This baby boomer loves his country… but rarely the leaders, movers and shakers. For 50 years I have been calling small businesses nationwide, speaking with so many fellow citizens. The majority of them seem to be regular working stiffs like myself. Yes, some of the people of importance in many of those businesses can come off either as arrogant or downright condescending. Factor those out and so many of my conversations are with what could be called the ‘ Salt of the earth’ folks. The only downside in all of this is just how misinformed or uninformed and sometimes brutally ignorant the American public is. Either they get their information from what I call ‘ Empire embedded’ media or from hearsay from friends and associates in the same boat as them.
Remember the phony Iraq War 1 in 1991 when Bush Sr. and his crew used the mainstream media to instruct Americans to hang yellow ribbons all over? They sold us that Saddam Hussein, actually helped into power by our own CIA and NSA years earlier, was a reincarnation of Hitler. He was aided and then visited by the late Donald Rumsfeld to support Iraq in its war with Iran in the 80s. Did not matter that he was gassing the Kurds and torturing or killing dissidents to his regime. After that 10 year long war finally ended he needed Kuwaiti loans to be rescinded because he was acting in that country’s interests along with his own against Iran. At the same time he complained that Kuwait was ‘ angle drilling ‘ Iraqi oil from under the sea, so he met with US Ambassador April Glaspie. She basically told him that Sec. of State Baker told her that the US ‘did not get involved in territorial disputes between other countries’. So, Hussein sent his army into Kuwait and wallah Bush Sr. ( with advise from UK Prime Minister Thatcher) attacked and invaded Iraq. At that conclusion, with Iraq in shambles, we kept Hussein in power, but in a reduced state.
The ‘ Arsenal of Democracy’ tag came to fit completely when the Bush/Cheney Cabal ( once again with nasty Donny Rumsfeld) used the controversial 9/11 incident to justify the illegal and immoral attack on Iraq. I say controversial because for those of us who researchwhat happened that day we must realize that it was NOT how they were selling things. This was another Gulf of Tonkin, just on steroids. LBJ used that incident to justify getting the US into a civil war in Vietnam, and students of history realized just how disgraceful that turned out to be. The embedded mainstream media then, and once again in 2002-03, did their job well, and look how our place in history was once again tainted with unnecessary death and destruction.
It seems the Neo Con virus has overtaken Covid. First, our President, taking orders from the War Empire, took our tax dollars and sent them down the Ukraine rabbit hole. A Ukraine, for all my many Jewish friends ( and I myself am a proud 12.5% Jew), that has been inundated with Neo Nazis since WW2. Putin has replaced Saddam Hussein as the newest Hitler, and he does have many skeletons in his closet ( what major world leader doesn’t?). Yet, when Russian speaking Ukrainians had been brutalized in the eastern regions near to Russia ( Donbass and Crimea ) since 2014, was Putin justified to go in and protect them? Many on the ‘ Left’ have come out since 2022 criticizing Russia for trying to destroy that entire nation instead of just stopping there. Yet, two wrongs don’t make a right. It was people like then VP Biden and US State Dept official Victoria Nuland, wife of far right wing Neo Con Lawrence Kagan ( he of the ‘ Project for a New American Century), who stirred the pot that boiled over into the Russian invasion.
Now, we have our ‘ Arsenal of Democracy’ wanting to give more support in money and arms to Israel, as if they really need it. The embedded media, with help from Neo Con politicians ( sadly mostly on the Democratic side), who are calling this a WAR. All of a sudden Hamas is a country. Funny how they just didn’t call it another ‘ War on Terror’ . It is something that this writer will not do, to condone what Hamas fighters did when they went in and killed civilians in their attack. Yet, how can my country’s leaders ignore what Israel has been doing for generations to the Palestinians? To keep over two million people in what is really just ‘ An open air prison’ is as heinous as can be. You don’t send any sort of weaponry or financial aid to Israel or any other nation that has these policies… Period!
Question is: How long can my country, the one I love ( with many reservations) continue on this path?
Philip A Farruggio is regular columnist on itstheempirestupid website. He is also frequently posted on Countercurrents, Dissident Voice and the Nation of Change Blogs. 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 [email protected].
