Hubris is one of the great renewable resources.
- P. J. O'Rourke
We have a gaggle of over-paid under-achievers roaming the tunnels of our medical care delivery apparatus. We have a state microbe…and we have this: School of the Americas Watch (SOA Watch) shoots and scores. Yes. SOA Watch won a hard-ass court case against the Pentagon!
The judge ruled that the Pentagon has no grounds for its refusal to disclose the names of graduates and instructors of the SOA/WHINSEC (the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation). This is another setback for the Pentagon, following the withdrawal announcements by Nicaragua and Ecuador.
And the Department of Justice, which represented the Pentagon in the lawsuit, did not immediately respond to an Associated Press request for comment on Wednesday. The Obama administration has 90 days to appeal the judge's order to release the names of SOA/ WHINSEC graduates and instructors to SOA Watch.
In a rare reflection of judicial independence, United States District Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton from the Northern District of California ordered the Pentagon to release the names of who trains and teaches at SOA/WHINSEC, a U.S. military training school for Latin American soldiers that has been connected to torturers, death squads and military dictators throughout the Americas. Human rights activists had taken the U.S. government to court over its refusal to release the information, and won.
Read the court ruling here: SOAW.org/judgment
- KBOO