Terrorize: To fill with terror . . . to coerce by intimidation
When a suicide bomber blows away the lives of students and other civilians in an Israeli café, my eyes fill with tears. When Israeli Apache helicopters blast away the lives of innocent Palestinians, more tears flow. Terrorism has no parameters. It sucks no matter who does the killing and who does the dying.
The overkill of the cities of Dresden and Tokyo with incendiary bombs was just a ghastly as the ‘Rape of Nanking’ and the carpet bombing of London. In any war, to destroy the lives of civilian noncombatants is terrorism, plain and simple. Yet, my fellow Americans, many of them, most of them, could not give a rat’s ass for what our military has done in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Libya . . . to name but a few such places.
When we illegally and immorally invaded Iraq how many little Arab boys and girls were blown away by our ‘smart bombs’? You know, the ones that war criminal Donald Rumsfeld called collateral damage. How many such children have been destroyed by the drone attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan under Mr. Obama’s watch?
One wonders if my neighbors, who brag to me about how the drones are fighting terrorism in a more ‘rational and humane’ way, would pause for a moment and play ‘What if?’ What if each neighbor who supports these drones, let us say in Pakistan, had a son or daughter who married a Pakistani and relocated there to raise a family with their new spouse. One night, the call comes in that a village was droned and sadly their child and new grandchild were victims of collateral damage.
I love my country. I fear and protest its leaders and their policies. My country, sadly, has become what Martin Luther King, in his Riverside Church speech of 1967, called the worst purveyor of terrorism in the entire world. Yet, few of us got out on the street corners and town squares protesting what America did to the people of Iraq and Afghanistan some 12 years ago. Look how we continue to terrorize through our illegal and immoral occupations.
What in the hell are we doing in all of these countries of the world with our military bases and weapons systems? Cannot the good people of our great nation begin to connect the heinous murders in Paris recently with the countless dead children of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Pakistan? We never give those dead kids names so as to remember them. We never show their dead and bloody dangling body parts in our media. Some still refer to them as ragheads or A-Rabs , a sub-humanity as the Germans referred to the Jews of Europe, and many Israelis classify the Palestinians. Ironic, isn’t it? Disgusting is a better word.
If we truly wish to see peace in this world, let our great and most powerful nation take the first step. Let us get the hell out of the 100 countries we have over 900 bases in! Let our Congress cut this obscene military spending drastically, an amount that is over 50% of our federal tax revenues.Let us have the decency and courage to go to the United Nations and acknowledge the past deeds committed by our leaders and our military. Finally, let us understand that terrorism by any means is wrong and against whatever God we say we believe in.
Philip A Farruggio is son and grandson of Brooklyn, NYC longshoremen. He is a free lance columnist (found on Nation of Change Blog, Truthout.org, TheSleuthJournal.com, Worldnewstrust.com, Intrepid Report , The Peoples Voice, Information Clearing house, Dandelion Salad, Activist Post, Dissident Voice and many other sites worldwide). Philip works as an environmental products sales rep and has been an activist leader since 2000. In 2010 he became a local spokesperson for the 25% Solution Movement to Save Our Cities by cutting military spending 25%. Philip can be reached at PAF1222@bellsouth.net.
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By any other name, terrorism sucks
Posted on January 21, 2015 by Philip A Farruggio
When a suicide bomber blows away the lives of students and other civilians in an Israeli café, my eyes fill with tears. When Israeli Apache helicopters blast away the lives of innocent Palestinians, more tears flow. Terrorism has no parameters. It sucks no matter who does the killing and who does the dying.
The overkill of the cities of Dresden and Tokyo with incendiary bombs was just a ghastly as the ‘Rape of Nanking’ and the carpet bombing of London. In any war, to destroy the lives of civilian noncombatants is terrorism, plain and simple. Yet, my fellow Americans, many of them, most of them, could not give a rat’s ass for what our military has done in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Libya . . . to name but a few such places.
When we illegally and immorally invaded Iraq how many little Arab boys and girls were blown away by our ‘smart bombs’? You know, the ones that war criminal Donald Rumsfeld called collateral damage. How many such children have been destroyed by the drone attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan under Mr. Obama’s watch?
One wonders if my neighbors, who brag to me about how the drones are fighting terrorism in a more ‘rational and humane’ way, would pause for a moment and play ‘What if?’ What if each neighbor who supports these drones, let us say in Pakistan, had a son or daughter who married a Pakistani and relocated there to raise a family with their new spouse. One night, the call comes in that a village was droned and sadly their child and new grandchild were victims of collateral damage.
I love my country. I fear and protest its leaders and their policies. My country, sadly, has become what Martin Luther King, in his Riverside Church speech of 1967, called the worst purveyor of terrorism in the entire world. Yet, few of us got out on the street corners and town squares protesting what America did to the people of Iraq and Afghanistan some 12 years ago. Look how we continue to terrorize through our illegal and immoral occupations.
What in the hell are we doing in all of these countries of the world with our military bases and weapons systems? Cannot the good people of our great nation begin to connect the heinous murders in Paris recently with the countless dead children of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Pakistan? We never give those dead kids names so as to remember them. We never show their dead and bloody dangling body parts in our media. Some still refer to them as ragheads or A-Rabs , a sub-humanity as the Germans referred to the Jews of Europe, and many Israelis classify the Palestinians. Ironic, isn’t it? Disgusting is a better word.
If we truly wish to see peace in this world, let our great and most powerful nation take the first step. Let us get the hell out of the 100 countries we have over 900 bases in! Let our Congress cut this obscene military spending drastically, an amount that is over 50% of our federal tax revenues. Let us have the decency and courage to go to the United Nations and acknowledge the past deeds committed by our leaders and our military. Finally, let us understand that terrorism by any means is wrong and against whatever God we say we believe in.
Philip A Farruggio is son and grandson of Brooklyn, NYC longshoremen. He is a free lance columnist (found on Nation of Change Blog, Truthout.org, TheSleuthJournal.com, Worldnewstrust.com, Intrepid Report , The Peoples Voice, Information Clearing house, Dandelion Salad, Activist Post, Dissident Voice and many other sites worldwide). Philip works as an environmental products sales rep and has been an activist leader since 2000. In 2010 he became a local spokesperson for the 25% Solution Movement to Save Our Cities by cutting military spending 25%. Philip can be reached at PAF1222@bellsouth.net.