Trials Begin in Georgia for 32 Human Rights Advocates(SOA Watch)

[TheBaldyMan]

the first paragraph of the SOA Watch website report says it all

Columbus, GA – The week after a military jury in Colorado decided not to jail an Army interrogator even after they found him guilty of negligent homicide in the torture and killing of an Iraqi detainee, a federal judge in Columbus, Georgia is sentencing nonviolent activists to federal prison.

This morning, Judge G. Mallon Faricloth sentenced nine human rights advocates, including Delmar Schwaller, an 81-year-old retired man, to between one and six months in prison; eight of those individuals were also fined between $500 and $1,000. Twenty-one people still face charges, and trials continue. Each person faces a maximum sentence of six months in prison and a $5,000 fine.

The 32 defendants, ranging in age from 19 to 81, are charged with trespass after peacefully walking onto the Fort Benning military base in protest of a controversial Army training school located there. Those arrested were among 19,000 who gathered in November of 2005 outside the gates of Fort Benning to demand a dramatic shift in U.S. foreign policy and the closure of the controversial U.S. Army’s School of the Americas, now called the Western Hemisphere Institute of Security Cooperation (SOA/ WHINSEC).

America is certainly 'Land of the Brave' as the SOAW activists prove but whether the US is 'Home of the Free' remains questionable.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. something is terribly wrong

when a torturer and murderer walks free and peaceful protestors are sent to prison.

[politicaholic]

2. This really blows me away. Perhaps they'll get a presidential pardon...

Sorry, I just had to say it. I have to laugh my way through tragedy. It's a psychological problem.

[TheBaldyMan]

3. you have to laugh or you'd cry

:+

[gratuitous]

4. Genuflect at the altar of redemptive violence . . . or else

The folks running this country are profiting mightily in so many ways from the myth of redemptive violence. It's imperative that they keep this myth alive, and they aren't shy about their methods for spreading it. When 32 people stand up and reject the myth, they must be dealt with harshly. When an Army interrogator uses the myth of redemptive violence to kill someone, the machinery in place doesn't bat an eye. Torture and killing are acceptable to the myth; peaceful non-violent solutions are anathema.