Rahul Mahajan at www.empirenotes.org
Jo Wilding at www.wildfirejo.org.uk and
Dahr Jamail at www.newstandardnews.net
Also Robert Fisk.
Don't miss Stan Goff either!
April 13, 2004
A Rant
The Bridge
By STAN GOFF
WARNING: This commentary may cause anxiety.
The United States government has initiated a chain reaction that it can no longer control. The stalled vengeance assault on Fallujah is merely a symptom. So is the uprising triggered by the US closure of a Shia newspaper in Sadr City, Baghdad, followed by gunning down the demonstrators who protested (Ah, yes, we don’t even hear about that when they talk about the latest demon, Muqtada al-Sadr… Memory is so short.).
The chain reaction is far broader and deeper than the battlefield fiasco in Iraq right now. Once brown people start to pick up guns, other brown people follow suit. The myth of invincibility of the United States military -- called into question even before the Bush Doctrine arrived at this particular Iraqi cul-de-sac -- is shattered. No one is shocked. No one is awed.
http://www.counterpunch.org/goff04132004.htmlJune 10, 2000 International Tribunal for U.S./NATO War Crimes in Yugoslavia
Stan Goff is a retired U.S. Army officer whose experience in Africa and Latin America in "Special Operations" exposed him to many of the Pentagon’s crimes. He sent these remarks for inclusion in the evidence presented to the tribunal.
I want to thank Sara Flounders and the International Action Center for asking me to testify before this body. I apologize for being unable to actually be at the tribunal.
My name is Stan Goff. In February of 1996, at the terminus of an indescribable role conflict, I retired from the United States Army, where I had worked since January 1970. I spent the majority of my military service in a field euphemistically called Special Operations; which included Paratroop, Ranger, Special Forces, and so-called Counter-Terrorist assignments. Beginning in Vietnam, I was sent to eight countries that were actively designated as "conflict areas." Those included Grenada, Somalia, El Salvador, Colombia, Guatemala, Peru, and Haiti. I also trained troops in Panama, Venezuela, Honduras, and Korea. I taught Military Science at the US Military Academy at West Point and tactics at the Army's Jungle School in Panama. I worked in some cases directly under the supervision of the US Embassy.
http://www.iacenter.org/warcrime/sgoff.htmStan Goff is the author of "Hideous Dream: A Soldier's Memoir of the US Invasion of Haiti" (Soft Skull Press, 2000) and of the upcoming book "Full Spectrum Disorder" (Soft Skull Press, 2003). He is a member of the BRING THEM HOME NOW! coordinating committee, a retired Special Forces master sergeant, and the father of an active duty soldier. Email for BRING THEM HOME NOW! is bthn@mfso.org.