nervous. Recently, the Bush administration has gone to extreme measures to ensure that this leftist trend is put in check.

Your Excellencies, friends, good afternoon. The original purpose of this meeting has been completely distorted. The imposed center of debate has been a so-called reform process that overshadows the most urgent issues, what the peoples of the world claim with urgency: the adoption of measures that deal with the real problems that block and sabotage the efforts made by our countries for real development and life. Five years after the Millennium Summit, the harsh reality is that the great majority of estimated goals - which were very modest indeed - will not be met. We pretended reducing by half the 842 million hungry people by the year 2015. At the current rate that goal will be achieved by the year 2215. Who in this audience will be there to celebrate it? That is only if the human race is able to survive the destruction that threats our natural environment. We had claimed the aspiration of achieving universal primary education by the year 2015. At the current rate that goal will be reached after the year 2100. Let us prepare, then, to celebrate it.

In a speech at the Republican National Convention in 2004, President Bush referred to the United States as "the greatest country in the world". Certainly this is a sentiment that many Americans share, but what kind of objective basis is there behind the statement? It's time to take a closer look. Do we make the pronouncement because we are the wealthiest nation in the world? Based on Gross Domestic Product per capita, in 2003 we were not first but fourth. Luxembourg at $43,940 was considerably ahead of the US ($36,000) by a 17% margin. Norway and Switzerland were in between. Most of us believe we have the highest standard of living in the world. But according to the UN Human Development Report of 2004, their list of the world's most livable countries show the US in eighth place, four places behind Canada, and trailing Norway and Sweden in first and second place.