6511: Goff responds to Simidor (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: "K. M. Ives" <kives@gateway.net>

>Simidor says:
>The thing that occurs to me is that Goff needs a little >humility in
his life(and that some folks on the left are >inveterate whores).
What Goff takes for hyper-leftism," >I call common sense. Here's a guy
who went to Vietnam
>and "saw a race war being conducted by an invading >army," and who
reenlisted for 20 years!  Why? The pay >was good (he says elsewhere),
besides he liked to >travel. That to me is sad!

Seems Mr. Simidor has determined to make me a heavy no matter what.
Don't work so hard.  I've given you the stick to beat me with.  I
admit here and elsewhere that I came to consciousness late. I have not
boasted of my
past. But I have tried to come clean as a way of amends making. And I
have worked hard for the last few years to fight the very things I
once worked for. But with so many who have the real power on the
right, not just their instruments as I once was (and I was an NCO, not
an officer), I can never understand why certain so-called
revolutionaries are so preoccupied with kicking the crap out of others
on the left.

>"In an unspecified number of those countries," the >author explained
recently, "we received information in >the intelligence summaries
about a significant number of >the host nation officers with which we
were about to >work, pertaining to the human rights records of those
>officers. The intelligence summaries described specific >instances of
severe human right violations committed by >those officers, and in
some cases we were told that >those activities were probably on-going.
. . . Our >government did this with the full understanding that the
>insights and skills we were imparting to both troops and >leaders
would enhance these forces' capability to >violate the rights of their
own citizens. . . . Security >agents, soldiers, and officers in
Guatemala, El >Salvador, Peru, and Colombia personally boasted to me
>about having killed civilians, whom they characterized >as guerrilla
sympathizers and communists, and in Peru I >had a Peruvian officer
tell me that the only friendly >Indian is a dead Indian."

And where did you read that?  It was testimony before an international
war crimes tribunal.

>Goff soldiered on in Panama and in Grenada.  He hunted >down
communists in Guatemala and El Salvador with the >CIA.

BS! I never did any such thing. And I never said I did.  I said I was
in proximity of those activities, but I never hunted down a single
communist in either Guatemala or El Salvador, with or without the CIA.
I told you I
have plenty of sins you can stone me for, you needn't make things up
and stone your own credibility in the process.

>Then to Peru to train Fujimori's genocidal army, "some >of whom were
easy-going fellows," how to be more
>efficient butchers. "One major couldn't shut up about >how many
people he had killed." But Goff kept his mouth >shut throughout.  Even
now he only tells a limited >story. "Before every mission, Special
Operations units >are given something called an intelligence summary.
This >is a very comprehensive and a very straightforward >document
that is without exception classified SECRET or
>higher."  Don't look for any of those secrets in his >book because
Goff doesn't want Uncle Sam to come looking >for him.  Or to risk his
pension.

You don't even know me. Why do you despise me so? Or is this just a
soapbox for you to flash your purer revolutionary credentials?  Go
attack the bad guys, Daniel, and reflect on how you are now in
agreement with Gill.

As an aside to Gill, who has shown both arrogance and ingnorance in
his remarks about army people, I did not use a ghost writer. I guess
when you can't confront the arguments, you have to go ad hominem and
attack the person.

>"Mask no difficulties.  TELL NO LIES.  CLAIM NO EASY >VICTORY."
(Cabral)

Daniel, if you'll read the book, you'll see I acknowledge a host of
difficulties, try very hard not to lie, and certainly claim no kind of
victory at all.

Stan Goff

"I am not a Marxist."

                        -Karl Marx

"Mask no difficulties."

                        -Amilcar Cabral

"Am I to be cursed forever with becoming
somebody else on the way to myself?

                        -Audre Lorde