The cancer of the national-security state

  Suppose that after you visit your doctor for a physical examination, he informs you that you are suffering from the following ailments:

1. A stiff knee, which requires six months of physical therapy.
2. Being overweight, which requires a big change in diet.
3. Kidney problems, which require you to give up drinking.
4. A growing malignant tumor on your stomach that can be removed by surgery.

  The doctor recommends that you give priority to ailment 4, but you instead decide to give priority to the first three ailments. 

Interventionists ignore 9/11 motive to our detriment

  In the aftermath of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, some interventionists are ignoring the most important factor in the Afghanistan debacle: what motivated the terrorists to commit the 9/11 attacks. 

  Or, even worse, some interventionists continue to buy into the motive that U.S. officials ascribed immediately after the attacks: that the terrorists struck on 9/11 because they hated America for its “freedom and values” or because they were Muslims who were engaged in a centuries-old quest to establish a worldwide Islamic caliphate, one that would put the United States under Sharia law.

Let’s reject foreign interventionism entirely

  Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, interventionists are learning the wrong lesson from their ongoing debacle in Afghanistan. They are coming up with all sorts of reasons why this particular intervention has gone bad. Undoubtedly, they will promise to do better in the future.

  That’s not the lesson Americans should learn from this forever-war disaster. The lesson everyone should be learning is that America’s founding heritage of non-interventionism is the way to go in the future. 

Trump continues the never-ending war on Cuba

  If it’s presidential election time, then, like clockwork, it’s time for Republicans to continue the U.S. national-security establishment’s 60-year-long attack on Cuba. That’s because Republican presidential candidates feel the need to pander to Cuban-American voters in Florida as a way to show how “tough” they are on communism.

  Well, not all communism. The U.S. government, especially the Pentagon, loves the communist regime in Vietnam, the one that killed some 58,000 American men in the Vietnam War. Today, the U.S. and Vietnamese regimes are living in peaceful and friendly co-existence, exactly what the national-security establishment said was impossible during the Cold War.

The evil, immoral, vicious, and hypocritical embargo against Cuba

  The banality of evil that characterizes the U.S. national security state is demonstrated perfectly by the continuation of its deadly economic embargo against Cuba, which has been ongoing for some 60 years.

  What’s the point of the embargo? After all, the Pentagon’s, CIA’s, and NSA’s official enemy, Fidel Castro, died years ago. Why continue to intentionally inflict harm on the Cuban people?

Horrific, long-term consequences of regime change

  84-year-old Emma Thiessen Alvarez has never forgotten the day in 1981 when Guatemalan officials came to her house looking for her daughter, a student leader who had escaped from military custody. Unable to find her, the officials settled for Thiessen’s 14-year-old son. She never saw him again.

  Thiesen’s story was highlighted in a recent New York Times article because the Guatemalan legislature is now contemplating granting blanket amnesty to military officials who participated in the reign of terror that the Guatemalan national-security establishment inflicted on the Guatemalan people for a period of some 36 years.

Trump got played in Singapore, but that’s a good thing

  Conservatives are a fascinating lot. Throughout the Cold War, they steadfastly maintained that the Cold War was necessary because communist tyrants were hell-bent on conquering the United States and subjugating the American people. That is, in fact, why the U.S. national-security establishment intervened in the Korean War and the Vietnam War and sacrificed more than 100,000 U.S. soldiers — supposedly to prevent the communists in North Korea and North Vietnam from ultimately coming to America and taking control of the United States.

  The conservative mantra throughout the Cold War was encapsulated by the title of a book written in 1962 by a conservative curmudgeon named Fred Schwarz: You Can Trust the Communists (to be Communists.) The idea was that the communists were incorrigible liars who had one goal in mind: the defeat and Red takeover of the United States.

Jacob G. Hornberger: Isolationism and open borders

  In an implicit rebuke of President Trump, former President Bush delivered a speech last week in which he warned against “isolationism sentiments.”

  Isolationist sentiments? Is he kidding? Don’t make me laugh. Trump has made it very clear that he is firmly committed to continuing the forever wars that Bush launched in Afghanistan and Iraq more than 15 years ago and Bush’s perpetual “war on terrorism,” which he used to justify the adoption of such totalitarian powers as indefinite detention, torture, and assassination.

Jacob G. Hornberger: Constantly shifting array of official enemies

  After George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq ended up producing ISIS, which was quickly made into a new official enemy of the United States, I am sure that there were lots of Americans saying to themselves, “Oh my gosh, another official enemy. But once we vanquish this one, it will finally be over. We will finally have peace, tranquility, and prosperity.”

  Those people were living a pipe dream. Now that ISIS has been vanquished, is the Pentagon bringing the troops home? Is there going to be a ticker-tape military parade in New York City? Is George W. Bush going to do a painting entitled “Mission Accomplished”?

Jacob G. Hornberger: U.S. bombs and anti-American terrorism

  When the next terrorist attack against Americans takes place, you can be certain that there will still be at least a few Americans, including within the Pentagon and the CIA, who will come out with their standard line about how the terrorists are motivated by their hatred for America’s freedom and values. A few others will claim that the attacks are part of some centuries-old caliphate conspiracy by Muslims to take over the world.

  Consider this: According to a story on Alternet, the U.S. government dropped at least 26,171 bombs in seven Muslim-majority countries in 2016. In a related article on the same subject, Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin said that this amounts to three bombs every hour, 24 hours a day.

Jacob G. Hornberger: The problem is foreign interventionism, not Muslims

  With Donald Trump’s accession to the presidency, the U.S. anti-Muslim crusade is going into full swing. According to an article in the November 14 issue of the Washington Post, hate crimes against Muslims hit their highest level since 2001. An article in the Post last week stated that four mosques have received letters stating that Trump will do to Muslims what Hitler “did to the Jews.”

  Ever since the 9/11 attacks, religious bigots have used that event as the excuse to go after Muslims. The problem with their mindset — or at least one problem with their mindset — is that they're letting their religious bigotry prevent them from recognizing that the root cause of anti-American terrorism is not based on religion but instead on the U.S. government’s interventionist foreign policy in the Middle East and Afghanistan.

Jacob G. Hornberger: Do you want a peaceful and prosperous society or not?

  Every Sunday at my church, we are exhorted to pray, among other things, for peace in the world and for the men and women who serve our nation — i.e., the military and the CIA. Naturally, the priests who craft the prayer, along with most of the congregation, fail to see the irony of those two prayers. That is, they fail to see that it is the Pentagon and the CIA whose activities around the world, especially in the Middle East and Afghanistan, are a major reason that Americans live without peace and prosperity.

Jacob G. Hornberger: A Cold War breakthrough

  More than 50 years after the U.S. government’s imposition of its brutal economic embargo against the Cuban people, yesterday’s announcement by President Obama calling for a lifting of the embargo represents a major breakthrough for libertarians and others who are committed to the principles of individual liberty, free markets, private property, liberty of contract, freedom of travel, and freedom of association.