Silence of the Shepherds

November 27, 2007

“If there is anything worse than the silence of the lambs, it must be the silence of the shepherds.”  These chilling words were spoken at the annual demonstration at Ft. Benning sponsored by the SOA Watch which has been working for decades to shut down the torture training camp known as Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (formerly known as the School of the Americas) this past month.   Most of our staff goes to this event each year.  It is a chance for my younger staff members to get a fairly graphic reminder of why we do what we do.  While our military rarely commits the atrocities it trains others to do, you do not need deliberate atrocities create the horrors of war.