I Am Heartbroken

 Posted by at 12:27 pm  Politics
Jul 152016
 

Ever since "I am Paris", we have witnessed an ever increasing smorgasbord of terrorism that we might as keep a stock "I am __________!", so that we can fill in the blank with the targeted city du jour. We are seeing far too many victims in far too many cities!  I am heartbroken!

0715nice-truck

  • The truck deliberately zigzagged with its headlights off through a large crowd celebrating Bastille Day in Nice, France.
  • At least 84 people were killed and at least 50 children hospitalized, French officials said.
  • The truck was “loaded with arms and grenades,” a local official said, but some were reportedly fake.
  • The driver has been identified as a 31-year-old French-Tunisian named Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel.

The vicious Bastille Day attack in the French city of Nice that killed at least 84 people was an act of terrorism, France’s President Francois Hollande said early Friday.

Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, a 31-year-old French Tunisian, plowed a vehicle-turned-weapon into a crowd of people who were watching fireworks. He drove for more than a mile before police shot him dead, Agence-France Press reported. The truck was loaded with “arms and grenades,” Region President Christian Estrosi said, but some of them were fake.

From <Huffington Post>

The US contributes to the problem in three key ways.  First, as long as we support an Israeli regime that oppresses the Palestinian people and violates international by pursuing a one state solution by military force, radical Muslims will attack us and our allies.  Second, as long as we support Saudi Arabia, that has financed more terrorism that any nation in the world, except the US, more funding and weapons will keep flowing to terrorists.  Third, as long as we lead the world in oil consumption, control of the oil fields of the middle east will be a US national security interest, putting us at odds with the people who want to control their own oil fields.

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  13 Responses to “I Am Heartbroken”

  1. Requiescat In Pace

  2. Of course you are heartbroken.  So am I.  We HAVE hearts to break – and I assume that is true of all here.  Republicans, on the other hand, not so much.

  3. Je Suis Charlie..
    Je Suis Paris…
    Je Suis Nice….

    My heart weeps for those lives lost.
    Thanks, Tom.

  4. Moi aussie!

  5. HP: We are the most powerful imperial nation tthe world has ever known!  We sow anger, hurt, rage, as we go blithely along and act like the poster boy for borderline personality disorder, tell ourselves we are "exceptional,"and above recrimination, just like a BPD person, or a narcissist, for that matter, would do, and then wonder why people hate us.  There is an old(?) saying that goes "Love thine enemy, for you have made him that way," which seems pertinent here.

  6.   It seems as if the whole world is imploding!

  7. Je suis le monde entier …

    I agree with your assessment, but I think the problem goes deeper than that.  It goes to inequality, racial, religious and economic.  It goes to the basic make up of humans.

    It is very sad that humans betray themselves.

    Prayers for all.

  8. My heart goes out to all the victims and their families and to grief-struck France.

    But here its's also the afternoon after the failed coup in Turkey last night, and I'll join Lynn in saying "Je suis le monde entier…" as there is not an end to the turmoil in this world in sight.

    We also have to be very careful in how we're dealing with the news flashes and where they come from. The media go into overdrive when covering these horrendous stories and often what is said one moment is found out to be based on speculation, rumor and even propaganda the next. Most independent media here in Europe were, and still are,  very careful not to jump to conclusions. Only this morning the British and Dutch news would not call this a terrorist attack under the command of Daesh, and probably won't do so until it is confirmed by the authorities and not only called out in a speech by president Hollande in  which he also reinstated the martial law he had revoked onl;y hours before under pressure from the country.

    What is certain is that the  31-year-old French-Tunisian Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel was known by the police for petty crime, but not for any terrorist links or for going extremist. On the latter issue, his neighbors say his actions have nothing to do with Islam as he wasn't a religious man at all, didn't go to the mosque nor kept to the Ramadan. Father of three children, he was going through an ugly divorce and appeared to be a lonely and quiet man. The claim by the mayor of Nice that the truck was loaded with arms and grenades has not been repeated by French officials, and when his house was searched by special forces, no weapons or explosives were found. It's been said that in a raid this morning 3-4 people have been arrested, one of them apparently his estranged wife, but nothing more is known that they were acquaintances of Bouhlel. It's still all very murky indeed.

    Nevertheless, whatever Bouhlel's motivation was, the terrible fact remains that he killed at least 84 innocent men, women and children, deepening the wounds that were already there in France's society and raising the level of fear, suspicion and anger in France even further.

  9. Thanks all!  Hugs!!

  10. I worry so much about the world my grandsons are inheriting. God help them! This is all more than I can stand.

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