"Teaching Torture at the School of the Americas" by Marjorie Cohn

"Throughout Latin America, the United States armed military governments, provided them with money and loans, and used diplomatic pressure and threats to ensure loyalty to U.S. interests.18 Training military tyrants to repress their own populations was cheaper and easier than sending in U.S. troops. The primary goal of the United States in Latin America during this period was to maintain stability for U.S. investment (p. 3)."

It is evident, after reading all fourteen pages of Cohn's work, that the United States is a dystopian, imperialist plague. After the pages go on and on about different people in power being responsible for the torture of many "insurgents," who are just people who are "human rights advocates", "labor organizers", and "healthcare workers", it ends with stating that those people who were trained in the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), formerly known as School of the Americas, did not get "prosecuted" or "censured", they did not apologize, and victims received no reparations. In the passage above, there is a mention of a tactic the United States used to gain access and power over Latin American countries. Many of the people placed in power in Central and South American countries were corrupt and perpetrated atrocities against their own people because of the United States' threats. The overall reading was troublesome to get through, and it further signified the issues that other countries have endured because of the United States and their introduction in foreign governments. The WHINSEC sounds like a brainwashing school that normalizes inhumane tactics to forcefully gain power over people. The U.S. sees other countries as resources, and their power move is to turn people against each other in order to divide and conquer. Although the article states that many Latin American countries have backed out from using SOA-WHINSEC to train their citizens, the effects of previous atrocities are everlasting - however, it is a step in the right direction.

- Esmeralda Argueta