Coming To A City Near You? Assassination and Sanction Blowback
19 January 2013
By Jacob G. Hornberger
The most persuasive argument against the U.S.
government's drone assassination program and its
sanctions program on Iran is that they simply wrong in
a moral sense. It's morally wrong to murder people
through assassination, and it's wrong to inflict
economic devastation on the citizenry of another
country through sanctions.
Another persuasive argument is that such programs are
not authorized by the Constitution, the document which
sets forth the powers of the president and the rest of
the federal government. One searches in vain for any
mention of a power to assassinate people and to impose
sanctions or embargoes against other countries. To
make sure federal officials got the point, our
American ancestors enacted the Fifth Amendment, which
expressly prohibits the federal government from
depriving people, citizens and foreigners alike, of
life, liberty, and property without due process of
law.
But there is another point that Americans need to
ponder. That point is that the U.S. government's
assassination program in Pakistan, Yemen, and
elsewhere and its sanctions program against Iran might
well lead to "blowback" in the form of another major
terrorist attack on American soil.
Why ponder that possibility now? Because if such a
strike comes, we're going to experience the same sort
of fear, panic, and irrational thinking that we
experienced after 9/11. We're going to hear the same
nonsense we heard then about how the terrorists just
hate us for our freedom and values and about how the
U.S. government has innocently been minding its own
business. U.S. officials are also going to use the
crisis as an opportunity to expand the powers of the
military and the CIA over the American people. We're
going to see more widespread emergency infringements
on or suspensions of civil liberties.
Thus, now is the time to ponder the possibility of
blowback from the government's assassination program
and its sanctions program. In that way, people are
less likely to be led astray by falling for all the
government hype that is certain to follow a terrorist
strike.
Why is another terrorist strike on American soil
possible? The answer is simple: the U.S. government is
doing the same sorts of things to people in the Middle
East and Afghanistan that it was doing prior to the
9/11 attacks. And those things are causing the same
anger and rage that the government's pre-9/11 foreign
policy was producing.
Consider the drone assassinations. Every day, we hear
about how the feds have assassinated more people with
their drone attacks. That includes people who live in
countries against which there isn't even a formal
declaration of war, which the Constitution requires.
The killings include not only people who are suspected
of being terrorists but also innocent bystanders.
It's obvious that the people in those countries have
no means of defending themselves against the drone
assassinations. It's also obvious that anger and rage
in that part of the world is beginning to boil owing
to the assassinations.
At the same time, the sanctions on Iran are causing
untold economic devastation on the Iranian people.
They are also contributing to the illnesses and deaths
of people. That sort of thing has a tendency to make
people frustrated and angry, especially when there is
nothing they can do to defend themselves from it.
That's precisely what was happening prior to 9/11. The
U.S. government was killing untold numbers of people
in Iraq, especially children, with its brutal program
of sanctions and its illegal no-fly zones. Every week,
people in the Middle East would read or hear about
more Iraqi children who had died as a result of these
programs. The estimates of how many children died
number in the hundreds of thousands.
Compounding the problem was the same callous
indifference to the death and destruction in Iraq that
is manifested by U.S. officials today toward the death
and destruction in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Iran,
and elsewhere. That mindset of callous indifference to
the lives of foreigners was best exemplified by U.S.
Ambassador to the United Nations, Madeleine Albright,
who publicly stated that the deaths of half-a-million
Iraqi children from the sanctions were "worth it."
Immediately after the 9/11 attacks, all too many
Americans didn't want to hear any arguments over what
had motivated the attackers to commit such a horrific
act on American soil. Themselves overtaken by
tremendous anger and rage, all that such Americans
wanted was revenge and retaliation. There was little
rational thinking taking place after 9/11, which,
again, is a good reason why we should engage in it
now.
We mustn't forget that anti-American terrorism didn't
start with the 9/11 attacks in 2001. Recall that in
1993, there was a terrorist attack on the World Trade
Center. There were also the terrorist attacks on the
USS Cole and on U.S. embassies in East Africa.
Every time the terrorists explained why they had done
it, they pointed to the U.S. government's
interventionism in the Middle East, including its
killing of people in Iraq. In fact, it was U.S.
foreign policy that Osama bin Laden himself pointed to
when he issued his pre-9/11 fatwa against America.
All the anti-American terrorist strikes and, indeed,
the attacks on U.S. troops in Afghanistan, have one
purpose: no, not to conquer the United States and
deprive Americans of their rights and freedoms, but
rather to rid their part of the world of U.S. troops,
sanctions, assassinations, and other U.S. governmental
interference with that part of the world. That's what
the fighting and killing is all about — not to defend
the lives and freedoms of the American people but
rather to defend the authority of the U.S. government
to interfere in the affairs of other countries.
The most powerful arguments against the assassinations
and sanctions rest on moral grounds. But Americans
would be wise to ponder an argument against them based
on grounds of self-interest. Such programs are likely
to subject Americans to more terrorist attacks,
followed by heavier and more widespread infringements
on their rights and freedoms at the hands of their own
government, the government whose very own policies are
motivating foreigners to join the ranks of
anti-American terrorists.
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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