Counterpunch: Vietnam Vet with serving son tells it like it is

international | anti-war / imperialism | opinion/analysis

Tuesday November 18, 2003 21:40

by Phuq Hedd

Stan Goff exposes the militarist bullshit from the perspective of a soldier

An essay by Stan Goff featured on Counterpunch in order to publicise his new book should make interesting reading for anyone that believes that the only people that are anti-war are granola-munching do-gooders. Stan Goff served in Vietnam and by his own account was completely embedded in two successive tiers of behaviour and belief-systems.

First he believed all the shit promulgated in the media and retailed by his know-all neighbours: the lie peddled by the Washington rulers was that the USA was going to be invaded by communists if Vietnam wasn't crushed.

Then when that became patently false and the lie changed to "bringing democracy to the people" and this didn't cohere with his experience of murder, burning, rape and theft he adopted a survival persona. This enabled him to continue carrying out his orders and avoid social censure in his immediate environment by suppressing his humane impulses.

The essay is well-worth a read for the jingoists that seek to surf a wave of emotional excitement, or for the cynics that have been drubbed into defensive apathy. Goff is one of a growing number of relatives of soldiers who are speaking out against the slaughter of US servicemen in the service of the fat oil fucks that run the USA.

As the current lies become more exposed http://www.infoshop.org/inews/stories.php?story=03/11/17/7084004
for what they are it is no longer plausible to pretend that one believes that the motivations of the US invasion are anything but oil.

The publisher of Goff's book is "Soft Skull Press" -- they gained attention as the publishers of the unauthorised biography of G.W.Bush "Fortunate Son" (the author has since committed suicide and there are claims that he was hounded to death).

Counterpunch's Alexander Cockburn is speaking at TCD as I write this (http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=62042). Hopefully there'll be a short report by an attendee.