What An Inaugural Shame: The Darkness Of Foreign Interventionism, Imperialism, Militarism
08 January 2013
By Jacob G. Hornberger
What an inaugural shame. President Obama had a chance
to raise the country's vision to a higher level and to
move American into an entirely new direction. He
instead made it clear that he intends to keep the
nation mired in its statist morass.
No libertarian ever expected Obama to embrace the
libertarian paradigm of economic liberty. As a
dyed-in-the-wool statist, Obama remains committed to
the statist economic paradigm of socialism,
interventionism, regulation, inflation, taxation, and
debt. Like statists everywhere, he's convinced that
all this statism is the key to economic prosperity.
His economic models are Venezuela, Cuba, and North
Korea, which embraced the statist philosophy a long
time ago.
But where Obama could have moved the nation with a
grand vision was in the area of civil liberties and
foreign policy. Not having to be concerned about
reelection, he could have taken a bold move to restore
our nation onto a path of morality, peace, freedom,
and harmony. By continuing to embrace the policies of
foreign interventionism, foreign empire, militarism, a
standing army, a military-industrial complex, CIA,
assassination, indefinite incarceration, military
supremacy, and infringements on civil liberties, he
has guaranteed that America will continue to wallow in
a morass of violence, enmity, and oppression.
Obama should have announced an immediate withdrawal of
all U.S. troops from Afghanistan. The killing in that
country has gone on for the entire eight years of the
Bush presidency plus the first four years of the Obama
presidency. He should have said that enough people
have been killed already and that it was time to bring
the killing to an end by an immediate U.S. withdrawal.
He should have gone further. He should have also
issued a cease-and-desist order on all U.S.
assassinations worldwide. The United States is no
longer in the assassination business, he should have
announced. That's not what this country was founded
for. That's not what America is all about.
He should have pointed out that a vast military
empire, a permanent military establishment, and a CIA
are inconsistent with the principles of a free
society. A nation that permits such a structure to
become a permanent part of the government will
ultimately find that freedom ultimately disappears
from that society, not only from the permanent state
of crises, enemies, and wars that such structures
engender, and not only from the ever-increasing
infringements on privacy and civil liberties that
result, but also from the serious economic harm that
comes with ever-increasing military spending.
Obama should have gone further and announced a
complete withdrawal of all U.S. troops overseas,
including South Korea, Germany, and other Cold War
places. He should have brought all those troops home
and then discharged them into the private sector,
which would have saved the American taxpayer untold
amounts of money.
He should have announced his intention to submit to
Congress a bill repealing the National Security Act of
1947, which established the CIA, an entity that former
President Truman said back in December 1963 had
already become a sinister force within American life.
The Cold War is over. So should be the CIA.
He should have asked Congress to terminate all foreign
aid, including aid to dictators. Why should
hard-pressed American taxpayers be forced to fund
foreign regimes, especially ones that violate
long-cherished American values?
He should have announced an end to all sanctions and
embargoes, including Cuba and Iran. They have
accomplished nothing but suffering among the citizenry
of the targeted nations, thereby increasing anger and
animosity toward our nation.
What about the threat of terrorism? That's caused by
the very military policies that are supposedly
intended to smash out terrorism. By ending the
interventionist policies and dismantling the overseas
empire of military bases, anti-American terrorism
disintegrates.
For 12 years, and even before, the U.S. government has
been embroiled in a constant orgy of foreign violence
through the U.S. national-security state. Killing,
maiming, torture, and assassination have now become an
integral part of American life. How can that not have
a grave adverse effect on the American people? How can
it not affect their sense of morality, conscience, and
spiritual and religious values? On the one hand,
people pray every Sunday for peace in the world and,
at the same time, pray for the troops. They block out
of their minds that it's the troops, faithfully
following orders to kill, maim, torture, and
assassinate, who are the premier violators of the
peace Americans pray for.
Indeed, while most every statist engages in a kneejerk
reaction to a school massacre here at home with new
gun-control measures, hardly any of them ever delves
into the possibility that it is the U.S. government's
anti-life policies overseas—policies that denigrate
and cheapen the lives of foreigners—that might be a
root cause of violence here at home. That thought is,
of course, too frightening to anyone who believes that
the national-security state is essential for keeping
Americans "safe."
Obama could have announced a dramatic shift in the
federal government's much-vaunted and much-failed war
on drugs. He could have said that enough is enough.
There has been enough drug-war violence at the hands
of the U.S. government, with no positive results and
many negative results, including the 60,000 dead
people in Mexico in the last six years alone. He could
have said that he was going to submit a bill to
Congress to legalize all drugs, bringing an end to one
of the most violence and fruitless wars in American
history. Given his own personal history of drug usage,
without punishment, he could have argued that drug use
and drug abuse belong in the area of private
rehabilitation, not incarceration and fine. He could
have finally ended the ever-growing assaults on civil
liberties and financial privacy that the drug war has
brought our nation.
Obama had the opportunity to bring out nation out of
the darkness of foreign interventionism, imperialism,
militarism, and the drug war. Unfortunately for
America and the world and himself, he has failed the
challenge.
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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