It was the morning of March 19th, 2003 and this writer was up early. I was eating a bowl of Cheerios as I turned on the boob tube. I can remember vividly the evening before when I was able to watch a Canadian Cable News channel. The news anchor was explaining how all the many groups throughout the entire planet were pushing for the Bush/Cheney Cabal to halt the probable, that being a full fledge pre-emptive attack upon Iraq. Didn’t tens of millions of us, once again throughout the entire world, stand and march on that February 11th against such a move? As I swallowed the cereal I watched my country’s missiles destroying Baghdad. I had to cry, and did I! The die was cast , as Cassius spelled it out: ‘ The fault dear Brutus is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.’ And yes, unfortunately, too many of my fellow citizens were just that… underlings! Guess what? After twenty years nothing really has changed.
The most heinous act by my nation, a nation whose policies I have had a lifetime adversarial relationship with, has bankrupted us… along with so many other countries. You can call it ‘ Money down the drain’ and so it is. At least a trillion dollars has been diverted from our federal revenues and given, usually Carte Blanche, to the Military Industrial Empire. The Two Party/One Party scam has taken turns to steal from us citizens in the name of ‘ National Security’ or ‘ National Defense’. They even, after the highly questionable happening on September 11, 2001, decided to copy from the Nazi playbook by transposing Homeland onto the German term of Fatherland. There are a myriad of top level investigative researchers who have presented scenarios as to what really went down on 9/11, always in opposition to the government line. Regardless, the empire we live under used the tower attacks to push forth draconian measures… especially the phony wars on Afghanistan and Iraq. Thus, they went in, invaded and destroyed those countries, occupied them with our ( mostly) young soldiers, and gave their political friends and donors hundreds of billions of dollars in contracts. You see, that is the rule of modern empires: Attack and destroy a nation and then subsidize the rebuilding of it… at great profit.
Sadly, it does not matter which party controls the White House and Congress. What the Michael Douglas character, Gordon Gecko, in Oliver Stone’s film Wall Street should have said : ‘ War & Greed is good!’ Yesterday it was the Middle East; today it is Eastern Europe, Ukraine. Remember this dear readers: America needs, as the Al Pacino character Tony Montana said in Brian DePalma’s film Scarface:’ You need people like me so you can point your ***** fingers and say That’s the bad guy!’ It seems that the masters of this current empire, through the Democrats, are doing their best to recreate the Cold War and foolishly package Russia AND China as the new ‘ Bad Guys’. The right wing Republicans focus on the terror of illegal aliens invading us through our Southern border replete with opioids to hook our citizens. ( Of course throw in thirsty rapists to the mix). They also make sure to blame the Chinks for their lab leaking Covid, although most experts realize it was from their ‘ Wet Markets’ of wild animals. Who cares as long as it all sells.
It seems like those ‘ Islamic Fascists’ now take a back seat in the newest versions of our ‘ War on Terror’… until needed again.
Philip A Farruggio is regular columnist on itstheempirestupid website. He is also frequently posted on Nation of Change and Countercurrents.. He is the son and grandson of Brooklyn NYC longshoremen and a graduate of Brooklyn College, class of 1974. Since the 2000 election debacle Philip has written over 500 columns on the Military Industrial Empire and other facets of life in an upside down America. He is also host of the ‘ It’s the Empire… Stupid ‘ radio show, co produced by Chuck Gregory. Philip can be reached at paf1222@bellsouth.net.
