Faith in Action

Now if that was the headline to the articles that detail yesterday’s airstrike by the United States in eastern African nation of Somalia; it just might get your attention.  But because mainstream “journalists” [can we still call them that?] are influenced by the will of the Administration; they put the label “terrorists” in the headline and that has come to have a numbing effect on the American public. 

It’s almost as if the general public has been conditioned to give the Administration a pass on whatever activity is set in motion toward “terrorist”.  In fact, even if the persons attacked or violated are just “suspected terrorists” - meaning there is no clear evidence that they really are involved in criminal behavior - they can still get it. 

Just ask the family of Jean Charles de Menezes - the Brazilian man killed in July 2005 by British Police shortly after the train bombings in London.  Initial “mainstream” reports indicated that Jean was acting suspiciously and was thought to have been carrying a bag full of explosives.  The police rushed the subway that Jean was on, dragged him to the ground, held him down, and shot him in the head 7 times. 

Only after Jean was dead did the Police admit that they made a mistake and had targeted the wrong person.  The police told the family - “sorry” while admitting that more people [read innocent civilians] could get shot as they hunt for suspected (there’s that word again) suicide bombers.

Do you see what’s happening?  Just with the suspicion of “terror” major governments have assumed a license to kill, bomb, maim, or destroy anyone or anything that it wishes.  The State uses fear to control the populace and that deadly emotion has a tendency to make citizens lose all rationality and surrender their right to question their elected officials and hold their governments accountable.  Is it okay with you that the United States has created a foreign policy that trumps the positions of sovereign nations and has exercised a perceived right to attack other countries based on propagandized “evidence”? [remember Colin Powell's fallacious presentation to the United Nations used to justify the unilateral attack of Iraq?]  I know Americans are used to being on the “giving end”, but how would you feel if we were on the receiving end and another country exercised its will over us without giving a damn about our culture, thoughts, feelings, desires for ourselves, etc.?  Do you see the precedent that we are allowing this Administration to set?  I hope you do. 

Will there be a major outcry in the U.S. about this unilateral, unfounded, and murderous attack on Somalia which killed innocent people?  No.  Unfortunately the constitution of the American general public has been so compromised that we’ll only begin to stand up to this Administration and its use of the politics of fear when its policies place us or someone we truly love in the sniper’s scope under the justification that we are “suspected terrorists”.