Do US-Educated Foreign Soldiers Learn Democratic or Dictatorial Values? Several notorious coup plotters and human rights violators – among them Argentina’s 1970s-era military junta leader Leopoldo Galtieri and Guatemalan dictator Efraín Ríos Montt – were trained by the United States military. The leadership of a U.S.-trained special operations officer, Col. Assimi Goita, in Mali’s August 2020 coup has reignited an old American debate about whether U.S. military education of foreigners is spreading respect for democracy or empowering future dictators. Several notorious coup plotters and human rights violators – among them Argentina’s 1970s-era military junta leader Leopoldo Galtieri and Guatemalan dictator Efraín Ríos Montt – were trained by the United States military. So was the Islamic State group’s minister of war, Gulmurod Khalimov.