The National-Security State And The Dark Side: The Post-9/11 Kidnappings, Torture, Renditions, Indefinite Incarcerations
28 January 2013
By Jacob G. Hornberger
It seems to me that the most ardent proponents of such
things as assassination, indefinite detention,
torture, and assassination would concede that all
these things reflect a dark side to which our nation
has been led since 9/11. They would tell us, however,
that such things are just necessary to protect our
nation in the "war on terrorism" and to defend "our
rights and freedoms" from those who would take them
away.
Unfortunately, all too many Americans have bought into
this notion. Their feeling is that while they might be
discomforted by the dark things that the
national-security state is doing to people, they can
be excused because they are being done in the defense
of our nation and of "our rights and freedoms."
But the truth is that none of this is necessary at
all. It is instead a direct consequence of having
grafted the national-security state — i.e., the vast
military and intelligence establishment — onto our
constitutional order and of having failed to dismantle
it a long time ago.
For the past 12 years, the warfare statists have told
us that our nation is gravely threated by al-Qaeda and
other terrorists. Yet, where are the invading forces?
Where are the ships transporting armies of terrorists
across the oceans to attack and occupy the United
States? Where are the long supply lines for the
occupying terrorists? Indeed, where is the money to
finance such an enormous endeavor, one that would far
exceed Nazi Germany's unsuccessful attempt to cross
the English Channel and successfully conquer Great
Britain?
The threat is non-existent. The anti-American
terrorists not only lack the means to invade, conquer,
and occupy the United States, they also lack the
interest. Their goal is singular in nature: to kick
the U.S. national-security state out of their
countries and out of their part of the world.
That's what all the fighting, assassination,
invasions, occupations, rendition, torture, indefinite
detentions, sanctions, military tribunals, and denial
of due process are all about.
On the one side is the U.S. national-security state
proclaiming its "right" to maintain military bases and
troops in foreign countries and to dominate,
influence, and interfere with the affairs of such
countries.
On the other side are the people within those
countries, who are saying, "Butt out of our affairs
and return home to your own country."
Even the 9/11 attacks were not the first stage of an
overall terrorist invasion and occupation of the
United States. Instead, they were retaliation for the
things the U.S. national-security state had been doing
in the Middle East prior to that time, including
support of brutal dictatorships, unconditional aid to
the Israeli government, the brutal sanctions against
Iraq that were killing untold numbers of Iraqi
children, the declaration by U.S. Ambassador to the UN
Madeleine Albright that the deaths of half-a-million
children from the sanctions were "worth it," the
Persian Gulf intervention, and the illegal no-fly
zones over Iraq.
It was those things that engendered the anger and
hatred that brought people in that part of the world
to finally strike against the United States with acts
of terrorism. It had nothing to do with a desire to
invade, conquer, and occupy the United States and
deprive Americans of their "rights and freedoms."
That's what motivated not just the 9/11 attacks but
also all the other anti-American terrorist strikes,
including the terrorist strike on the USS Cole, the
U.S. embassies in East Africa, and the World Trade
Center in 1993.
The thing to keep in mind is that the post-9/11
invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan,
along with the post-9/11 kidnappings, torture,
renditions, indefinite incarcerations, support of
dictatorships, bombings, and assassinations are just
more of the same sorts of things that were making
people angry before 9/11. The more the
national-security state does these types of things to
people, the more incentive people have to retaliate.
That's what all too many Americans have to confront
but yet find it so difficult to confront — that the
very threat that has caused America to move to the
dark side with measures that genuinely threaten our
freedom and well-being at the hands of our own
government — has been produced by the U.S.
national-security state itself.
To put it another way, if the U.S. national-security
state wasn't butting into the affairs of other
countries, there would be no anti-American terrorist
threat, the threat that U.S. officials use as the
excuse for adopting all those dark-side policies,
policies that are characteristic of dictatorial
regimes, some of which the national-security state has
installed, supported, and trained in the name of
"national security."
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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