Foreign Internal Defense (Indigenous Forces)

[White Rabbit]

Statement:

In 1959, a French military mission is created in Buenos Aires where French officers--all veterans from Algeria--translate Roger Trinquier, hold classes and publish articles in military revues.

In the mid-1960s, they move on to the School of the Americas where they teach American instructors and, eventually, directly teach special forces at Fort Bragg.

Special forces then put to practice what they have learned in Foreign Internal Defense programmes, particularly in Latin America.

Given the fact that Trinquier sanctions torture in Modern Warfare (1), and in the light of atrocities perpetrated in Latin America during the same period as Foreign Internal Defense programmes where in place (e.g. in El-Salvador), my question is the following: despite that FIDs programmes evolved in the right direction, to what extend is this history known and, accordingly, to what extend are FIDs controversial in the U.S.?

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(1)

No lawyer is present for such an interrogation. If the prisoner gives the information requested, the examination is quickly terminated; if not, specialists must force his secret from him. Then, as a soldier, he must face the suffering, and perhaps the death, he has heretofore managed to avoid

Source: R. Trinquier, Modern Warfare (Praeger Security International, 2006), p. 19. Nota bene, it is even more explicit in the original, French, version.