23 June 2012
By Jacob G. Hornberger As most every American knows, we now live in a
country in which the ruler possesses the unfettered
power to assassinate his citizens. What an
extraordinary situation. Who would have ever thought
that America would end up with a governmental system
in which the ruler possessed such omnipotent power?
Equally extraordinary, our ruler just happens to
possess a powerful military and intelligence force
(the CIA) to exercise such power whenever he wants. In
fact, it's the most powerful national-security force
in history. Given the supreme loyalty that the
military and the CIA have toward their commander in
chief, there is no doubt that if and when it comes to
time to carry out their commander's orders to
assassinate Americans, the military and the CIA will
do so faithfully and loyally, especially if our ruler
assures them that they are protecting our rights and
freedoms by killing domestic threats to national
security. What are the standards by which our ruler targets
Americans for assassination? We don't know what the
standards are. We are not permitted to know. We're not
even sure that there are standards. We're told that if
our ruler disclosed the standards he applies when
ordering the assassination of Americans, national
security would be threatened. So, we just have to
trust him to establish good standards in determining
which Americans to assassinate. Since the assassins in
the military and the CIA trust him, the idea is that
the American citizenry should trust him as well. One thing is for sure though: Regardless of the
standards for determining who makes the
national-security state's kill list, there is one
class of Americans that stands zero chance of ever
being targeted for assassination: Those Americans who
openly and enthusiastically support the actions of the
government. It's difficult to imagine a more powerful
inducement to conformity within the citizenry than
that. After all, every American must now factor the
president's power to assassinate into his thinking.
Men with families, especially wives and children, must
consider the future. Sure, it's true that the
national-security state has only assassinated a few
Americans so far, but that's not really the point. The
point is that the government now possesses the
unfettered, omnipotent, non-reviewable power to
assassinate Americans and to determine the standards
for determining who is going to make the list. What happens in the event of some deep crisis in
the future? How can anyone predict how some future
president — be it Barack Obama or Mitt Romney or
Hillary Clinton or someone else — will react to
foreign and domestic threats? There is no way to be
sure, but one thing is for certain: There is no
possibility that an American ruler would ever target
for assassination an ardent and enthusiastic supporter
of the federal government and its actions. By the same token, those who remain silent would be
left alone as well. The risk of assassination — and such
lesser-included powers as torture, military
incarceration, and execution by tribunal — comes to
those who have been critics of the government and its
policies. For them, there are no guarantees. Would the president ever target government
opponents with assassination? In a deep crisis, anyone
is capable of anything, especially when he wields
omnipotent power. And given that the federal judiciary
is standing by now and doing nothing to interfere with
the assumption or the exercise of such omnipotent
power, there is no possibility that federal judges
would act any differently in the event of a deep
crisis. The problem is that in a deep crisis, government
officials, especially those in the military and
intelligence forces, inevitably come to view
government critics as enemies of the state — fifth
columnists — agents of the enemy — or simply as
threats to national security who are demoralizing and
dividing the nation. They're viewed upon as
unpatriotic, divisive people who are implicitly
helping the enemy prevail. Consider the several dictatorships in the Middle
East that the U.S. government has long supported and
partnered with: Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain,
Yemen, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, and others. Every one of
them has left ardent government supporters alone.
Instead, the people that the dictatorships in these
countries have targeted for assassination,
incarceration, torture, and execution are always the
government critics — the protestors — those who oppose
the tyranny under which they live. Oh sure, government officials always call the
people they're killing, torturing, and incarcerating
terrorists or communists or simply threats to national
security. And sometimes they actually believe it. The
ruler, the military, and the intelligence forces
convince themselves that anyone who is not supporting
the government is, by definition, a threat to the
national security of the country. Would the U.S. government ever do this type of
thing? Well, we know one thing: the U.S. government
has long supported dictatorships that do it, so long
as they are pro-U.S. dictatorships. No matter how
ruthless the dictatorships have abused their
citizenry, U.S. taxpayer-funded foreign aid has
continued to flow into the dictatorships in the form
of cash and weaponry, which obviously fortifies the
dictatorship's power over the citizenry. In other
words, the U.S. foreign aid enables the dictatorship
to continue assassinating, torturing, incarcerating,
and executing those who are resisting the
dictatorship. How have U.S. officials justified this? They have
fully bought into the same rationale as the dictators
whom they are supporting with cash and armaments —
that the people who are being targeted for
assassination, torture, incarceration, and execution
are, in fact, terrorists, communists, or simply
threats to national security who are trying to
overthrow a pro-U.S. regime. Therefore, U.S. officials
say, there is nothing wrong with continuing to
buttress the power of the pro-U.S. dictatorships to
maintain "order and stability" within their nations.
The idea has been that by ensuring that the
"terrorists" don't prevail in overthrowing the pro-U.S.
dictatorships, the world remains a more peaceful and
orderly place and the national security of the United
States is protected as well. So, given that the U.S. government believes in
supporting dictatorships that assassinate, torture,
incarcerate, and execute domestic critics or opponents
of such policies, what does that say about the
possibility that the U.S. national-security state
might well exercise its omnipotent powers in a similar
way against Americans, given the right circumstances?
That's what Americans now have to process. Obviously, the safest route is to become an ardent
and enthusiastic supporter of the federal government
and everything that it is doing. In that way, if
things ever go bad the citizen can point to his record
of government support. The second-safest route is to just remain silent
and keep your head down. The least safe route is to speak out against the
federal government's support of dictatorships, its
assumption of omnipotent powers, its policies of
assassination, torture, incarceration without trial,
execution by kangaroo tribunal, its rendition-torture
partnerships with dictatorial regimes, and, well, the
entire pro-empire, warfare-state way of life that has
come to characterize the United States. Conformity versus conscience. In the face of the
president's unfettered power to assassinate Americans,
that's now the choice facing the American people. Conformity is obviously the safe route. But
conscience is obviously the right route. Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of the
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