Brave, Yes... Heroes, NO!

By Phillip Farruggio

July 20, 2016 "Information Clearing House" -  Empire's especially have always used propaganda to control and influence the populace. It takes courage for a 'minority of truth tellers' to speak up. For too long many of we who ' Know better' have remained silent on who the real heroes are. An anecdote told to me by my late neighbor Bill Klasne is quite insightful. Bill was a Chicago cop, one of those blue collar white working class guys who never bought into the racism and other ' phobias ' that many of his fellow officers did. Very early one morning Bill was driving his young son Nick to school. They passed by a bus stop and noticed a man, dressed as a laborer, perhaps in the construction industry, waiting for the bus. The man was holding a lunchbox, similar to the one that Bill's son carried with him to school each day. Bill looked over to young Nick and said " You see that guy there? Now that is a hero son. He gets up early each morning, takes the bus to work, punches out the hours to support most likely a wife and kids. He makes far less than the guys on the baseball cards that you think are your heroes. They're not in his class!"

When Adolf Hitler sent his Wehrmacht army to invade Poland under phony pretenses, the Nazi spin machine painted them as heroes. They were not! Were they brave? Yes, most men put into a situation where they can get killed or maimed for life are surely brave... but that's about the end of it. Those German grunts were placed in harm's way for the sinister purposes of their leaders, and of course propagandized to believe different. Such was and is the case with our own USA grunts involving Bush Sr.'s War on Iraq 1 , Bush Jr.'s War on Iraq 2 and Obama's continuations of Occupation 1 of Afghanistan and Occupation 2 of Iraq. All those yellow ribbons and celebrations of our ' brave warriors and heroes ' should never hide the real truth.  When will John and Joan Q Public finally wake up to it?

The sad reality of phony wars of empire is that the real war criminals, our leaders, never had to get off their duffs and be placed in harm's way. It is the grunts, the young kids, many of whom were recruited for either bonus money or promises of future employment, with only a few who fell for that ' Fight them there so they don't come here' crap. Whatever the reasons for joining up, these kids learned to be brave and sadly ( for many ) learned to become numb to the killing of innocent civilians and destruction of someone else's homeland... for but the ' schemes of empire'. Then when they return home with NO ear or eye or leg or arm, or suffering from Post Traumatic Stress, how can we not feel for them? As with the GIs who returned home from another of our empire's phony wars in Vietnam, some of us blame them for the debacle. Obviously, you can condemn those of our soldiers who became sadistic and torturous, or downright murderous, but even then we must ask ourselves " How would I have behaved if placed in such a terrible situation?"

Whatever the debate on such matters, at least more and more of us should finally come to this conclusion: When our nation commits such reprehensible and premeditated harm on another nation that posed no threat to us, we cannot call those who did our bidding heroes! The true heroes are the ones who came back from that **** and continue to speak up to demand accountability for the Bush /Cheney gang, the Blairs, Obamas , Hillarys et all. And let us never forget the ' embedded water carrying presstitudes' as Paul Craig Roberts refers to the journalists who serve this empire so well. The truth is slowly coming to the surface as to this current threat of ISIL. Even some in important positions within this empire are beginning to recognize that there would NEVER have been an ISIL if we never invaded, destroyed and occupied Iraq and Afghanistan. The ISIL fanatics could NEVER had gotten to recruit as many as they have... Period! My dear neighbors, it is time to speak up and demand  a drastic pull back of this Military Industrial Empire and save those yellow ribbons for a holiday.

Philip A Farruggio is a semi retired baby boomer born and bred in blue collar Brooklyn NYC. He is the son and grandson of Brooklyn longshoremen, and educated at ' free tuition ' Brooklyn College, class of ' 74. Philip has written over 500 columns since 2001 and his work is found on many fine progressive sites like Op Ed News, World News Trust, Nation of Change, Information Clearinghouse, Intrepid Report, Sleuth Journal, Dandelion Salad, Counterpunch and Dissident Voice. He can be reached at paf1222@bellsouth.net

James Blunt - No Bravery

The official video for No Bravery uses footage from James live at the BBC, and his own footage taken from the Kosovo War in 1999.

Music by James Blunt

There are children standing here,
Arms outstretched into the sky,
Tears drying on their face.
He has been here.
Brothers lie in shallow graves.
Fathers lost without a trace.
A nation blind to their disgrace,
Since he's been here.

And I see no bravery,
No bravery in your eyes anymore.
Only sadness.

Houses burnt beyond repair.
The smell of death is in the air.
A woman weeping in despair says,
He has been here.
Tracer lighting up the sky.
It's another families' turn to die.
A child afraid to even cry out says,
He has been here.

And I see no bravery,
No bravery in your eyes anymore.
Only sadness.

There are children standing here,
Arms outstretched into the sky,
But no one asks the question why,
He has been here.
Old men kneel and accept their fate.
Wives and daughters cut and raped.
A generation drenched in hate.
Yes, he has been here.

And I see no bravery,
No bravery in your eyes anymore.
Only sadness.