Military Brutality Quotes
There is disagreement amongst historians as to whether or not the atrocities attributed to the retreating British troops were actually true. There are two other possibilities. First, this report was made only a week after the battle itself and less than that since the alleged atrocities would take place as the British retreated. There were certainly all kinds of rumors with information passed from person to person with no modern means of documentation. The Provisional Congress may have sincerely thought that all the events occurred but they may have been the result of inadvertent exaggeration. Then there is the possibility that in order to fire up the Americans to join the war, some or all of the atrocity reports were deliberately fabricated. It would only take two or three delegates to agree on such a strategy and they could “confirm” each other’s accounts of the happenings. Of course it might all be true. However, as the British retreated to Boston where they had reinforcements, they did not have a lot of time for malicious atrocities. All along the route, Minutemen, local farmers and townspeople continued the attack against the British. By the time the British soldiers reached Boston, 73 British solders were dead and 174 more were wounded. In war truth does not have the respect that it usually does. See {626632}.
The School of the Americas has been run by the United States Army and provides training for Latin American Military Officers in Counter-Insurgency Training. The graduates of the school have included some of the worst Latin American killers and torturers (See {41061} for example) who rose to positions of power in their lands. It has also included many leaders who did not ever resort to war crimes and atrocities and also became leaders of their countries. It has been an institution of great controversy since it was discovered that the school at one point taught methods of interrogating insurgents that were tantamount to torture. Defenders of the school claim that but for the school, the military atrocities would have been worse and that it contributed to more human and democratic governments in the Americas.
