The school is a military educational institution that trains, in Spanish, officers and noncommissioned officers from Latin America. More than 50 years old, it moved from Panama to Fort Benning, Ga., in 1984 as part of the relocation of U. S. military facilities under the Panama Canal treaties. In recent years, both the U. S. General Accounting Office and the Department of Defense have recognized its support of U. S. policy and have recommended its continuation.

The school's critics base their arguments on guilt-by-association reasoning, in that during past decades some of the school's graduates went on to become dictators and human-rights violators. As we are again reminded by the Pinochet case in London, the United States admittedly supported, during the Cold War, a number of murderous Latin American dictatorships in the name of national security. Many of us strongly opposed such a policy at the time. The bad name it gave the United States continues to undermine our image with many Latin Americans of democratic persuasion.

But the Cold War has been over for a decade. Liberals, not just conservatives, should relegate that period to the history books and stop fighting it. Moreover, the purpose of the School of the Americas was never to train Latin Americans in assassination, something they knew quite well how to do on their own. If anything, it may have mitigated their excesses. To blame the school is like attacking West Point because its graduate Anastasio Somoza went on to become dictator of Nicaragua, or, for that matter, to vilify Harvard because of its alumnus Ted Kaczynski, alias ``the Unabomber.''

What does the school teach today? Its curriculum reflects U.S. priorities in Latin America, especially those established in the Miami Summit of the Americas in 1994. These include promoting economic and political freedom through open markets, the creation of a Free Trade Area of the Americas based on democratic governance, supporting sustainable development, and improving the quality of life for all people.

As the most recent GAO report (1996) points out, since 1990 the school has added nine new courses that reflect current U. S. priorities in the region. Two of these are democratic sustainment and civil-military relations, including human rights.

The curriculum is consistent with the Defense Department's expanded International Military Education and Training program, providing courses in managing and administering military establishments and budgets, creating and maintaining effective military judicial systems and fostering respect for civilian control.

As a member of the school's Board of Visitors until recently, I have witnessed its success in imparting these subjects to Latin American officers. I have spent many hours speaking with them about their studies. It was encouraging to hear how much they had learned about the value of respect for human rights.

Democratic governance and civilian control of the military are important goals but are not solidly and permanently implanted in all Latin American countries. To have them taught by U. S. military officers, whom Latin American officers admire, is certainly the best possible channel of communication. They will accept the message from them far more readily than from their own civilian leaders.

The fact is that Latin American military officers at the School of the Americas today are learning subjects important to the consolidation of democratic governance, which they would not be receiving anywhere else.

Politicians' attempts to shut it down, based on outdated arguments, are counterproductive to the positive aspects of our post-Cold War Latin American policy. If anything, the school should be expanded and strengthened.