by Philip A. Farruggio
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
December 16, 2011
Don’t you just love the word mission? Organizations of any type, especially political parties, love to have a ‘mission statement ‘. The Christian religion in particular has its ‘missionaries ‘going out to convert the heathens and ‘non believers ‘. We don’t go to war anymore…. No, we are on a ‘mission to spread democracy ‘. Junior Bush even let the cat out of the bag when he uttered that we were on a ‘crusade ‘in Iraq. His handlers quickly nipped that in the bud… the truth hurts.
The Obama administration announced the other day that we will be out of Iraq by December 31st. Well, not actually completely out of the country. Our military personnel will be leaving, but our humongous embassy Green Zone, which is the size of many of our small cities, will remain. It will be replete with about 16,000 personnel, including private ‘security contractors ‘AKA mercenaries. The White House also announced that we will be selling Iraq $ 10 billion worth of US weapons, including M-1 tanks, F-16 fighters and armored vehicles. Who is seeing the profits from those sales? Not my neighbors who cannot get above water on their mortgages. Not my local libraries, which have little funds to buy the books they need. You get my drift, right? Once again, we have lots of ammunition (no pun intended) to fire at this Military Industrial Complex that has instigated a bankrupt economy and equally bankrupt morality.
Sadly, our nation has lost its moral compass. Now I do not only refer to our government, controlled by this Military Industrial Complex which has turned us long ago into an empire. Most of us who study history, not the revisionist kind, know all that. You turn on the boob tube and watch the endless commercials to recruit our young kids into the military. One would think that our illegal and immoral acts of aggression upon the peoples of Iraq and Afghanistan (add Libya to that list) are on par with the Marines who raised the flag at Iwo Jima. Then, we have congressional representatives from both parties pontificating on the War in Iraq. What war? You mean the illegal and unconstitutional invasion in 2003? You mean the 8 year illegal occupation of a sovereign nation? You mean the destruction of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians and most of its infrastructure… which , of course, our ‘ industrial complex ‘ of crony corporations were then paid to rebuild? You know whose tax dollars paid for that, you great complacent majority? Yours! Yeah, you who wave the flag and worship the 4 star hacks with the fruit salad on their chests that do the bidding of the empire’s masters to rain death, destruction and terror upon others! Of course, there is no viable anti war movement in Amerika anymore. How can there be, when both political parties, with few exceptions, follow the same script? There was this Democratic congressman on C-span yesterday, doing his ‘General Speech ‘moment. He seemed like a nice guy, and implied that he was not in favor of the invasion of Iraq. Yet, here he was placating those who caused this disgrace upon us. In his remembrance of our 4000+ dead ‘brave soldiers ‘and the hundreds of thousands of wounded (physically and mentally) ones, he never once mentioned the Iraqi civilians who our bombs and tanks and our soldiers killed. Not once! Most disappointing, he and almost all of his colleagues (and our mainstream media) refuse to demand accountability for those who sent our soldiers and the Iraqis to their premature deaths.
What the empire’s masters have done is to disallow accountability when it comes to phony wars of aggression. If some idiot public official fools around on his wife or puts his hand in the cookie jar, the media are all over him. Scandal is good for the rabble to gossip about at work or on line in the supermarket. Yet, when the scandal is about hundreds of billions of tax dollars and hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths for phony wars and occupations… silence! Why? Well, we are now no longer in a ‘ Cold War ‘ against the commies, or in a ‘ War on Drugs ‘ … we now have this ‘ War on Terror ‘ and guess what… it will never end! The immoral masters of empire need it to sustain the obscene and bloated military spending AKA defense spending, the 800+ bases worldwide, and the arms industries and, oh yes Homeland Security. If that isn’t right out of 1930s Nazi Germany then what is? All these jokers did was substitute Homeland for Fatherland… get it? And most of our great American suckers, saps and lollipops do just that. They buy the lie that ‘your vote counts ‘and wait for the next horserace, supporting twiddle dee vs. twiddle dum. At least this new Occupy Wall Street movement has the right premise. It is time for all us good folks to get up off our duffs and start standing on the street corners and town squares of America… and act through Moral Purpose!
Philip A. Farruggio is son and grandson of Brooklyn, NYC longshoremen. He is a free lance columnist (usually found on the fine Dandelion Salad site), an environmental products sales rep and an activist. Since 2010, Philip is a spokesperson for the 25% Solution Movement to Save Our Cities by cutting military spending 25%. Philip can be reached at paf1222@bellsouth.net.
see
How Maliki and Iran Outsmarted the U.S. on Troop Withdrawal by Gareth Porter
Ralph Nader: Debating Taboos: Legality of Afghanistan and Iraq Wars
War crimes tribunal tries Bush, Blair + Bush/Blair Found Guilty of War Crimes
Dandelion Salad 
thanks to P. Restino for his words and for his organization.
you know, interestingly, each time i say to myself ‘ What in the heck are you doing out on the street corners for over 7 years, and still so many out there refuse to understand you and continue to buy into the lies etc? Now with this new ‘ horserace election year ‘ upon us, i wonder is it all worth it what i do? ‘
Then i turn on C-Span this AM and listen to some hack telling us that ‘ Oh well, maybe the WAR in Iraq was based on lies and disinformation. It is OVER now, and we cannot change the past etc.’ Then he goes on to say that our new problem with Iran’s nuclear threat will be handled differently: ‘ Oh, now we will use special forces and drone attacks to counteract their nuclear program, and not rely on any invasions etc.’
I looked at the screen and said to myself ‘ NOW you know why you gotta keep on keepin on! ‘
Thank you Phil Farruggio for so clearly saying what needs to be said. The troops may be finally leaving Iraq, but the bogus “War on Terror” still marches on under the command of the Democrat Obama. Until the Left and the antiwar organizations begin calling for his impeachment as they did for Junior Bush for the same illegal, genocidal wars of aggression there will be no end to this killing … and shame on them for still not doing so.
Phil Restino
Chapter Co-Chair, VFP Chapter 136
Central Florida Veterans For Peace