Word: patria
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Under the slogan Todo por la Patria (All for the Fatherland), the Guardia Civil established its fearsome reputation mainly through its willingness to follow orders. Troopers are never based in their home provinces, in order to prevent the kind of personal involvement that might make them reluctant to use force. The 58,000-man Guardia Civil is part of the army and is under the command of an army general, but its basic function is police work...
...perspectives changed the view of soldiering. Detente (in its morally confusing juxtaposition with the Viet Nam War) seemed to remove the external threat to the U.S. It also encouraged cynicism: Why, asked the vulnerable young men with intimate reasons to wonder, should they sacrifice their lives fighting Communists pro patria at Khe Sanh when the President of the U.S. would be drinking friendship toasts in Peking and Moscow? Such a morally double-jointed approach to enemies seemed, simplistically but understandably, to be corrupt and treacherous. In addition, the blank finality of nuclear superpower showdown inherently reduces all military endeavor...
...written only at the insistence of his publisher, the author hurriedly speaks of old agonies, the balm of forgetfulness, and of his conviction that all wars are futile and immoral. There is even the ritual reference to what Wilfred Owen called the old Lie: "Dulce et decorum est/ Pro patria mori"- how sweet and beautiful it is to die for one's country...
...detriment because he's done so much." Moffitt points especially to the crackdown on members of the PDC, who began in 1976 to openly criticize the Pinochet government for the ruin they say it is inflicting on the Chilean people. Though Leigh is a former member of Patria y Libertad, a right-wing group of which Townley was also a member during the administration of former Chilean president Salvador Allende, Moffitt-believes that a government with both Frei and Leigh could change the human rights situation in Chile. "I think Frei would probably try to get some form of limited...
Moffitt says that the Pinochet government turned Townley over hoping he would not talk. Pinochet would like to make the assassination look like it was the work of Patria y Libertad so that he can dissociate himself from Townley and at the same time discredit Leigh, Moffitt says, adding that Pinochet was forced to deport Townley because he couldn't deny that Townley was issued an official passport. An interesting sidelight Moffitt mentions is a subscandal involving Guillermo Ossorio, the man who issued the passports to Townley and Larios. Ossorio died on October 21, 1977, after last being seen with...