Philip A Farruggio

Terrorize: To fill with terror… to coerce by intimidation

It saddened me to hear of that young eight year old boy killed by the bombs in Boston. The other two people dead by that terror attack only further saddened this writer. Yet, the conversation throughout our mainstream media and by our general populace concerning such an act ended with that act of terror. Why, I asked, are not all acts of recent terrorism discussed and condemned by my fellow Americans? Does it have to be the torn apart body of one of our own that exclusively raises our ire?

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 WMDs was just as ghastly as the ‘Rape of Nanking ‘and the carpet bombing of London. In any war, to destroy the lives of civilian non combatants 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 eight year old boys were blown away by our ‘smart bombs ‘through what 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 moved to Pakistan 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 the worst purveyor of terrorism in the entire world. Yet, few of us got out on the street corners and town squares protesting what we did to the people of Iraq and Afghanistan some 10 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 death of that poor Boston eight year old 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 rag heads or A-Rabs , a sub humanity as the Germans referred to the Jews of Europe, and many Israelis see 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! 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.

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Philip A Farruggio is son and grandson of Brooklyn, NYC longshoremen. He is a free lance columnist (found on Information Clearing house, The Sleuth Journal, Doomstead Diner, Op Ed News, 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.