Stan Goff: When I enlisted, and every time I re-enlisted afterward, I took this oath to “protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
It’s a pro forma exercise, or the entire military would have to go on strike — because in Vietnam, Guatemala, Grenada, El Salvador, Colombia, Peru, Somalia, and Haiti . . . others can chime in from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria . . . I never met a single enemy of the Constitution of the United States. In every single instance, I had one small role or another in prosecuting wars against poor people.
Somehow or another, people in the US constantly describe the actions of the military (and veterans) as “defending our freedom.” This is an interesting case of the Emperor having no clothes, given that in my own lifetime, the US has violently occupied Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, bombed people all around the world, and overthrown elected governments (Evo Morales was overthrown in a coup yesterday, so we’ll see where the hand of Uncle Sam is by and by . . . the old joke goes, “Why is there never a coup in Washington DC?” “Because there’s no US Embassy there.”).
Not once, not even once in all that time, has anything the US armed forces done at the behest of the ruling class been remotely connected to protecting American “freedom.” American hegemony? Yes. Profits? You bet. Access to exploitable people and land? That, too. Freedom? Nope.
I am a veteran. I am not one of your saints. I did not defend your freedom. I am not your hero. War is not glorious, it is the ultimate human obscenity.
