Ross, the history of the School of the Americas is quite clear, and quite bloody, if you care to look into. An examination of the soa's roster over the past fifty years provides an answer to tge question "how does the us get so consistently in bed with the worst of the worst ofrightwing dictatorships around the world.?" Its because we spotted them, trained them, supportedthem, removed their political enemies for them, and if or when they became annoying to us, got rid of them. But your misrepresentation of Allende and Pinochet is surprising at best. Allendes presidency was destroyed by foreign saboteurs and assassins, financed in large part by att, and undet the blessing of henry kissinger. What happened in chile is an object lesson in covert destabilization by experts. Pinochet was a graduate of soa.