RT crew arrested in US filming at 'School of Assassins'

[Charleston Chew]

Run time: 03:11 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Sccm1ts4oA   Posted on YouTube: November 21, 2010 By YouTube Member: RussiaToday Views on YouTube: 306   Posted on DU: November 21, 2010 By DU Member: Charleston Chew Views on DU: 2231

 
RT crew arrested in US filming at 'School of Assassins'

An RT crew has been detained in the U.S. as they filmed a rally near a military training academy dubbed by critics the 'School of Assassins'. A cameraman and a correspondent have been taken into custody in the state of Georgia, along with a number of activists.

[Arctic Dave]

1. Our terrorist training camp is about as accurate as you can get with that place.

[Charleston Chew]

2. School of the Americas

US Shool of Assassins ?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x527464

US democracy promotion creates puppets worldwide
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x527035

Democracy Promotion Hoax
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x527137

US Empire ambition undermines country
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x527039

School of the Americas connection to military coup!
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5947188

School of Assassins or School of Coups
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5951283

Era of U.S.-supported dictator Hugo Banzer
http://demopedia.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3769178

School of the Americas training evident at Abu Ghraib?
http://demopedia.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x1675020

School of the Americas
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x8928

[pnorman]

8. Thanks for all those great DU links!

n/t

[Charleston Chew]

13. The Real Price of Soy

The Tyranny of Soy in Paraguay

Ben Dangl: Since being elected in 2008, the 'Red Bishop' Fernando Lugo has been unable, or unwilling, to deliver on promises made to the landless farmers who got him to power in the first place.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x527749

[HysteryDiagnosis]

3. Guardian Article on SOA

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/nov/18/us-military-usa?showallcomments=true



President Manuel Zelaya was forced into exile after his residence was stormed by soldiers under the command of General Vasquez, a graduate of the US Army's Western Hemisphere Institute for Cooperation (WHINSEC). Photograph: Bebeto Matthews/AP
When the elected president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, was dragged from his bed and flown out of the country in his pyjamas last year, it was no surprise to find that this classic coup was led by a graduate of the School of Americas, the notorious army training school in Fort Benning, Georgia. But General Vasquez was simply following a well-trodden path for autocrats in Honduras – after all, two of the country's most hated past dictators, Juan Melgar Castro and Policarpo Paz Garcia, had also attended the school.

More than 60,000 Latin American soldiers have been trained at the School of the Americas – among them, the some of the region's most notorious human rights abusers, such as Salvadoran death-squad leader Roberto D'Aubuisson. In all, 11 dictators have attended its courses: men such as Argentine junta leader, Leopoldo Galtieri, infamously responsible for the "disappeared" and Guatemala's Efraín Ríos Montt, whose scorched earth campaign against indigenous villages, was classified as "genocide" by a UN-sponsored commission.

Founded in the Panama Canal Zone in 1948, it was originally named the Army Caribbean School. It was renamed the School of Americas in 1963, and a new curriculum was introduced, offering courses in counter-insurgency, military intelligence and psychological warfare. The school was moved to Fort Benning in 1984 and, in 2001, in an attempt to improve its image, its name was changed again to the Western Hemisphere Institute for Cooperation (WHINSEC).

Training manuals (pdf) used at the School of the Americas were declassified in 1996. They advocated the use of "fear, payment of bounties for enemy dead, beatings, false, imprisonment, executions and use of truth serum", according to a Pentagon memorandum (pdf). The manuals also included detailed interrogation techniques and used the term "neutralisation", which the department of defence admits is a euphemism for illegal execution.

[proud2BlibKansan]

4. What's RT?

[NYMdaveNYI]

5. Russia Today,

it’s a great news program,


they cover the stuff that the US corporate media wont cover.

[RZM]

10. You left a few things out

RT is Kremlin-funded. Their reportage on the United States is so unbelievably slanted that it approaches absurdity at times. But that doesn't particularly bother me since Americans don't have to rely on RT for all of their information about events in the United States. What's worse is that the same Russian government that funds RT has slowly but surely curtailed press freedom in Russia itself, especially on television, where most Russians get their news. The government owns controlling shares in several networks and others self-censor out of fear. The same forces that control RT have created a repressive media environment in Russia itself in order to serve their own interests and power. If you like what RT is selling, that's fine. But everybody who supports RT should know that the people behind it are the same ones that have created a restrictive and repressive press environment in their own country.

[NYMdaveNYI]

12. Jesus christ....

I had no idea. Thanks for letting me in on that, dude.

[RZM]

24. No probs :)

I'm not telling people what to watch or what not to watch - I just think everybody should know more about what RT really is before championing it. The more you know about them, the harder it gets to like them.

[SkyDaddy7]

16. Thank-You!!!

I was going to say something as well until I saw your post! You said it better than I could have!

We need to keep real around here...Thank-You!

[RZM]

23. Than you too!

:fistbump:

[redixdoragon]

17. Thing is..,

If you replace a few words in your statement, such as Russia with US and RT with say CNN or MSNBC or FOX or any other coroprate new station, I find a great similarity here in the states.

[Charleston Chew]

18. cool story bro

Laugh Out Loud! @ "reportage"

[Grassy Knoll]

20. LOL.....

[RZM]

22. Is that all?

I understand why you might not choose to defend RT. It's not an easy thing to do if you value press freedom and political pluralism around the world. But if you're comfortable supporting an English-language propaganda arm of an authoritarian government that restricts press freedom at home, that's your choice I guess.

And what's so funny about 'reportage?'

[mudplanet]

19. What a load of shit. RZM attacks the messenger because he can't

stand that they are there reporting the truth.

If RZM's analysis applies to Russian media it works just as well in the US. Why do we have to watch Al Jazeera and the BBC to get any real news about the United States? The Pentagon doesn't have to engage in "repressive" tactics, they just bought the entire US media establishment.

If you're impressed or surprised by RT's reporting you should ask yourself, why haven't I heard anything about the SOA in the US media? Is what RT is reporting untrue, or is the US media so hopelessly biased, incompetent, and just completely sold out that it deliberately ignores all the crimes that the US commits?

Check out SOAW's website before you form any opinions about this issue.

[RZM]

21. Do you really think my beef with RT is about this story?

That's quite a bizarre thing to argue given the content of my previous post. As I stated before, I don't appreciate the fact that much of what they report is so slanted (note I said slanted, not untrue -- some of what they report is true, but they rarely attempt to get two sides on any story), but that's not what really bothers me about them. What bothers me is that the same Kremlin that funds RT has created a very repressed media climate in Russia itself.

Surely you must be aware that Russia is an authoritarian state and not a real democracy. The same government that has assumed an illiberal iron grip on political power has enabled their monopoly in part by controlling and influencing the information the public has access to. Thus, the government casts a long shadow over the press and makes sure that pro-government opinions lace the coverage on television and that real criticism is kept to an absolute minimum. The situation is better on the internet and in print, but most Russians do not get their news that way.

To compare the situation to that in the US is laughable. We aren't perfect, but we have real elections, real debate, and real press freedom. It could be better, but it could also be a lot worse. And Russia today (ha, get it?) is what worse looks like.

I'm quite familiar with the SOA and its history, which I have learned about over the years from numerous sources. I formed my opinion a long time ago and I'm not a fan of it at all. So I'm pretty much good on that. I would suggest that you take a deeper look at journalism and politics in the Russian Federation before defending RT. You might not like what you find.

[mudplanet]

25. Well, ya see, I'm not responsible for what happens in Russia. I'm responsible for what happens here.

And while what I have seen happen in Russia in the last fifty years has been pretty bad, I have zero responsibility for it.

While what I have seen happen in America in the last fifty years is a continuous, massive program of support for suppressing democracy and supporting brutal dictatorships and anti-democratic forces in every country we can get our hooks into.

A short list: Argentina, Brazil, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Colombia, Bolivia, Chile, Haiti, Nigeria, Congo, Angola, Indonesia, Iran...

Yet here we have a story about a key part of that effort to suppress democracy and you choose to say, "Yes, but things are bad in Russia, too." In this particular case, who fucking cares? And you can't have real elections if your voters are ignorant and what they do know is almost total propaganda.

While we may not arrest a lot of journalists I DON'T see a whole lot of debate going on. The people and organizations that are telling the truth are marginalized and the suppression of press freedom takes the form of economic suppression.

[RZM]

26. You mischaracterized my position here

My assertion that 'things are bad in Russia too' (not my words, btw) is not in any way connected with the SOA or anything having to do with US foreign policy. Had the OP been an SOA story from any source other than RT, of course I would have no reason to bring up Russia at all. The reason I brought up Russia was because RT is an English-language propaganda arm of the Russian government -- the same government that pursues authoritarian policies in Russia, including clampdowns on press freedom, opposition politics, and pro-Democracy agitation.

Again, the US does not have an authoritarian government. We have problems, but we also have a viable opposition that is not harassed by the party in power and recently gained seats in Congress through free and fair elections. While our press has problems, the government is not a major stakeholder in most press outfits, nor do virtually all television networks tow the government line.

I'm not blaming you for Russia's woes. But do you not understand the irony of championing a network that spends much of its time trashing anything and everything about the US, while the government that funds that same network ranks far lower than the US government on any and all indices of freedom according to objective international monitoring organizations? The type of critical reporting that RT engages in does not occur on Russian television because the very same people that fund RT do not permit it.

[mudplanet]

27. I'd be pissed about the arrest of any journalists that were arrested at

the demonstration, and champion their cause, no matter where they came from.

The vital role of the press in a democracy is to hold the powerful to account. I believe you are implying that the press in the US is doing so "nor do virtually all television networks tow the government line." And that's bullshit.

I've watched for forty years as the US government has systematically worked to overthrow democratic governments and popular movements in Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America, and virtually without exception the press in the US has failed to report anything except the government line. You had to look really hard (e.g., the foreign press and small independent publications such as The Nation and The Progressive) for find any truthful reporting about Angola, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, Colombia, Peru, Chile, Iran. And when the exception did occur as when Mark Halpern for the NYT reported on the massacre at El Mozote, the mainstream press attacked the reporter and it's source. It turns out that everything Halpern wrote was true, but did you find a retraction or apology in the WSJ?

The intention of your post was to smear and discredit RT as a news source, and it apparently worked with some of the readers. But some of us can tell the difference between shit and shineola, and your post wasn't shoe polish.

[RZM]

28. You seem to have backed off somewhat on defending RT

Now you're honing in my comments about the US media, which isn't where we started. But let's have a little fun anyway. Are you really prepared to argue that 'virtually all television networks tow the government line?' You seem to have taken issue with my assertion that they don't. How about Fox News? Do they toe the Obama administration's line? If so, they sure have a funny way of doing it. Eventually there will be a Republican in the White House again and then Fox probably will promote that administration's policies. Of course, Russian TV networks won't have the luxury of changing their tune, since they will be stuck with the United Russia crowd for the foreseeable future.

It doesn't take a lot of research or deep thinking to grasp RT's unbelievable cynicism. Its funding source is common knowledge, as is the Kremlin's role in contributing to the lamentable state of democracy and press freedom in Russia. Let me ask you this though. Why do you think RT reports things the way it does? Why are their stories about the United States almost always negative? The BBC doesn't run exclusively negative stories about the US and you seem to respect its coverage, so it's difficult to argue that negative news about the US is the only kind worth reporting. It's also difficult to argue that RT reports in such a manner out of a desire to promote truth, since its backers have shown that they are not at all interested in promoting truth in their own country.

So what does that leave us with? Could it be that RT reports the way it does because the Russian government wants to give a certain impression of the United States? As somebody who reads and understands Russian and follows the Russian media, I can assure you that when government controlled/influenced outlets report on the US in the Russian language, the content and tone are the same as they are on RT. After all, why wouldn't they be -- the same people control the coverage in both languages.

Why is the phrase 'US corporate media' such a pejorative on the left nowadays? You and I both know why -- it's because there exists a perception that corporations will sponsor only news coverage that contributes to a friendly climate for corporations and not what the people really need to know, which is what journalism is supposed to be about. Now I have some problems with that assessment, but I'm guessing you largely agree with it. Why then would RT be any different? It's funded by the Kremlin, so why wouldn't it sponsor coverage that advances the Kremlin's goals? And guess what? The Russian government is not interested in helping you achieve a better life. They are interested in you helping them undermine the US. And by spreading the bullshit they peddle, you are doing just that.

[RZM]

11. Plese see post #10 n/t

[NYMdaveNYI]

6. Great song about

the School of Assassins

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzOrBWknjkA

lyrics:

"Has your life got you down? Are you feeling lost and blue?
I'm thinking maybe a career change is the best answer for you
You've never lived, never known true romance
Till you been taught the steps to the death dance
(Fort) Benning, Georgia, is gonna teach you how to move!

Take our rights back! Stand up for Liberty!
This is the era when we give the world a better way
Take our rights back! Shut down the SOA!
This is the era when we give the world a better way

Torture, rape, murder and death are all waiting for you
Democracy subversion well they got that covered too
The grad names on their walls, most infamous of all dictators/coup learders
Learn well someday you maybe ranked with these awesome k-k-k-k-killers!

Take our rights back! Stand up for Liberty!
This is the era when we give the world a better way
Take our rights back! Shut down the SOA!
This is the era when we give the world a better way

Take our rights back! Stand up for Liberty!
This is the era when we give the world a better way
Take our rights back! Shut down the SOA!
The setting son can burn a brilliant vibrant flame



They're selling war as peace
STRIKE!
Do we need it in our name
STRIKE! STRIKE BACK!
Tax dollars from the war machine
STRIKE!
The people can't leave me in chains
STRIKE! STRIKE BACK!


AHHHHH!

Take our rights back! Stand up for Liberty!
This is the era when we give the world a better way
Take our rights back! Shut down the SOA!
The setting son can burn a brilliant vibrant flame

Vibrant flame"

[proud2BlibKansan]

9. Here's another one

http://emmasrevolution.com/media/clips/one/One-08-One-by-One.mp3

We have come
To this place
To renounce
This disgrace
Brick by brick
Wall by wall
We will make
This building fall

We have watched One by one
The SOA One by one
That some would try One by one
To WHISC away One by one
But this School One by one
Drenched in shame One by one
Cannot hide One by one
Behind a name One by one

We have paid One by one
Against our will One by one
While men torture One by one
Maim and kill One by one
We'll return One by one
Thousands strong One by one
Until right One by one
Replaces wrong One by one

We will teach One by one
Our children peace One by one
'Til all war One by one
And hunger cease One by one
We have come One by one
By the score One by one
We will learn One by one
To fight no more One by one

In one voice
We will stand
We will sing
We will demand
We have each
Received a sign
Close the School
Cross the line

[truedelphi]

7. Thank you for posting this. n/t

[murdoch]

14. SOA whitewashs their Wikipedia pages

Here's a Wikipedia edit of the Fort Benning page on Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fort_Benning&diff=76652631&oldid=76652525

SOA Watch, a group of American citizens who monitor the human rights abuses caused by those trained at the School of the Americas/WHISC had a link from the Fort Benning page. Someone erased that link. Where did the IP address of the edit come from? Fort Benning.

Great that my tax dollars are going to pay for training Honduran murderers, after which an American soldier whose salary I'm also paying for is told to go on Wikipedia and whitewash information by American citizen groups monitoring this. Someone should read these Tea Party people what the founding fathers said about a standing army in this country. Now we not only have a standing army, but a creepy Halliburton/Blackwater military-industrial complex, which made even General Eisenhower nervous.

[murdoch]

15. Also

Another whitewash from the same Internet address at Fort Benning

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Western_Hemisphere_Institute_for_Security_Cooperation&diff=prev&oldid=140379375

[Charleston Chew]

29. schema-root.org

http://schema-root.org/region/americas/north_america/usa/government/branches/executive/departments/defense/army/school_of_the_americas/