01 December 2016
By Jacob G. Hornberger
Those who keep hoping that gun control will protect them from terrorist
retaliation for U.S. interventionism in the Middle East had their hopes dashed
last week at Ohio State University. That's because the lack of gun didn't stop
Abdul Razak Ali Artan, a Somali-born Ohio State student, from intentionally
driving a car into pedestrians and then slashing people with a butcher knife.
This is what all too many Americans just don't yet get — that local, state,
and federal government officials cannot keep everyone safe all the time from
the threat of terrorist retaliation for the U.S. national-security state's
continued interventionsim in the Middle East and Afghanistan.
Last summer I was speaking at the annual Freedom Fest conference in Las Vegas.
When I walked outside in daytime and nighttime, I was absolutely stunned by
the large crowds on the sidewalks. I thought to myself: All of us are sitting
ducks for anyone who wishes to kill Americans in retaliation for the U.S.
government's perpetual killing machine in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Somalia,
and Afghanistan. That is, there was nothing local authorities in Las Vegas
could do to prevent a car going at top speed from plowing into the throng of
people on some sidewalk on the strip.
This past year, the Washington Nationals baseball team began requiring
everyone to walk through a metal detector, another sign of how the Pentagon
and the CIA have altered American society through their interventionist antics
abroad.
Okay, that's fine for baseball fans. But do you see any metal detectors at
shopping malls or most other private buildings? All that a person has to do is
take a big bomb into one of those places and detonate it. No gun needed.
This week the Islamic State took credit for the assaults at Ohio State,
calling Artan one of its ''soldiers.'' According to the New York Times,
Shortly before the attack, the student had warned on social media about what
he called mistreatment of Muslims, NBC reported. If the United States wants
''Muslims to stop carrying lone wolf attacks, then make peace with 'dawla in
al sham.' [the Islamic State's territory in Syria and Iraq].''
Ever since 9/11, interventionists have hoped that after every terrorist attack
here in the United States, there would be evidence that the attackers were
motivated by their religious faith. In that way, interventionists could say,
''See, it has nothing to do with the fact that the U.S. government is killing,
maiming, kidnapping, torturing, abusing, and humiliating Muslims over there.
It's all because Muslims are coming to America to establish a caliphate.''
Alas, their hopes have been dashed every single time. Every person who has
engaged in a terrorist attack on American soil — stretching back to the 1993
terrorist attack on the World Trade Center — has expressly stated that he has
been motivated by the death and destruction that U.S. interventionism has
wreaked in the Middle East or Afghanistan.
Why are interventionists so obtuse when it comes to anti-American terrorist
blowback from U.S. interventionism abroad? Because the national security state
— i.e., the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA — is their everything. It is their
god. The last thing they are ever going to do is question or challenge
whatever their god is doing.
In the meantime, as I have pointed out time and time again even before the
9/11 attacks, the anti-American terrorist blowback will continue so long as
the Pentagon and the CIA continue to kill people over there. Consider it
simply a cost of interventionism.
Should that cause Americans to live their lives in fear or deep anxiety?
Should Americans continue sacrificing their rights and liberties to the
national-security state in order to be kept ''safe'' from the terrorist threat
that is being generated by the national-security state's continued
interventionism abroad?
Of course not! Just because there are terrorist retaliatory attacks here in
the United States doesn't mean that the Muslims are coming and invading
America and taking over the federal government and replacing President-Elect
Trump's cabinet picks with theirs. It just means that a certain relatively
small number of Americans will continue to be killed or injured, like those at
Ohio State, out of retaliation for the U.S. government's continued killing in
the Middle East and Afghanistan.
Of course, that's no consolation for those who do hit the blowback lottery,
like those students at Ohio State, or the people in that nightclub in Orlando,
or the people at the Boston Marathon, or the people in San Bernardino, and
others yet to come. For those who hit the blowback lottery, the number of
people killed and injured doesn't look relatively small.
I know that I say this after every terrorist attack but it bears repeating: If
Americans want to live lives of normality and peace — that is, lives where
terrorist blowback no longer exists, there is only one way to achieve that:
Bring the troops home now. Not one more killing at the hands of the U.S.
national-security establishment. Leave ISIS, the organization that the U.S.
invasion of Iraq brought into existence, alone. ISIS is not coming to get us
and isn't going to take over the federal government. Leave the Middle East
alone to work out the solutions to the chaos and mayhem that U.S.
interventionism has produced and continues to produce. Stop pouring
interventionist fuel on the fire that U.S. interventionism has unleashed.
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.
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