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Posts Tagged ‘national-security state’

The Fear-Mongering Rackets of the US National-Security State

Posted by M. C. on September 22, 2025

The irony is that when Cold War I ended, the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA were so panicky over having lost Russia as their official enemy, they were suggesting that they could help fight the drug war as their new mission. And so here they are — with their new official enemies — drugs and drug lords in Latin America.

https://ronpaulinstitute.org/the-fear-mongering-rackets-of-the-us-national-security-state/?fbclid=IwY2xjawMznJ9leHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHkqkwNu2s66Vrvj37boDQS0A4MM6_QL11qN8RmBCiniMd4mjLjeCHoh7uNLg_aem_lXb4n-Bkbfhef9T59LeZfQ

by Jacob G. Hornberger

The end of the Cold War in 1989 provided a fantastic opportunity for a major reset in relations between the American people and the people of Russia, China, Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam, and other nations that US officials had long designated as official enemies of the United States. For almost 45 years following the end of World War II, US officials had inculcated a mindset of deep fear among the American people — fear that the Russians, Chinese, and other communist nations were coming to get us.

It was all one great big racket designed to justify the conversion of the US government from our founding governmental structure of a limited-government republic to a national-security state, a type of totalitarian-like governmental structure that wields omnipotent powers, such as the power of engaging in state-sponsored assassinations.

Fear-mongering, propaganda, and indoctrination are central to a national-security state governmental structure. The national-security state must convince the citizenry that there are scary enemies coming to get them so that the citizenry will continue to support and embrace the national-security state governmental structure and the ever-increasing power and taxpayer-funded largess that is necessary to sustain it.

The racket worked almost perfectly. Americans fell for it hook, line, and sinker. “The Russians are coming!” people cried. “The Reds are everywhere!”

One big exception was when President Kennedy achieved a personal “breakthrough” after the Cuban Missile Crisis by recognizing that the Cold War and the anti-communist crusade were nothing more than one great big racket.

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No One Is Coming to Get Us

Posted by M. C. on November 2, 2024

In a national-security state, fear is the coin of the realm.

Today, it is safe to say that while Americans live under the most powerful government in history, they are also among the most frightened people in the world. That’s not a coincidence. The bigger and more powerful the government, the smaller and more frightened the citizenry.

No One Is Coming to Get Us

by Jacob G. Hornberger

In a national-security state, fear is the coin of the realm. The United States is no exception. In order to justify its continued existence and its ever-growing power and tax-funded largess, the U.S. national-security establishment — i.e., the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA — must keep the American people afraid, tense, agitated, and nervous. That necessarily means presenting us with a constant array of official “enemies,” “adversaries,” “competitors,” or “opponents” who are coming to get us.

The Cold War racket was a perfect demonstration of this phenomenon. For 44 years, Americans were inculcated with the mindset that the Reds were coming to get us, especially the Russian Reds. As the title of a popular Cold War movie put it, “The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!” Most every American citizen was made to be deathly afraid of the Russians.

Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

But the Russian Reds were not the only ones who were supposedly coming to get us. There was also the Chinese Reds, the North Korean Reds, the North Vietnamese and Vietcong Reds, the Cuban Reds, the Nicaraguan Reds, the Guatemalan Reds, the Iranian Reds, the Chilean Reds, and other Reds.

There were also the internal Reds who were already here. The civil-rights Reds, including Martin Luther King, the Reds in the Army, the Reds in Congress, and the Reds in Hollywood, including Dalton Trumbo. Some even suggested that President Eisenhower was a Red.

Let’s face it — the Reds were everywhere, even under our beds. And they were all coming to get us.

And then suddenly and unexpectedly, the Cold War ended in 1989. Those dastardly Russians! How dare them to put an end to the fear racket that had proven so lucrative to the U.S. national-security establishment and its ever-growing army of “defense” contractors.

No problem. Just come up with a new official enemy who is coming to get us. For the next 11 years, the daily mantra became “Saddam! Saddam! Saddam!” Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein, who was billed as the “new Hitler,” and who, Ironically, had been a loyal U.S. partner during the 1980s, was now coming to get us. Through the power of indoctrination and propaganda, Americans were made to transfer their fear of the Reds to their fear of Saddam Hussein. Saddam was now coming to get us — and with his supposed weapons of mass destruction.

At the same time, knowing that people in the Middle East would ultimately retaliate, the U.S. national-security state went on a massive killing spree in the Middle East, not only with its war on Iraq but also with its deadly system of economic sanctions against the Iraqi people, which were killing multitudes of children.

The predictable retaliation came in the form of terrorist attacks, such as the bombing of the USS Cole, the bombings of U.S. Embassies in East Africa, the killings of CIA officials in Virginia, and others. And then the big ones came — the  9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

The U.S. national-security state was off to the races again,

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It’s Weird to See a Retired General Scotch a Plea Bargain

Posted by M. C. on August 9, 2024

by Jacob G. Hornberger

This entire dual, competing judicial system is about as weird as weird can get, including the fact that a retired military general now wields the authority to involve himself in plea bargains in criminal prosecutions. The fact that this weird judicial system has become a normal and permanent part of American life just goes to show how the national-security establishment controls, manages, and directs the federal government, with the other three branches simply playing a supportive role. SeeNational Security and Double Governmentby Michael J. Glennon.

It’s Weird to See a Retired General Scotch a Plea Bargain

Given that we have all been born and raised under a national-security state form of governmental structure, no one in the mainstream press is batting an eyelash over Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s role in a plea bargain into which military prosecutors had entered with three men who are accused of participating in the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Walid bin Attash, and Mustafa al-Hawsawix. Austin scotched the plea bargain because it eliminated the possibility of a death sentence for the three men.

To be sure, there are some mainstream pundits who have expressed disagreement with Austin’s decision to cancel the plea bargain. But none of them question the very notion that a retired military general is making a major decision in a case involving criminal justice. That’s because the mainstream press, along with many Americans, has come to accept the normality and permanence of the judicial system that the Pentagon established in Cuba after the 9/11 attacks.

But the fact is that Austin’s role in a criminal prosecution is weird — extremely weird. A retired military general serving as U.S. Secretary of Defense has no more legitimate role in America’s criminal-justice system than he does in America’s public-school system.

The U.S. Constitution established one judicial system. It consists of U.S. District Courts, federal courts of appeals, and the U.S. Supreme Court. It encompasses both civil and criminal jurisdiction. Under the Constitution, when the U.S. government targets someone with criminal prosecution, it must do so within the rules and constraints of the federal-court system.

In other words, the Constitution did not set up two dual, competing criminal-justice systems — one run by civilians and one run by the military.

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The Worries of a Retiring NSA Chief

Posted by M. C. on February 15, 2024

by Jacob G. Hornberger

Fear (and worry) is the coin of the realm in every national security state. The more people are afraid, the more they will look to the national-security establishment to keep them safe. That ensures the continued existence of the national-security establishment as well as ever-increasing taxpayer-funded largess.

The Worries of a Retiring NSA Chief

Gen. Paul M. Nakasone, who recently retired as director of the National Security Agency, is worried. He’s worried about terrorism, drug cartels, Russia, China, hackers, spies, and other scary things. His many worries are detailed in an op-ed he has in the Washington Post today entitled, “What Worries Me Most After Five Years as Leader of the NSA.”

Surprisingly, for some unknown reason, Nakasone expressed no worry whatsoever about the “invasion” of illegal immigrants on our southern border. Wouldn’t you think that a career military man and the head of the NSA would be worried about an ongoing “invasion” of our nation? Sounds like a grave case of military malpractice to me.

Nakasone’s role as a military general helps to remind us of the gigantic military-intelligence establishment that controls our country. It’s easy to view the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA as three separate and distinct entities. In actuality, they are three parts of an overall entity known as the national-security establishment. It is one gigantic military-intelligence entity that is simply divided into three parts — the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA.

Longtime readers of my work know that I have long recommended a book entitled National Security and Double Government by Michael J. Glennon, who is a professor of law at Tufts University and former legal counsel to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Glennon’s thesis, to which I subscribe, is an ominous one: The national-security establishment — not the president, Congress, or Supreme Court — runs the federal government, especially when it comes to foreign affairs.

The federal government was not always a national-security state. For more than 150 years, Americans lived under a type of governmental structure known as a limited-government republic.

The difference between a limited-government republic and a national-security state is day and night. The powers of a limited-government republic are limited to those enumerated in the Constitution and are also restricted by the Bill of Rights. The powers of a national-security state are omnipotent and unrestricted by anything, including the powers of torture, assassination, and indefinite detention, not to mention coups, invasions, occupations, and wars of aggression.

Fear (and worry) is the coin of the realm in every national security state. The more people are afraid, the more they will look to the national-security establishment to keep them safe. That ensures the continued existence of the national-security establishment as well as ever-increasing taxpayer-funded largess.

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How We Got a National-Security Police State, Part 1 – The Future of Freedom Foundation

Posted by M. C. on December 24, 2022

Within the Bill of Rights was a fascinating grouping of four amendments: the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments. Our ancestors believed that at some point, federal officials would want to kill people, incarcerate them, or take away their property. Thus, those four amendments address what must happen before those things can occur.

https://www.fff.org/explore-freedom/article/how-we-got-a-national-security-police-state-part-1/

by Jacob G. Hornberger

The biggest mistake America has ever made since the inception of our country was the conversion of the federal government from a limited-government republic to a national-security state. It is the reason that all of us have been born and raised under what can only be called a national-security police state.

Throughout history, governments have been vested with inherent powers to do what officials felt was in the best interests of the people. Our American ancestors rejected that concept insofar as the federal government was concerned. The Constitution created one of the most unusual governmental structures ever — one in which the federal government would not have the traditional powers that were inherent to government. Instead, the federal government’s powers were limited to those few powers that were enumerated in the Constitution. If a power wasn’t listed, it simply could not be exercised.

This radically different governmental structure shocked the world. People couldn’t believe that a citizenry of a country was actually dictating to their government what it could and couldn’t do. Everyone was accustomed to the opposite — where government dictates to the citizenry what they can and cannot do.

A limited-government republic

A limited-government republic is what Americans wanted. They didn’t trust the federal government. Unlike so many Americans today, our American ancestors never believed that the biggest threat to their freedom and well-being lay with foreign regimes or foreign groups. Instead, Americans were convinced that the greatest threat to their freedom and well-being lay with their very own federal government. That’s why they wanted it to have so few powers — so that it would lack the ability to do bad things to them.

Thus, for more than a century, the United States had only a small, basic military force — one that was sufficiently large to protect settlers from attacks by Native Americans and to serve as a mobilizing force in the event the United States was ever invaded. Our American ancestors fiercely opposed a large, permanent military-intelligence establishment — what they called “standing armies” — because they believed that a standing army would ultimately destroy their freedom and their well-being. They instead believed in the concept of “citizen soldiers” — well-armed and self-trained citizens who would be willing to come to the defense of their country if it were ever invaded by a foreign power.

Prior to the Constitutional Convention, Americans had been operating under the Articles of Confederation, under which the federal government’s powers were so few and weak that it didn’t even have the power to tax. Imagine: for more than a decade, the federal government operated without the ability to forcibly extract money from people.

The purpose of the Constitutional Convention was simply to modify the Articles of Confederation. Thus, imagine the surprise of our ancestors when they learned that the Convention came out instead with a proposal for a different governmental structure — a limited-government republic — one that gave the federal government more power, including the power to tax.

Needless to say, Americans were extremely leery. But they finally decided to go along with the deal under the assurance that the federal government’s powers were to be limited to those few powers enumerated in the Constitution.

The Bill of Rights

But there was one condition that Americans imposed in return for accepting the new Constitution. They demanded the enactment of a Bill of Rights immediately after ratification of the Constitution. The Bill of Rights reflected the conviction of the American people that the federal government was an enormous threat to their freedom and well-being. With the Bill of Rights, Americans wanted to drive the point home — that federal officials were absolutely prohibited from infringing on people’s fundamental, natural, God-given rights.

The Bill of Rights should actually have been called the Bill of Prohibitions. That’s because it doesn’t give people rights at all. As the Declaration of Independence observes, people’s rights preexist government. It is the duty of government to protect, not destroy, such rights.

Thus, the First and Second Amendments protected from federal assault such rights as freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, and the right to keep and bear arms. The Ninth Amendment made it clear that people have more rights than those enumerated in the Bill of Rights.

An unusual society

Because its powers were so few, throughout the 19th century the federal government didn’t have much to do. The result was the most unusual society in history. Imagine:

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America’s Perpetual Foreign-Policy Crises

Posted by M. C. on August 30, 2022

Make no mistake about it: If China invades Taiwan, U.S. officials will play the innocent, just as they have done with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. And they will then have three big crises — Russia,  China, and the “war on terrorism” — to justify their permanent existence and their ever-growing taxpayer-funded largess.

by Jacob G. Hornberger

America’s Perpetual Foreign-Policy Crises

Ever since the federal government was converted from a limited-government republic to a national-security state after World War II, America has lived under a system of ongoing, never-ending, perpetual foreign-policy crises. That’s not a coincidence. The national-security establishment — i.e. the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA — need such crises to justify their continued existence and their ever-growing taxpayer-funded largess. 

An interesting aspect of this phenomenon is that oftentimes the crises are ginned up by the national-security establishment itself. Once the crisis materializes, the Pentagon and the CIA play the innocent. “We had nothing to do with ginning up this crisis,” they cry. “We are totally innocent.” 

After the end of the Cold War, the Pentagon and the CIA were desperately in need of a crisis that could replace the Cold War crisis, which they were convinced would last forever. That’s when they began going into the Middle East and killing people. When that massive killing spree, which included killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children, ended up producing terrorist blowback, the national-security establishment had its new crisis — terrorism, which replaced communism as America’s big official enemy. 

The “war on terrorism” replaced the Cold War’s “war on communism.” Americans began fearing the terrorists (and the Muslims) almost as much as they feared the Reds. With the new crisis, the national-security establishment, including its army of “defense” contractors, was assured of continued existence and ever-expanding taxpayer-funded largess.

Notwithstanding the ostensible end of the Cold War, however, the Pentagon and the CIA never lost hope of reestablishing Russia as an official enemy. But the challenge was: How to make Russia an official enemy again and how to get another ongoing crisis environment with Russia to keep the U.S. national-security establishment in high cotton?

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The Official Enemies Racket – The Future of Freedom Foundation

Posted by M. C. on February 19, 2022

https://www.fff.org/2022/02/15/the-official-enemies-racket/?utm_source=FFF+Daily&utm_campaign=74ff8eb75b-FFF+Daily+02-15-22&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1139d80dff-74ff8eb75b-318011129

An essential element in any national-security state is the need to keep the citizenry afraid. If people aren’t afraid, they won’t be so eager and willing to continue flooding large amounts of taxpayer largess into the coffers of the national-security establishment. Therefore, central to any national-security state is the need for official enemies, rivals, and opponents.

by Jacob G. Hornberger

An essential element in any national-security state is the need to keep the citizenry afraid. If people aren’t afraid, they won’t be so eager and willing to continue flooding large amounts of taxpayer largess into the coffers of the national-security establishment. Therefore, central to any national-security state is the need for official enemies, rivals, and opponents.

Fear was used to justify the conversion of the U.S. government from a limited-government republic to a national-security state after World War II. At that time, the official enemy was “godless communism” and the Soviet Union, principally Russia. (Yes, the same Russia that is an official enemy today.)

U.S. officials scared the American people to death with the notion that the Reds were coming to get them, take over America, and teach communism to their children in communist-controlled public schools. 

Never mind that the Soviets had been America’s World War II partner and ally. And never mind that the Soviets had no military capability or financial capability of coming to America, invading the country, defeating the U.S., and occupying the nation. What mattered was that the American people be made to believe that they were in grave danger of having the Reds come and get them.

Licensed by Creative Commons.

Then came Red China. And North Korea. And North Vietnam. And Cuba. And Guatemala, Chile, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. They all were used to keep Americans scared to death of godless communism and the Red Wave. That ensured ever-increasing power and money for the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA.

In 1963, President Kennedy effectively declared an end to this Cold War racket. He said America’s new policy was to establish peaceful and friendly relations with the Soviet Union and the communist world. 

It goes without saying that that did not sit well with the U.S. national-security establishment. By failing to appreciate the gravity of the supposed communist threat to America and the world, Kennedy had suddenly become a grave threat to national security. 

Kennedy’s vision came to an end with his assassination a few months later. Lyndon Johnson reversed his policy and continued the Cold War racket of the national-security establishment. The tax-funded largess continued flowing into the national-security state troughs, from which an ever-growing number of Cold War bureaucrats and “defense” contractors were now feeding.

In 1989, the Soviets unilaterally declared an end to the Cold War. That too did not sit well with the national-security establishment. They wanted the Cold War to continue into perpetuity, given its effectiveness in keeping people afraid. Thus, they continued waging the Cold War against China, Cuba, and North Korea on the ground that these official communist enemies continued posing a grave Red threat to America. That’s why there are sanctions, embargoes, and trade wars waged against these official enemies.

But U.S. officials never let go of Russia as an official enemy. That’s what the old Cold War dinosaur NATO is all about. Its job was to gobble up former members of the Warsaw Pact and ultimately Ukraine in order to station U.S. missiles, tanks, and troops on Russia’s border. Today, while the “communist” moniker has been abandoned, Russia is still portrayed as an official enemy and an aggressive one at that.

But today there are also many other official enemies, rivals, opponents, and boogeymen that have come into existence since the ostensible end of the Cold War: terrorism, Islam, Syria, Iran, Muslims, drug dealers, illegal immigrants, ISIS, the Taliban, and others. All of them are used to keep Americans in a state of constant consternation, fear, and dread that they are all coming to get us. 

Meanwhile, not surprisingly, Congress continues to appropriate ever-increasing amounts of taxpayer largess to the Pentagon, the CIA, the NSA, and their army of “defense” contractors who are supposedly keeping us safe from all these official enemies, rivals, and opponents. It’s one of the best political rackets in history. It’s just a question of whether the American people will ever wake up and recognize how they are being fleeced.

This post was written by: Jacob G. Hornberger

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Terminate NATO – The Future of Freedom Foundation

Posted by M. C. on March 22, 2021

As Moller argues, however, Russia poses no real threat to Europe and, therefore, cannot be seriously considered to be a justification for NATO. Instead, she argues, it’s time to replace Russia with China, owing to China’s rise as an international powerhouse. The reasoning is classic empire-think: If a nation starts to prosper and rise, it’s best to put it down before it gets too large and powerful.

How about just leaving China and Russia alone? What’s wrong with that? What’s wrong with other nations becoming prosperous? The fact is that NATO should never have been established in the first place. Moreover, the biggest mistake in U.S. history was to convert the federal government to a national-security state. The best thing American could do now is terminate NATO and restore a limited-government republic to our land.

https://www.fff.org/2021/03/19/terminate-nato/

by Jacob G. Hornberger

The Washington Post has published a long piece calling for NATO to take on a new official enemy — China. The piece is written by Sara Bjerg Moller, an assistant professor in the School of Diplomacy and International Relations at Seton Hall University. She argues that after 30 years since losing the Soviet Union as its official enemy and struggling to find a replacement to justify its continued existence, a perfect replacement would be China.

I’ve got a better idea. Let’s just put NATO out of its misery and terminate it.

After all, let’s not forget NATO’s original mission: to defend Europe from the possibility of an invasion by the Soviet Union, which had been America’s and Britain’s World War II partner and ally but which had been converted to their official enemy at the end of the war.

But the likelihood of a Soviet invasion of Europe was always nil. The Soviet Union had been decimated by World War II, especially as a result of the German invasion of the country. Even though the invasion was ultimately repelled and Germany was defeated, the Soviet Union’s industrial capacity had been destroyed, not to mention the millions of Russian citizens who had been killed. The last thing the Soviet Union wanted was another war, especially given that the United States possessed nuclear weapons and had shown a willingness to employ them against large cities.

The advocates of a national-security state in the United States, however, needed a new official enemy to replace Nazi Germany, especially to justify the conversion of the U.S. government from a limited-government republic to a national-security state, a type of governmental structure with omnipotent, non-reviewable powers. The Soviet Union and “godless communism” fit the bill perfectly. The American people were then inculcated with the notion that there was an international communist conspiracy to take over the United States and the rest of the world that was based in Moscow, Russia.

To convince Americans and western Europeans that the Soviet Union posed a grave threat to them, U.S. officials pointed to the postwar Soviet occupations of Eastern Europe and East Germany as examples of communist aggression. They apparently forgot that President Franklin Roosevelt had delivered such lands into the hands of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, who FDR affectionately referred to as his “Uncle Joe,” at their wartime summit in Yalta. Was it really too surprising that Stalin accepted FDR’s gift, especially given that Eastern Europe and East Germany would serve as a buffer against another German invasion of the Soviet Union?

It was within this fervent anti-communist environment that NATO was formed. But in 1989, the Cold War suddenly and unexpectedly came to an end, which, needless to say, put the U.S. national-security establishment and NATO into a panic. After all, the Cold War was the justification for both of these institutions. With no Cold War, they could both be dismantled.

Instead, the national-security establishment simply went into the Middle East and began poking hornets’ nest, which ultimately brought terrorist retaliation, which in turn brought the “war on terrorism,” another racket that has kept the national-security establishment in high cotton.

Meanwhile, unwilling to let Russia go as an official enemy, NATO began gobbling up former members of the Warsaw Pact, with the aim of placing U.S. troops and missiles ever closer to Russia’s borders and with the hope of provoking a reaction, which ultimately came about in Ukraine.

As Moller argues, however, Russia poses no real threat to Europe and, therefore, cannot be seriously considered to be a justification for NATO. Instead, she argues, it’s time to replace Russia with China, owing to China’s rise as an international powerhouse. The reasoning is classic empire-think: If a nation starts to prosper and rise, it’s best to put it down before it gets too large and powerful.

How about just leaving China and Russia alone? What’s wrong with that? What’s wrong with other nations becoming prosperous? The fact is that NATO should never have been established in the first place. Moreover, the biggest mistake in U.S. history was to convert the federal government to a national-security state. The best thing American could do now is terminate NATO and restore a limited-government republic to our land.

This post was written by: Jacob G. Hornberger

Jacob G. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. He was born and raised in Laredo, Texas, and received his B.A. in economics from Virginia Military Institute and his law degree from the University of Texas. He was a trial attorney for twelve years in Texas. He also was an adjunct professor at the University of Dallas, where he taught law and economics. In 1987, Mr. Hornberger left the practice of law to become director of programs at the Foundation for Economic Education. He has advanced freedom and free markets on talk-radio stations all across the country as well as on Fox News’ Neil Cavuto and Greta van Susteren shows and he appeared as a regular commentator on Judge Andrew Napolitano’s show Freedom Watch. View these interviews at LewRockwell.com and from Full Context. Send him email.

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The Omnipotent Power to Assassinate – The Future of Freedom Foundation

Posted by M. C. on February 16, 2021

For some 150 years, the federal government lacked the power to assassinate people. For the last 75 years, however, the federal government has wielded and actually exercised the omnipotent power to assassinate, including against American citizens.

How did it acquire this omnipotent power? Certainly not by constitutional amendment. It acquired it by default — by converting the federal government after World War II from a limited-government republic to a national-security state.

https://www.fff.org/2021/02/12/the-omnipotent-power-to-assassinate-2/

by Jacob G. Hornberger

It goes without saying that the Constitution called into existence a government with few, limited powers. That was the purpose of enumerating the powers of the federal government. If the Constitution was bringing into existence a government of unlimited or omnipotent powers, then there would have been no point in enumerating a few limited powers. In that event, the Constitution would have called into existence a government with general, unlimited powers to do whatever was in the interests of the nation.

If the Constitution had proposed a government of omnipotent powers, there is no way the American people would have accepted it, in which case America would have continued operating under the Articles of Confederation. Our American ancestors didn’t want a government of omnipotent powers. They wanted a government of few, limited, enumerated powers.

Among the most omnipotent powers a government can wield is the power of government officials to assassinate people. Our American ancestors definitely did not want that type of government. That is why the power to assassinate is not among the enumerated powers of government in the Constitution.

Despite the enumerated-powers doctrine, our American ancestors were still leery. They knew that the federal government would inevitably attract people who would thirst for the power to assassinate people. So, to make certain that federal officials got the point, the American people enacted the Fifth Amendment after the Constitution was ratified. It expressly prohibited the federal government from taking any person’s life without due process of law.

Due process of law is a term that stretches all the way back to Magna Carta. At a minimum, it requires formal notice of charges and a trial before the government can take a person’s life. At the risk of belaboring the obvious, assassination involves taking a person’s life without notice or trial.

For some 150 years, the federal government lacked the power to assassinate people. For the last 75 years, however, the federal government has wielded and actually exercised the omnipotent power to assassinate, including against American citizens.

How did it acquire this omnipotent power? Certainly not by constitutional amendment. It acquired it by default — by converting the federal government after World War II from a limited-government republic to a national-security state.

A national-security state is a totalitarian form of governmental structure. North Korea is a national security state. So is Cuba. And China, Egypt, Russia, and Pakistan. And the United States, along with others.

A national-security state is based on a vast, all-powerful military-intelligence establishment, one that, as a practical matter, wields omnipotent powers. Thus, when the CIA, one of the principle components of America’s national-security state, was called into existence in 1947, it immediately assumed the power to assassinate. In fact, as early as 1952 the CIA published an assassination manual that demonstrates that the CIA was already specializing in the art of assassination (as well as cover-up) in the early years of the national-security state.

In 1954, the CIA instigated a coup in Guatemala on grounds of “national security.” The aim of the coup was to oust the country’s democratically elected president, Jacobo Arbenz, and replace him with a military general. As part of the coup, the CIA prepared a list of people to be assassinated. To this day, the CIA will not disclose the names of people on its kill list (on grounds of “national security,” of course) but it is a virtual certainty that President Arbenz was at the top of the list for establishing a foreign policy of peace and friendship with the communist world. To his good fortune, he was able to flee the country before they could assassinate him.

In 1970, the CIA was attempting to prevent Salvador Allende from becoming president of Chile. Like Arbenz, Allende’s foreign policy was based on establishing a peaceful and friendly relationship with the communist world. The CIA’s plan included inciting a coup led by the Chilean military. However, the overall commander of Chile’s armed forces, Gen. Rene Schneider, stood in the way. His position was that he had taken an oath to support and defend the constitution and, therefore, that he would not permit a coup to take place. The CIA conspired to have him violently kidnapped to remove him as an obstacle to the coup. During the kidnapping attempt, Schneider was shot dead.

Schneider’s family later filed suit for damages arising out of Schneider’s wrongful death. The federal judiciary refused to permit either U.S. officials or the CIA to be held accountable for Schneider’s death. Affirming the U.S. District Court’s summary dismissal of the case, the D.C. Court of Appeals held that U.S. officials who were involved in the crime could not be held liable since they were simply acting within the course and scope of their employment. Moreover, the U.S. government couldn’t be held liable because, the court stated, it is sovereignly immune.

Central to the Court’s holding was what it called the “political question doctrine.” It holds that under the Constitution, the judicial branch of the government is precluded from questioning any “political” or “foreign policy” decision taken by the executive branch.

Actually though, the Constitution says no such thing. It is in fact the responsibility of the judicial branch to enforce the Constitution against the other branches, including the national-security branch. That includes the Fifth Amendment, which expressly prohibits the federal government from taking people’s lives without due process of law.

So, why did the federal judiciary come up with this way to avoid taking on the CIA? Because it knew that once the federal government was converted to a national-security state, the federal government had fundamentally changed in nature by now having a branch that could exercise omnipotent powers, such as assassination, with impunity. The federal judiciary knew that there was no way that the judicial branch of government could, as a practical matter, stop the national-security branch with assassinating people. To maintain the veneer of judicial power, the judiciary came up with its ludicrous “political question doctrine” to explain why it wasn’t enforcing the Constitution

Once Pinochet took office after the coup in Chile, the Chilean judiciary did the same thing as the U.S. judiciary. It deferred to the power of the Pinochet military-intelligence government, declining to enforce the nation’s constitution against it. Like the U.S. judiciary, the Chilean judiciary recognized the reality of omnipotent power that comes with a national-security state. Many years later, the Chilean judiciary apologized to the Chilean people for abrogating its judicial responsibility.

The webpage for our upcoming conference “The National Security State and the Kennedy Assassination” is now live and taking registrations. Admission: free.EMAIL

This post was written by: Jacob G. Hornberger

Jacob G. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. He was born and raised in Laredo, Texas, and received his B.A. in economics from Virginia Military Institute and his law degree from the University of Texas. He was a trial attorney for twelve years in Texas. He also was an adjunct professor at the University of Dallas, where he taught law and economics. In 1987, Mr. Hornberger left the practice of law to become director of programs at the Foundation for Economic Education. He has advanced freedom and free markets on talk-radio stations all across the country as well as on Fox News’ Neil Cavuto and Greta van Susteren shows and he appeared as a regular commentator on Judge Andrew Napolitano’s show Freedom Watch. View these interviews at LewRockwell.com and from Full Context. Send him email.

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Libertarian Silence on the Kennedy Assassination – The Future of Freedom Foundation

Posted by M. C. on February 10, 2021

This is the same conservative mindset that has led reform-oriented libertarians to maintain a strict silence in the Kennedy assassination. If the U.S. national-security establishment determined that Kennedy’s policies posed a grave threat to national security, then that it is the end of the matter for conservative-oriented libertarians, just as it was when the Chilean national-security establishment determined that Allende’s policies posed a grave threat to national security in Chile.

https://www.fff.org/2021/02/08/libertarian-silence-on-the-kennedy-assassination/

by Jacob G. Hornberger

One of the most noteworthy aspects of the Kennedy assassination is the silence among conservative, reform-oriented libertarians on the national-security state’s assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

What’s up with that?

After all, wouldn’t you think that a domestic regime-change operation against a U.S. president would be something every libertarian would be condemning, even if it did happen more than 50 years ago? Libertarians, after all, condemn U.S. regime-change operations against foreign rulers that preceded the Kennedy assassination. Why the silence on a domestic regime-change operation?

The reason for this deafening silence lies with the conservative baggage that reform-oriented libertarians brought with them when they joined the libertarian movement. We’ve seen this baggage, of course, with respect to such conservative-oriented reform proposals as school vouchers, health-savings accounts, Social Security “privatization,” immigration-control reform, and much more.

Perhaps the biggest and heaviest baggage that conservative-oriented libertarians have brought with them into the libertarian movement is with respect to their support for the national-security establishment or for what President Eisenhower called the “military-industrial complex” or for what the Founding Fathers called “standing armies.”

Ever since World War II, conservatives have been unabashed supporters of the national-security state way of life. They were convinced that it was necessary to convert the federal government from a limited-government republic to a national-security state, which is a totalitarian form of governmental structure. They were convinced and remain convinced that the conversion was necessary to protect us from a communist takeover during the Cold War.

Conservatives also favor the omnipotent powers that are wielded by the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA, including the power of assassination. They are convinced that omnipotent government is necessary to keep us safe and secure, not only from communists but also from terrorists and other dangerous creatures in the world.

It’s that conservative baggage that the reform-oriented libertarians have imported into the libertarian movement.

Now, there is one difference between conservatives and conservative-oriented libertarians. The former support unconditionally whatever the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA determine is necessary to keep us safe or what is in the interests of “national security.” The latter objects to abuses that these agencies commit and call for reforming them.

But there is one overriding commonality between conservatives and conservative-oriented libertarians: their joint devotion to the very existence of the national-security state. Search the articles, books, blog posts, speeches, and conferences of the conservative-oriented libertarians and you will hardly ever find any call for the dismantling of America’s national-security establishment and the restoration of America’s founding governmental system of a limited-government republic.

At most, you’ll find a call for repealing the Patriot Act, or for some sort of reform proposal on NSA surveillance, or maybe for more oversight of the FISA court, or for more judicious intervention in foreign affairs, or for a call to end America’s “forever wars.” But what you won’t see is a call to dismantle the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA and restore a limited-government republic to our land.

What does this conservative baggage have to do with the Kennedy assassination?

Conservatives and conservative-oriented libertarians have long extolled the Chilean regime of conservative military General Augusto Pinochet. They love the guy because he was a conservative — a Thatcher-like conservative — who brought the “Chicago Boys” and their “free enterprise” proposals to Chile, including Social Security “privatization.”

When you remind such libertarians that Pinochet gained power through a domestic regime-change operation against a democratically elected president, their answer is an revealing one — they say that the operation was necessary to save Chile from a president whose policies posed a grave threat to Chile’s national security.

When you point out to them that the Chilean constitution did not provide for a coup as a way to save the nation from a president whose policies ostensibly posed a grave threat to national security, their response is predictable: The constitution is not a “suicide pact,” they say. If it’s necessary for the national-security establishment to violate it to save the nation, then so be it.

When you point out that Pinochet’s goons rounded, incarcerated, tortured, raped, abused, executed, or disappeared more than 50,000 innocent people, including two Americans, they respond that that was unfortunate but that it must be weighed against Pinochet’s ostensible saving of the nation from a democratically elected president whose policies were supposedly leading the nation to destruction.

This is the same conservative mindset that has led reform-oriented libertarians to maintain a strict silence in the Kennedy assassination. If the U.S. national-security establishment determined that Kennedy’s policies posed a grave threat to national security, then that it is the end of the matter for conservative-oriented libertarians, just as it was when the Chilean national-security establishment determined that Allende’s policies posed a grave threat to national security in Chile.

Equally important, if the U.S. national-security establishment wants to keep its role in the Kennedy regime-change operation covert, just as it has in many of its foreign regime-change operations, then that too is the end of the matter for conservative-oriented libertarians. Our national-security officials know what’s best to protect us and keep us safe, they believe, and we must defer to their judgment.

Fortunately, however, there are many libertarians who reject this conservative national-security state mindset. They are skeptical of the official narrative in the Kennedy assassination but have not delved deeply into the matter. They continue to seek understanding about this pivotal event in the history of the U.S. national-security state.

That’s the purpose of our upcoming conference — “The National Security State and the Kennedy Assassination” — to provide an easy-to-understand synopsis of the JFK assassination — why he was assassinated and the adverse consequences the assassination has had on the nation — and why it is imperative that we restore a limited-government republic to our land if we want a genuinely free, peaceful, prosperous, and harmonious society.

Our conference website is forthcoming. Mark your calendar: Wednesday, March 3, at 7 p.m. for the first presentation and continuing weekly every Wednesday evening after that through April 21. Registration will be required but admission will be free.EMAIL

This post was written by: Jacob G. Hornberger

Jacob G. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. He was born and raised in Laredo, Texas, and received his B.A. in economics from Virginia Military Institute and his law degree from the University of Texas. He was a trial attorney for twelve years in Texas. He also was an adjunct professor at the University of Dallas, where he taught law and economics. In 1987, Mr. Hornberger left the practice of law to become director of programs at the Foundation for Economic Education. He has advanced freedom and free markets on talk-radio stations all across the country as well as on Fox News’ Neil Cavuto and Greta van Susteren shows and he appeared as a regular commentator on Judge Andrew Napolitano’s show Freedom Watch. View these interviews at LewRockwell.com and from Full Context. Send him email.

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