or they were
The US government either was not doing those heinous things to its own citizens - the disappearances, the torture, the brainwashing and manipulation - or they were.
The US government either was not teaching the somewhat less sophisticated governments of Central and South America how to do those heinous things - or they were.
More accurately of course the question is, "Agents, particular agents of particular agencies run by particular men at particular times, financed by diverted funds and masked expenditures, either were not teaching and encouraging those governments, more accurately agents and agencies of those governments, how to do those things, the techniques of brainwashing and intimidation and suppression of dissent, of disappearance, of torture and character assassination, of psychologtical destruction and incapacitation, based on their own first-hand experience here in the US or - even more likely - encouraging those practices in the more expendable countries, on the more expendable populations, of Central and South America, in order to increase their expertise before applying those now refined and perfected techniques here and in the foreseeably expanding empire toward which those heinous practices were dedicated - or they were."
