Frankendesign

The story we hear on the news and read in the newspapers is simply not believable
by Stan Goff, Retired US Special Forces Master Sergeant

I'm a retired Special Forces Master Sergeant. That doesn't cut much for those who will only accept the opinions of former officers on military matters, since we enlisted swine are assumed to be incapable of grasping the nuances of doctrine.

But I wasn't just in the Army, I studied and taught military science and doctrine. I was a tactics instructor at the Jungle Operations Training Center in Panama, and I taught Military Science at West Point. And contrary to the popular image of what Special Forces does, SF's mission is to teach. We offer advice and assistance to foreign forces. That's everything from teaching marksmanship to a private to instructing a Battalion staff on how to coordinate effective air operations with a sister service.

Based on that experience, and operations in eight designated conflict areas from Vietnam to Haiti, I have to say that the story we hear on the news and read in the newspapers is simply not believable. The most cursory glance at the verifiable facts, before, during, and after September 11th, does not support the official line or conform to the current actions of the United States government.

But the official line only works if they can get everyone to accept its underlying premises. I'm not at all surprised about the Republican and Democratic Parties repeating these premises. They are simply two factions within a single dominant political class, and both are financed by the same economic powerhouses. My biggest disappointment, as someone who identifies himself with the left, has been the tacit acceptance of those premises by others on the left, sometimes naively, and sometimes to score some morality points. Those premises are twofold. One, there is the premise that what this de facto administration is doing now is a "response" to September 11th. Two, there is the premise that this attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon was done by people based in Afghanistan. In my opinion, neither of these is sound.

To put this in perspective we have to go back not to September 11th, but to last year or further.
full story [Centre for Research of Globalisation]