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| Member |
WHAT? Way off base, it was at Ft Benning & the Infantry School trained officers in infantry tactics from all over the world as well. I imagine it still does. I would see them in the halls when attending my classes in 1967. __________________________________________________ If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit! Sigs Owned - A Bunch | |||
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| Member |
Benning, you're right, and on the surface, it's about teaching officers. SOA, and now Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (SOA was sheep-dipped a few years ago), has had a long history of producing graduates who ended up in anything but respectable positions. | |||
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| Member |
Say what? Incorrect. You literally took a talking point from any number of leftist propaganda pieces and regurgitated it. The SOA existed to train foreign officers from Spanish Speaking region on how to run a military and be a professional solider. The connect-the-dots idea that the leftists tried to make because a handful of the attendees became despots and sociopaths, is specious and shows the lack of understanding on who and how attendees are selected, not to mention what was actually taught there. | |||
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| Member |
I don't do leftist propaganda, but I did a few turns in south america with some associated operations, and SOA was about a whole lot more than teaching and training officers. | |||
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Objectively Reasonable |
Most LAC-GD/SOA/WHINSEC graduates weren't involved in Latin American human rights abusers... but most particularly noteworthy Latin American human rights abusers were LAC-GD/SOA/WHINSEC graduates. This isn't even remotely controversial, a stretch, or "fuzzy numbers." DoD's own studies confirm this. It's also not particularly disputed that the mechanics and benefits of torture were actually curriculum items at one point. Not because "leftists" say so, but because DoD-IG reports say so. I believe the school actually yielded more positive foreign policy benefits, on balance, than negative consequences. But pretending that it was always "clean" just isn't being honest. But I'm not sure how this has bearing on the IRA? | |||
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| My only apparent accomplishment in life is being banned from an ancient forum |
I've done a lot of reading about The Troubles, because it's where I think the US is heading. Both sides were incredibly shitty, but the IRA was a special kind of terrible. The fact they are all dirty commies is just icing on the cake. | |||
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| Member |
Already provided. The IRA branched out to train terrorists in other nations; most notably south of us, they had close ties with the FARC in Colombia. To counter the FARC, we created a number of vigilante movements, of which we lost control some time ago, which now make up the bulk of the UAC, and what was once the opposition thereof, the ELN (originally a grassroots movement, and which have replaced the FARC as the primary source of terrorism in Colombia. The IRA trains them, we train them, and we continue to do so, from instruction on poisoning water supplies to building improvised explosives out of pop cans, to teaching insurrection. When it suits our needs, we do it, too. We trained the Muj, now we fight their kids in the same organization we created (University of Nebraska); the Taliban. We all create and train and play dirty when it suits us. That's the connection. That's not a casual reading of liberal propaganda. That's a bit more close, having seen it. The IRA did a lot of bad stuff, had an active drug growing and distribution network out of west Africa, and had ties to numerous terrorist organizations and networks around the world. It may have become a bit more palatable on the global scale, a little more mainstream, but it was always bad, and is still bad, despite some acceptance of the underlying Sinn Fein. I have ties myself. My family isn't from here, though I am. I understand the undercurrent, but disagree, and will never support the terrorist bent that's gone from evil to popular, front stage in politics and press. | |||
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| Member |
sns3guppy, are you trying to equate the instruction that the US provided at SOA to the exported instruction the IRA has provided around the world? SOA was a counter-insurgency school to keep tin-pot 'allies' in Central and South America from loosing their banana republics by training various officers. At the very least, we knew who the shot-callers were when things went sideways, which is among the many reasons we admit various foreign militaries to send attendees to our schools. However, blaming SOA for 'revealing or, instructing' questionable methods/techniques is like blaming the military when a former member commits a crime as a civilian. I have no illusions to believe the US clean or, pure, however, your attempt to equate what the IRA has done with the SOA, is quite a stretch. If some general or, colonel is gonna commit a coup or, going all Col Kurtz, they don't need the US to help them, there's plenty of crazy around. Back to the OP, the city of SF made no effort to do some homework or, find somebody not as divisive. | |||
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| Blinded by the Sun  |
Ask any Jean McConville's 10 children if the IRA are terrorists or freedom fighters. ------------------------------ Smart is not something you are but something you get. Chi Chi, get the yayo | |||
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| half-genius, half-wit |
I'll only say this one more time, and then leave it alone - there are a lot of folks here who think that the sun shone out of the late Mr McGuiness's butthole and for a subject like this we are never going to get a consensus. Remember, please, that I got old very quickly with nine tours in Northern Ireland during the bad days, so my POV might be 180 degrees at variance with that of another person who sees a freedom fighter. 1. There was NO 'freedom' to fight for. Not only has the REPUBLIC OF IRELAND been in existence for almost a century, but the IRA and membership of it has been proscribed in the Republic since 1923. 2. Northern Ireland, part of the four countries that make up the United Kingdom, is not only also 'Free', but does not WANT to be part of the Republic of Ireland. McGuiness and his murderous ilk were attempting to bomb the people of Northern Ireland to the negotiating table to force the respective governments - Irish and British - to arrange a unification of the two parts of Ireland. Their motto was 'with a gun in one hand, and a ballot box in the other!!' The problems were manifold, in that There were/ARE people on the Protestant side - yes, it's all basically a religious thing - who were prepared to be just as vicious and murderous as he was. What many here in the USA are totally unaware about is the closeness of the IRA politically with good old-fashioned Marxist-Leninism. Both he and the appalling Gerry Adams were/are deeply steeped in the commitment to making the united Ireland into another Cuba, with the pair of of them heading up the 'government' that would be bringing this about. So far only one of them is dead, but what amazes me that nobody has yet taken a potshot at Mr Adams. | |||
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| Banned |
Can Cal. just break off and fall into the ocean....Please. | |||
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Cynic |
tac I am so happy you are on SF. I'm always a little more educated after I read your post on any subject. And for your many years service to the good guys. Bill _______________________________________________________ And no, junior not being able to hold still for 5 seconds is not a disability. | |||
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| half-genius, half-wit |
Thanks, Bill, for your comment. As I'm probably not only the sole person living in UK who posts here, but certainly the one that has lasted longest in spite of the occasional bruising, I remain, nevertheless. As a measure of what it was like for me over there, remember that my family name is 'Foley'. That caused me endless problems in dealing with the RUC [Royal Ulster Constabulary], because that organisation was dominated by people of the Unionist political tradition - union, that is, with the rest of the United Kingdom, certainly NOT the Republic of Ireland which is for the most part staunchly Roman Catholic]. There were only about 1% of so-called 'left-footers', ie, Roman Catholics, in the police force, and with my name, I was a person of suspicion the moment i walked into the room. Why? Because Foley is predominantly a Southern Irish name. Most people in the Republic are roman Catholic. The PIRA was intent on making the North rejoin with the South, and were the fruit of the tension and hatred between the Roman Catholic and the Protestant population of Northern Ireland. So you have to put yourself in my boots - there I was, in uniform, having just gotten out of a military vehicle, maybe even carrying, and I wasn't to be trusted until proven otherwise. Sure, my dad fought the British in the years leading up to the Truce in 1921, and then his brothers in the resulting Civil War, but that was my dad, not me. I'm proud of his history as a patriot, even though at the time he was called a criminal and terrorist by the British. But that was then, and I'm not him. | |||
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| Villebilly Deluxe |
One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. Bloody Sunday: Soldier F faces murder charges http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-n...ern-ireland-47540271 | |||
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Member |
Fucking Irish people. Take a rock to a gun fight, then cry about getting shot. "Ninja kick the damn rabbit" | |||
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| half-genius, half-wit |
Meanwhile, the bombers and shooters, with careers going back forty years, are free to walk the streets, after Tony Blair set them all free as a gesture of reconciliation after the Good Friday Agreement. | |||
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| SIGforum's Berlin Correspondent  |
BTW tac, I finally got hold of your fellow NI veteran. Shoot me an e-mail with your preferred contact data at banshee-one at gmx dot net, and I'll pass it on to him. | |||
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Member |
So we went to England and bombed civilian targets during the Revolutionary War? That's news to me. . | |||
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