One question we never ask is, "Who is making all these military arms?" With the 20th century being riddled with wars such as World Wars I and II, Vietnam and years of massacres in El Salvador and Guatemala, not to mention starting a new century with yet another war, you would think this question would be paramount. But, when we finally ask this question there is, of course, no reply. There are just echoes of your voice that get muffled over with the sounds of PlayStation videogames.
Unfortunately, the reality of profiting from war is much harsher than a second-hand smoker's cough. In this upside down world, some countries that hold the title of world police and carry the task of making sure the world is a peaceful place are also some of the biggest distributors of military arms.
There is no question that war has shaped this country's economy. After almost every war was a time of a flourishing market, and 'boom towns' sprouted all over. After WW II, pesticides and insecticides emerged as major industrial and household chemicals. The radio, television and other great feats of mechanical ingenuity appeared in homes across the country. People that grew up during these post-war periods witnessed the formation and solidification of huge international industries led by celebrities such as the Duponts, Rockefellers and the Sinclairs.
These snippets are only supposed to highlight how much energy has been pumped into wartime generates efforts and how these periods of time can influence an economy and entire generations of people. Today, some of the largest employers of the state of New Mexico are places that develop nuclear warheads and generate some of the most incredible wastes known to the earth.
A key issue that is rarely brought up in our efforts to strengthen our Home Security is the "School of the Americas," in Fort Benning, Ga. On Sept. 20, 1996, the U.S. Department of Defense confessed to the public that we made a "mistake" in training and financing some of the most ruthless dictators and mercenaries that Latin America has ever seen.
Some of the people who graduated from this military training school, which has existed for 55 years, were men in a paramilitary group responsible for the massacres of 448 Mayan Indian Communities in Guatemala during the 1980s.
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
Two-thirds of the men named by the United Nations Truth Commission as responsible for the worst atrocities during the civil war in El Salvador were trained at the School of the Americas.
Last year, several congressmen and grassroots organizations tried shutting down the school, but the only thing that changed was the school's name. Their new name is now the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, and they are now training many people from Colombia to carry out the war on drugs as part of a foreign aid package worth $1.3 billion.
This significant public confession and subsequent insignificant name change generated few responses from any of our public discourses.
All this confession heard were those silent echoes that are being overwhelmed by TMX surround-sound system movie theaters. I guess this issue is too controversial. But how can something that we never talk about be controversial? And how can we better ourselves and our economy by learning from this confession, if the reasons for confessions are to learn from mistakes so as to not do it again?
Does it make sense that we have a suffocating public school system that is becoming privatized while our world market share in military exports is roughly around 50 percent? In this upside-down world, some of the most amazing things are ignored and cast aside, while the most detrimental things to a society have plenty of space on billboards and commercial airtime.
Hopefully, some of us will stay warm and healthy and realize that in order to make this world peaceful, democratic and free we have to understand and listen to each other. We have to start questioning the manufacturing of arms and the mentality that drives it in a context that combines all of our histories and realities. This is globalization at its best.
by Maceo Carrillo Martinet
Daily Lobo Columnist
Questions, comments or concerns can be forwarded to Maceo Carrillo Martinet at conuco8@unm.edu.
