I’ve written extensively in the past about the SOA, now know as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. From its beginnings in Latin America to its relocation to the US, the notorious ‘Institute’ has produced monsters aplenty, as reiterated today by Marie Dennis…

“Human rights activists, religious leaders, and military veterans will descend on Fort Benning, Ga. this weekend to demand the closing of a notorious military training facility that has tutored some of Latin America’s most brutal soldiers and dictators.

The U.S. Army School of the Americas, renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation in 2001, has a long and shameful history of teaching torture, extortion and execution to infamous graduates like Manuel Noriega, the former dictator of Panama. Nearly 60,000 alumni have returned to Bolivia, El Salvador, and Nicaragua to suppress human rights leaders, political dissidents and innocent civilians swept up in the region’s often violent struggles for social justice.

Two former instructors at the school, Col. Alvaro Quijano and Maj. Wilmer Mora, were arrested last August for supporting the leader of a Colombian drug cartel who is on the FBI’s most wanted list. Last year, Bolivia’s government joined Costa Rica, Argentina, Uruguay and Venezuela in announcing it would withdraw soldiers from the school. Bolivia has good reason to end its affiliation with this disgraced facility. Hugo Banzer Suarez, who ruled Bolivia in the 1970s under a brutal military dictatorship, attended the school in 1956 and was later inducted into its “Hall of Fame.” In 1989, six Jesuit priests, their co-worker and her teenage daughter were massacred in El Salvador. A U.S. congressional task force reported that those responsible were trained at the School of the Americas.

Interrogation manuals used by the facility and declassified by the National Security Archive shed light on a grim litany of “coercive techniques” similar to those used by U.S. military officers to abuse detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Several torture survivors from Latin America will be among the 15,000 nonviolent protestors at Ft. Benning gathering for prayerful vigils, rallies and workshops organized by School of the Americas Watch, founded by Fr. Roy Bourgeois, a Maryknoll Catholic priest. Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts and Rep. John Lewis of Georgia have sponsored legislation to cut off funding to the facility. Last June, 203 members of Congress supported the McGovern-Lewis amendment, only six votes shy of the number needed to pass.”

Things in Minneapolis are getting out of hand, and the militancy involved is something that Americans should be informed about. I fully understand that many people have preconceived notions about protestors, that some are hippie throw backs and others are little more than pseudo-anarchists looking to cause trouble, the latter of which is certainly true, but the truth is that those bent on confrontation with authorities are actually in the minority. In many cases, the authorities are just as responsible for placing people in situations in which they feel threatened, act in defense of themselves out of fear, and are then subsequently dealt with forcibly by law enforcement.

If exercising your Constitutional rights makes you a ‘hippie’, then I guess it’s safe to say that some of the most predominant activists in America are ‘hippies’. Daniel Ellsberg, an ex-Marine who once worked for The Rand Corporation and the Department of Defense in the 60’s, and was one of the authours of what would later be known as The Pentagon Papers, would be among them. Ironically, there was once a time when he was considered one of the most noted Hawks in Washington.

I have a hard time picturing Dr. Martin Luther King as a hippie, not to mention Frederick Douglas or Horace Greeley, but if the shoe fits…

That said; amongst those arrested today were two Democracy Now! producers and veteran journalist Amy Goodman…

“Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman and producers Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar have all been released from police custody in St. Paul following their illegal arrest by Minneapolis Police on Monday afternoon.

All three were violently manhandled by law enforcement officers. Abdel Kouddous was slammed against a wall and the ground, leaving his arms scraped and bloodied. He sustained other injuries to his chest and back. Salazar’s violent arrest by baton-wielding officers, during which she was slammed to the ground while yelling, “I’m Press! Press!,” resulted in her nose bleeding, as well as causing facial pain. Goodman’s arm was violently yanked by police as she was arrested.”

[…]

“Goodman was arrested while questioning police about the unlawful detention of Kouddous and Salazar who were arrested while they carried out their journalistic duties in covering street demonstrations at the Republican National Convention. Goodman’s crime appears to have been defending her colleagues and the freedom of the press.

Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher told Democracy Now! that Kouddous and Salazar were arrested on suspicion of rioting, a felony. While the three have been released, they all still face charges stemming from their unlawful arrest. Kouddous and Salazar face pending charges of suspicion of felony riot, while Goodman has been officially charged with obstruction of a legal process and interference with a “peace officer.”

Also arrested was Matt Rourke, a photographer for the Associated Press. CNN political commentator and Chair of the Democratic National Committee’s Voting Rights Institute, Donna Brazile, was also hit by pepper stray while walking to the convention.

Below are two videos. The first is via the San Francisco Chronicle, who interviewed Goodman shortly after her release. The second is of her arrest.

President Bush gave a speech today at Monticello, once the home of Thomas Jefferson. As he began speaking, dissenters in the audience became vocal, as is their Constitutional right. Ironically, as the first of them was being dragged away by the Secret Service, the President had the audacity to claim that that was the great thing about America – that Americans have the right to free speech…

…and after about 20 or seconds of it they get dragged away and turned over to local authorities.

You don’t get a free pass if you’re the President. If you speak in public, citizens have every right to make themselves heard, even if it interrupts you. They have the right to protest and the right to dissent. The Constitution, which Mr. Bush swore to uphold and defend, guarantees those rights.

But, as is often the case when Mr. Bush dares to speak to anyone other than members of the military or a pre-screened crowd, those that dared to stand up today and make themselves heard were swiftly and conveniently ushered away.

Ain’t that America. Home of the free.