National Defense Authorization Act For Fiscal Year 2010

Floor Speech

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Mr. BISHOP of Georgia. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I just want the Members of this House to know that I represent the area where WHINSEC is located, Fort Benning, Georgia. I represented formerly the School of the Americas. I've been involved in this debate year in and year out. This is my 17th year.

The all-encompassing question is whether or not WHINSEC or its predecessor trained terrorists and murderers who did harm. That's an issue. But to create transparency, we want to make sure that this amendment passes so that people on both sides of the issue can get the facts and transparency and know who goes to the school, who teaches at the school, what the curriculum is. Having that be transparent is all we want to do, and the facts will speak for themselves.

I support WHINSEC. It's one of the greatest tools that our country has for democracy in our hemisphere. It's a good opportunity for us to make friends, keep friends, and to cooperate. But we want to make sure that there is no misunderstanding, and I join with the chairman in supporting this amendment and ask my colleagues to do the same.

Mr. Chair, I am pleased to co-sponsor this amendment to the FY 2010 National Defense Authorization Act to restore public access and transparency to the names of students and instructors at the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, or WHINSEC.

WHINSEC is located in Georgia's 2nd Congressional District at Ft. Benning. I have on many occasions visited the school and have supported the school's efforts to share its civil and military training with our friends and partners in Latin America. WHINSEC is a military and academic institution, the primary effort of which is to promote peace, democratic values, and respect for human rights through inter-American cooperation.

I agree with my esteemed colleague, Mr. MCGOVERN, that the school should provide the names of Latin American and U.S. military personnel who attend or teach at the school, as well as the curriculum taught at the school.

This amendment brings back the former policy of disclosing attendees, faculty members and course offerings. Allowing this information to become public will protect the school from attempts to discredit its efforts to develop partnerships and the principles of democracy.

It will also demonstrate to the nations of Latin America that the lessons learned at WHINSEC are ethnical, promote human rights, and provide a civil/military framework of building democratic governments.

Please join me in supporting this effort to ensure that the institutions we entrust to promote democratic principles are open for review and discussion. I urge you to support the amendment to H.R. 2647, the FY 2010 National Defense Authorization Act.

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