America is the one of the greatest empires in history. Being a great empire requires America to take up certain responsibilities and precautions to eliminate threats and assure that we remain strong. One of these responsibilities is making sure that we have allies. When we train people in the practice of coup d'etat and assist them in replacing the current government in their countries we are, in essence, choosing the people who will lead the country. After the people we have chosen to lead the new government come into power we expect them to be loyal to America. Occasionally this does happen but more often than not, as seen with Hugo Banzer Suarez (Bolivia) and Luis Arce Gomez (Bolivia), the coups end in bloody massacres. I think that the SOA should not teach people how to overthrow their government because coups do not always succeed and even when they do many lives are lost.