Congress Woman Stephanie Herseth Sandlin Replies

Korova has forwarded to me the reply he got to his letter regarding the vote to close the SOA/WHINSEC

Thank you for contacting me to express your opposition to the Western
Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), formally the
School of the Americas (SOA). I appreciate hearing from you on this
important issue.

WHINSEC, located at Fort Benning in Columbus, Georgia, is the U.S.
Army's principal Spanish-language training facility for Latin American
military personnel. It is the successor to the School of the Americas
(SOA), a facility established in 1946 and legally closed in 2001.
WHINSEC is located in the same building, and offers many of the same
courses, as the school it replaces.

A military training institution for students from nations in the Western
Hemisphere has continuing utility, so long as its focus and training
activities are consistent with U.S. interests, policies and values. I am not
opposed to WHINSEC, so long as the training is done with an emphasis
on democracy and human rights.

The stated goals of the institute are to provide training and education to
western hemisphere military personnel. These new training courses
include leadership development, counter-drug operations, peace support
operations, and disaster relief techniques. Additionally, the institute
requires human rights training, a board of visitors, and regular reports to
Congress.

I am pleased that the School of the Americas was terminated, and I will
continue to monitor this new institute closely to make sure that it does
not become simply another version of the old SOA with a new name.

Again, thank you for taking the time to contact me. If I can provide any
additional information, please don't hesitate to let me know.
Sincerely,

Stephanie Herseth Sandlin

Which is nice, good to see the tradition of patronising people to cover your moral cowardice is alive and well. She is a conservative "Blue Dog Democrat"

She is a member of the New Democrat Coalition. As a Blue Dog Democrat, however, she opposes her party's leadership on some issues on which there is disagreement between conservative South Dakota and the more liberal Democratic national leadership. In the 2004 general election, she was endorsed by the NRA, and she supported President Bush's call for a Federal Marriage Amendment.

So she likes guns and torture and hates them queers. What a gal. The graphic at top is my jazzing up of an original poster made for School of Americas Watch by Haik Hoisington, you can click it to got to SOAWatch and educate yourself so you are not a vapid cretin like Steph.