We now live in a country whose government wields the legal authority to round up people, including citizens, and take them to concentration camps, detention centers, or military dungeons where the government can torture them, incarcerate them indefinitely, and even execute them as suspected terrorists.

We now live in a country whose government wields the legal authority to send its military and intelligence forces into any country anywhere in the world, kidnap people residing there, and transport them to a prison for the purpose of torture, indefinite detention, and even execution. We now live in a country whose government wields the legal authority to sneak and peek into people’s homes or businesses without warrants; to monitor their emails, telephone calls, and financial transactions; and to spy on the citizenry.

We now live in a country whose government wields the legal authority to support, with money and armaments, totalitarian regimes all over the world and to enter into partnerships with them for the purpose of torturing people whom the U.S. government has kidnapped.

We now live in a country whose government wields the legal authority to assassinate anyone it wants, including American citizens, anywhere in the world, including here in the United States. We now live in a country whose government wields the legal authority to impose sanctions and embargoes on any other nation and to severely punish the American people and foreign citizens and foreign companies who violate them.

We now live in a country whose government wields the legal authority to invade and occupy any country on earth, without a congressional declaration of war, for any purpose whatever, including regime change and the securing of resources.

And it’s all justified under the rubric “national security.”

Most people would concede that that’s not the kind of country that America is supposed to be. The nation was founded as a constitutional republic, one whose governmental powers were extremely limited. In fact, the whole idea of using the Constitution to bring the federal government into existence was to make clear that the government’s powers were limited to those enumerated in the Constitution itself. To make certain that everyone got the point, the American people secured the passage of the Bill of Rights, which further clarified the extreme restrictions on government power.

Four separate amendments in the Bill of Rights address the power of the federal government to take people, both Americans and foreigners, into custody and to inflict harm on them: the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments. Due process of law, right to counsel, grand-jury indictments, trial by jury, search and seizure, cruel and unusual punishments, bail, speedy trial — they are all expressly addressed, reflecting how important they were to our American ancestors and to their concept of a free society.

In the age of national security, all of those protections have been rendered moot. They have all been trumped by the concept of national security.

Ironically, the term isn’t even found in the Constitution. One searches in vain for some grant of power anywhere in that document relating to “national security.” It isn’t there. Nonetheless, the government now wields omnipotent powers — powers that the greatest totalitarian dictatorships in history have wielded — under the rubric of “national security.”

With the exception of libertarians, hardly anyone questions or challenges it, including those who profess an ardent allegiance to the Constitution. Consider, for example, the Constitution’s Interstate Commerce Clause. For decades, both libertarians and conservatives have complained that the meaning of that clause has been so expanded as to transform it into a general grant of power enabling the federal government to regulate the most minute, localized aspects of economic activity.

Yet here’s a phrase — “national security” — that isn’t even found in the Constitution, which has been interpreted to grant omnipotent, totalitarian-like powers to the federal government, and conservatives have been rendered mute.

It would be one thing if there had been an amendment to the Constitution stating, “The federal government shall have the power to do whatever it deems necessary in the interests of national security.” At least then one could argue that such totalitarian measures were constitutional.

But that’s not the situation we have here. We have the government coming up with a concept known as “national security,” which it has then used to adopt powers that would otherwise violate the Constitution. It’s as if national security has been made the foundation of the nation. Everything else — the Constitution, society, the citizenry, freedom, prosperity — are then based on that foundation.

The goodness of national security

What is “national security”? No one really knows. There is certainly no precise definition of the term. It’s actually whatever the government says it is. National security is one of the most meaningless, nebulous, nonsensical terms in the English language, but, at the same time, the most important term in the lives of the American people.

All the government has to do is say “national security,” and all discussion and debate shuts down. If the government says that national security is at stake, that’s the end of the story. Federal judges will immediately dismiss lawsuits as soon as the government claims, “The case is a threat to national security, your honor.” Congress will immediately suspend investigations when the government claims that national security is at stake. The Justice Department will defer to the national-security establishment when it raises the issue of national security.

National security, a term not even in the Constitution, trumps everything. It trumps the judiciary. It trumps the legislative branch of government. It trumps federal criminal investigations. This nebulous term, whose meaning is whatever the government wants it be at any particular time, has been made the foundation of American society.

What is the national-security establishment? It is composed of several agencies, two of the main ones being the vast military-industrial establishment and the CIA. Those two entities have done more to transform American life than anything else, even more than the welfare state. They are the entities that enforce the sanctions and embargoes and engage in the invasions, occupations, regime-change operations, coups, assassinations, torture, indefinite incarcerations, renditions, partnerships with totalitarian regimes, and executions — all in the name of “national security.”

One of the most fascinating aspects of all this is how successful the government has been in convincing Americans of two things: that all this is necessary to keep them safe and, at the same time, that America has continued to be a free country notwithstanding the fact that the government has acquired and has exercised totalitarian powers in order to preserve national security.

When Americans see the governments of such countries as the Soviet Union or North Korea wield such powers, they can easily recognize them as being totalitarian in nature. When Americans read that the Soviet government rounded up its own people and sent them into the Gulag, they recoil against the exercise of such totalitarian powers. They have the same reaction when they hear that the North Korean government has tortured people within its prison system. It’s the same when Americans hear that the Chinese government has arrested and incarcerated people for years without charges or trial.

But when the U.S. government does such things or even just claims the authority to do them — in the name of national security — the mindset of the average American automatically shifts. It can’t be evil for the U.S. government to wield such powers because the agents who are wielding them are Americans, not communists. They have an American flag on their lapel. They have children in America’s public schools. They’re doing it to keep us safe. They’re on our side. We wouldn’t be free without them. They’re preserving our national security. In fact, another fascinating aspect to all this is the mindset of those within the national-security establishment itself. Even though they are wielding the same kinds of powers that are wielded by totalitarian regimes, the last thing in their minds is that they’re doing anything evil or immoral. In their mind, they’re fighting evil in order to preserve security and freedom. Sure, they have to do some unsavory things, but those things are necessary to preserve the nation. Americans are safe and free because of things they’re doing, and we’re supposed to be grateful that they’re doing them.

After all, as advocates of the national-security state often remind us, the Constitution is not a suicide pact. If measures have to be taken to preserve the nation — or the security of the nation — that are inconsistent with the Constitution, then so be it. What good would it do to adhere strictly to the Constitution if, by doing so, the nation were to fall to the terrorists or the communists?

Thus, when officials in totalitarian regimes round people up without charges, incarcerate them indefinitely, torture them, and execute them, what they are doing is evil. But when officials within the U.S. national security state do those same things — and more — they look upon themselves as good and the citizenry look upon them in the same way, simply because they are doing it to advance freedom and to preserve the national security of the United States.

And even then, things are not so clear, at least not when it comes to national security. For example, some foreign totalitarian regimes are considered evil while others are considered good. Consider, for example, Iran and North Korea. In the mindset of the U.S. national-security establishment, they are considered to be evil totalitarian regimes.

But then consider, say, Egypt, which has been ruled by a brutal military dictatorship for nearly 30 years, a totalitarian regime that wields the same kind of totalitarian powers that the U.S. government now wields. For decades, Egyptian military and intelligence forces have rounded people up, taken them to prison camps for indefinite detention, tortured them, and executed them, without formal charges and trial.

Nonetheless, the U.S. national-security establishment has long looked on the Egyptian military dictatorship as good, because of its close relationship with the U.S. national-security state. In fact, during the past several decades the U.S. government has sent hundreds of millions of dollars in money and armaments to Egypt to help fund its totalitarian military dictatorship, and there has been close cooperation between the national-security apparatuses of both nations. In fact, Egypt’s national-security state even agreed to serve as one of the U.S. empire’s rendition-torture partners, a relationship that enables U.S. officials to send a kidnapped victim to Egypt for the purpose of torture.

Good regime, bad regime

Sometimes, the nether world of national security becomes even more clouded, with some nations shifting back and forth from good to evil. Consider Iran and Iraq, for example. In 1953, Iran was considered a threat to U.S. national security. Thus, the CIA, one of the principal components of the U.S. national-security establishment, engaged in its first regime-change operation, one that succeeded in ousting Iran’s democratically elected prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh, from power and installing the shah of Iran into power.

For the next 25 years, Iran was considered good, notwithstanding the fact that the shah’s regime was totalitarian in nature. In fact, the CIA even helped him and his national-security establishment to oppress the Iranian people. When Iranians finally revolted against the domestic tyranny that the U.S. national-security state had foisted upon them, Iran immediately became an evil regime in the eyes of the U.S. national-security establishment, notwithstanding the fact that the new regime wasn’t doing anything different than the shah’s regime had done. During the 1980s, Iraq had a brutal totalitarian regime headed by Saddam Hussein. Nonetheless, it was considered a good regime because it was friendly to the U.S. national-security state. In fact, during that time the relationship was so solid that the United States even sent Iraq biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction so that Saddam could use them to attack Iran (which was considered evil).

Later, when Iraq invaded Kuwait, the U.S. national-security establishment reclassified Iraq as an evil regime. Today, Iraq is headed by a democratically elected regime that exercises the same totalitarian powers that Saddam exercised, but it’s considered to be a good regime because it’s perceived to be on the side of the U.S. national-security state. If it ultimately formally aligns itself with Iran, as many suspect it will, it will find itself back in the ranks of the evil.

How did it all come to this? How did the United States become transformed from a constitutional republic into a national-security state? How did the concept of national security become the guiding star of American life, without even the semblance of a constitutional amendment? How did the national-security establishment — the vast, permanent military-industrial complex and the CIA — come to be the foundation of American society?

More important, is a national-security state truly compatible with the principles of a free society? Did Americans delude themselves into thinking that they could retain a free and safe society with a government that wields totalitarian powers? Did Americans sacrifice their freedom, their security, their values, and their consciences on the altar of national security?

Perhaps most important, has the time come to dismantle the national-security state in order to restore a free, prosperous, peaceful, normal, and harmonious society to our land? Is it time to restore a limited-government, constitutional republic, the type of government that was clearly envisioned by the Founding Fathers?

Let’s examine those questions. Let’s start by focusing on Cuba.

One of the most demonstrable examples of the turn that America took toward empire, militarism, and the national-security state has involved Cuba. That small nation 90 miles from American shores encapsulates the effect that such a turn had on the values and principles of the American people.

Consider the economic embargo that the U.S. government has maintained against Cuba for more than half a century. It has brought untold economic suffering to the Cuban people, especially in combination with the complete socialist economic system under which they have suffered during that same time.

What has been the purpose of the embargo? The answer: the preservation of national security through regime change — the ouster of Fidel Castro and his communist regime and its replacement with a regime that would be subservient to the U.S. government.

What role was the embargo expected to play in that process? The aim was to cause massive economic suffering to the Cuban citizenry — privation, poverty, and even starvation. Then, as a result of that suffering, the idea was that Castro would be removed from power either by a citizens’ revolt, a military coup, or abdication by Castro himself.

Obviously, the plan has never succeeded, although undoubtedly U.S. officials, 50 years after the embargo was instituted, are still hoping that it will succeed.

The embargo is also a classic example of how the turn toward empire, militarism, and the national-security state has warped the values and principles of the American people. While there have been those who have objected to the embargo, even from its beginning, by and large the American people have deferred to the authority of their government. If U.S. officials believed that an embargo against Cuba was necessary to protect the “national security” of the United States, that was all that Americans needed to salve their conscience over the harm that their government was inflicting on the Cuban people.

Ironically, a few years after the Cuban embargo was instituted, the U.S. government, under the regime of Lyndon Johnson, declared its “war on poverty,” a domestic war whose purported rationale was a deep concern for the poor in society. But the Cuban people were among the poorest people in the world, and the same government that was supposedly concerned about poverty was doing its best to bring more suffering to the poor in Cuba.

The Cuban embargo demonstrated one of the core principles of the national-security state: that the end, which was the preservation of “national security,” justified whatever means were necessary to achieve it. If national security required the government to inflict great suffering on the Cuban people, then that’s just what would have to be done. Nothing could be permitted to stand in the way of protecting national security, whatever that term meant. What mattered was that the national-security establishment — i.e., the military and the CIA — knew what national security meant and had the ultimate responsibility for protecting it.

For their part, Americans were expected to remain silent. They were expected to defer to the authority of their government. National security was everything.

Conscience, the casualty

What about conscience? What if Americans, whose traditional values encompassed compassion for the poor and empathy for the suffering of others, objected to the embargo? What about the Christian principle of loving thy neighbor as thyself?

Americans were expected to ditch all that, and most did. Conscience was abandoned in favor of national security. No matter how much suffering the Cuban embargo inflicted on the Cuban people, it wasn’t something over which most Americans troubled themselves. Given that U.S. officials had determined that national security necessitated the imposition of the embargo, that was all that mattered.

Conscience wasn’t all that Americans ditched with the Cuban embargo. They also abandoned traditional American values of private property, free enterprise, and limited government.

After all, while the embargo was ostensibly an attack on the economic well-being of the Cuban people, it was, at the same time, an infringement on the economic liberty of the American people. Under the principles of economic liberty, people have a fundamental, God-given right to travel wherever they want and to dispose of their money any way they choose.

But the embargo made it a federal criminal offense to spend money in Cuba without a license from the U.S. government, which, for all practical purposes, operated as a prohibition against traveling to Cuba. If an American was caught violating the embargo — say, by traveling to Cuba as a tourist — the U.S. government would prosecute him criminally or sue him civilly or both.

The irony was that that was precisely the sort of economic control that Castro was wielding in Cuba as part of his embrace of socialism. In the attempt to oust Castro from power, U.S. officials were imposing the same kinds of socialist controls on the American people that Castro was imposing on the Cuban people.

Most Americans remained silent. All that mattered was national security. If U.S. officials determined that it was necessary to adopt socialist methods in order to protect national security, that was sufficient justification to surrender an important part of economic liberty. The end justified the means.

In fact, the American mindset throughout the Cold War was even worse than that. It wasn’t as though Americans viewed their government as adopting evil or immoral means to protect national security. Instead, the viewpoint was that whatever was being done by U.S. officials to protect national security wasn’t evil or immoral at all. Instead, the mindset, both in and out of the U.S. government, was that even if the U.S. government was employing the same methods being employed by the communists, such methods were good when employed by U.S. officials and bad when employed by the communists.

Assassination

A good example of that mindset involved assassination. Ordinarily, in an objective sense, assassination is something bad. Assassination is murder, an act that is considered a grave sin under Judeo-Christian principles. Assassination is something that our American ancestors recoiled from as something objectively bad. When the Constitution called the federal government into existence, the power to assassinate was not among the enumerated powers delegated to it. Moreover, to eliminate any doubt on the matter, the American people, as a condition for accepting the federal government, demanded the enactment of the Fifth Amendment, which expressly prohibited the government from depriving people of life without due process of law.

All those principles went out the window when it came to Cuba and the Cold War. The national-security establishment engaged in numerous assassination attempts against Cuba’s president, Fidel Castro. The CIA repeatedly tried to murder him, in a variety of ways.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that U.S. officials justified their assassination attempts under the rationale of national security. The end — the preservation of national security — justified the means — assassination.

Meanwhile, Americans were expected to not question or challenge what the CIA or the military was doing in the name of national security. If they did, they themselves would come under close scrutiny by the national-security establishment.

Americans, for their part, understood that the national-security state was doing things that had to be kept secret from them — unsavory things but unfortunately necessary to protect national security.

It was as if a pact had been implicitly entered into between the American people and the officials of the U.S. national-security state. Under the pact, U.S. officials would have the omnipotent power to do whatever they felt was necessary to protect national security, such as assassinate foreign officials. Such things would be kept secret from the American people so that their conscience wouldn’t be troubled over the unsavory things that U.S. officials were doing to protect national security.

Americans, for their part, wouldn’t ask questions and would defer to the authority of their government. What mattered, first and foremost, was the preservation of national security, a concept whose ever-shifting meaning would be subjectively determined by officials of the national-security state.

Equally important, people both within the government and within the private sector convinced themselves that even if U.S. officials were doing unsavory things, such as assassinating people, such things were not evil because they were being done by U.S. officials to protect national security. That is, when the communists assassinated people, that was something bad. But when the CIA assassinated people, that was something good because it was being done by U.S. officials to protect the national security of the United States.

The CIA’s assassination attempts against Fidel Castro involved something even more unsavory — the secret partnership that the CIA entered into with the Mafia as part of its attempts to assassinate Castro.

Under objective standards of morality and just conduct, people would consider the Mafia to be a bad organization, given the bad things that it’s engaged in, such as murder, extortion, and bribery.

But objective standards were cast out the window when it came to the Cold War. If CIA officials determined that it was necessary, on grounds of national security, to partner with the Mafia to assassinate Fidel Castro, then it was considered okay from a moral standpoint. Moreover, while the other things the Mafia was doing were considered bad, once the Mafia united with the CIA to assassinate Castro that action was considered to be good. The end — the preservation of national security — justified the means—the CIA’s partnership with a murderous, law-breaking organization to assassinate Castro.

Let’s take a moment to remind ourselves that the aim of the CIA’s assassination attempts on the life of Fidel Castro was the same as that of the embargo: the preservation of U.S. national security through regime change in Cuba. The hope was that the assassination of Castro would bring into power a ruler who would be subservient to the U.S. government.

Other attempts

The assassination attempts on Castro’s life weren’t the only way that the CIA was trying to effect regime change in Cuba. The efforts at replacing Castro with a pro-U.S. ruler began with the CIA’s invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs, an action that took place a few months after John Kennedy assumed office as president.

The Bay of Pigs invasion was a CIA project that had originated under the Eisenhower administration. From the very beginning, the operation was based on a lie, one that the national-security state intended to sell to the American people. Even though the CIA was orchestrating the invasion, the plan called for U.S. officials, including Kennedy, the military, and the CIA, to lie to the American people about the role the CIA played in the operation. U.S. officials intended to falsely tell everyone that the invasion was carried out solely by Cuban exiles who just wanted to free their country from the communist tyranny of Fidel Castro.

Even though the deception was revealed in the aftermath of the invasion, official lying became an established principle under the national-security state. The end justified the means. If U.S. officials had to lie to protect national security, so be it. In such a case, the lying would not be considered bad. Since it was the U.S. government that was doing it for the sake of national security, deception by U.S. officials was considered something necessary and good. It was only deception on the part of others, such as the communists, that was considered bad.

There were also the numerous U.S.-sponsored terrorist attacks in Cuba, in which CIA-supported operatives would bomb or sabotage Cuban businesses, farms, and industries. Again, the end justified the means. National security was all that mattered.

One of the most tragic events during the Cold War period involved the terrorist downing of a Cuban airliner over Venezuelan skies. Dozens of people were killed, including the members of Cuba’s national fencing team. While there isn’t any direct evidence that the CIA was behind the attack, there is no doubt that the people who did commit the attack had the same mindset as the CIA — that the end justified the means.

Moreover, it is somewhat interesting that the U.S. government, to the present date, has steadfastly continued to harbor a man who has been accused of orchestrating the attack, a CIA operative named Luis Posada Carriles. For years, the Venezuelan government, with whom the United States has an extradition treaty, has sought the extradition of Posada to Venezuela to stand trial for the murder of the people on that plane. The U.S. government has continually refused to honor the extradition request. It should also be noted that Posada was convicted in Panama of trying to assassinate Fidel Castro, an act that Panama considered to be a criminal offense. He was later pardoned by Panama’s outgoing president, enabling him to immigrate to the United States, where the U.S. government has provided him with safe harbor, preventing his extradition to Venezuela.

Of course, the CIA wasn’t the only branch of the national-security state that was committed to effecting regime change in Cuba. The U.S. military establishment was also committed to achieving that goal. In fact, one of the most fascinating — and revealing — aspects of the military mindset during the Cold War involved a Pentagon plan known as Operation Northwoods.

The purpose of Operation Northwoods was to provide a justification for U.S. forces to effect regime change in Cuba through a military invasion of the country. The plan, which was unanimously approved by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was presented to Kennedy after the failure of the CIA’s Bay of Pigs invasion and before the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The plan called for U.S. agents to disguise themselves as agents of the Cuban government and “attack” the U.S. facility at Guantanamo Bay. It also called for fake Cuban agents to commit terrorist attacks within the United States, possibly involving the loss of innocent American lives to make it look good. The plan also called for the hijacking of an American airliner that would fall off the radar screens and be replaced by a pilotless drone that would be crashed into the sea, making it look as though the airliner itself had crashed. The plane would then be secretly flown back to a base in the United States. Ominously, the plan didn’t explain how the passengers would be released back to their families if they were thought dead.

The point of all this deception was to provide an excuse for ordering a military invasion of Cuba. The idea was that the United States would simply be responding to a Cuban attack rather than aggressing against Cuba with an unprovoked invasion of the island.

Under the plan, the Pentagon was obviously calling on the president to deceive the American people and the people of the world, just as the CIA had called on Kennedy to lie to Americans about its role in the Bay of Pigs invasion. The Pentagon expected Kennedy to go on national television, look straight into the cameras, and falsely tell the American people that America had been attacked by Cuban terrorists, thereby necessitating a U.S. invasion of the country.

To Kennedy’s everlasting credit, he rejected Operation Northwoods. He simply considered it wrong, in an objective sense. But it wasn’t wrong to the military establishment, just as the Bay of Pigs invasion, the assassination attempts, the partnership with the Mafia, and numerous terrorist actions against Cuba weren’t considered wrong by the CIA. Keep in mind that under the principles of the national-security state, the end justified the means, and whatever the U.S. government did to protect U.S. national security was automatically considered good.

Needless to say, however, Kennedy’s sense of moral propriety with respect to Operation Northwoods did not extend to the cruel economic embargo against Cuba, which Kennedy himself instigated, but not before he ordered a large quantity of Cuban cigars to be brought into the country and delivered to him at the White House.

The cause

So what was it that Fidel Castro did to justify the U.S. government’s invasion of Cuba, the numerous assassination attempts on his life, the terrorist actions against Cuba, and the 50-year-old embargo that has contributed to the deep economic suffering of the Cuban people? That truly is a fascinating question, one that I’d say very few Americans have ever pondered.

Did Castro ever attack the United States? Did he attempt to assassinate Dwight Eisenhower or John Kennedy or any other U.S. official? Did he ever engage in terrorist attacks within the United States?

No, Castro has never done any of those things — the things that the U.S. national security-state has done to Cuba.

So the question remains: Why? Why the long-time efforts at effecting regime change in Cuba? Why the embrace of all those unsavory actions? Why the abandonment of objective moral principles? Why the infringements on economic liberty? Why the abandonment of conscience?

The answer lies in what was the driving force of the entire national-security state after World War II and even before: the fear — the horrible, irrepressible fear — of communism.

In 2009 a retired U.S. State Department official, Walter Kendall Myers, 73, who is a grandson of Alexander Graham Bell, and his wife, Gwendolyn, 72, pled guilty to spying for Cuba for 30 years. Their crime entailed the transmission of U.S. “national defense” secrets to Cuba. As part of a plea bargain, he received a life sentence and she received a prison sentence of 81 months.

At their sentencing, the presiding judge, U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton, berated the Myerses for what they had done. Walton said to them, “If someone despises the American government to the extent that appears to be the case, you can pack your bags and leave and it doesn’t seem to me you continue to bear the benefits this country manages to provide and seek to undermine it.”

What had motivated the Myerses to spy for Cuba? It wasn’t money because they didn’t get paid for what they did. They told the judge that long ago, they embraced the philosophy of communism and socialism and the principles of the Cuban revolution. They said,

We did not act out of anger toward the United States or from any thought of anti-Americanism. We did not intend to hurt any individual American. Our only objective was to help the Cuban people defend their revolution. We only hoped to forestall conflict.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ordered a comprehensive damage assessment to determine how U.S. national security may have been harmed by the Myerses’ action.

There are several fascinating aspects to this case, all of which shed light on U.S. foreign policy under the national-security state for the past 70 years. For one thing, the judge never seemed to question or challenge the U.S. government’s conduct towards Cuba since the 1959 Cuban revolution. It’s as if that thought just never even entered his mind. He seemed to have just automatically concluded that since the Myerses had delivered classified “national defense” secrets to Cuba, that was the end of the matter. For the judge, that meant that the Myerses obviously hated the U.S. government and that they should have just moved to Cuba instead of undermining America.

Actually, however, the matter is more much complex than that, and if Walton had done his job properly as a judge, he would have taken into account U.S. foreign policy towards Cuba in determining whether to accept the length of the Myerses prison sentences under the plea bargain.

What was the specific information that the Myerses delivered to Cuba? Unfortunately, under principles of “national security,” the U.S. government won’t disclose that information to the American people, which seems odd, given that Cuban officials already have the information. But whatever the information was, it couldn’t have had anything to do with “national defense” simply because Cuba has never taken any aggressive actions against the United States. Instead, the information that the Myerses transmitted to Cuba had to be in the nature of “national offense” or “national aggression” because for the past 50 years it has always been the U.S. government that has attacked Cuba, not the other way around.

What has been the nature of the U.S. government’s program of aggression against Cuba for the past half century? Assassination, terrorism, sabotage, military invasion, and, of course, the continued maintenance of a brutal embargo, which, in combination with Cuba’s socialist economic system, has squeezed the lifeblood out of the Cuban people for more than 50 years.

Even the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, which brought the United States and the Soviet Union to the brink of nuclear war, was brought about not by an act of aggression by Cuba and the Soviet Union, as Americans are taught from the first grade on up. Instead, the truth is that it was the U.S. national-security state, and specifically its determination to invade Cuba, that precipitated the crisis. Here’s what really happened.

After the Bay of Pigs disaster, the Pentagon and the CIA became more determined than ever to get rid of Fidel Castro and replace him with a pro-U.S. stooge. The Joint Chiefs of Staff unanimously presented a plan to invade Cuba to John Kennedy. The plan was called Operation Northwoods. It is one of the most shocking proposals in the history of the U.S. national-security state.

Operation Northwoods

Operation Northwoods called for U.S. officials to initiate terrorist attacks on U.S. soil, on refugee boats leaving Cuba, and on the U.S. military facility at Guantánamo Bay. The plan also called for plane hijackings. Under the plan, the terrorists would seem to be Cuban agents. In actuality, however, they would be U.S. personnel falsely portraying themselves as Cuban agents.

Under Operation Northwoods, real people were to be killed, including Americans. The president, who, of course, would be in on the scheme, would go on national television, look into the camera, and inform the American people that Cuba had attacked the United States. In other words, he would lie to Americans and to the world. He would then announce that as a matter of national security, he was ordering a military invasion of Cuba.

One of the most fascinating aspects of Operation Northwoods was the belief among the Joint Chiefs of Staff that such a wide-ranging conspiracy, which obviously would involve many personnel in both the military and CIA, could and would be kept secret from the American people and the people of the world — and for a very long time. As it was, no one who was privy to the plan, including the entire Joint Chiefs of Staff, ever talked. The U.S. government succeeded in keeping the proposal itself secret for more than 30 years, until the JFK Records Act of 1992, which was enacted in the wake of Oliver Stone’s movie JFK, caused the plan to be disclosed to the public.

Another fascinating aspect of Operation Northwoods was the willingness of the Pentagon to sacrifice the lives of innocent people, including American citizens, as part of fake terrorist attacks to justify an invasion of Cuba. The idea, which has always been a guiding principle for the national-security state, especially within both the military and the CIA, was that the end justified the means.

To his credit, Kennedy rejected Operation Northwoods. But that didn’t dissuade the Pentagon and the CIA from continuing to support an invasion of Cuba. As it turned out, the chatter about invading Cuba reached both Cuba and the Soviet Union.

While Castro’s forces could defeat a small force of Cuban exiles, as it did at the Bay of Pigs, resisting a full-fledged military invasion of Cuba was another thing altogether. Castro knew that he didn’t stand a chance. If the U.S. military invaded the island, his forces would be easily defeated and he would be ousted or, more likely, killed in the operation.

The missile crisis

That’s what motivated Castro to approach the Soviet Union about installing nuclear missiles in Cuba, not as a way to initiate a nuclear war on the United States but instead as a way to deter a U.S. invasion of Cuba, an invasion that the military and the CIA were discussing, planning, and proposing from the time of the Bay of Pigs disaster in 1961 to the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.

In the end, Castro’s strategy succeeded. While it appeared that Kennedy had caused the Soviets to back down and withdraw their nuclear missiles from Cuba, the price for doing that was twofold: one, Kennedy promised that the United States would not invade Cuba, a promise that earned him the deep enmity of the Pentagon, the CIA, and Cuban exiles; and, two, Kennedy promised to remove nuclear missiles aimed at the Soviet Union that were installed in Turkey, which bordered the Soviet Union.

Throughout the Cuban Missile Crisis, the military and the CIA were exhorting Kennedy to bomb and invade Cuba. In their minds, the missile crisis was proof positive that the president should have accepted their proposals for invading Cuba in the months preceding the crisis. Moreover, the military and the CIA viewed the missile crisis as an opportunity — the perfect excuse to effect regime change in Cuba through force. The CIA even sent sabotage teams into Cuba in preparation for the invasion without the knowledge or approval of the president. The military, for its part, raised the nuclear-alert level to the second-highest possible level and let the Soviets know about it, again without the consent of the president.

Fortunately, Kennedy and the Soviet premier, Nikita Khrushchev, were able to extricate themselves from the crisis. As Soviet records later documented, nuclear missiles had already been installed and made operational, with authority given to commanders in Cuba to fire them in the event of a U.S. invasion of the island. If Kennedy had done what the Pentagon and the CIA wanted him to do — bomb and invade Cuba — there is no doubt that full nuclear war would have been the result.

That’s how close the U.S. national-security state brought America and the Soviet Union to a nuclear holocaust.

In any event, the classified information that the Myerses were delivering to Cuba during the past 30 years couldn’t have had anything to do with “defense,” as Secretary of State Clinton intimated. It had to do with the acts of aggression that the U.S. government was committing against a sovereign and independent regime that has never engaged in any acts of aggression against the United States.

That’s what Americans so easily forget — that in the 50 years of “conflict” between Cuba and the United States, it has always been the U.S. government that has been the aggressor, and it has always been Cuba that has had to defend itself from the U.S. government’s aggression.

Let’s keep in mind some important facts here: Cuba has never attacked the United States. Cuba has never invaded the United States. It has never engaged in terrorist attacks or acts of sabotage either in the United States or against U.S. installations overseas, not even at the U.S. military installation at Guantánamo Bay. It has never attempted to assassinate U.S. officials or anyone else on American soil, either in partnership with the Mafia or anyone else. It has never implemented an economic embargo against the United States. It has never tried to effect regime change in the United States.

Instead, it has been the U.S. government that has done all those things to Cuba. It has invaded the island. It has engaged in terrorist attacks and acts of sabotage in Cuba. It has repeatedly tried to assassinate Fidel Castro and other Cuban officials, even going so far as to enter into an assassination partnership with the Mafia to do so. It has maintained a brutal economic embargo against Cuba for more than half a century. And it has consistently maintained a policy of regime change on the island, with the intent of ousting Castro from power and replacing him with a pro-U.S. dictator.

It should be noted as well that Congress has never declared war on Cuba, which is the constitutionally required prerequisite to the president’s waging of war against other nations.

That’s what Judge Walton failed to take into account at the Myerses’ sentencing hearing — that the classified information that the Myerses delivered to Cuba during the past 30 years couldn’t have had anything to do with “national defense” because the United States never has had to defend itself from any acts of aggression from Cuba. The information that the Myerses transmitted to Cuba had to have pertained, instead, to the U.S. government’s acts of aggression toward Cuba, that is, to plans relating to assassination, invasion, terrorism, sabotage, or embargo.

How Americans should think

That’s why the Myerses said that they hadn’t acted out of anger towards the United States or from any thought of anti-Americanism. In their minds, they were simply giving information to Cuba to enable it to defend itself from U.S. aggression. In their minds, the U.S. government should simply have left Cuba alone.

But, you see, for Judge Walton and for officials in the U.S. national-security state, American citizens are never supposed to think like that. Under the principles of the national-security state, Americans are not supposed to make judgments on right and wrong when it comes to the actions of their government. They’re supposed to defer to the authority of their national-security state officials and to support them unconditionally, without question or challenge.

After all, the job of the national-security state is to keep Americans safe. U.S. officials are the guardians of national security. They are the ultimate judges both of what “national security” means and of what must be done to protect it. If they say that it’s necessary to invade a sovereign and independent country, to assassinate its officials, to

enter into an assassination partnership with organized crime, to engage in terrorism and sabotage within the country, and to squeeze the lifeblood out of foreign citizens with an embargo, then that’s just the way it is.

All Americans are expected to get on board. And whoever questions or challenges what the government is doing to protect their “national security” is considered suspect or, even worse, a bad person, or, worst of all, an enemy of the state or a “terrorist sympathizer” — a person who obviously hates his government and his country, especially given that under the principles of the national-security state, government and country are conflated into one entity.

The mistake the Myerses made was in delivering the information to Cuba, which placed them in violation of U.S. laws against spying and treason. If they had instead delivered the information to the New York Times, it would have made for an entirely different situation, similar to that of Daniel Ellsberg, the Pentagon official who released the Pentagon Papers to the Times during the Vietnam War, or to that of Bradley Manning, the U.S. soldier who is accused of having delivered classified information disclosing embarrassing matters relating to U.S. foreign policy to WikiLeaks.

Yes, the government would have nonetheless indicted and prosecuted the Myerses as it did Ellsberg and is doing to Manning. Moreover, Judge Walton would undoubtedly have still berated them if they had been convicted. But at least the information would have reached the American people, which might have caused more Americans to exercise some independence of thought and personal conscience, which in turn might have brought a change in U.S. foreign policy towards Cuba.

More examples

Another example of this phenomenon is the case of the Cuban Five. That case involves five agents of the Cuban government who were arrested by federal officials in the United States, prosecuted for spying, convicted, and sentenced to long prison terms by a federal court in Florida. Their crime? They came to the United States with the aim of ferreting out terrorist plots against Cuba.

For that, those five Cuban agents were considered bad people by U.S. officials — criminals! Imagine the audacity of those five men in trying to protect their country from terrorism. Don’t they know by now that Cuba is not supposed to defend itself against such things?

Consider Cubana Flight 455, which took off from Venezuela on October 6, 1976, and was returning to Cuba. It was downed by a terrorist bomb that had been planted on the plane. All 78 people on board were killed, including all 24 members of the 1975 Cuban fencing team, which had just won gold medals in Latin American competitions.

The prime suspect in the bombing was a man named Luis Posada Carriles, an agent of the CIA. Was Posada operating on behalf of the CIA when he supposedly orchestrated the attack? It’s impossible to know. We do know that he and the CIA claimed that he was no longer working for the CIA during that time. But the problem is that they would say that anyway, so there really is no way to know for sure. What we do know is that the U.S. government has steadfastly harbored Posada by refusing to honor an extradition request from Venezuela, notwithstanding an extradition treaty between the two countries. We also know that Congress has steadfastly refused to conduct a formal investigation into whether the CIA was behind the attack.

Let’s suppose that the CIA was behind the terrorist attack on Cubana Flight 455 and that the Myerses had discovered the plot when it was being planned. If they had delivered such information to Cuba, there is no doubt that they would have been treated in the same way they were treated for transmitting the “national defense” information that they actually transmitted to Cuba. Under America’s national-security state, any citizen, either inside or outside the government, who would disclose such information to a nation being targeted by the CIA is obviously a hater of the U.S. government and anti-American.

What has been the justification for the U.S. government’s actions towards Cuba? The justifications have been twofold: Fidel Castro’s refusal to submit to the control of the U.S. government and the fact that Castro was a communist who turned Cuba into a communist state.

Those two concepts — U.S. imperialism and the U.S. national-security state’s excessive and unreasonable fear of communism — have been driving principles of U.S. foreign policy towards Cuba and the rest of the world through much of the 20th and 21st centuries. They have also wreaked untold damage on our nation, our values, our economic well-being, and our freedom.

The day after Japanese forces attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941, they invaded the Philippines, where they killed or captured tens of thousands of American soldiers. The obvious question arises: What in the world was such a large contingent of U.S. soldiers doing in a land thousands of miles away from American shores? The answer lies in the turn towards empire that the United States took during the Spanish-American War in 1898. When Cuba and the Philippines revolted against the rule of the Spanish Empire, the United States intervened in the conflict, promising to help the revolutionaries to achieve independence.

America’s intervention succeeded and the Spanish Empire lost the war. Nonetheless, Cuba and the Philippines failed to secure their independence. The reason? The U.S. government insisted on replacing the rule of the Spanish Empire with the rule of what was to become the U.S. empire.

The result was another brutal war of independence in the Philippines, in which U.S. forces killed, maimed, or tortured hundreds of thousands of Filipinos in their successful quest to quell the rebellion.

Thus, the U.S. soldiers who were killed or captured by Japan at the inception of World War II were on U.S. territory that had been captured almost 50 years before as part of America’s turn away from a constitutional republic to a worldwide empire.

The U.S. government also treated Cuba as its colony, just as the Spanish Empire had done, effectively ruling the country for decades through a succession of brutal and corrupt dictators who would do the bidding of the U.S. empire.

Thus, the Spanish-American War was a watershed event for the United States, one that would ultimately lead to an empire with hundreds of military bases all over the world, along with an endless series of invasions, occupations, coups, assassinations, sanctions, embargoes, and regime-change operations, all intended to expand the reach of the U.S. empire around the world.

In fact, the corrupt dictator who ruled Cuba prior to Fidel Castro’s revolution, Fulgencio Batista, was one of the U.S. empire’s approved rulers, one who brutalized and plundered the Cuban people while doing whatever the U.S. empire requested of him. When the Cuban people revolted against Batista and replaced him with Castro, U.S. officials initially hoped that Castro would continue the tradition and place Cuba and himself under U.S. control. That hope, however, was soon dashed, as Castro made it clear to the U.S. empire and to the Cuban people that Cuba was, for the first time in history, to be a sovereign and independent country.

It is not a surprise that Castro’s position did not sit well with U.S. officials. The empire placed him squarely in its sights for a regime-change operation that would ultimately consist of an economic embargo, an invasion, assassination attempts, terrorism, sabotage, and almost nuclear war.

But there was another critically important factor that guaranteed that Castro would become the target of the U.S. empire. After seizing power, he revealed himself to be a communist, one who quickly began converting Cuba’s economic system to communism.

Those two factors — U.S. imperialism and U.S. anti-communism — became the twin driving forces of the U.S. government in the second half of the 20th century. More than anything else, those two forces would corrupt, warp, and pervert the principles and values of the American people.

From the first grade on up, American students are taught that “we” won World War II. Actually, the truth of that statement depends on how one defines the pronoun “we.” When “we” is defined to include the Soviet Union, then it is true that “we” won World War II. But when “we” is defined to mean the United States, Great Britain, France, and other non-Soviet Allied powers, then “we” did not win the war. It was the Soviet Union that won the war.

Recall, after all, the ostensible reason that Great Britain declared war on Nazi Germany. It was to free the Polish people from Nazi tyranny. What was the situation at the end of the war? Well, the Polish people were indeed freed from Nazi tyranny, only to have to suffer for the next 50 years under Soviet communist tyranny. From the standpoint of the Poles and, for that matter, other Eastern Europeans in the Soviet bloc, that was no victory.

But it was also no victory for the American people because almost immediately U.S. officials converted the Soviet Union from World War II partner and ally (and Hitler’s enemy) into a giant new enemy for the United States, a situation that would bring a half-century of crisis, chaos, conflict, and hostility during the Cold War and massive death and destruction in such hot wars as Korea and Vietnam.

Equally important, that new enemy would provide the justification for maintaining and expanding a massive and permanent military-industrial complex and for initiating a massive national-security state, both of whose policies and practices would end up looking strikingly similar to those of the totalitarian regimes that the United States had opposed during the war and was now opposing in the Cold War.

Anti-communist fervor

It is impossible to overstate the depth of the anti-communist fervor that characterized the Cold War. For those who were born after that era, the best way to describe it is that the fear of communism was about 1,000 times greater than the fear of terrorism is today. What was different, however, was that while terrorism involves a physical act of force, communism involved more than that. Communism also involved an idea, one that absolutely scared U.S. officials and much of the American populace to death. There were several aspects to the anti-communist fervor.

One aspect was the notion that the Soviet Union intended to initiate a war against the United States in which America would be conquered by the communists. Under that scenario, the American people would end up living their lives much like the people of Eastern Europe — under the iron boot of the Soviet Union.

A second aspect was the notion that communism would spread beyond Cuba, into other Latin American nations, which would enable them to mobilize military forces that would invade Florida and Texas and sweep up the Eastern seaboard, ultimately defeating U.S. forces and taking over Washington. Under this scenario, the Latin American communist forces would be serving as agents of the Soviet Union and would do its bidding after conquering the United States.

A third aspect was that communists would take control over European countries and Asian countries, causing the “dominoes” to continue falling until the final domino — the United States — would be toppled.

A fourth aspect was communist infiltration in the federal government and the public schools, where politicians, bureaucrats, and teachers would be serving effectively as moles of the Soviet Union, who would be indoctrinating the American people with communist ideas and, even worse, taking control of the reins of power and surrendering America to the communists.

A fifth aspect, which perhaps was the scariest for U.S. officials, was that communism would operate as a Sirens song, infecting the minds of the American people and seducing them into wanting and desiring a communist way of life, one in which people would eagerly and enthusiastically surrender their freedom in return for being taken care of from the cradle to the grave by the state. Under this scenario, communists would begin winning elections all across the land and gradually begin to seep into the federal bureaucracies, enabling them to bring communism to America in a purely democratic fashion.

All five of those aspects of the anti-communism mindset combined to produce a climate of constant preparation for war and a long, dark era of deeply seated fear that pervaded the United States and the American psyche. It was an era that was so frightening that Americans learned to defer to authority, to trust their government officials, and to place unwavering faith in them to protect “national security” and defend them from communism.

What was this thing that frightened people so much? Communism is an economic doctrine in which the state owns the means of production. In its purest sense, it means that the state owns everything in society. Since the state is the sole employer, everyone works for the state. The state guarantees that everyone will be taken care of with housing, food, employment, health care, education, and other important things. No more worries about losing one’s home, starving to death, being fired, or being unable to pay for medical expenses or for an education. Everyone’s needs are taken care of, from the day they are born to the day they die.

Needless to say, all that is a very attractive notion to many people.

The rise of socialism

What’s the alternative to communism or, to employ a similar term, socialism?

The alternative is a private-property, free-market way of life, one in which the means of production and most everything else are privately owned. People are free to engage in economic enterprise free of government regulation, to engage freely in mutually beneficial economic transactions with others, to accumulate unlimited amounts of wealth, and to decide what to do with it. In a system based on private property and economic liberty, which some might label as “capitalism,” the role of government is simply to protect people from the violence or fraud of others, to defend the nation in the event of an attack, and to provide a judicial forum by which disputes can be resolved peacefully.

Notwithstanding slavery and other exceptions, the United States had been founded on principles of private property and the free market. Despite the many exceptions, it was, in common parlance, a capitalist country. In fact, America’s free-enterprise economic system was one of the major things that distinguished the United States from all other nations in history.

Throughout the late 1800s and into the early 1900s, however, communism was becoming increasingly popular all over the world. Near the end of World War I, the Russian Revolution brought a communist regime to power in Russia. Moreover, socialistic ideas were percolating throughout Europe and Asia. By the time that World War II broke out, the United States itself had embraced a variation of socialism with its welfare-state way of life, one in which the federal government was expected to take care of people by means of certain important programs, such as Social Security.

Moreover, communist parties were playing active roles in the political process, including the U.S. political process.

All of that was too much for U.S. officials, who were convinced that unless the United States took a leading role battling communism around the world, it would end up being a communist nation. Thus, at the end of World War II, the Pentagon and a gigantic wartime military establishment became permanent fixtures in American life. Two years later, in 1947, Harry Truman signed into law the National Security Act, which brought the CIA into existence. Together, that permanent military establishment and the CIA would form the core units of America’s national-security state, which would, over time, effectively become a fourth branch of government having unbelievable powers of invasion, assassination, torture, and fomenting coups and regime-change operations. And the legislative and judicial branches and even the executive branch would not and could not touch it because of the overriding principle of “national security.”

What should the United States have done at the end of World War II? It should have come home and dismantled its wartime military machine. The war was over. Nazi Germany and Japan had been defeated. Sure, the Eastern Europeans were now under the iron boot of the Soviet Union but U.S. officials were partly responsible for that, not only in partnering with the Soviet communists during the war and relinquishing control over such countries to them, but also in their “unconditional surrender” demand by which they declined to enter into separate peace negotiations with the Germans that could have kept Eastern Europe free of Soviet control.

The U.S. government instead chose to maintain a massive level of military force in Germany to protect Western Europe from an attack by its World War II partner and ally, the Soviet Union. That’s what NATO was all about. Even worse, the U.S. government promised to defend nations all over the world from communist aggression, an open-ended commitment that would transform America into a militarist, garrison state.

War with the USSR?

What were the chances that the Soviet Union would start a new war against its former World War II allies? Virtually nil. After all, the Soviets had just lost more than 20 million people in the war. The entire nation, including its economy, was devastated Moreover, the U.S. government had sent a powerful message to the Soviets regarding U.S. military might with the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

What about the continued Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe? The reasoning was no different in principle from that of the U.S. government, which fiercely opposed any communist regimes in Latin America. After two world wars, the Soviets wanted puppet regimes in Eastern Europe to serve as a buffer against future invasions by Germany. The rationale was no more justifiable than the U.S. rationale for installing pro-U.S. puppet regimes in Latin America, but it certainly did not mean that the Soviet Union was embarking on a worldwide campaign of military conquest.

The national-security state’s fear of communism in Latin America went deep. Consider Guatemala. When a socialist named Jacobo Arbenz was democratically elected president in Guatemala in 1950, the Pentagon and the CIA went ballistic. They were convinced that with Arbenz’s election, the communists had established a beachhead in the Western hemisphere. Apparently, in the minds of the military and CIA, Guatemalan forces would cross into Mexico, ford the Rio Grande, conquer Houston and Dallas, sweep northeasterly, conquer Georgia and the rest of the South, take Washington, D.C, and then hand the keys to the capital to the Soviet Union. Oh, if they waited until after 1959, Castro’s communist army would invade and conquer Florida and then move north, conquering everything in its path before joining with Arbenz’s army outside Washington, D.C., to jointly accept the surrender of U.S. officials in Washington.

It was obviously a ridiculous, inane notion. But nothing was beyond the communist-possessed imagination of officials in the U.S. national-security state. In fact, when Pentagon and CIA officials learned that Arbenz had purchased a shipload of arms from Czechoslovakia, which was under Soviet control, that transaction was positive confirmation that the communists were planning a military takeover of the United States. Never mind that the Czechs had taken the Guatemalans to the cleaners by selling them a bunch of military junk. Some giant, worldwide, monolithic communist threat!

The national-security mindset was the same in Southeast Asia. The communists would take over in Vietnam, which would cause the Southeast Asian dominoes to start falling, ultimately resulting in a communist takeover of the United States.

That mindset turned out to be as ridiculous and inane as the one that related to Latin America. The best proof, of course, is what happened at the end of the Vietnam War. The dominoes didn’t fall and the Vietnamese communists didn’t invade and conquer the United States. In fact, soon after the reunification of the country, the Vietnamese communists got into a war with the Chinese communists. Today, Vietnam has friendly relations with the United States.

In fact, let’s return to Latin America for a moment. Today, Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Nicaragua have socialist-communist regimes. So what? What American feels threatened by that? Is anyone worrying that communist armies are about to cross the southern border of the United States or invade Florida? Like I say, the fear of communism and communists was inane, overblown, exaggerated, and irrational.

What about the Communist Party and American communists — that is, people in the United States who were committed to converting its system to a communist economic one?

In a genuinely free society, people are free to expound any ideas they want, no matter how despicable or unpopular. The American Communist Party should have been free to participate in the political process to its heart’s content, doing everything it wanted to peacefully persuade people to embrace communism and socialism. It was the duty of the government to protect them in the exercise of their rights and freedom. After all, the best way to combat a bad idea like communism or socialism is to promulgate a better idea, such as libertarianism, i.e., a free-market, private-property system.

Unfortunately, that’s not the way the Pentagon, the CIA, and the FBI, another important part of the U.S. national-security state, viewed things. In their eyes, people who advocated communism were bad people and, even worse, grave threats to the “national security” of the United States.

Thus, to protect “national security” from communism, the U.S. national-security state adopted policies and practices that in some ways mirrored the policies and practices of the very regime they had defeated in World War II — the Nazi regime — and the regime that they had partnered with in World War II and against which they were now waging the Cold War — the Soviet regime. Of course, U.S. officials justified the evil and immoral means they adopted to combat communism under the rubric of protecting “national security.”

Americans should have suspected that something was amiss when, after the end of World War II, U.S. officials began enlisting former Nazis into the service of the U.S. government. Given the massive death and destruction of World War II and the Holocaust, Nazi Germany was obviously one of the most evil regimes in history.  That’s in fact one of the major justifications given for America’s entry into World War II — to bring an end to that evil regime.

Yet here were U.S. officials recruiting and employing Nazis. The reason? The Cold War had started! While the Allies had vanquished Nazi Germany, they simultaneously acquired a new official enemy — the Soviet Union, which had served as their ally and partner during the war.

The U.S. embrace of Nazi functionaries signaled what would become a guiding motif for the U.S. national-security state: The end justifies the means. Whatever needed to be done to defeat communism — as represented primarily by the Soviet Union but also by Red China and North Korea — was considered morally justified. It was a motif that would ultimately lead to the embrace of policies that, ironically, characterized totalitarian regimes, including Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.

Consider, for example, the CIA’s highly secret drug experiments, a program known as MKULTRA. Under that program, the CIA subjected unsuspecting Americans to LSD and other mind-altering substances. They did it to people in hospitals, to people in prisons, and to others, with the knowledge and cooperation of officials in those facilities, always under a vow of secrecy. What they didn’t have was the consent of many of the people to whom they were administering the drugs.

What was the justification for those drug experiments, which somewhat resembled the medical experimentation that had been undertaken by the Nazis? Why, national security, of course. Pentagon and CIA officials had learned that the Soviet Union was conducting LSD experiments on people. Therefore, U.S. officials concluded that in order to keep up with the communists and ultimately defeat them, it was necessary to do the same thing. In war, sometimes people have to be sacrificed. The end justifies the means.

It is impossible to know how many people’s minds were damaged or destroyed or, indeed, how many people were killed, by the CIA’s drug experiments. When information about the program became public, the CIA destroyed most of its MKULTRA files, no doubt on the grounds of national security. After all, if the public and the world were to learn the details of MKULTRA, including the identities of the victims, the CIA could be damaged, which, in the minds of national-security-state officials, would logically threaten national security.

One of the best accounts of MKULTRA is found in the book A Terrible Mistake: The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA’s Secret Cold War Experiments, by H.P. Albarelli Jr. (2011). This fascinating and gripping book recounts the life and death of a CIA agent named Frank Olson.

For years, the CIA’s official story was that Olson had taken his own life while suffering the throes of depression. It was all a lie. Many years after Olson’s death, it was discovered that the CIA had actually subjected him to an LSD experiment, without telling him or asking him.

Once that truth came out, the CIA’s official story changed. Under its new story, it acknowledged that it had in fact drugged Olson without his knowledge or consent. Thus, it said that Olson was suffering from both hallucinations and depression as a result of the LSD experiment on him, which supposedly led to his jumping out of a window from an upper floor of a New York City hotel. Under the new official story, the CIA deeply regretted what it had done and apologized profusely to Olson’s widow.

Why would the CIA subject one of its own employees to an LSD experiment? Why, national security, of course. The CIA wanted to see how someone would react if he ingested LSD without being told in advance, information that could enable the United States to defeat the Soviet Union in the Cold War.

The natural question arises: Why would the CIA feel the need to do that to one of its agents, when that was precisely what it was doing to patients and prisoners in hospitals and prisons?

In his carefully researched book, one that relies on confidential sources within the CIA, Albarelli provides a convincing case showing that the CIA’s new official story was also a lie and that, in fact, it was a fallback position to disguise the CIA’s murder of Frank Olson.

Why would the CIA murder one of its own agents? Why, national security, of course. Albarelli’s research disclosed that Americans were not the only ones who were the subject of the CIA’s LSD experiments. He points to a small village in France, Pont St. Esprit, that in 1951 became a target of the CIA’s LSD experiments. The experiment resulted in the death of five people and in the need for 300 people to seek medical care or to be placed in treatment facilities.

According to Albarelli, Frank Olson had participated in that horrifying LSD experiment and was deeply troubled about it. Ultimately, in a crisis of conscience, he disclosed the highly classified secret to an unauthorized person.

In other words, Olson knew too much and talked too much. He had become a threat to national security. If people were to find out about the CIA’s LSD experiment on an entire village in France, that would damage the CIA, which in turn would threaten national security. There was no effective choice. In order to protect national security, Olson had to be eliminated. Albarelli’s sources revealed that Olson didn’t jump out of a window. He was thrown out of it, by two men working for the CIA.

Undeclared war

There were also several regime-change operations in different parts of the world, where agents of the national-security state initiated what can be described only as undeclared attacks on foreign regimes, with the goal of ousting their rulers from power and replacing them with U.S.-approved rulers — all under the notion that national security required that such operations be conducted.

In 1953, the CIA instigated a coup in Iran that succeeded in ousting the democratically elected prime minister, Mohammed Mossadegh, from power and replacing him with the brutal dictatorial regime of the shah of Iran. Needless to say, in justifying its coup, the CIA cited national security, saying that Mossadegh had been leaning toward communism and the Soviet Union. Never mind that British officials had asked the CIA to oust Mossadegh owing to his nationalization of British oil interests.

One year later, 1954, the CIA ousted the democratically elected president of Guatemala, Jacobo Arbenz, and installed a brutal unelected military dictatorship in his stead. The justification? National security, of course. U.S. national-security- state officials maintained that Arbenz was a communist, as reflected by his socialist economic policies and his sympathies for Guatemalan communists, some of whom were serving in his administration. Never mind that some high CIA officials and some members of Congress owned stock in the United Fruit Company, some of whose land in Guatemala was being seized and redistributed to the poor. U.S. officials were convinced that the national security of the United States would be severely threatened if a communist regime were permitted to exist in the Western hemisphere. When Arbenz was caught purchasing weaponry from the Soviet satellite state of Czechoslovakia, his fate was sealed.

It is interesting that defenders of the national-security state justify the CIA’s Guatemala coup by claiming not only that it protected U.S. national security but also that it saved Guatemala from tyranny and destruction at the hands of a communist regime. Their argument is that a country’s laws and constitution are not a suicide pact. Moreover, voters make mistakes, and if illegal means are necessary to save a country from such mistakes, then it is right and proper that such means be employed. The end justifies the means.

Arbenz was lucky. By fleeing the country early in the coup, he saved his life. It later turned out that among the CIA’s contingency plans were his assassination and those of other Guatemalan officials.

There were the countless regime-change operations against Cuba, a country that had never attacked the United States, including the Bay of Pigs invasion, terrorist attacks on Cuban soil, the U.S. embargo against Cuba, and, of course, the many assassination attempts against Fidel Castro and other Cuban officials.

In fact, there is every reason to believe that the CIA was behind the 1967 extrajudicial execution of Che Guevara, one of Castro’s fellow communist revolutionaries. After he was taken into custody by the Bolivian military, Guevara’s captors executed him on orders from above. The killing was a grave violation of international law. While the CIA has always denied any role in the illegal execution, the fact is that a CIA agent was present during the execution. Given the subservient nature of most Latin American regimes to the U.S. military, which has long supported and trained Latin American troops, the chances that the Bolivian military would have executed Guevara in the face of ardent opposition by the CIA are nil. Moreover, given that Guevara was on the CIA’s assassination list, the chances that it would have objected to his extrajudicial execution are also nil. Finally, soon after the execution the CIA issued a report detailing the benefits of Guevara’s death.

The CIA’s participation in another extrajudicial execution had occurred in South Vietnam a few years previous to the Che Guevara execution. A few weeks before the John Kennedy assassination, a CIA-supported military coup succeeded in ousting the South Vietnamese president, Ngo Dinh Diem, from power. Soon after Diem was taken into custody, South Vietnamese military forces executed him. While the CIA denied any role in the assassination, there is little doubt that the South Vietnamese military would never have done it if the CIA had fiercely opposed it.

It is not surprising that the CIA-supported regime-change operation in South Vietnam was justified by the claim of national security. Diem’s authoritarian regime — a regime that was long supported by the U.S. government — was so brutal and corrupt that it increased the odds of a communist takeover of South Vietnam. If the communists took over South Vietnam, that presumably would cause Southeast Asian “dominoes” to start falling, which would ultimately mean a communist takeover of the United States. Thus, the idea was that national security required Diem’s ouster.

Support for dictatorships

Support for brutal Latin American dictatorships, especially military ones, was another policy of the U.S. national-security state. Often pro-U.S. dictatorships were more brutal than communist ones. Like the shah’s pro-U.S. regime in Iran, the pro-U.S. dictatorships in Latin America, especially the military dictatorships, brutalized their own people — torturing them, “disappearing” them, and killing them with U.S.-trained military and intelligence forces. Whenever citizens who were suffering under such brutal dictatorships resisted the U.S.-supported tyranny under which they were suffering, they were considered communists and terrorists who needed to be captured, tortured, executed, or otherwise suppressed. National security required it.

U.S. officials didn’t care what their puppet regimes did to people within their own countries. After all, national security requires order and stability, which is, in fact, why the U.S. national-security state has always leaned toward pro-U.S. military dictatorships.

In fact, when American citizens became the victims of torture at the hands of U.S.-trained military or intelligence goons in Latin America, U.S. officials were noteworthy for their lack of interest. One example involved the torture and rape of an American nun, Sister Dianna Ortiz, who stated that present during her ordeal was a man who spoke Spanish with an American accent. Needless to say, no subpoena was ever served by Congress or the Justice Department on the CIA demanding the production of all CIA agents operating in Guatemala during the time that Sister Dianna was tortured and raped. Obviously, revealing the identities of such agents would have threatened national security; therefore Sister Dianna was simply left to adjust to her unfortunate experience without any expectation of justice from the U.S. government.

A similar example involved an American woman named Jennifer Harbury, who married a Guatemalan insurgent, Efrain Bamaca Velasquez, who was resisting the tyranny of the U.S.-supported military dictatorship in Guatemala. Bamaca was captured by Guatemalan forces and was “disappeared.” Harbury attempted to locate him and save his life through a series of hunger strikes and legal actions.

Through it all, the CIA claimed to have no information about Bamaca’s whereabouts. It turned out to be a lie. A U.S. State Department official blew the whistle and disclosed not only that the CIA knew where Bamaca was but also that it had a close working relationship with his torturers and killers. By the time Harbury acquired that information, Bamaca had been killed by his captors, another grave violation of international law. The CIA retaliated against the whistleblower by ensuring that he lost his security clearance, which was essential to his position at the State Department.

And at home …

In the United States itself, the preoccupation with communism and communists caused the national-security state to take extraordinary actions against the American people, actions that constituted severe violations of the principles of freedom.

First of all, there were investigations and accusations of Americans who were suspected of having connections to communism and the Communist Party. Reputations and careers were ruined on the supposition that anyone who believed in communism or had believed in communism during some part of his life was obviously a threat to national security.

Only a few people had the courage to point out that a free society protects the rights of people to believe anything they want, associate with whomever they want, and to promote anything they want, no matter how despicable such beliefs and associations might be to others. After all, to defend the right of people to be communists subjected the defender to the charge of being a communist.

Both the FBI and the CIA illegally spied on and closely monitored the activities of American citizens. Secret files were kept on people, often detailing nothing more than their sexual activity or other personal matters, with the aim of blackmailing them, embarrassing them, or destroying them.

Of course, those were the sorts of things that were done by the Gestapo and that were being done by the KGB. In the mind of the ordinary national-security-state official, however, such practices were evil only when committed by Nazis or communists, not when they were committed by U.S. officials, who were charged with the difficult and dangerous task of protecting national security from people like the Nazis and the communists. The end justified the means.

In fact, the communist scare started long before the formal advent of the national-security state. As Americans were later to find out, the federal government was keeping secret files on Americans suspected of being communists as far back as World War I, when U.S. officials were raiding, busting, and prosecuting communist-socialist organizations and deporting foreign residents for having communist views.

Among the most famous of the victims during that time was a Russian immigrant named Emma Goldman, who was arrested and deported for advocating anarchy and communism. She described her thoughts as she was involuntarily departing New York harbor: “It was my beloved city, the metropolis of the New World. It was America, indeed America repeating the terrible scenes of tsarist Russia! I glanced up — the Statue of Liberty!”

Among the national-security state’s favorite tactics during the Cold War was to plant “moles” within communist organizations, with the goal of getting their membership lists, spying on them, and looking for evidence of subversion and treason. If a person were caught doing something illegal, sometimes he’d be promised leniency if he agreed to become a spy for the national-security state.

Hardly anyone noticed the totalitarian nature of those extraordinary “national security” measures. That didn’t matter. What mattered was the defeat of communism. Anything that had to be done to achieve victory was justified. The end justified the means. If the United States was doing it, it had to be good, since it was being done to defeat communism.

Two organizations that the U.S. national-security state was determined to destroy were the U.S. Communist Party and an organization called the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, an organization that included many mainstream Americans who were sympathetic to the communist-socialist revolution in Cuba. U.S. officials successfully planted moles in both organizations. Such moles were trained by the national-security state to falsely portray themselves as communists. They were so well-trained that they successfully fooled people in those organizations into believing that they were genuine communists.

Meanwhile, at the height of the Cold War, as the U.S. national-security state was doing everything it could to destroy communists, one of the most mysterious episodes in the history of the national-security state occurred, an event that can be described as a Cold War miracle.

An American man who supposedly attempted to defect to the Soviet Union and promised to divulge to the Soviet communist regime all the information that he had acquired during his time in the U.S. military — a man who later returned to the United States and then openly started a chapter of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee — a man who openly corresponded with the U.S. Communist Party — a man who was a self-described Marxist — a man who supposedly visited the Soviet and Cuban embassies in Mexico with the intent to re-defect to the Soviet Union — sauntered across the Cold War stage with not even a single grand-jury subpoena, much less arrest, torture, incarceration, or criminal prosecution at the hands of the U.S. national-security state. That man was a former U.S. Marine named Lee Harvey Oswald.

At the height of the Cold War in the early 1960s, when the U.S. government was doing everything to defeat communism and destroy communists, one of the most remarkable series of events in the history of the U.S. national-security state took place. An American claiming to love communists, communism, and Marxism — a man who ostensibly did everything he could to join America’s official enemy the Soviet Union — a man who supposedly delivered top-secret information relating to national security to the Soviets — a man who campaigned openly here in the United States in favor of Cuba and communism — a man who may have visited the Soviet and Cuban embassies in Mexico with the ostensible aim of returning to the Soviet Union — sauntered across the Cold War stage with virtual immunity from adverse action at the hands of the national-security state. This phenomenal matter could well be described as a Cold War miracle. That man was a former U.S. Marine named Lee Harvey Oswald.

The official story: Oswald joined the Marines and became an avowed communist. Somehow during his time in the Marines, he taught himself Russian, a foreign language that many would agree is very difficult to learn, especially without the benefit of a language school or a tutor.

Shortly before his term in the Marines was up, Oswald secured permission to leave his military service early on the ground that his mother had been injured and needed assistance. It was a lie. Soon after being discharged, he made his way to the Soviet Union, although it is still not clear where he got the money to pay for the trip.

Once in the Soviet Union, Oswald went to the U.S. embassy, where he attempted to renounce his American citizenship. He also told U.S. officials at the embassy that he intended to disclose everything he knew to Soviet officials, a threat that had teeth to it, given that Oswald had been stationed at a U.S. Air Force base in Japan where the U.S. government’s top-secret U-2 spy plane was based.

After living in the Soviet Union for a few years, during which he married a Russian woman, he obtained permission from U.S. officials to return to the United States, even securing financial assistance from the U.S. government to make the trip home.

Moving to Dallas, Oswald found employment at a photographic center that just happened to perform classified work for the U.S. government.

Later, he moved to New Orleans, where he found employment at a company located in the heart of offices and agencies that had links to U.S. intelligence. While there, he established a local chapter of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, a pro-Cuba organization that the U.S. government had infiltrated and was attempting to destroy. At the same time, he was making written contact with the U.S. Communist Party.

During his time in New Orleans, Oswald pamphleteered in favor of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, even going so far as to distribute pamphlets on the street to U.S. troops disembarking from a U.S. Navy vessel. For some unknown reason, he stamped a return address on some of the pamphlets that led to the offices of a retired FBI official who had ties to U.S. intelligence.

Oswald also established contact with an anti-Castro group that was being secretly funded by the CIA and was closely supervised by a CIA agent named George Joannides, which for some reason the CIA kept secret for nearly three decades from — among others — both the Warren Commission in 1963 and the House Assassination Committee in the late 1970s. At first Oswald offered to help the group and then later shifted to his pro-Castro persona by involving himself in a public altercation with the group while distributing his Fair Play for Cuba Committee pamphlets. Jailed for disorderly conduct for that altercation, Oswald successfully sought a visit in jail from an active FBI agent.

Later, Oswald secured a visa to visit Mexico. Researchers have discovered that as he waited in line to secure his visa, a CIA agent stood in front of him in line, something the CIA also successfully kept secret for decades.

Then Oswald seems to have visited both the Cuban and Soviet embassies in Mexico City, seeking permission to return to the Soviet Union via Cuba. During those visits, he is said to have met with a chief assassin for the KGB.

Upon returning to Dallas, Oswald secured employment with the Texas School Book Depository, from where he is alleged to have shot John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. On November 25, Oswald was gunned down by a man named Jack Ruby. The Warren Commission later determined that Oswald was a lone nut who assassinated Kennedy all on his own.

How others were treated

Why does Oswald’s case qualify as a Cold War miracle? Because despite the fact that he was an avowed communist who had ostensibly betrayed his country, shamed the U.S. Marine Corps, divulged secret information to America’s avowed enemy the Soviet Union, openly promoted communism on the public streets of America, and visited the Soviet and Cuban embassies with the supposed intent of returning to the Soviet Union, the national-security state didn’t lay a finger on the guy.

No grand-jury subpoena. No grand-jury indictment. No illegal wiretapping of his telephone. No surreptitious delving into his sex life. No enemy-combatant incarceration. No torture. No harassment of employers.  Nothing significant against a man who was supposedly one of the greatest betrayers of his country in U.S. history.

Is that the way we would expect the U.S. government to behave toward such a person? We all know that it’s the exact opposite. We would expect the government to go after such a person with extreme vengeance.

Consider, for example, what it did to Daniel Ellsberg. He simply divulged the Pentagon’s lies and deceptions to the New York Times and, indirectly, to the American people. The government went after him with the ruthlessness that we would expect of it. It indicted him and sought to put him away in jail for many years.

But that wasn’t all. Men in its service also committed a felony by breaking into Ellsberg’s psychiatrist’s office. For what purpose? Simply to steal information on his personal life, including personal sexual matters, designed to shame him, humiliate him, and destroy his credibility.

That’s what we would expect of the government.

Recall what the government did to John Walker Lindh, the so-called American Taliban. It tortured him, it disrobed him, it posed him naked, it indicted him, it convicted him, and it sentenced him to a long jail term. What had Lindh done? He had involved himself in Afghanistan’s civil war by joining the wrong side — that is, the side that would become America’s enemy after the 9/11 attacks. For that, he paid a very high price at the hands of the U.S. national-security state.

The way the government treated Lindh is how we would expect it to behave.

Recall Martin Luther King Jr., who won the Nobel Peace Prize. He was a target of another principal agency within the national-security state — the FBI — and specifically of its longtime director, J. Edgar Hoover. Hoover’s war against communism predated even World War II.

Absolutely convinced that America was in danger of falling to the communists, Hoover and his FBI pulled out all the stops to prevent that from happening, from illegal wiretaps on American citizens, to surreptitious monitoring of people, to delving into the personal lives of Americans, especially their sexual activities and proclivities, to maintaining secret files on people, to infiltrating what were considered to be subversive organizations.

Among his major convictions was that the U.S. Civil Rights movement was actually a front for the international communist movement. That’s how he came to focus his FBI on Martin Luther King Jr., including secretly monitoring King’s personal life and placing illegal wiretaps on his telephone conversations. Worst of all was that Hoover and his FBI attempted to provoke King into committing suicide, with the threat of disclosing embarrassing matters that had been discovered with the illegal wiretaps.

None of that should surprise anyone. That’s how we would expect federal officials to behave when confronted with an American whose loyalties supposedly lay with the communists.

Consider Bradley Manning, the U.S. soldier who is accused of having released embarrassing information about the U.S. government to WikiLeaks. He has been locked away and brutally tortured with an extended period of solitary confinement, notwithstanding the fact that under our system of justice, he is presumed to be innocent. Indeed, we all know that U.S. officials are licking their chops at the prospect of getting their hands on the founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, and punishing him as a spy under the Espionage Act of 1917.

The recruit?

That’s how we would expect U.S. official to behave in such a situation.

Yet here we have a former U.S. Marine who had lied to secure early release from the military, supposedly become an avowed communist, supposedly defected to America’s Cold War enemy the Soviet Union, presumably delivered secret information to the Soviets that he had acquired during his military service, supposedly promoted communism on the streets of America, and supposedly visited the Soviet and Cuban embassies in Mexico and — not even a subpoena to testify before a federal grand jury, much less a grand-jury indictment.

What are we to make of that? It seems to me — and it has seemed to many Kennedy assassination researchers over the years — that there is only one likely explanation for the government’s strange conduct toward Lee Harvey Oswald — that he was actually a secret, highly trained operative for U.S. intelligence, most likely the CIA.

The thing is that once we overlay Oswald’s life with that hypothesis, the strange and unusual aspects of the government’s treatment of him disappear.

What better place for the CIA to recruit people than from the U.S. military, especially the Marine Corps? Don’t we ordinarily expect that people who join the Marines are extremely loyal to the government? If a poll were taken, most Americans would probably choose the Marines as the branch of service where you would be most likely to find loyal and patriotic military personnel.

How likely is it that a U.S. Marine is going to become an avowed communist? And if it were to happen, especially at the height of the Cold War, when the U.S. national-security state was doing its best to ferret out communists within the U.S. government and destroy them, how likely is it that the Marine Corps wouldn’t be concerned about a self-avowed communist in its midst?

But if he was a CIA recruit who was being trained to be a self-avowed communist, then obviously the Marine Corps would be fully supportive. Indeed, the Marines would have cooperated fully in Oswald’s learning of the Russian language during the time he was in the military.

Would it have been unusual for the CIA to be training people to appear to be genuine communists? Of course not. After all, both the FBI and the CIA were infiltrating pro-communist organizations, such as the U.S. Communist Party and the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, and planting moles in them. Those moles had to put on a good act, one in which they successfully kept secret the fact that they were actually working for the national-security state.

In fact, consider the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, an organization that included many prominent Americans, some of whom sympathized with the socialist principles of the Cuban revolution and some of whom simply opposed U.S. interference in Cuban affairs, including the U.S. embargo on Cuba. The U.S. national-security state, convinced that the organization was a communist beachhead within the United States, set out to do everything it could to destroy it, including planting a mole within the organization.

At the same time, the U.S. national-security state was doing much the same against the U.S. Communist Party.

So ordinarily you would expect the national-security state to go ballistic over Oswald, but that’s not what happened. Instead, at the height of the Cold War this former Marine who supposedly betrayed his country by becoming a communist and, even worse, went over to the side of America’s Cold War enemy the Soviet Union, sauntered across the national-security stage without incurring any of the ruthlessness and vengeance that we would expect from the U.S. government.

If, however, Oswald was actually a U.S. intelligence operative, it would explain why U.S. national-security officials didn’t lay a finger on him in New Orleans when this supposed betrayer of America, supposed lover of communists and communism, supposed pro-Cuba advocate tweaked the noses of U.S. national-security officials by publicly distributing Fair Play for Cuba pamphlets on the streets of New Orleans and, at about the same time, made contact with the U.S. Communist Party. In fact, it would seem that Oswald’s activities could easily be construed as part of the overall operation to destroy those two organizations.

Oswald’s role as an intelligence agent would also explain why a CIA agent was standing in front of him in line as he waited to get his visa to visit Mexico. It would also explain why the CIA, which closely monitored and photographed activities at the Cuban and Soviet embassies in Mexico City would do nothing to him after he supposedly visited those two places.

It would explain why the return address that was printed on some of Oswald’s Fair Play for Cuba Committee pamphlets led to the office of former FBI agent Guy Bannister and why Oswald was sometimes seen visiting that office.

It would also explain why Oswald, a supposed loser, had enough influence to request and receive a visit by an FBI agent to his New Orleans jail cell when he was arrested for disorderly conduct.

It would also explain why Oswald initially offered to help the DRE, the anti-Castro organization of Cuban exiles that was secretly being funded by the CIA and supervised by CIA agent George Joannides.

It would also explain why Kennedy’s brother Robert F. Kennedy said to an anti-Castro exile after Oswald had been taken into custody, “One of your guys did it.” Why would Kennedy place Oswald, a supposed pro-communist, into the camp of the anti-communists? It would seem that the only likely explanation is that he had information indicating that Oswald was in fact a U.S. intelligence agent.

The Warren Commission

On January 22, 1964, the Warren Commission held a meeting that would be kept secret from the American people. The session was called to address the rumor that Oswald was a paid undercover agent for the FBI. After the session was over, former CIA Director Allen Dulles, who was serving on the Warren Commission, stated that the transcript of the session should be destroyed. The Commission went along with Dulles’s suggestion. Years later, it turned out that a court reporter’s tape had survived the destruction. Its release was secured by longtime Kennedy assassination researcher Harold Weisburg.

How did the Warren Commission resolve the issue? They asked FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and CIA Director Richard Helms whether Oswald was, in fact, a U.S. intelligence operative. Both of them told the Commission that he was not, and that was the end of the matter.

The Commission obviously believed it had no choice but to accept the statements of both men at face value. After all, imagine the following headlines in the mainstream press: “Warren Commission Suggests CIA and FBI Lying about Oswald.”

That’s what the Commission would have been doing if it decided to delve more deeply into the matter — it would have been accusing Hoover and Helms of lying about Oswald. And how would the Commission have gone about investigating the matter? Obviously, both the FBI and the CIA would never have voluntarily turned over any documents indicating Oswald’s position.

So even investigating the rumor would have required an extremely aggressive action against both the FBI and the CIA. The chance that that would happen was nil. After all, this was the height of the Cold War. A fierce battle between the Warren Commission and the U.S. national-security state would obviously have posed a grave threat to national security, especially by suggesting that the CIA and the FBI were liars and that the supposed assassin of John F. Kennedy was an operative of U.S. intelligence.

The Warren Commission looked into that abyss and quickly turned away by accepting the representations of the CIA and the FBI that Oswald wasn’t a U.S. intelligence agent. After all, think about the potential ramifications if that was, in fact, what Oswald was. That would have converted Oswald from supposed lone-nut assassin to a supposed lone-nut CIA assassin. The Warren Commission would obviously have had a difficult time quickly reaching that conclusion without a serious investigation into Oswald’s CIA activities.

Actually though, there was another likely reason — a much bigger reason — that the Warren Commission refused to seriously investigate whether Oswald was, in fact, a U.S. intelligence agent. That reason would also explain why U.S. officials were so adamant about preventing Kennedy’s autopsy from being conducted in Dallas, as required by Texas law, and instead placing it into the hands of the U.S. military.

What was that much bigger reason? It revolved around the two most important words in the lifetimes of the American people since the end of World War II: “national security.”

One of the most fascinating aspects of the Warren Commission hearings was the extreme secrecy under which the hearings were conducted. Most of the hearings, both evidentiary and administrative, were closed to the public. Moreover, at the conclusion of the hearings the Commission ordered that most of the rec-ords be sealed from public view for 75 years.

Why? If the accused assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, really was nothing more than a lone-nut assassin who decided to kill John Kennedy after learning that his motorcade was traveling past the building in which Oswald was working, why all the secrecy? Why not simply open up everything to the public?

The answer lies in the concept “national security.” From the moment Kennedy’s assassination took place, the evidence suggests that high U.S. officials, including the new president, Lyndon Johnson, were operating on two tracks: one that pointed to Oswald as a lone-nut assassin and the other that pointed to Oswald as an agent of Cuba and the Soviet Union.

The first track was directed to the American people. Within a few hours after Oswald had been arrested, U.S. officials bent over backwards to assure Americans that Oswald had acted alone in killing the president. Federal officials immediately shut down any investigation into whether Kennedy had been killed as part of a conspiracy.

The second track involved what might be considered the gravest threat to national security in U.S. history, even graver than the Cuban Missile Crisis, which had brought the United States and the Soviet Union to the brink of nuclear war several months before the assassination.

If the American people were to learn that Oswald had been operating as an agent of Cuba and the Soviet Union when he killed their president, there is little doubt that they would have demanded immediate retaliation against both countries, which inevitably would have led to nuclear war.

The state-sponsored assassination of a foreign head of state would clearly have been considered an act of war. How could the United States not respond militarily to the communist assassination of its president at the height of the Cold War?

Why wouldn’t the U.S. government be willing to respond in such a fashion? One possibility involves a deep national-security secret at the time: It was the U.S. national-security state itself — specifically the CIA — that had begun the assassination game by repeatedly trying to assassinate Cuba’s leader, Fidel Castro. Also kept secret, on grounds of national security, was the fact that the CIA had entered into a partnership with the Mafia to assassinate Castro.

Therefore, how could Lyndon Johnson and the U.S. national-security state justify going to war against Cuba and the Soviet Union to retaliate for assassinating Kennedy, a war that would inevitably turn nuclear and cost the lives of tens of millions of Americans, given that the Soviet Union and Cuba would have been retaliating, not instigating, if they had used Oswald to assassinate Kennedy?

Shutting down track two

That would help to explain why U.S. officials immediately shut down any investigation into whether Oswald acted in concert with others. Under the official version of events, U.S. officials had no doubts that Oswald had done the shooting. But suppose they had concluded that he had acted in concert with others and that the only likely co-conspirators were Cuba and the Soviet Union. Owing to the threat of a massive war involving nuclear weapons, the evidence suggests that they used that threat to pin the murder solely on Oswald as a lone-nut assassin, to shut down any serious investigation into whether Kennedy was killed as part of a conspiracy, and to help cover up the evidence that he had been killed as part of a conspiracy.

Immediately after the shooting, the anti-Castro group with which Oswald had made contact in New Orleans, the Directorio Revolucionario Estudantil (DRE), began issuing public statements publicizing Oswald’s connections to Cuba, the Soviet Union, and communism. They talked about Oswald’s attempted defection to the Soviet Union, his pamphleteering for the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, and his pro-communist proclivities. The DRE was obviously doing its best to connect Kennedy’s assassin to Cuba and the Soviet Union.

What Americans did not know at the time and, in fact, would not learn for many years was that the DRE was being closely supervised and funded by the CIA, specifically by a CIA agent named George Joannides. When the House Select Committee on Assassinations began re-investigating Kennedy’s assassination in the late 1970s, the CIA called Joannides out of retirement to serve as the its liaison to the committee. Left secret, however, was Joannides’s role with the DRE in the months leading up to the assassination. Later, in the 1990s, when the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB), which had been established in the wake of the outcry caused by Oliver Stone’s movie JFK, began forcing the disclosure of assassination-related documents, the chairman of the committee suggested that the CIA had obstructed justice by keeping Joannides’s role secret. By that time, Joannides had died and, therefore, was unable to testify. It is interesting that to the present day the CIA steadfastly refuses to disclose all its information regarding Joannides’s relationship with the DRE.

When Johnson was establishing a commission to investigate the assassination, the evidence suggests that he employed track two — Oswald’s supposed complicity with Cuba and the Soviet Union — with at least two of the people he was recruiting to be on the commission — Chief Justice Earl Warren, who would become chairman of the commission, and Sen. Richard Russell. When both of them resisted serving on the commission, Johnson raised the specter of a nuclear war that would take the lives of some 40 million Americans.

Now, ask yourself: Why would Johnson say that? If Oswald was, indeed, nothing more than a lone-nut assassin, then how could an investigation into the assassination possibly lead to a nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union? The answer is this: by confirming, through an official government investigation, that Oswald’s  connections to the Soviet Union rose to a level of a Soviet-Cuban-Oswald conspiracy to kill Kennedy, which would very likely lead to retaliation and nuclear war. Thus, when Johnson told Warren and Russell about the possibility of a nuclear war arising out of the Kennedy assassination, he could have been alluding only to (1) the possibility that Oswald was acting on behalf of Cuba and the Soviet Union when he assassinated Kennedy, and (2) the importance to national security (and to the lives of millions of people) of pinning the murder solely on Oswald to avoid nuclear war with the Soviets.

Obviously, there was more than sufficient evidence to connect Oswald to Cuba and the Soviets — his self-professed devotion to communism, his attempt to defect to the Soviet Union, his connections to the Fair Play for Cuba Committee and the U.S. Communist Party, and his possible recent visits to the Cuban and Soviet embassies in Mexico City, where he may have met with one of the top assassins for the KGB.

But there was more than that. There was also evidence that Kennedy had been shot from the front. If Oswald shot from behind Kennedy, and if Kennedy was also shot from the front, then that could mean only one thing: Oswald wasn’t acting alone when he shot at the president, and the only likely co-conspirators, given Oswald’s background and connections, were Cuba and the Soviet Union.

Shot from the front

What was the evidence that Kennedy had been shot from the front? What follows is some of it.

First, there were the dozens of people who rushed toward the grassy knoll in front of the president’s motorcade immediately after the assassination because they were certain that shots had been fired from that direction.

Second, there were several Dallas physicians and nurses who treated Kennedy who stated that there was a hole in the back of Kennedy’s head, which they took to be an exit wound.

Third, there was the statement of Secret Service agent Clint Hill, the agent who jumped on the back of the president’s limousine immediately after the shooting and pushed Jacqueline Kennedy back into the car, that confirmed the hole in the back of Kennedy’s head.

Fourth, there was the so-called Harper Fragment of Kennedy’s skull that was found after the shooting, which Dallas physicians established had come from the back of his head.

Fifth, there was the testimony before the ARRB of Navy Petty Officer Saundra Spencer, who served in the Naval Photographic Center, where she developed official photographs for the White House, in which she testified seeing an autopsy photograph showing the hole in the back of Kennedy’s head.

Sixth, there was the testimony before the House Select Committee on Assassinations of several autopsy personnel confirming the hole at the back of Kennedy’s head.

Seventh, there was the press conference given by Dallas physicians after Kennedy was declared dead in which they stated that he had been shot through the front of the neck.

Eighth, there is the photograph of White House Press Secretary Malcolm Kilduff immediately after the assassination in which he pointed to the right temple of his head to indicate that Kennedy had been shot in the head from the front.

So given all that evidence and more, it would not have been difficult to convince people that Oswald had not acted alone in shooting the president. All that would have to be done is to show people that Oswald was shooting from the back and that at least one other person was shooting from the front. And to exploit the grave national-security and nuclear-war implications of that conspiracy, all that would have to be done is to show people Oswald’s connections to communism, Cuba, and the Soviet Union.

The evidence suggests that while track one — the lone-nut assassin theory — was used on the American people, track two — the national-security threat — was employed on people within the government to cover up the evidence of conspiracy.

In fact, the evidence suggests that track two was employed not only on Warren Commission members but also on national-security officials within the military, who were ultimately charged with conducting the autopsy of the president’s body.

The role of the military

Why the military? After all, Oswald was ostensibly a civilian. He was also supposedly nothing more than a lone nut who decided to assassinate the president. The assassination was purely a Texas state crime, since assassinating the president wasn’t a federal crime at that time. What possible business would a principal agency within the national-security state have conducting an autopsy on the president’s body?

There are two likely reasons: (1) to wrap the investigation into the assassination within the intrigue of “national security,” thereby ensuring that Americans wouldn’t ask too many questions when proceedings were kept secret; and (2) to ensure active participation of the military, with oaths of silence, in a national-security cover-up of shots fired from the front.

Under Texas law, Texas officials were required to conduct an autopsy on the president’s body. Yet Secret Service officials absolutely refused to permit that autopsy to be conducted. Brandishing guns and threatening to use deadly force against the Texas coroner, they forced their way out of Parkland Hospital with the president’s body.

Meanwhile, Lyndon Johnson was waiting for the casket at Dallas Love Field, where his plane was waiting on the tarmac and seats in the back of the plane were being removed in anticipation of the casket’s arrival. Although Johnson had raised the specter that the United States might be under an attack by the Soviet Union while he was waiting at Parkland Hospital, he refused to permit his plane to take off until Kennedy’s casket had been delivered to it. Since an autopsy would obviously have taken several hours — an unacceptable delay to Johnson’s returning to Washington — it is fairly obvious that the Secret Service agents were operating on orders from Johnson to get the casket out of Parkland without the autopsy and quickly delivered to Johnson’s plane at Love Field.

Why was it so important to get the body out of the hands of the Dallas pathologist? Because an honest and genuine autopsy would have reflected that shots had been fired from the front, which obviously would have destroyed the lone-nut-assassin theory and inevitably led to the nuclear-war scenario. That is, Americans would have seen that shots were fired from the front, which they would have connected to Oswald’s pre-assassination, pro-communist activities and, thus, would have concluded that the Soviets and Cubans were also behind the assassination. In the high emotions of the time, they would have demanded immediate retaliation, which would inevitably have escalated to nuclear war. Getting the autopsy out of the hands of Texas officials and into the hands of the national-security state would have been the only way to avoid that outcome.

Given the culture of the military, it would not have been difficult to falsify the autopsy. All that high U.S. officials, including the president, would have had to do is explain that the United States was facing the biggest national-security crisis in its history and that the military was needed to conduct a false autopsy to save the nation and the world from a nuclear holocaust, one that the Kennedy administration would have been responsible for starting, owing to the fact that it had initiated the assassination game with its assassination attempts on Castro.

Under such a scenario, there isn’t a military man in the world who would have refused the orders to do whatever was necessary to save the country and, equally important, to keep whatever he had to do secret for the rest of this life.

In fact, the military required participants in the autopsy to sign formal secrecy oaths and specifically told them that if they ever violated the oaths, they would be facing court-martial or worse. When the House Select Committee on Assassinations attempted to talk to some of the enlisted men about their participation in the autopsy in the 1970s, many of them were still too scared to talk.

It all seems quite strange, given the government’s official story that Oswald was nothing more than a lone-nut assassin. But it all makes perfect sense if in fact the government was using the military to suppress evidence of a conspiracy that could lead the nation into nuclear war.

It also makes sense of why the Warren Commission would order its records to be kept secret for 75 years, notwithstanding its official conclusion that Oswald had acted alone. If national security depended on keeping evidence of a conspiracy secret from Americans, owing to the possibility that they would demand retaliation for the assassination, it would obviously be important to keep that information from generations of Americans.

The Warren Commission’s order to delay release of Kennedy-assassination records benefited the national-security state in many ways. For example, the role of the CIA and George Joannides in the activities of the DRE wasn’t discovered until after Joannides was dead and after two investigations into the Kennedy assassination had been conducted.

After the House Select Committee on Assassinations conducted its hearings, several former enlisted men, now released from their oaths of secrecy, came forward and disclosed to private assassination researchers that they had witnessed the president’s body arriving at the Bethesda morgue where the autopsy was conducted, wrapped inside a body bag inside a plain shipping casket. Yet the president body’s had left Parkland Hospital wrapped in white sheets and placed in an expensive ornate burial casket.

Restraining the ARRB

Later, the Assassination Records Review Board came up with additional evidence, including an official report contemporaneously prepared by one Sgt. Roger Boyajian, that buttressed the case that Kennedy’s body had arrived at the morgue more than an hour earlier than officially reported and in a different casket from the one that the body was placed into at Parkland. (And that implies that the Dallas casket that Jacqueline Kennedy escorted from Andrews Air Force Base to Bethesda Naval Hospital was empty.)

What would have been the purpose for doing that? One purpose would have been to alter the body before the formal autopsy began in order to conceal evidence of shots from the front. In fact, the official report filed by the two FBI agents present at the autopsy — agents who had never been called to testify before the Warren Commission or the House Select Committee — indicated that pre-autopsy surgery had in fact been conducted on Kennedy’s head.

So did the ARRB investigate whether the autopsy had been falsified? No. Why? Because when Congress established the ARRB, it strictly prohibited it from reinvestigating the case. Imagine that. Its mission was strictly limited to securing the release of documents. Why would Congress do that? Why wouldn’t it want the ARRB to investigate if it came up with facts that needed to be investigated?

The ARRB also determined that there were two separate brain examinations, which was highly unusual, especially since the autopsy physicians maintained that only one examination had taken place. But even more unusual, the ARRB also determined that two separate brains were examined, one that obviously did not belong to Kennedy.

Why would military officials do that? One reason would be to hide evidence of a bullet that had entered the president’s head from the front and exited from the back. In fact, the second brain examined had a weight that was greater than a normal human brain, notwithstanding the fact that everyone agrees that there was an extremely large amount of brain destroyed by the shot that hit Kennedy in the head.

Did the ARRB investigate that? No. Again, its charter prohibited it from reinvestigating any part of the case, no matter what newly discovered records revealed.

For years, people had believed that the famous Zapruder film had ended up in the offices of Lifemagazine, after the magazine purchased it from Abraham Zapruder. Not so. As detailed in the five-volume book Inside the Assassination Records Review Board, by Douglas P. Horne, who served on the ARRB staff, the film actually ended up in the hands of the CIA. (Horne’s book, along with the book Best Evidence, by David Lifton, provides a detailed analysis of many of the matters discussed in this article.)

Why the CIA? After all, this was supposedly an assassination conducted by a lone nut. What interest would one of the principal agencies of the national-security state have in a film of an assassination committed by a lone nut? One possible explanation is an alteration of the film, specifically to hide evidence of an exit hole in the back of the president’s head.

Impossible, you say? Well, as Horne details in his article “The Two NPIC Zapruder Film Events: Signposts Pointing to the Film’s Alteration,” which is posted at LewRockwell.com, the film was taken to a top-secret CIA facility in Washington, D.C., on the Saturday night following the assassination. There, the film was watched and briefing boards were prepared for CIA officials.

The evidence suggests that the film was then transported to the CIA’s top-secret film center at Kodak headquarters in Rochester, New York. Why there? One possible reason was to alter the film, given that that facility did, in fact, have the means by which to conduct a professional alteration of it.

Did the ARRB investigate that? No. Again, Congress limited its charter to getting records disclosed and prohibited it from reinvestigating the case.

The ARRB took the statements and testimony of the official autopsy photographer as well as people involved in the top-secret development of the autopsy photographs. The evidence revealed not only that there were photographs in the official collection that had not been taken by the official photographer but also that some of the photographs that the photographer took were not included within the autopsy collection.

Among the official autopsy photographs was one that showed the back of the president’s head to be fully intact, which contradicted everyone who stated that there was an exit hole in the back of the president’s head.

Did the ARRB conduct an investigation into the autopsy photos? No. Congress had prohibited it from doing so.

An obvious question arises: If there was a national-security cover-up in the investigation of the Kennedy assassination, can we really blame U.S. officials for having done so? The answer lies in whether the cover-up was actually designed to protect national security or for a much more nefarious reason.

Almost 50 years after the publication of the Warren Commission Report, I still cannot understand what Lee Harvey Oswald’s motive would have been in assassinating President Kennedy. The official version of events is that he was a confused, disgruntled, little man who sought fame and glory by assassinating a famous, powerful, and admired president of the United States.

But there are obvious problems with that official version.

After he was taken into custody, Oswald denied having shot the president or anyone else. If he sought fame and glory by killing the president, why would he deny having done it? Wouldn’t he instead be openly bragging about the fact that he had just killed the president?

Of course, it might be said that he wanted fame and glory and, at the same time, to outsmart the government by successfully avoiding conviction for the crime. But it would seem that those two things are at least a bit inconsistent.

Moreover, in planning to shoot the president, Oswald left quite an easy trail leading to himself. Why would he do that, if he was going to try to beat the rap? Why use a rifle that he had supposedly purchased by mail and, therefore, that could easily be traced to him? Why not instead walk into a gun store and buy a brand new rifle for cash, which would have left no paper trail leading to him? Remember: in Texas in 1963, there were no background checks when one purchased a gun.

In fact, Oswald’s defense was not simply a denial that he had committed the crime. He went further than that. In the hours between his arrest and his murder at the hands of Jack Ruby, he claimed that he had been set up — framed. That’s what he meant when he told the press that he was “a patsy.” What could he possibly have had in mind? What would have been his strategy, assuming he had in fact assassinated Kennedy and planned to escape the rap?

After all, a simple denial of having committed the offense would have been the normal route. In so doing, he would have been saying in effect, “I didn’t do this. I don’t know who did it. All I know is that I didn’t do it.” By claiming he had been set up, he was saying, “Not only did I not do this, I know who did do it, and they’re trying to make it look like I did it.” That obviously would have meant that at his trial, Oswald not only would have been claiming he had nothing to do with the killing but also would have been pointing the finger at some other person or group of people.

For the past half-century since the Kennedy assassination, there have been two lines of “legitimate” discourse within American mainstream circles. The first is: Oswald was a lone-nut assassin. The second is: Oswald conspired with others to assassinate John Kennedy. Each of those positions is considered to be respectable, credible, and legitimate even if people disagree with it.

What one will rarely find within mainstream circles, however, are the following questions: Is it possible that Oswald was innocent? Is it possible that he was neither a lone-nut assassin nor a conspirator in the assassination? Is it possible that he was what he said he was — “a patsy”? Is it possible that someone else committed the crime, framed Oswald, and then had him killed so that he could never deny it or reveal who it was who had set him up to take the fall?

Anomalies

As the 50th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination approaches in 2013, those are questions that the American people are unlikely to encounter in the mainstream press. For once someone begins to contemplate the possibility that Oswald was innocent, he begins peering into an abyss — one that points in the direction of the U.S. national-security state — the set of institutions, including the CIA and the military, whose responsibility since 1947 has been to protect national security.

Those who hold that Oswald was involved in the crime, either as a lone nut or as a conspirator, have always pointed to the large amount of evidence incriminating him. There was the assassin’s nest on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository, where Oswald worked. There were the three rifle cartridges found on the floor near the sniper’s nest. There was Oswald’s supposed murder of police officer J.D. Tippitt soon after Kennedy’s assassination. There was his supposed devotion to communism, Cuba, and the Soviet Union.

But there is a big problem with all that evidence, a problem with which the mainstream press has never grappled. That problem is that when a person is framed for a crime he didn’t commit, to be successful the framers must make the evidence of guilt point convincingly to the person who is being framed. That’s the whole point of a frame-up — to make it look as though an innocent person has committed the crime.

We all know that people have been framed for crimes they didn’t commit. The most successful frame-ups are those where the false evidence of guilt is so convincing that the person being framed cannot successfully defend against the frame. Of course, Oswald never got a chance to present his defense or defend his allegation of having been set up, owing to his murder by Jack Ruby.

So how does one distinguish between a person’s actual commission of a crime and a frame-up of an innocent person? Sometimes it’s impossible to do so. Other times, however, there are anomalies that are simply inconsistent with the guilt of the accused but that are consistent with a frame-up.

And that’s part of the problem in the case of Oswald. There are anomalies that are consistent with a frame-up and inconsistent with his being guilty.

For example, after Oswald was taken into custody, he was given a paraffin test to determine whether he had fired a rifle that day. The test revealed no gun-powder residue on his cheek.

Or consider Oswald’s demeanor when confronted by a police officer on the second floor of the Texas School Book Depository less than 90 seconds after the shooting. He was as cool as a cucumber, showing no nervousness whatsoever. Moreover, he was not out of breath from having rushed from the sixth floor to the second floor. And he certainly showed no inclination to take credit for having shot the president.

There were no fingerprints found on the rifle. The only print that was found was a print of Oswald’s palm under the rifle stock, which was discovered under rather suspicious circumstances days after the assassination.

Assuming that Oswald shot the president, what would have been his primary objective once he had killed the president, if he planned to claim he didn’t do it? Wouldn’t his primary objective have been to get off that sixth floor as fast as he could?

Why then would he have taken the time to hide the rifle? What possible purpose would that have served? The assassin’s nest was there, out in the open. The same holds true for the rifle cartridges on the floor. So what good would it have done to hide the rifle? Surely, Oswald would have known that a complete search would be made of the entire sixth floor. Why delay an escape to do something that served no purpose whatsoever?

Thus, hiding the rifle is another one of those anomalies that are inconsistent with Oswald’s guilt and consistent with a frame-up. If Oswald was going to leave the assassin’s nest intact and leave the spent cartridges on the floor, why not simply leave the rifle there too and make a quick escape? Or if he was going to hide the rifle, why not also take the time to dismantle the assassin’s nest and hide the spent cartridges?

On the other hand, hiding the rifle makes total sense if there were people framing Oswald. It would have been too risky for framers to have brought the gun into the building on the morning of the assassination, when people might have seen them. The framers would necessarily have brought the gun into the building the night before the assassination and, to avoid its being discovered, would have hidden it from view.

Let’s assume what U.S. officials and the mainstream press will never allow themselves to contemplate: Let’s assume for a moment that Oswald was, in fact, innocent and that he was, in fact, what he alleged to be — “a patsy.” To whom could he possibly have been referring when he said he had been set up?

Could it have been personal friends? Not likely, given that he had few if any close friends. How about fellow employees at the School Book Depository? Not likely, given the difficulty he obviously would have had in making such a theory stick. What would have been their motive?

How about the Cubans and the Soviets, given his supposed connections to communism, Cuba, and the Soviet Union? That’s, of course, a possibility — that the Soviets and the Cubans were the ones he was referring to when he suggested he had been set up. But how would the Soviets and Cubans have planned to falsify the president’s autopsy, which would have been a critical step in concealing that shots had been fired from the front?

If we consider, however, that Lee Harvey Oswald wasn’t the devoted communist he portrayed himself as, but was instead a devoted ex-Marine who had been recruited by Navy intelligence or the CIA or some other intelligence branch of the U.S. government to serve as a government mole during the Cold War, a subject we explored in part six of this series, then there is only one likely possibility: assuming Oswald was, in fact, innocent, he was pointing his finger at the U.S. national-security state, for whom he had been working.

If Oswald was a patsy …

It’s not difficult to understand why the Warren Commission felt compelled to accept on blind faith and trust the denials by the CIA and the FBI that Oswald worked as an intelligence operative for the U.S. government. If it were established that the denials were false, where would that have left the Warren Commission? It would have left them with a U.S. intelligence agent who had assassinated the president, one who was denying his guilt and was pointing to those with whom he worked as the true assassins. It would have also destroyed the national-security cover story, by which Oswald’s connections to communism, Cuba, and the Soviet Union were being used to suggest a conspiracy to kill Kennedy involving him and the Soviets that would inevitably have led to nuclear war.

It would have meant, again, peering into an abyss. It would have meant accusing the national-security state, not just a group of rogue agents, of having assassinated the president. And what if the accusation had proven true? Then what? How does one indict an entire large section of the government? And such an accusation, which would almost certainly have been denied, would have meant an out-and-out war between the Warren Commission, on the one side, and on the other the CIA, military, and other parts of the national-security state, a war that itself would have been considered a grave threat to national security, especially at the height of the Cold War.

Thus, there was never a reasonable possibility that such an accusation or investigation would ever occur. The assassination was done. Nothing could bring Kennedy back to life. Any investigation that challenged the word of the CIA, the FBI, and the military or that suggested the possibility that the national-security state had assassinated Kennedy and framed Oswald would have been perceived as a grave threat to national security and, indeed, to the future existence of the United States. The evidence convincingly pointed to Oswald. Better to let sleeping dogs lie.

The mainstream press and U.S. officials have long subscribed to what might be called the “inconceivable doctrine” — that it is simply inconceivable that the U.S. national-security state, especially the CIA and the military, would ever effect a regime-change operation within the United States.

Oh sure, they’ll say, the CIA and the military will do those sorts of things to leaders in foreign countries. They’ll assassinate them, as they have tried repeatedly to do to Fidel Castro. They’ll initiate coups in which they oust democratically elected leaders from office and install pro-U.S. leaders in their stead, as they did in Guatemala and Iran. But to the mainstream, it is absolutely inconceivable that they would ever do such things here in the United States.

What the mainstream often fails to appreciate, however, is the driving force of the national-security state, which is the protection of national security. Nothing matters more. Protecting national security is the raison d’être of the national-security state. Ever since its founding in 1947, the national-security state — especially the military and the CIA — has stood above American society like a godlike guardian — indeed, stood over the entire world — searching carefully and relentlessly for threats to U.S. national security — and upon finding them, doing whatever was necessary to eliminate them.

Assassinations, coups, drug experiments, spying on Americans, maintaining secret files on Americans, extortion, the use of moles to infiltrate and destroy communist organizations, communist witch hunts, terrorism against communist states, invasions, partnerships with former Nazis and the Mafia, regime-change operations, embargoes, and sanctions — nothing has ever stood in the way of protecting national security. The CIA and the military have always done whatever was necessary, no matter how unsavory, to protect “national security.”

Obvious questions arise, however — questions that the mainstream press has never been able to bring itself to ask: What would the U.S. national-security state do if confronted by a president whose actions posed the gravest threat to national security in the nation’s history, one that threatened the very existence of the nation? Would it let the nation go down, or would it do what was necessary to protect national security?

Proponents of the lone-nut theory in the Kennedy assassination often accuse those who believe that the president was killed at the hands of a conspiracy — and, even worse, one involving agents of the U.S. national-security state — of being unable to accept the fact that a little disgruntled man killed a president of the United States, a man who had fame and fortune and who was respected and admired by many people all over the world.

Yet after John Hinkley’s assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan, there was no widespread belief that Hinkley was part of a conspiracy, including one involving the national-security state. The same holds true with respect to the two separate assassination attempts on Gerald Ford.

Actually, one could easily argue that it’s the other way around. Proponents of the lone-nut theory simply cannot bring themselves to accept the possibility that America’s national-security state, whose existence they believe is necessary to the survival of the nation, took out their own president.

Oh sure, they can accept that the military and the CIA would conduct regime-change operations in other countries, either by coup, invasion, or assassination, as they did or tried to do in Cuba, Iran, Guatemala, Chile, and elsewhere. They can also accept that the national-security state will drug, assassinate, torture, or execute private American citizens. They can accept that the national-security state, especially the FBI, will illegally infiltrate American groups, spy on them, keep files on them, humiliate them, and destroy their reputations. They can accept that the military and the CIA will do whatever is necessary to protect national security, no matter how unsavory. They can accept the common thesis that the Constitution is not a suicide pact and that it is proper for federal officials to violate the law if it is necessary to save the nation.

But they simply cannot bring themselves to accept the notion that the national-security state would ever target the president of the United States in a regime-change operation based on national security. To them, such an action is simply inconceivable.

The autopsy

Thus, as the evidence surrounding the assassination of John F. Kennedy has slowly trickled out over the years — in violation of the 75-year period of secrecy that had been ordered by the Warren Commission — the “lone-nut” proponents have increasingly buried their heads in the sand, either ignoring discomforting evidence or suggesting that the people giving such evidence must be lying, no doubt as part of some giant conspiracy.

Consider the following fascinating example.

During the hearings on the Kennedy assassination before the House Select Committee in the late 1970s, Congress expressly released personnel who had participated in the official military autopsy of Kennedy from the oath of secrecy that the military had forced them to take immediately after the autopsy.

Why had those soldiers been forced to keep their mouths shut regarding what they had witnessed during the autopsy? What possible national-security concerns could have justified forcing them to sign written oaths of secrecy and threatening them with severe penalties for violating such oaths?

Let’s recall the critical facts. The president was shot in Texas, where state law required that an autopsy be conducted. What’s the purpose of an autopsy? To determine the exact cause of death. The medical examiner conducts a detailed, comprehensive examination of the body, and official photographs and X-rays of the body are taken.

For example, if there had been shots fired from the front of Kennedy, a genuine and honest autopsy would have determined that. Obviously, an autopsy and a final autopsy report are critically important evidence in the subsequent criminal prosecution of whoever is charged with the crime and prosecuted for it.

Yet no autopsy was conducted in Texas. Why? Because agents of the Secret Service refused to permit it to take place. In fact, when the Dallas medical examiner steadfastly refused to release Kennedy’s body at Parkland Hospital, repeatedly pointing out that Texas law required that an autopsy be conducted, a team of Secret Service agents brandished their guns and made it quite clear that they intended to use them against anyone who attempted to obstruct the removal of Kennedy’s body from the hospital.

Why were the agents so insistent on getting the body out of Parkland? One reason was that Lyndon Johnson was waiting for it. He refused to let Air Force One leave without the casket, notwithstanding his supposed concern that the assassination might be the start of a Soviet nuclear attack on the United States. Already seats were being removed from the back of Air Force One to make room for the casket, indicating that the agents at Parkland Hospital were operating on Johnson’s orders.

Kennedy’s body was taken back to Andrews Air Force Base near Washington, D.C. The casket into which the body had been placedat Parkland Hospital was put into the back of an automobile in which Kennedy’s wife, Jacqueline, was riding. When the automobile arrived at Bethesda Naval Medical Center, where the U.S. military would conduct the autopsy, everyone, including Mrs. Kennedy, naturally assumed that the president’s body was inside the Dallas casket.

Such, however, was not the case. Both the direct and the circumstantial evidence overwhelmingly establish that the president’s body was delivered to the Bethesda morgue an hour and a half before the Dallas casket was officially delivered.

A real conspiracy? 

This matter was first raised in David Lifton’s 1981 book, Best Evidence. By that time, by order of the House Select Assassinations Committee, several enlisted men who had participated in various aspects of the autopsy had been released from their oaths of secrecy that the military had forced them to sign back in November of 1963. They unequivocally confirmed the early delivery of the president’s body to the morgue in a different casket from the one into which the body had been placed before leaving Dallas.

Later, in the 1990s, as detailed in Douglas P. Horne’s five-volume book on the assassination,Inside the Assassination Records Review Board, the ARRB discovered an official report filed on November 26, 1963, by a Marine sergeant named Roger Boyajian that confirmed the early arrival of the president’s body at the morgue. (For a detailed account of the facts and circumstances surrounding the early arrival of the president’s body, see my article “The Kennedy Casket Conspiracy” at http://fff.org/explore-freedom/article/kennedy-casket-conspiracy/.)

The ARRB also discovered a report dated November 22-23, 1963, from the funeral home that handled the postautopsy preparation of the body that said, “Body removed from metal shipping casket at NSNH at Bethesda.” The Dallas casket was no metal shipping casket. It was an expensive, heavy, ornate casket, the type people are buried in.

So what do the lone-nut proponents say about all this? They either remain silent about the matter, choosing to act as if it never happened, or they suggest that all the enlisted men and the funeral home must be lying.

Let’s deal with the second point first. What motive would enlisted men and funeral-home officials have had to lie about when Kennedy’s body was delivered to the Bethesda morgue? What could possibly have caused them to do such a thing? And think about it: If they were lying, could they each have   come up with the same lie independently of the others? They would necessarily have had to have entered into a conspiracy with each other to concoct a false story about when the president’s body was delivered to the Bethesda morgue.

So here we have the lone-nut proponents, who scoff at the notion that Kennedy might have been killed at the hands of a conspiracy, implicitly alleging one of the most ridiculous and outlandish conspiracies of all — that a group of enlisted men and funeral-home officials conspired to concoct a false story about the delivery of the president’s body to the morgue.

Moreover, if such a conspiracy really existed, surely the government would have gone after the conspirators with great ferocity. Surely it would have court-martialed them or indicted Sergeant Boyajian for filing a false official report as part of that conspiracy.

But the government did nothing to them. The Pentagon didn’t even bother to accuse them of lying. Instead, the government, including the military, has just proceeded along, decade after decade, as if they and their account of what happened never existed. In other words, act as though it never happened and just don’t address it. The problem will ultimately go away.

Let’s not forget that the U.S. military intended that the witnesses keep their mouths shut for the rest of their lives and for their reports to be kept secret at least for the 75-year period ordered by the Warren Commission. That’s what the oaths of secrecy were for.

Why? Why the extreme secrecy? Why was the president’s body delivered to the morgue earlier than everyone has been taught to believe? What was the purpose of that? Why can’t the military, even at this late date, come forward and give us the explanation for that? Why can’t lone-nut proponents join assassination researchers in demanding the explanation? What would be the harm? How could national security possibly be threatened by a full and complete explanation of why the president’s body was secretly delivered to the Bethesda morgue an hour and a half earlier than everyone was led to believe?

The brains

Or consider one of the most startling discoveries made by the Assassination Records Review Board in the 1990s, one involving the president’s brain. Or should I say “brains”?

It turns out that while the military pathologists claimed that there had been only one examination of the brain, which would have been standard procedure, the ARRB found that the circumstantial evidence established that a second brain examination took place, an examination of another brain, one that did not belong to the president but that the military represented to be Kennedy’s brain. Here is a link to a Washington Post article about the ARRB’s finding on this matter: www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/jfk/ap110998.htm.

Why in the world would the U.S. military conduct two separate brain examinations as part of the Kennedy autopsy, one that didn’t even involve the president’s brain but that was fraudulently represented to be his brain? What possible national-security rationale could there be for such a deceptive action?

The fundamental problem is this: Since it is simply inconceivable to the lone-nut proponents that Kennedy could have been made a target of a regime-charge operation at the hands of the national-security state, they simply refuse to consider the many unusual occurrences in the case, occurrences that point to nefarious conduct on the part of the military, the CIA, the FBI, the Secret Service, and other parts of the national-security state.

That brings us back to motive. What possible motive would the national-security state have had to target Kennedy for one of its regime-change operations? The answer is a simple one and, it is no surprise, revolves around the two most important words in the lives of the American people since World War II: national security.

Everyone knows that the military and the CIA will do whatever the president deems necessary to protect national security. In the name of national security, they ousted the democratically elected prime minister of Iran, Mohammed Mossadegh, in a coup and replaced him with the brutal regime of a pro-U.S. dictator, the shah of Iran. They also ousted the democratically elected president of Guatemala, Jacobo Arbenz, and replaced him with a succession of brutal pro-U.S. military dictators. They invaded Cuba, a country that had never attacked the United States or even threatened to do so. They tried to assassinate the Cuban president, Fidel Castro, and even entered into a partnership with the Mafia with that aim in mind. They subjected unknowing Americans to illicit drug experiments. They illegally spied on Americans who were suspected of being communists and destroyed their reputations. There isn’t anything that the military and the CIA wouldn’t do to protect national security.

An obvious question arises: What would happen if the president of the United States — the commander in chief of the armed forces and the boss of the CIA — became a threat to national security? What would the military and the CIA do then? Would they let the country go down? Or would they take the necessary steps to protect national security?

Did President Kennedy actually become a threat to national security? Viewed from the standpoint of the national-security state, there can be no real question about it. Kennedy, in fact, posed a much graver threat to U.S. national security than Mossadegh, Arbenz, Castro, or anyone else, because he was the head of the U.S. government. Two of the best sources on this particular subject are JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters, by James W. Douglass, a Christian theologian; and chapter five of Inside the Assassination Records Review Board: The Government’s Final Attempt to Reconcile the Conflicting Medical Evidence in the Assassination of JFK, a five-volume work by Douglas P. Horne, who served as chief analyst for military records for the ARRB.

John Kennedy came into office in 1961, at the height of the Cold War. By that time the U.S. national-security state, which had been called into existence in 1947, was in full bloom, viewing communists and communism as grave threats to the national security of the United States. Officials at all levels of the federal government made it clear that everything must and would be done to protect national security from the communists, even if some of the actions taken might not be considered legal or moral. The Constitution, after all, is not a suicide pact, as proponents of the national-security state often point out.

Kennedy and Cuba

By the time that Kennedy took office, the CIA had already initiated plans to invade Cuba, which was headed by an avowed communist, Fidel Castro. Never mind that Castro had no intentions of invading and conquering the United States. And never mind that his armed forces didn’t have the remotest capability to perform such a fantastic feat. What mattered was that Castro was a communist and, even worse, was presiding over a communist regime that was only 90 miles away from American shores. Military and CIA officials determined early on that Castro and Cuba posed a grave threat to U.S. national security. 

By 1961 the CIA already had some national-security successes under its belt. Eight years before, it had initiated its successful coup in Iran. One year after that regime-change operation came the one in Guatemala.

When Kennedy took office he learned that his role in the CIA’s planned invasion of Cuba would be to lie to the American people about U.S. involvement. The CIA assured him that the invasion would not require U.S. air support, but that was a lie and a setup. The CIA was certain that once the invasion got under way, if air support became necessary, there was no way that Kennedy would permit the invasion to fail by refusing to provide it.

But the trap didn’t work. Even as the invasion was failing, Kennedy refused to provide the air support. Dozens of Cuban exiles were captured or killed during the invasion. Meanwhile, the CIA’s role in the invasion became public, and the agency was humiliated. Angry at Kennedy for refusing to provide the air support that could have saved the lives of their friends and allies and freed the Cuban people from communist control, CIA and military officials considered the president to be weak and ineffectual at best and a traitor at worst.

While Kennedy publicly took responsibility for the invasion, he was just as angry at the CIA as it was at him because he figured out that he had been set up. A bureaucratic war broke out between Kennedy and the CIA, with the president promising to “splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds.” He fired CIA director Allen Dulles (whom Lyndon Johnson would later appoint to the Warren Commission), along with his two chief deputies, Richard M. Bissell Jr. and Charles Cabell.

But if the president were to succeed in destroying the CIA, wouldn’t national security be threatened? There is no doubt about it, at least from the standpoint of the CIA and the military. How could the nation survive the communist threat if there were no CIA? 

Between the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban missile crisis, the national-security state went into overdrive trying to figure out how to get rid of Castro. An assassination partnership between the CIA and the Mafia was established, followed by numerous plots against Castro. Acts of terrorism initiated by CIA operatives were committed inside Cuba.

It was Operation Northwoods that furnished Kennedy with keen insights into the mindset of U.S. military chieftains. Under that plan, Kennedy’s role was to be the nation’s liar-in-chief once again. His job was to falsely tell the American people that Cuba had attacked the United States with acts of terrorism. But those acts, which would kill innocent Americans, would be performed by agents or operatives of the U.S. military disguised as Cuban terrorists.

Kennedy rejected the plan, to the ire of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, which had unanimously recommended it to him. The military presented Kennedy with what it considered a viable plan to protect national security by effecting regime change in Cuba with a military invasion of the island, and Kennedy said no.

The missile crisis 

Then Kennedy discovered that the Soviets were installing nuclear missiles in Cuba. National-security state officials blamed the crisis on Castro and the Soviets. Actually, however, the responsibility for the crisis lay with the U.S. national-security state, specifically the steadfast determination of the Pentagon and the CIA to effect regime change in Cuba by assassination, invasion, terrorism, or other means. After all, the purpose of Soviet missiles in Cuba wasn’t to start a nuclear war but rather to deter another invasion by the U.S. military and CIA.

Throughout the crisis, the Pentagon and CIA, willing to risk nuclear war, urged the president to attack and invade Cuba. Nothing, not even the risk of nuclear war, could stand in the way of removing a communist outpost 90 miles away from American shores. National security was paramount.

By that time, however, Kennedy had lost confidence in both the military and the CIA. With the world at the brink of nuclear war, he struck a deal with the Soviet premier, Nikita Khrushchev, in which he promised that the United States would never invade Cuba, thereby ensuring that the communists could maintain their outpost 90 miles away from American shores in perpetuity.

Overnight, what had been a driving force for the national-security state since Castro’s assumption of power in 1959 — regime change in Cuba — had become moot, owing to the deal that Kennedy had struck with Khrushchev.

Kennedy believed that the missile crisis was one of his greatest triumphs. That’s not the way the Pentagon and CIA saw it. In their eyes Kennedy had capitulated to the communists. It was Castro and Khrushchev who had defeated Kennedy. Sure, the Soviets had to take their missiles out of Cuba, but so what? The missiles had been installed to deter a U.S. invasion of the island. That strategy worked. And once Kennedy gave the no-invasion guarantee, there was no further reason to keep the missiles in Cuba. As part of the deal, Kennedy also secretly promised the Soviets to remove U.S. missiles in Turkey aimed at the Soviet Union.

The deep anger and sense of betrayal toward Kennedy, which had begun simmering after the Bay of Pigs, reached a boiling point within both the military and the CIA. Don’t forget, after all, that Kennedy had rejected Operation Northwoods. If he had approved the plan, there never would have been a Cuban missile crisis because Castro would have been dead and U.S. forces would have been running Cuba. 

While the missile crisis hardened the CIA and Pentagon toward the communists, the event had a different effect on Kennedy. Having come so close to nuclear war, a war in which his wife and children could have been incinerated, the crisis had a searing effect on how he viewed life and the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union.

He concluded that it was possible for the United States and the Soviet Union to coexist without a Cold War, much as China and Vietnam and the United States do today. In his famous speech at American University, he announced his intention to bring the Cold War to an end by reaching out to the Soviet Union in a spirit of peaceful coexistence. His speech was broadcast all across the Soviet Union, where his initiative was enthusiastically received by Khrushchev.

Coexistence

As part of Kennedy’s vision, he entered into a nuclear test-ban treaty with the Soviets, over the fierce objections of the military and the CIA. He also ordered the withdrawal of a thousand U.S. troops from Vietnam, and he told close friends that he intended to pull out all troops from Vietnam after his reelection in 1964.

Most important, he began top-secret personal negotiations with Khrushchev and Castro to end the Cold War, something that most Americans to this day are probably unaware of.

There was a big problem with Kennedy’s actions, at least from the standpoint of national-security state operatives: his actions constituted a grave threat to the nation. After all, as Cold War advocates constantly reminded us, you can always trust a communist … to be a communist. You couldn’t trust them on anything else. Communists were hell-bent on conquering the world. Nothing could dissuade them from that goal. The communists were lulling Kennedy into lowering the nation’s defenses, after which they would attack it and bury it.

Given this grave threat to national security, there was only one thing that could save America from its president, and that solution did not involve the ballot box. After all, voters make mistakes, as they did in Iran with Mossadegh and Arbenz in Guatemala. As Richard Nixon’s national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, later put it after the communist and socialist Salvador Allende was elected president of Chile, an event we will discuss in the next segment of this series, “I don’t see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist because of the irresponsibility of its own people.”

The American people had obviously made a mistake in the 1960 election, rejecting Nixon, a man who knew how to stand up to the communists, and electing instead a man who proved to be weak, ineffectual, incompetent, and afraid of the communists — a man who distrusted his own military and intelligence agency — and a man whose actions were leading America to a takeover by the communists.

By the time of the Cuban missile crisis, Kennedy had gone far beyond the warnings that Dwight Eisenhower had issued in his farewell address regarding the threat to America’s democratic processes posed by the military-industrial complex. While Eisenhower had assumed that the Cold War made the military-industrial complex a necessary evil, Kennedy was determined to bring an end to the Cold War.

An end to the Cold War would naturally threaten the existence of the national-security state, since the Cold War was the justification for its existence. Obviously, that would have threatened trillions of dollars in future income to the military and intelligence community as well as to the countless weapons suppliers, contractors, and subcontractors, who serve them.

We also mustn’t forget Kennedy’s ardent support of Martin Luther King, who in the eyes of the FBI was a communist himself. Indeed, we would be remiss if we failed to note Kennedy’s support of the Civil Rights movement, which FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, who hated the Kennedys, was absolutely certain was a communist front. If all that wasn’t enough, there were Kennedy’s numerous extramarital affairs, any of which could have made him vulnerable to blackmail from the communists. Indeed, who could say with any degree of certainty that that wasn’t the reason that he was secretly negotiating with Khrushchev and Castro to end the Cold War? After all, why would a president fail to notify his military and his intelligence agency of such critically important negotiations?

Among the sexual affairs that constituted serious threats to national security was the one with Mary Pinchot Meyer, the former wife of a CIA official. She not only was an anti-CIA peacenik, she also had been a member of the American Labor Party, which brought her under the scrutiny of the FBI. Even worse, the evidence is overwhelming that Meyer introduced Kennedy to marijuana and, very likely, also to LSD. (See Mary’s Mosaic: The CIA Conspiracy to Murder John F. Kennedy, Mary Pinchot Meyer, and Their Vision for World Peace, by Peter Janney.) What would have happened if the Soviets had attacked when Kennedy was under the influence of pot or LSD? What if Kennedy ordered U.S. weapons launched while he was in a drug-induced state? Arguably, the drug use alone made Kennedy a grave threat to national security, a threat that the overwhelming weight of the evidence suggests was removed through assassination at the hands of the U.S. national-security state apparatus.

Let’s examine next the Chilean military coup of 1973, which took place ten years after the Kennedy assassination. It was that coup, which ironically occurred on 9/11 in 1973, that foreshadowed in fascinating ways the U.S. national-security state’s war on terrorism after 9/11 in 2011. In fact, it was during that coup, which the U.S. national security state fully supported, that the CIA participated in the murder of two American citizens, murders that to this day go uninvestigated and unpunished.

The justification for supporting the Chilean military coup and participating in the murders of those two Americans?

Why, national security, of course.

On September 11, 1973, the democratically elected president of Chile, Salvador Allende, was ousted in a military coup headed by Gen. Augusto Pinochet of the Chilean army. It was a watershed in the history of Chile, breaking with the country’s democratic tradition and unleashing a military reign of terror that lasted for 15 years, when a plebiscite finally removed Pinochet from power and restored democracy to Chile. In the aftermath of the coup, some 40,000 people were arrested and incarcerated without due process of law or trial. Thousands of them were tortured, raped, or executed.

What was the justification for the Chilean coup, which the U.S. government had encouraged and supported? National security, of course, specifically the threat of communism.

As a self-avowed Marxist, Allende was an ardent believer in socialism. Once in power, he began nationalizing businesses and industries, instituting and expanding social-welfare programs, imposing wage and price controls, and using the power of the government to attempt to equalize wealth and regulate and manage Chile’s economy.

Even worse from the standpoint of Richard Nixon, the CIA, and the Pentagon, Allende was strengthening his close relationship with Fidel Castro, the self-avowed communist who was still in power in Cuba despite the many efforts by the U.S. military and the CIA to assassinate or oust him.

Allende’s election was the U.S. national-security state’s worst nightmare. Now there were two communist leaders in the western hemisphere. In the minds of U.S. officials, especially those in the Pentagon and the CIA, the “dominoes” in America’s part of the world were falling. For U.S. officials, Allende’s election constituted another grave threat to U.S. national security. Something had to be done. As Nixon’s national-security adviser Henry Kissinger put it, “I don’t see why we have to let a country go Marxist just because its people are irresponsible.”

The coup

So the CIA went into action. Interfering directly in the internal affairs of another nation, this one some 5,000 miles from the United States, the CIA encouraged the Chilean congress to prevent Allende from assuming the presidency. When that effort failed, the agency undertook actions designed to create economic chaos within the country, with the aim of producing the conditions for a military coup. Nixon ordered the CIA to “make the economy scream.”

Allende’s socialist and interventionist measures, combined with the CIA’s efforts to create economic chaos, succeeded in throwing the Chilean economy into a deep tailspin. Strikes paralyzed commerce, and mass demonstrations began filling the streets.

The U.S. government, relying on its close relationship with the Chilean military, encouraged a military coup, one that would oust the democratically elected president from power and install a pro-U.S. military dictatorship in his stead.

Standing in the way of the coup, however, was the commander in chief of the Chilean army, Rene Schneider. He opposed a coup and said that the Chilean military would comply with the constitution of the country

The U.S. national-security state refused to tolerate such recalcitrance. U.S. officials conspired with Chilean military officials to neutralize Schneider by kidnapping him, removing him from the scene.

During the kidnapping, Schneider was shot and killed. U.S. officials played the innocent, claiming that they had no intention of killing him. They had only wanted him kidnapped. It was a ridiculous position. U.S. officials were as responsible for Schneider’s murder as the driver of a getaway car in a bank robbery is for murders that his coconspirators commit in the course of the robbery.

Anyway, U.S. officials couldn’t have been too surprised over Schneider’s murder: it was only ten years after the U.S. national-security state conspired with South Vietnam’s military to oust that country’s civilian president, Ngo Dinh Diem, and replace him with a brutal military dictatorship headed by Gen. Duong Van Minh.

John Kennedy expressed shock that Diem had been executed during the coup. Given that Kennedy had approved the regime change, however, he was as morally culpable for Diem’s death as the soldier who actually did the shooting.

Once Schneider was gone, there was nothing in the way of a military coup. On September 11, 1973, the Chilean people learned the hard way why a standing army constitutes a grave threat to a nation’s democratic processes.

Headed by Pinochet, whom Allende had appointed to replace Schneider, the Chilean military attacked the presidential palace and, it is no surprise, took control of the government. Refusing to be taken captive, Allende committed suicide.

Pinochet’s forces immediately swept across the land to establish “order and stability.” Some 40,000 people were rounded up and incarcerated. People were carted away to secret prisons and military dungeons, where they were tortured, raped, or executed — or “disappeared.” No one got trials because, as Pinochet saw it, he was engaged in “war” — war against communism and communists.

Lurking in the background were both the U.S. military and the CIA — the core of the U.S. national-security state — whose officials were ecstatic over what was happening. There, in Chile, the “good guys” were smashing the “bad guys” and, unlike America in its war against the communists in Vietnam, suffering minimal casualties. Suspected communists in all walks of life were being ferreted out by military and intelligence forces, which were free to fight communism without having one hand tied behind their backs. No need for search warrants, arrest warrants, Miranda rights, criminal-defense attorneys, due process of law, jury trials, or any other such technical nonsense. After all, this was a wartime problem, not a criminal-justice problem.

In fact, the mindset guiding Pinochet in his war against the communists, a mindset that fully reflected that of the Pentagon and the CIA, would in many ways be mirrored by the mindset of U.S. national-security state officials some 40 years later, when George W. Bush declared his “war on terror.”

Killing Americans

In the initial days of the coup, two young Americans — Charles Horman and Frank Terrugi — were taken into custody by Chilean officials. Their crime? They were leftists who believed in what Allende was doing — that is, attempting to help the poor with social-welfare programs, equalize wealth, and manage the economy. Since the fear of communism was as pronounced as the fear of terrorism would become three decades later, Horman and Terrugi were swept up along with thousands of others who held leftist political views.

They were both quickly executed. No trial. No preliminary hearing. No due process. Just murdered. Of course, in the minds of military officials, it wasn’t murder at all. It was war, a situation in which killing the enemy is legal and where laws against murder don’t apply.

For years U.S. officials pretended they had no knowledge about what had happened to Horman and Terrugi. It was all a lie. Some 25 years after the coup, the State Department released a document admitting that the CIA had played a role in Horman’s execution. Even though the document didn’t mention Terrugi, the CIA had probably played the same undefined role in his murder as well.

It is impossible to overstate the significance of the U.S. national-security state’s participation in the murder of these two young Americans, which was a watershed in its history. The U.S. national-security state knowingly, deliberately, and intentionally took out two American citizens, confident that no one could or would do anything about it.

Were there any U.S. grand-jury investigations or indictments in the murders of Charles Horman and Frank Terrugi? Was there a congressional investigation into their killings? Do we even know the names of the CIA agents who participated in their executions? Do we know exactly what role the U.S. national-security state played in their murders? Do we know whether Nixon or other high U.S. officials authorized the hits?

The answer to all those questions is no, which is absolutely astounding. The Congress’s and criminal-justice system’s inaction reveals the omnipotent power that the military and the CIA had achieved over the American people some 25 years after the formal adoption of the national-security state.

It is no surprise that the CIA continues to steadfastly refuse to declassify tens of thousands of records relating to U.S. participation in the Chilean coup. Its justification? National security, of course, the same justification it relies on in its continued refusal to release critical documents relating to the Kennedy assassination some 50 years after that watershed.

Recently, almost 40 years after the murders of Horman and Terrugi, a Chilean judge issued a criminal indictment against a former U.S. army officer, Capt. Ray E. Davis, who was commander of the U.S. Military Group at the American embassy in Santiago at the time of the Chilean coup. The charge? Conspiracy to murder Horman and Terrugi. It’s what the United States should have done a long time ago. It’s what the United States should still do.

To deal with the communist threat, Pinochet embraced a policy of assassination that would be embraced many years later by U.S. national-security state officials to deal with the threat of terrorism. Operating through the intelligence entity DINA, a secret police intelligence force that would partner with the CIA to fight communism, the Chilean military embarked on a program of assassinating suspected communists, not only within Chile itself but also in other countries. The assassination program was similar to the one that the U.S. military and CIA would adopt many years later in their post–9/11 war on terrorism. Among the suspected communists assassinated was a former army general named Carlos Prats, who opposed the Pinochet dictatorship from Argentina.

Murder in America

The most famous of Pinochet’s and DINA’s assassinations, however, was that of Orlando Letelier, who had served as minister of foreign affairs, interior, and defense in the Allende regime and who was openly opposing the Pinochet dictatorship in Washington, D.C. In 1976 he was assassinated by a group of anti-Castro Cuban exiles headed by an American named Michael Townley, a DINA agent who had formerly worked as a CIA operative.

Oddly enough, the U.S. Justice Department considered Letelier’s killing a murder rather than an act of war in the war on communism. Grand-jury indictments for criminal offenses were issued against the Cuban exiles and Townley. For planning and orchestrating the cold-blooded murder of Letelier and his young American assistant, Ronni Moffitt, Townley served a grand total of 62 months in jail before being released to the U.S. government and its witness-protection program.

A Spanish judge recently issued an indictment and arrest warrant against him for the 1976 kidnapping and murder of a Spanish diplomat, Carmelo Soria, who was working in Chile.

While national security was used to justify U.S. attempts to oust Allende, the obvious question arises: what danger to the United States was Allende’s embrace of a combination of socialism, interventionism, mercantilism, and fascism? Sure, such policies would naturally cause economic damage to Chile, but why was that a concern of the U.S. government?

Had Chile attacked the United States or even threatened to do so?

No. Like Fidel Castro, Mohammed Mossadegh, and Jacobo Arbenz, Allende was guilty of nothing more than being a popular foreign ruler who, owing to his belief in statism, was leading his nation into economic and financial disaster. It was the U.S. government, under the flag of national security, that was the aggressor against Iran, Guatemala, Cuba, Chile, and other nations.

Unfortunately, the national-security mindset did not end with the Cold War. The mindset would resurge with a vengeance, at least for the American people, when the war on terror replaced the war on communism.

In his Farewell Address in 1961, President Dwight Eisenhower issued a stark warning that must have shocked Americans at that time. He said that the vast U.S. “military-industrial complex” constituted a grave threat to their democratic processes.

Eisenhower’s successor, John  Kennedy, was so concerned about the power of the military in American life that he recommended that the novel Seven Days in May, which was about a military coup in America, be made into movie to serve as a warning to the American people about how powerful the military establishment had become in the United States.

Thirty days after Kennedy was assassinated, the Washington Post published an op-ed by the former president Harry Truman pointing out that the CIA had become a dark and sinister force in American life.

Since the Kennedy assassination, however, not a single president and very few members of Congress have dared to challenge the existence of what we now know as the national-security state. On the contrary, since 1963 every president and every Congress have showered the Pentagon and the CIA with money, weaponry, power, luxury, and influence.

Moreover, the federal judiciary made it clear a long time ago that it would never enforce any constitutional restrictions against the military and the CIA once “national security” or “state secrets” were invoked.

The national-security state, especially the military and the CIA, has become a permanent part of American life. In fact, with their overarching mission to protect “national security,” their dominant role in the American economy, and now their supremacy over the American citizenry, the Pentagon and the CIA are arguably the most important and most powerful parts of the federal government.

The national-security state has transformed American life. The military now wields the power to take people into custody, transport them to a military dungeon or concentration camp, torture them, keep them incarcerated for life, assassinate them, or execute them, perhaps after a kangaroo military tribunal. All this can now be done without any semblance of due process of law or jury trial.

In fact, as a practical matter the establishment of the national-security state effectively amended the Constitution, without anyone’s going through the formal amendment process. The two most important words in the lives of the American people for almost 60 years — “national security” — have been used to effect the most radical transformation in America’s governmental system in U.S. history. Ironically, the two words aren’t even found in the Constitution.

Combined with the quest for empire, which began more than 100 years ago, the national-security state invades and occupies countries that haven’t attacked the United States and kidnaps people suspected of terrorism anywhere in the world and “renditions” them to friendly dictatorial regimes for the purpose of torturing them. Or it simply assassinates them. When it comes to terrorism, the U.S. national-security state is the judge, jury, and executioner. Its determination is final and nonreviewable. As a practical matter, both the military and the CIA have total immunity from criminal prosecution and from liability for killings and other acts of violence committed in the name of national security.

Permanent numbness

We shouldn’t forget that it wasn’t always terrorism that justified the ever-growing expansion of the warfare state. Before 1990 communism was the official bogeyman that justified U.S. intervention worldwide. Indeed, the overwhelming weight of the circumstantial evidence suggests that national security was behind the assassination of John Kennedy, especially in light of his secret negotiations with the Soviets and Cuban leader Fidel Castro to end the Cold War, which would have meant that the vast national-security state could have been dismantled as far back as 1963.

In the name of national security, U.S. officials have installed, supported, and partnered with dictatorships renowned for their brutal suppression of their own citizenry, especially with torture. In fact, the U.S. “war on terror” might easily have been modeled on the so-called dirty war in Argentina and the Pinochet reign of state terror in Chile. After all, many of the military officials in those countries who used their powers to smash people whom they suspected of being communists or terrorists had received their training in torture under the auspices of the Pentagon, specifically at the School of the Americas (renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation) or as people in Latin America label it, “School of the Assassins.”

The distressing fact is that both the Pentagon and the CIA have favored totalitarian types since the very beginning of the national-security state, when they began recruiting Nazi intelligence operatives into their fold, with the aim of confronting the Soviet Union — America’s World War II ally and partner — in the new Cold War that would last for decades, thereby ensuring the continuation and expansion of the vast military and intelligence establishment.

During the Cold War the national-security state intentionally destroyed Iran’s experiment with democracy by ousting the elected prime minister and replacing him with a brutal pro-U.S. dictator, whose secret police were trained by the CIA.

One year later the U.S. government ousted the democratically elected president of Guatemala and installed a succession of brutal military dictators in his stead, setting off a civil war that would last decades and result in the death, torture, and rape of hundreds of thousands of people.

It invaded Cuba, attempted to assassinate its president, imposed an embargo against its people, and engaged in acts of state-sponsored terrorism within that country.

It participated in the ouster of the democratically elected president of Chile and his replacement by a brutal military dictator. During that coup the national-security state helped to murder two young Americans who committed the dastardly mental crime of subscribing to socialist ideology. Owing to the power of the military and the CIA, however, no one has ever been called to account for the murder of those two Americans.

The national-security state also supported, with cash and armaments, the brutal military dictatorship in Egypt, thereby solidifying the power of the dictatorship over the Egyptian people.

The list goes on and on.

The American people have walked through it all in what seems to be a state of permanent numbness. That’s one of the national-security state’s greatest accomplishments — the subordination of individual conscience to the military and the CIA. If national security required an attack on a country that had never attacked the United States, so be it. If it required cruel and inhumane sanctions or embargoes that squeezed the lifeblood out of innocent people, so be it. If it required an assassination of some foreign ruler or just some private citizen somewhere, so be it. If it required 75 years of secrecy in the Kennedy assassination, so be it. If it required the execution of American citizens in Chile or elsewhere, so be it. If it required kidnapping, torture, indefinite incarceration, execution, or assassination, so be it. If it required supporting brutal dictatorships, so be it. If it required drug experiments on unsuspecting Americans, so be it. If it required the recruitment of Nazis into the national-security state, so be it.

All that mattered was that national security be preserved at all costs. No one was supposed to question or challenge what the state had to do to protect national security. Everyone was expected to simply keep his head down, go about his business, and remain silent and trusting.  

Thus no one was supposed to notice that the national-security state was embracing many of the policies and programs that characterized totalitarian states. Since it was all being done in the name of “national security” and to “protect our freedoms and values,” it was all considered justified. In fact, it was all considered part of our “freedom.”

The worst choice

Perhaps the most willing form of blindness came with the 9/11 attacks. U.S. officials immediately announced that the terrorists had struck America out of anger and hatred for America’s “freedom and values,” a line that would immediately be embraced by many Americans. Yet time and again, terrorists who struck America before and after 9/11 made it clear that their anger and hatred were rooted in what the U.S. national-security state had been doing and was continuing to do to people overseas, especially in the Middle East.

One of the best examples of the horror of U.S. foreign policy occurred in Iraq, where 11 years of brutal sanctions, which began after the 1991 Gulf War, contributed to the death of half a million Iraqi children. When the U.S. ambassador to the UN, Madeleine Albright, was asked about that by Sixty Minutes, she said the deaths were “worth it.”

Her answer reflected the official view of the national-security state. Given the lack of outrage among the American people, the episode also showed how horribly the national-security had warped the values, principles, and conscience of the American people. That callous indifference to the sanctity of human life would be repeated after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Not only was there little demand for an official investigation into whether U.S. officials, including the president, had intentionally misled Americans with claims that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction and that they posed a threat to U.S. national-security interests, all too many Americans willingly accepted the alternative rationale — the spread of democracy — to justify the continuation of the killing, torture, and maiming of the Iraqi people. No one was supposed to notice that the U.S. national-security state had actually partnered with Saddam in his war against Iran or that it was actively supporting other dictatorships at the time it was supposedly engaging in “democracy-spreading” in Iraq.

It was such policies that motivated anti-American anger and hatred, not hatred for America’s “freedom and values.”

People like to say that “9/11 changed the world.” It actually didn’t change U.S. foreign policy at all. Instead, it gave national-security state officials the excuse to invade both Iraq and Afghanistan in the hope of installing friendly pro-U.S. regimes. It also enabled the national-security state to adopt by decree the same “temporary emergency” powers that characterized the brutal dictatorships that the national-security had long supported and partnered with, especially in the Middle East and Latin America.

The worst thing the American people ever did — worse even than embracing the welfare state — was to permit a permanent warfare state to come into existence. The national-security state has warped American values and stultified Americans’ conscience. It has engendered anger and hatred for America all over the world. It is a major factor contributing to the out-of-control federal spending and debt that threaten the economic security of the nation. The national-security state is a cancer on the body politic. It’s time to dismantle it. It’s time to close all the bases, bring the troops home and discharge them, and abolish the CIA. It is a necessary prerequisite for a free, prosperous, harmonious, and secure society.

Reprinted from The Future of Freedom Foundation.

Really? What about November 22, 1963?

“Oh, Jacob, don’t be silly. President Kennedy’s assassination couldn’t have been orchestrated by the U.S. national-security state, notwithstanding the overwhelming amount of evidence pointing in that direction, because it’s just inconceivable that such a thing could happen here in our country. That’s just a conspiracy theory. Such things only happen in places like Egypt … or Chile … or Iran … or Guatemala … or South Vietnam and, yes, oftentimes with the support and participation of the U.S. military and the CIA, but such a thing could never happen here in our country.”

Oh, really? So, what you’re saying, Mr. Statist, is that if the democratically elected president of the United States is engaged in policies and actions that are leading to the nation’s destruction, the U.S. national-security state apparatus — i.e., the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA — will simply stand aside and let it happen — despite the fact that the U.S. military and the CIA have supported and even participated in military coups that purportedly save foreign countries from their rulers.

Consider Chile. The Chilean people elect a communist, Salvador Allende, in a democratic election at the height of the Cold War. U.S. officials say that this cannot stand. So, President Nixon orders the CIA to foment a massive economic crisis within the country, much like the economic crisis leading up to the military coup in Egypt. “Make the economy scream” are Nixon’s exact words.  The CIA faithfully obeys his orders notwithstanding the fact that the Constitution does not authorize any such action. The Chilean military, with the support of the U.S. national-security state, ousts Allende in a coup and imposes brutal military rule under Army General Augusto Pinochet.

Pinochet’s military-intelligence goons immediately went about arresting Allende’s supporters and suspected communists, jailed them, tortured and raped them, and executed them. To this day, supporters of the coup say that all this was justified to save the country from the mistake that the Chilean electorate had made in electing Allende president.

The U.S. national-security state did its part by helping to execute a young American man named Charles Horman, whose only “crime” was having the same leftist leanings as, say, President Franklin Roosevelt. (See “What Were the Standards for Executing Charles Horman?” by Jacob G. Hornberger.) It was a cold-blooded murder of an innocent American, a murder for which the still-unidentified CIA killers have never been held to account, no doubt because the operation was conducted in the name of “national security,” the two magical words that have played the biggest role in the lives of the American people in our lifetime.

Why wouldn’t that same mindset that was used to justify the Chilean coup operate here in the United States? If U.S. national-security state officials helped foment a coup in Chile that they believed was necessary to save Chile (and the United States) from its duly elected president, why wouldn’t they do the same here in the United States if the survival of the nation depended on it? Would they really say: “Golly, we’ll do what is necessary to save Chile (and America) from a bad Chilean president but we’ll just have to let the United States be destroyed by a bad president here because it would be illegal or wrong for us save our nation with a coup or assassination”?

That’s patently ridiculous. It is the job of the national-security branch of the U.S. government to protect national security. To suggest that the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA would help foreign militaries oust their rulers to save their countries but would not do the same for the United States when faced with similar circumstances makes no sense. After all, don’t national-security statists often tell us that the Constitution isn’t a suicide pact?

So, certain questions naturally arise: Did President Kennedy pose a threat to national security? Were his policies and actions leading America to destruction? Did the nation’s survival depend on his removal from office?

From the standpoint of a national-security statist, there really isn’t any question about it. In fact, looking at the situation through the mindset of a national-security statist, what Kennedy was doing here in the United States was infinitely worse than what Allende was doing in Chile, or Mubarak and Morsi were doing in Egypt, or Mossadegh was doing in Iran, or Arbenz was doing in Guatemala, or what Diem was doing in South Vietnam.

Consider Kennedy’s policies actions from the standpoint of an ardent national-security statist at the height of the Cold War. Here’s how an ardent national-security statist viewed Kennedy and his administration:

While Kennedy had talked a good game against the communists during the 1960 presidential campaign, his policies and his actions left the United States extremely vulnerable to a communist takeover, as follows:

1. During the Bay of Pigs disaster, Kennedy double-crossed the CIA and the Cuban exiles by refusing to provide them with air cover, thereby bringing failure and shame to the United States. Kennedy’s hesitation and weakness left a communist outpost 90 miles away from American shores, an outpost that would become a place where the Soviet Union based nuclear weapons aimed at the United States.

2. While Kennedy publicly accepted responsibility for the Bay of Pigs disaster, he privately blamed the fiasco on the CIA. He fired the highly respected Alan Dulles as head of the CIA (whom LBJ would later appoint to the Warren Commission, a conflict of interest if there ever was one) and two of his main subordinates. Kennedy also went to war against the CIA, promising “to splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds.” If the threatened destruction of the CIA at the height of the Cold War wasn’t a grave threat to national security in and of itself, what was?

3. After the Bay of Pigs, Kennedy refused to approve Operation Northwoods, a top-secret military plan unanimously recommended by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, whereby the U.S. national-security state would initiate fake terrorist attacks and airplane hijackings to provide the justification for invading Cuba and ousting Castro’s communist regime. Kennedy’s refusal to adopt the plan left Cuba in the hands of Fidel Castro, who would shortly permit Soviet nuclear missiles to be based there.

4. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy refused to invade or bomb the island, which is what the Pentagon and the CIA wanted him to do. Instead, he showed weakness by negotiating with the communists and, even worse, letting the Soviets and Cubans prevail in the crisis by promising that the United States would never invade Cuba again, leaving the communists with a permanent outpost 90 miles away from American shores. Kennedy also secretly promised the Soviets that he would withdraw nuclear missiles in Turkey that were aimed at the Soviet Union.

(I would be remiss if I failed to mention that during the Cuban Missile Crisis Bobby Kennedy communicated to the Soviets that President Kennedy was faced with the distinct possibility of a U.S. military coup — yes, the same type of coup that just occurred in Egypt. This was, of course, just a couple of years after President Eisenhower had warned Americans in his Farewell Address that the Cold War military-industrial complex posed a grave threat to America’s democratic processes.)

5. No longer trusting the judgment of either the military establishment or the CIA, JFK, who had continued to oppose them by adamantly refusing to commit any combat troops to Vietnam, decided to pull out all 16,000 U.S. military advisers by the end of 1965. That was bad enough because as the military and the CIA (and a lot of other Americans) were convinced, the loss of Vietnam to the communists would start the dominoes falling, with the final domino being the United States. But while Kennedy’s weak and cowardly decision to get out of Vietnam was part of the reason for the ire that the national-security state had toward Kennedy, it was only a part.

After the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy entered into secret negotiations with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev to do something much bigger than simply get out of Vietnam. He and Khrushchev were secretly negotiating to end the entire Cold War, which would leave the Soviet Union and the United States in peaceful coexistence, much as communist China and the United States are today.

Needless to say, that was anathema to the military and the CIA. Everyone knows that communists can’t be trusted. This was a formula for surrender by an inexperienced, weak, and naive president.

(As an aside, I should point out that many U.S. conservatives considered the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dismantling of the Soviet Union to be an elaborate ruse by which the communists were lulling America into a false sense of security. I personally recall one well-known conservative who for years continued hewing to this position under the assumption that communists could never be trusted.)

If the Cold War was ended, what would that mean for America’s national-security state — i.e., the already enormous and ever-growing military-industrial complex and the CIA, which former President Truman, only a month after the Kennedy assassination, would observe had become, in the eyes of many around the world, a sinister force?

6. Kennedy was supporting and defending Martin Luther King, whom FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover was certain was a communist, and the civil-rights movement, which Hoover was convinced was a communist front.

7. Kennedy was having sexual affairs with countless women, including a girlfriend of a Mafioso and an erratic Hollywood star, thereby subjecting himself and the country to the possibility of blackmail. After all, if FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover could use personal information about people’s sex lives to blackmail them, why couldn’t the communists do the same? In fact, who’s to say that communist blackmail wasn’t the reason that JFK was effectively surrendering America to the communists with his secret negotiations with Khrushchev to end the Cold War, especially since he was doing so without even advising or consulting with the military or the CIA about the negotiations?

8. Circumstantial evidence suggests that Kennedy might well have been smoking dope and possibly even taking LSD with one of his mistresses, Mary Pinchot Meyer, the ex-wife of a high-level CIA agent. What if the Soviets launched nuclear missiles at the United States one night while Kennedy was stoned? If that’s not a grave threat to national security in and of itself, what is?

Compare Kennedy’s actions to those of Morsi, or Allende, or Arbenz, or Mossadegh, or Diem. What those rulers were doing to place their nations in jeopardy pale to insignificance compared to Kennedy’s actions and policies. Are we really supposed to believe that the U.S. national-security state would support regime-change operations to protect those nations (and the United States) from their rulers but would stand aside and do nothing to protect the United States from one of its rulers? Does that make any sense?

For a deeper, fuller explanation of the context of Kennedy’s relationship with the military and the CIA, especially after Kennedy’s soul-searing experience of the Cuban Missile Crisis, I highly recommend two books: JFK and the Unspeakable by James W. Douglass and volume 5 of Douglas P. Horne’s book Inside the Assassination Records Review Board. (Volume 5 is Horne’s overview of why Kennedy was assassinated. It is a gripping and fascinating expose of JFK’s internal war, over foreign and military policy, against his own national-security establishment.)Horne served on the staff of the ARRB, which was formed in the 1990s in the wake of the storm of public opinion produced by Oliver Stone’s movie JFK, especially the film’s revelation that the federal government was continuing to keep records of the Kennedy assassination secret from the American people.

Horne’s book mostly revolves around Kennedy’s autopsy, which has always been sold to the American people as nothing more than negligence and incompetence on the part of the military officials who performed the autopsy.

Oh?

Consider the following aspects of the autopsy, as detailed in Horne’s five-volume book:

1. Two separate brain exams involving two separate brains were conducted, one of which, to belabor the obvious, did not belong to President Kennedy. The brain whose photograph made it into the official record weighed more than a normal-size brain, notwithstanding the fact that most everyone acknowledged that the gunshot to the president’s head had blasted out approximately one-third of his brain tissue.

The official photographer for the autopsy, a federal employee, ultimately swore under oath before the ARRB that none of the brain photographs in the official collection (consisting of 14 photographs) were taken by him and that none of the brain photographs that he did take are in the official collection.

Moreover, an FBI agent who was at the autopsy also stated under oath to the ARRB that the brain photos in the autopsy collection could not be pictures of JFK’s brain because too much mass was present.

Are we to assume that that both the official photographer and FBI agent were negligent and incompetent?

2. Many witnesses, including the Dallas doctors and nurses and even highly trustworthy federal employees stated that Kennedy had an exit hole the size of a baseball or small orange in the back of his head, notwithstanding the fact that the official autopsy photos show no such hole. Are we to assume that all those witnesses were just negligent and incompetent?

3. Many witnesses, including U.S. military personnel, stated that the president’s body was brought into the Bethesda morgue about 1 and ½ hours early in a body bag inside a cheap shipping casket rather than in the expensive ornate heavy casket into which the body had been placed in Dallas. Are we to assume that all those witnesses were just negligent and incompetent? (See “The Kennedy Casket Conspiracy” by Jacob G. Hornberger.)

4. Two FBI agents who attended the autopsy wrote in their official report that one of the Bethesda pathologists stated at the outset of the autopsy that the president’s head had been subject to pre-autopsy surgery, a report that, not surprisingly, did not find its way into the Warren Commission report. In fact, neither agent was even called to testify before the Warren Commission. Are we to assume that those two FBI agents were just negligent and incompetent?

5. Secret Service agents, brandishing guns and threatening deadly force against the Dallas coroner, pushed the president’s casket out of Parkland Hospital in order to get it into the waiting plane of LBJ, who was already quickly making room for it, notwithstanding the fact that Texas law required an autopsy to be conducted in the state of Texas. Are we to assume that those Secret Service agents and LBJ were just negligent and incompetent?

That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Horne’s five-volume treatise is not an easy read but one thing is for sure: Anyone who carefully reads this well-researched and detailed book can reach but one conclusion: the autopsy performed by the U.S. national-security state on John Kennedy’s body was a cover-up designed to cover up the fact that Kennedy had been shot from the front.

And there’s an important point that no one has ever been able to deny since the day of the assassination: The U.S. national-security state had exclusive control over Kennedy’s autopsy. Not the Mafia. Not the Soviets. Not Castro. Not aliens from outer space. Only the national-security state had control over the autopsy and the resulting cover-up. There is no way to escape that fact.

Is it just a coincidence that LBJ, himself an ardent Cold Warrior, reversed what Kennedy was doing in foreign affairs, including his secret negotiations to end the Cold War? Is it just a coincidence that the military and the CIA got their war in Vietnam, a war based on lies that needlessly cost the lives of some 58,000 American men and more than a million Vietnamese? Is it just a coincidence that not one single president since Kennedy and Eisenhower has dared to challenge the military, the CIA, and the NSA and their ever-increasing budgets? Is it just a coincidence that we’re still living under the yoke of a Cold War national-security state notwithstanding the fact that the Cold War ended almost a decade-and-a-half ago?

But hey, let’s just keep living our little myths and deferring to the wisdom and authority of our beloved Cold War national-security state, which suspends our freedom and privacy in order to keep us “safe” from the threats of terrorism that it itself produces.

Let’s just keep believing that it’s only foreigners, not Americans, who make “mistakes” in elections — mistakes that unfortunately sometimes have to be rectified with coups and assassinations. While our national-security state believes in helping foreign counterparts protect their nations from bad rulers through coups and assassinations, let’s just keep telling ourselves that it would never do the same here at home.

Reprinted from The Future of Freedom Foundation.

Proponents of the government’s lone-nut assassination theory in the John Kennedy assassination oftentimes suggest that those who reject the official version of what happened have some sort of psychological need to place the assassination within the context of a conspiracy. Conspiracy theorists, they say, simply cannot accept the idea that a lone nut succeeded in killing a president of the United States and a popular president at that.

I see it a different way.

When it comes to the national-security state, there are basically two groups of people, one group consisting of people with an independent and critical mindset and the other group consisting of people with a mindset of deference to and trust in authority.

For ease of expression, I will refer to the first group as the independents and the second group as the deferentials.

Over the years, I have read a considerable amount of literature relating to the Kennedy assassination. I have never encountered anyone who believes that there was a government conspiracy in the JFK murder who also believes that there was a government conspiracy in John Hinkley’s assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan or in Lynette Fromme’s assassination attempt against President Gerald Ford. Wouldn’t you think that if a person has a psychological need to look for government conspiracies behind presidential assassinations or assassination attempts, the need would be applied consistently to all presidential assassinations or assassination attempts?

So, what’s different about the Kennedy assassination?

The difference is that there are so many unusual anomalies within the Kennedy case that an independent and critical thinker feels compelled to ask, “Why?” The ability and willingness to ask that simple one-word question is what distinguishes the independents from the deferentials.

For the deferential, all such anomalies are irrelevant. All that matters is the official government version of the assassination. For the deferential, questioning or challenging the official version of a major event like a presidential assassination is a shocking notion, one that violates the deference-to-authority mindset that has been inculcated within him since he was six years old.

Examine carefully the criticisms that lone-nut proponents make of people in the assassination research community. Many lone-nut proponents mock conspiracy theories in the JFK case not because they feel there is a lack of evidence to support the theory. That is, they don’t say: “After carefully reviewing the evidence in the JFK case, I’ve concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald was a lone-nut assassin.”

Instead, many of the lone-nut proponents subscribe to what I call the “inconceivable doctrine,” one that holds that it is simply inconceivable that the U.S. national-security state would have conspired to assassinate a U.S. president.

Oh sure, for a deferential it is entirely conceivable that the national-security state would conspire to assassinate a foreign president or effect a regime-operation abroad, especially if national security is at stake. In such cases, the deferential, unable to bring himself to question or challenge the legitimacy of such operations, offers his unconditional support. But for the deferential, it is just inconceivable that the national-security state would do the same here at home, even if national security depended on it.

The inconceivable doctrine, of course, dovetails perfectly with the deference-to-authority mindset.

Let’s examine this difference in mindset between independents and deferentials by considering the fatal head wound in the Kennedy assassination, a matter that is detailed much more fully in Douglas P. Horne’s 5-volume series Inside the Assassination Records Review Board. Horne served on the staff of the ARRB, an agency that was created in the aftermath of the controversy over Oliver Stone’s movie “JFK.”

On page 69 of Volume I of his book, Horne states:

Simply put, on November 22, 1963 the Parkland hospital treatment physicians observed what they thought was an exit wound, a “blowout,” in the back of the President’s head, and described it virtually unanimously in the following way: (1) it was approximately fist sized , or baseball sized, or perhaps even a little smaller – the size of a very large egg or a small orange; (2) it was in the right rear of the head behind the right ear; (3) the wound described was an area devoid of scalp and bone; and (4) it was an avulsed wound, meaning it protruded outward as if it were an exit wound.

Horne points out that this observation of the Dallas treatment physicians was reinforced by a Dallas nurse named Pat Hutton whose written statement said that Kennedy had a “massive wound in the back of the head.” (Horne, Volume I, page 69.)

She and the Dallas treatment physicians weren’t the only ones.

Secret Service agent Clint Hill, who ran to the back of the presidential limousine and covered the president and Mrs. Kennedy with his body and who had a very good view of the president’s head wound during the trip to Parkland Hospital, wrote in his written report:

I noticed a portion of the President’s head on the right rear side was missing … part of his brain was gone. I saw a part of his skull with hair lying on it lying in the seat. (Horne, Volume I, page 69.)

Or consider the sworn testimony of Sandra Spencer, the Petty Officer in Charge of the Naval Photographic Center’s White House lab in Washington, D.C., before the ARRB about one of the Kennedy autopsy photographs she developed, one of the many photographs that she said never made it into the official autopsy record:

Gunn [ARRB interrogator]: Did you see any photographs that focused on the head of President Kennedy?

Spencer: Right. They had one showing the back of the head with the wound at the back of the head.

Gunn: Could you describe what you mean by the “wound at the back of the head?”

Spencer: It appeared to be a hole … two inches in diameter at the back of the skull here.

(Horne, Volume II, pages 314-315.)

***

Gunn: Ms. Spencer, you have now had an opportunity to view all the colored images, both transparencies and prints, that are in the possession of the National Archives related to the autopsy of President Kennedy. Based upon your knowledge, are there any images of the autopsy of President Kennedy that are not included in those views that we saw?

Spencer: The views that we produced at the Photographic Center are not included.

(Volume II, page 325.)

Horne sums up one import of Spencer’s sworn testimony before the ARRB (Horne, Volume II, page 331.):

The second major implication of the Sandra Spencer deposition is that the Parkland hospital medical staff written treatment reports prepared the weekend of the assassination were correct when they described an exit wound in the back of President Kennedy’s head, and damage to the cerebellum. (Italics in original.) [Note: the cerebellum is the part of the brain that is located in the lower back of the head.]

So, what’s the problem?

Take a look at the following rendering of the official autopsy photograph of the back of Kennedy’s head by House Select Committee on Assassinations illustrator Ida Dox in 1978:

Do you see the problem? The photo does not show a hole in the back of Kennedy’s head. It shows the back of the head to be intact.

Why is that a problem?

Because the government’s official version is that that photo correctly depicts the condition of Kennedy’s head after the assassination and, therefore, directly contradicts all the people who saw a hole in the back of the head.

Now, consider this testimony by FBI agent James Sibert, who attended the autopsy, before the ARRB:

Gunn: Mr. Sibert, does that photograph correspond to your recollection of the back of the head?

Sibert: Well, I don’t have a recollection of it being that intact…. I don’t remember seeing anything that was like this photo.

***

Gunn: But do you see anything that corresponds in photograph 42 to what you observed during the night of the autopsy?

Sibert: No, I don’t recall anything like this at all during the autopsy. There was much – well, the wound was more pronounced. And it looks like it could have been reconstructed or something, as compared to what my recollection was.” (Horne, Volume I, pages 30-31.)

Consider this testimony of FBI agent Frank O’Neill, who also attended the autopsy, before the ARRB:

Gunn: ….I’d like to ask you whether that photograph resembles what you saw from the back of the head at the time of the autopsy.

O’Neill: This looks like it’s been doctored in some way. Let me rephrase that, when I say “doctored.” Like the stuff has been pushed back in, and it looks like more towards the end than at the beginning [of the autopsy]….

***

O’Neill: Quite frankly, I thought that there was a larger opening in the back … opening in the back of the head. (Volume I, page 31.)

That’s not all.

Horne writes (Horne, Volume 1, page 78):

My own, more nuanced characterization follows. At the time the ARRB commenced its efforts, several autopsy eyewitnesses (Tom Robinson [from Joseph Gawler’s Sons, Inc. funeral home], [FBI agent] Frank O’Neill, [FBI agent] James Sibert, John Ebersole [Bethesda autopsy radiologist], Jan Gail Rudnicki [autopsy lab assistant]; x-ray technician Ed Reed; Secret Service agent Roy Kellerman; and Philip Wehle [commander of the Military District of Washington]) had given descriptions to the HSCA [House Select Committee on Assassinations] staff, or had drawn images for them, that were very reminiscent of the Dallas descriptions of the exit wound in the skull – indicating that a large portion of the back of the President’s head was missing… .(Italics in original; brackets added.]

That’s not all.

Soon after the assassination, a Dallas medical student named Billy Harper found a portion of Kennedy’s skull near the assassination site. He took the fragment to his uncle, Dr. Jack C. Harper, who took it to Methodist Hospital in Dallas, where it was photographed. Dr. A.B. Cairns, former chief of pathology at the hospital, told an investigator for the HSCA that the skull fragment, which became known as the Harper Fragment, was from the lower occipital area, which denotes the lower back of the head. The government later lost the fragment. (Volume II, page 392.)

What does a deferential do when faced with this quandary? After all, we have lots of credible people saying one thing and an official government photograph depicting the opposite.

This presents no problem for the deferential. For him, the official government photograph and the official government version of events are gospel. Any conflicting evidence is simply ignored and disregarded. For the deferential, evidence that contradicts the official story is, at worst, concocted and, at best, simply mistaken. Either way, it’s irrelevant.

For the deferential, it is simply inconceivable that the government would falsify the appearance of the back of Kennedy’s head. Alternatively, if the government did falsify how the back of the head appeared, the deferential would simply assume that the government had good reason to do so, almost certainly something to do with protecting national security.

Either way, the deferential says that we must simply trust the government. We mustn’t ask questions. We must defer to authority.

That’s how the deferential mindset works.

The independent sees things differently. His mindset causes him to ask, “What in the world is going on here?” After all, either lots of reputable people have concocted a fake story about the hole in the back of Kennedy’s head or the government’s photo falsely depicts the appearance of the back of Kennedy’s head.

Since it’s highly unlikely that all those people got together to concoct such a story, that leaves but one alternative: The government’s photo falsely depicts the back of Kennedy’s head.

Unlike the deferential, the independent wants to know why. Why would the government do that? Why would it try to hide an exit wound in the back of Kennedy’s head? What would be the point?

Well, one point would be: to hide evidence of shots being fired from the front, given that an exit wound in the back of the head obviously connotes a shot having been fired from the front.

So, the independent would ask the next logical question: Why would the government try to cover up shots having been fired from the front? Why would it want to immediately shut down the investigation by pinning the murder on a lone nut rather than exploring the possibility that other people were involved in the assassination?

That’s the way the mind of an independent works. Contrary to what the lone-nut theorists suggest, it’s not that the independent has a psychological need of a conspiracy in presidential assassinations, it is simply that the independent’s critical mindset needs a logical and rational explanation for the many anomalies in the Kennedy case.

That’s the conflict that will play out this year and afterward in discussions relating to the Kennedy assassination: the mindset of those who have independent, inquisitive, critical, and analytical minds versus the mindset of those who defer to authority and trust that the government is doing the right thing, especially in matters relating to national security.

The Best of Jacob Hornberger

While President Obama, the Pentagon, and the CIA have steadfastly refused to say why they assassinated American citizen Anwar al-Awlaki, one thing remains beyond dispute: It wasn’t because Awlaki was trying to take away the freedom of the American people. It was instead because he was opposing the U.S. national-security state’s interventionism in the Middle East and neighboring regions.

The issue is a simple one:

People over there are saying to the Pentagon and the CIA:

Go home. Leave us alone. Close your military bases. Cease your sanctions, embargoes, coups, invasions, occupations, regime-change operations, threats, kidnapping, incarceration, prison camps, torture, and support of our dictators. Just go home and deal with your own problems.

On the other hand, the U.S. national-security state says:

Not on your life. We are the U.S. national-security state. We are a force for good in the world. We are here to help you. We have the right to do so. We have the right to bring you democracy and freedom and order and stability. We have the right to support your dictators, oust your rulers and install new ones, sanction and embargo you, kidnap, incarcerate, and torture you, and assassinate you. We are here to stay. You are free to protest to your heart’s content. But the minute you try to force us to return home, we will bomb, shoot, arrest, incarcerate, torture, execute, or assassinate you and anyone standing near you.

The rumor is that Awlaki had crossed the line from legitimate protest to some sort of “operational” role in attacks on U.S. troops over there. Nonetheless, the basic fact remains — he was killed not for trying to deprive the American people of their freedom but because he was supposedly part of an effort to force the Pentagon and the CIA to exit that part of the world and return home.

Awlaki wasn’t trying to take over the reins of the U.S. government in an attempt to enslave the American people. On the contrary, he left the United States with the sole intent of resisting the presence and activities of the U.S. national-security state over there.

By the way, the same principle applies to the assassination of Awlaki’s 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman. The rumor is that the boy was supposedly “collateral damage” from a drone missile fired at some supposed terrorist in Yemen. But like his father and, for that matter, all the other people they have assassinated over there, the supposed terrorist sitting next to Abdulrahman had no intent to cross the Atlantic Ocean as part of some gigantic terrorist army to invade, conquer, and occupy the United States and deprive Americans of their freedom. At most, the supposed terrorist was involved in the effort to oust the U.S. national-security state from that part of the world and force it to return home.

That’s what the assassinations are all about — not about defending the freedom of the American people but rather the “freedom” of the U.S. national-security state to do whatever it wants in the Middle East and elsewhere.

Why is this important? Because when a government is killing people, including both its own citizens and foreigners, it is incumbent on the citizenry to determine the reasons for the killings. Then, if the citizenry conclude that the reason for the killings is an illegitimate one, based on moral, ethical, religious, and spiritual factors, then it is up to the citizens to place the government back on the right track.

That’s where the role of conscience comes in.

Is the U.S. national-security state’s interventionism abroad a valid moral, ethical, religious, and spiritual justification for the Pentagon’s and CIA’s continued assassination of Americans and foreigners? Is it consistent with God’s laws and fundamental laws of morality? Is this the type of thing American Christians should be supporting? Or is it time for the American people to demand that the Pentagon and the CIA stop the killings and come home?

Recently by Jacob G. Hornberger: A Fiscal Lesson in Cyprus forAmericans

While President Obama, the Pentagon, and the CIA have steadfastly refused to say why they assassinated American citizen Anwar al-Awlaki, one thing remains beyond dispute: It wasn’t because Awlaki was trying to take away the freedom of the American people. It was instead because he was opposing the U.S. national-security state’s interventionism in the Middle East and neighboring regions.

The issue is a simple one:

People over there are saying to the Pentagon and the CIA:

Go home. Leave us alone. Close your military bases. Cease your sanctions, embargoes, coups, invasions, occupations, regime-change operations, threats, kidnapping, incarceration, prison camps, torture, and support of our dictators. Just go home and deal with your own problems.

On the other hand, the U.S. national-security state says:

Not on your life. We are the U.S. national-security state. We are a force for good in the world. We are here to help you. We have the right to do so. We have the right to bring you democracy and freedom and order and stability. We have the right to support your dictators, oust your rulers and install new ones, sanction and embargo you, kidnap, incarcerate, and torture you, and assassinate you. We are here to stay. You are free to protest to your heart’s content. But the minute you try to force us to return home, we will bomb, shoot, arrest, incarcerate, torture, execute, or assassinate you and anyone standing near you.

The rumor is that Awlaki had crossed the line from legitimate protest to some sort of “operational” role in attacks on U.S. troops over there. Nonetheless, the basic fact remains — he was killed not for trying to deprive the American people of their freedom but because he was supposedly part of an effort to force the Pentagon and the CIA to exit that part of the world and return home.

Awlaki wasn’t trying to take over the reins of the U.S. government in an attempt to enslave the American people. On the contrary, he left the United States with the sole intent of resisting the presence and activities of the U.S. national-security state over there.

By the way, the same principle applies to the assassination of Awlaki’s 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman. The rumor is that the boy was supposedly “collateral damage” from a drone missile fired at some supposed terrorist in Yemen. But like his father and, for that matter, all the other people they have assassinated over there, the supposed terrorist sitting next to Abdulrahman had no intent to cross the Atlantic Ocean as part of some gigantic terrorist army to invade, conquer, and occupy the United States and deprive Americans of their freedom. At most, the supposed terrorist was involved in the effort to oust the U.S. national-security state from that part of the world and force it to return home.

That’s what the assassinations are all about — not about defending the freedom of the American people but rather the “freedom” of the U.S. national-security state to do whatever it wants in the Middle East and elsewhere.

Why is this important? Because when a government is killing people, including both its own citizens and foreigners, it is incumbent on the citizenry to determine the reasons for the killings. Then, if the citizenry conclude that the reason for the killings is an illegitimate one, based on moral, ethical, religious, and spiritual factors, then it is up to the citizens to place the government back on the right track.

That’s where the role of conscience comes in.

Is the U.S. national-security state’s interventionism abroad a valid moral, ethical, religious, and spiritual justification for the Pentagon’s and CIA’s continued assassination of Americans and foreigners? Is it consistent with God’s laws and fundamental laws of morality? Is this the type of thing American Christians should be supporting? Or is it time for the American people to demand that the Pentagon and the CIA stop the killings and come home?

Reprinted from The Future of Freedom Foundation.

Jacob Hornberger [send him mail] is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.

The Best of Jacob Hornberger

Once again, the European Union is teaching Americans what lies at the end of the road of out-of-control federal spending and debt. Cyprus is the latest country that has required a bailout. But this time, the authorities have crossed the Rubicon in how they have addressed the problem.

The basic approach to overextended EU countries is to grant them immediate bailout money to enable them to make payments on their debts and other expenses, including their massive welfare doles to their citizenry. As a condition to receiving the bailout money, the EU requires the government to slash expenses, especially by reducing payments to the dole recipients, and to raise taxes. Additionally, bondholders have been required to take a loss on their investments.

With Cyprus, things have taken a different turn. To avoid having to slash expenses and raise taxes, the president of Cyprus announced that the government would simply expropriate money that people have deposited in the country’s banks. Those who have deposits in excess of 100,000 Euros would have about 10 percent of their monies confiscated. Those with less would have about 7 percent confiscated.

So, here you have an entire group of people who have saved their money, never dreaming that they would have to bear the consequences out of control government spending and debt, especially for those on the government welfare dole.

Not surprisingly, the Cyprus plan is having consequences, namely with old-fashioned bank runs. People are trying to get their money out of the Cyprus banks before the parliament formally approves the deal. Even more ominous, depositors are now taking their money out of banks in weaker countries and moving them to stronger countries.

Perhaps that’s why thethe president of Cyprus is keeping the nation’s banks closed on an extended “holiday.” Perhaps that’s also why both he and the parliament are now balking at implementing the bank-deposit confiscation plan.

Several years ago, the Argentine government was faced with a tremendous shortfall of revenues to cover its ever-burgeoning expenses. It simply confiscated people’s retirement accounts.

Would the U.S. government ever do these sorts of things? Well, don’t forget that President Roosevelt did it during the Great Depression when he nationalized gold and made it a felony offense to own it, notwithstanding the fact that it had been the official constitutional money of the United States since the founding of the nation. FDR ordered Americans to deliver their gold to the federal government, which paid them off in cheapened, devalued, irredeemable notes. It was a confiscation of wealth no different in principle from that that was done by the Argentine government and that is now being conducted by the Cyprus government.

Today, there is an enormous debate occurring here in the United States over the issue of out-of-control federal spending and debt.

The statists are saying: “Don’t worry. Be happy. Everything’s fine. The government should just keep spending and spending and borrowing and borrowing. It’s the key to economic prosperity.”

We libertarians are saying: “Out-of-control federal spending and debt is the road to national bankruptcy. Look at Greece, Italy, Spain, and now Cyprus. Governments cannot spend people rich. They spend people into impoverishment. It’s time to get off this road before it’s too late. It’s time to dismantle, not reform, the welfare-warfare state. Otherwise, be prepared for drastic measures employed by the federal government against the American people.”

If Americans continue following the statists, they will rue the day. Only by following the sound-money fiscal policies of the libertarians can we restore fiscal sanity to our land.

Recently by Jacob G. Hornberger: Rand Paul's Misplaced Celebration

Once again, the European Union is teaching Americans what lies at the end of the road of out-of-control federal spending and debt. Cyprus is the latest country that has required a bailout. But this time, the authorities have crossed the Rubicon in how they have addressed the problem.

The basic approach to overextended EU countries is to grant them immediate bailout money to enable them to make payments on their debts and other expenses, including their massive welfare doles to their citizenry. As a condition to receiving the bailout money, the EU requires the government to slash expenses, especially by reducing payments to the dole recipients, and to raise taxes. Additionally, bondholders have been required to take a loss on their investments.

With Cyprus, things have taken a different turn. To avoid having to slash expenses and raise taxes, the president of Cyprus announced that the government would simply expropriate money that people have deposited in the country’s banks. Those who have deposits in excess of 100,000 Euros would have about 10 percent of their monies confiscated. Those with less would have about 7 percent confiscated.

So, here you have an entire group of people who have saved their money, never dreaming that they would have to bear the consequences out of control government spending and debt, especially for those on the government welfare dole.

Not surprisingly, the Cyprus plan is having consequences, namely with old-fashioned bank runs. People are trying to get their money out of the Cyprus banks before the parliament formally approves the deal. Even more ominous, depositors are now taking their money out of banks in weaker countries and moving them to stronger countries.

Perhaps that’s why thethe president of Cyprus is keeping the nation’s banks closed on an extended “holiday.” Perhaps that’s also why both he and the parliament are now balking at implementing the bank-deposit confiscation plan.

Several years ago, the Argentine government was faced with a tremendous shortfall of revenues to cover its ever-burgeoning expenses. It simply confiscated people’s retirement accounts.

Would the U.S. government ever do these sorts of things? Well, don’t forget that President Roosevelt did it during the Great Depression when he nationalized gold and made it a felony offense to own it, notwithstanding the fact that it had been the official constitutional money of the United States since the founding of the nation. FDR ordered Americans to deliver their gold to the federal government, which paid them off in cheapened, devalued, irredeemable notes. It was a confiscation of wealth no different in principle from that that was done by the Argentine government and that is now being conducted by the Cyprus government.

Today, there is an enormous debate occurring here in the United States over the issue of out-of-control federal spending and debt.

The statists are saying: “Don’t worry. Be happy. Everything’s fine. The government should just keep spending and spending and borrowing and borrowing. It’s the key to economic prosperity.”

We libertarians are saying: “Out-of-control federal spending and debt is the road to national bankruptcy. Look at Greece, Italy, Spain, and now Cyprus. Governments cannot spend people rich. They spend people into impoverishment. It’s time to get off this road before it’s too late. It’s time to dismantle, not reform, the welfare-warfare state. Otherwise, be prepared for drastic measures employed by the federal government against the American people.”

If Americans continue following the statists, they will rue the day. Only by following the sound-money fiscal policies of the libertarians can we restore fiscal sanity to our land.

Reprinted from The Future of Freedom Foundation.

Jacob Hornberger [send him mail] is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.

The Best of Jacob Hornberger

With his 13-hour filibuster of President Obama’s nomination of John Brennan to be CIA director, U.S. Senator Rand Paul has drawn the nation’s attention to the issue of whether President Obama claims the authority to assassinate American citizens here at home, on American soil.

The president, through Attorney General Eric Holder, initially stated that the president could use the military to kill Americans on U.S. soil but only in an “extraordinary circumstance.” Holder emphasized, however, that the president has “no intention of doing so.”

Yesterday, at a daily briefing, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney read a short letter from Holder that’s states as follows:

“Dear Senator Paul: It has come to my attention that you have now asked an additional question: ‘Does the President have the authority to use a weaponized drone to kill an American not engaged in combat on American soil?’ The answer to that question is no. Sincerely, Eric H. Holder, Jr.”

Senator Paul has construed that statement to mean that Obama is not claiming the authority to assassinate Americans on U.S. soil. “Hooray!” he exclaimed on Fox News, followed by a statement to CNN that he is “quite happy” with Holder’s letter and only wished it hadn’t taken so long to get an answer.

Unfortunately, Paul’s celebration is misplaced. The unequivocal reality is that President Obama, like President Bush before him, does in fact claim the authority to assassinate Americans and anyone else, both here and abroad. This claim follows logically from how they view the so-called war on terrorism.

When the 9/11 attacks occurred, President Bush labeled them an act of war, notwithstanding the fact that they constituted criminal offenses. In fact, just today we are reminded, once again, that terrorism, including the 9/11 terrorism and terrorism committed by al-Qaeda, are federal criminal offenses by the U.S. government’s plan to seek a federal grand-jury indictment against Osama bin Laden’s son in law for conspiracy to kill Americans.

Moreover, don’t forget that Zacharias Moussaoui, who was accused of having conspired to commit the 9/11 attacks, was prosecuted, tried, and convicted in U.S. district court. That’s, again, because terrorism is, in fact, a federal criminal offense.

Don’t forget also that American citizen Jose Padilla was ultimately indicted, prosecuted, convicted, and sentenced for terrorism, in a U.S. district court.

Those are just a few examples showing reality: Terrorism has long been a crime listed in the U.S. Code.

The problem occurred on 9/11, when Americans permitted President Bush to get away with treating the 9/11 attacks as an act of war. But they weren’t, any more than the 1993 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center constituted an act of war … or Timothy McVeigh’s terrorist attack on the federal building in Oklahoma City … or the Unibomber’s acts of terrorism … or any other act of terrorism. Again, terrorism is a federal criminal offense, which is why accused terrorists are indicted and prosecuted in federal district court.

Once Bush was permitted to get away with labeling his “war on terrorism” a real war, like World War II, he decreed that he now possessed the extraordinary powers associated with a military commander-in-chief, which necessarily includes killing enemy soldiers. In the war on terrorism, he said, the terrorists are the enemy soldiers or “enemy combatants.” In war, it’s legal to kill the enemy.

Bush’s position was fully endorsed by President Obama. It will also undoubtedly be fully endorsed by Hillary Clinton if she is elected president four years from now.

Equally important, both Bush and Obama have always emphasized that in the war on terrorism, the entire world is the battlefield. That includes the United States. Therefore, it logically follows that whatever powers Bush and Obama claim, as a wartime commander in chief, to kill people overseas extends to the United States. Again, in the war on terrorism, as U.S. officials have never ceased to remind us, the entire world is the battlefield. At the risk of belaboring the obvious, the entire world includes the United States.

Thus, there can be no doubt whatsoever that President Obama claims the authority to assassinate the enemy not only abroad but also right here in the United States. After all, ask yourself: why would he say that he lacks the authority to wage war here in the United States when the United States is part of the worldwide battlefield in the global war on terrorism?

Eric Holder’s initial statements confirm that position. Saying that the president isn’t currently planning to assassinate Americans isn’t the same thing as saying that the president lacks the legal authority to assassinate Americans. Instead, it’s saying the exact opposite. It’s saying that while the president does, in fact, have the authority to assassinate Americans, he’s simply not choosing to exercise that authority at the present time. However, if there is another major terrorist attack on American soil or some other big crisis, then, as Holder makes clear, all bets are off and the president might well expand his assassinations to American terrorists operating within the United States.

What about Holder’s supplemental letter read yesterday by White House Press Secretary Carney? A careful reading of it reveals that it’s simply a clever device to obfuscate Obama’s real position. It’s saying that the president lacks the authority to use a drone to assassinate an innocent American—i.e., an American “not engaged in combat on American soil.”

But neither Bush nor Obama have ever claimed the authority to assassinate innocent Americans. The authority they have always claimed has been to assassinate guilty Americans (and guilty foreigners)—that is, those people who are guilty of being terrorists.

Well, guess who decides whether a person is a terrorist. You got it! The president makes that determination. And once he decides that a person is a terrorist in his global “war on terrorism,” that’s the end of the discussion. The assassination is carried out by his loyal military and intelligence forces, and that’s the end of the matter. Under our post-9/11 system of government, neither the president nor the military nor the CIA is required to explain, justify, or even acknowledge the assassination.

Senator Paul deserves credit for flushing the president and his minions out into the open. But make no mistake about it: While the president is not currently assassinating Americans on American soil (American citizens Anwar al-Awlaki and his 16-year-old son Abdulrahman were assassinated in Yemen) or even rounding them up and transporting them to concentration camps or military dungeons, as he did with Jose Padilla, the reality is that under our system of government, he now has the power to do so.

As a practical matter, all that Obama needs is a good crisis for him to remove the sword from the sheath. But when that type of sword hangs over a nation, even when it is within the sheath, there is no possible way to consider that a free society. That’s a society whose ruler is wielding powers that characterize the greatest tyrannies in history.

Recently by Jacob G. Hornberger: Why Isn't the Murder of an American Boy an ImpeachableOffense?

With his 13-hour filibuster of President Obama’s nomination of John Brennan to be CIA director, U.S. Senator Rand Paul has drawn the nation’s attention to the issue of whether President Obama claims the authority to assassinate American citizens here at home, on American soil.

The president, through Attorney General Eric Holder, initially stated that the president could use the military to kill Americans on U.S. soil but only in an “extraordinary circumstance.” Holder emphasized, however, that the president has “no intention of doing so.”

Yesterday, at a daily briefing, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney read a short letter from Holder that’s states as follows:

“Dear Senator Paul: It has come to my attention that you have now asked an additional question: ‘Does the President have the authority to use a weaponized drone to kill an American not engaged in combat on American soil?’ The answer to that question is no. Sincerely, Eric H. Holder, Jr.”

Senator Paul has construed that statement to mean that Obama is not claiming the authority to assassinate Americans on U.S. soil. “Hooray!” he exclaimed on Fox News, followed by a statement to CNN that he is “quite happy” with Holder’s letter and only wished it hadn’t taken so long to get an answer.

Unfortunately, Paul’s celebration is misplaced. The unequivocal reality is that President Obama, like President Bush before him, does in fact claim the authority to assassinate Americans and anyone else, both here and abroad. This claim follows logically from how they view the so-called war on terrorism.

When the 9/11 attacks occurred, President Bush labeled them an act of war, notwithstanding the fact that they constituted criminal offenses. In fact, just today we are reminded, once again, that terrorism, including the 9/11 terrorism and terrorism committed by al-Qaeda, are federal criminal offenses by the U.S. government’s plan to seek a federal grand-jury indictment against Osama bin Laden’s son in law for conspiracy to kill Americans.

Moreover, don’t forget that Zacharias Moussaoui, who was accused of having conspired to commit the 9/11 attacks, was prosecuted, tried, and convicted in U.S. district court. That’s, again, because terrorism is, in fact, a federal criminal offense.

Don’t forget also that American citizen Jose Padilla was ultimately indicted, prosecuted, convicted, and sentenced for terrorism, in a U.S. district court.

Those are just a few examples showing reality: Terrorism has long been a crime listed in the U.S. Code.

The problem occurred on 9/11, when Americans permitted President Bush to get away with treating the 9/11 attacks as an act of war. But they weren’t, any more than the 1993 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center constituted an act of war … or Timothy McVeigh’s terrorist attack on the federal building in Oklahoma City … or the Unibomber’s acts of terrorism … or any other act of terrorism. Again, terrorism is a federal criminal offense, which is why accused terrorists are indicted and prosecuted in federal district court.

Once Bush was permitted to get away with labeling his “war on terrorism” a real war, like World War II, he decreed that he now possessed the extraordinary powers associated with a military commander-in-chief, which necessarily includes killing enemy soldiers. In the war on terrorism, he said, the terrorists are the enemy soldiers or “enemy combatants.” In war, it’s legal to kill the enemy.

Bush’s position was fully endorsed by President Obama. It will also undoubtedly be fully endorsed by Hillary Clinton if she is elected president four years from now.

Equally important, both Bush and Obama have always emphasized that in the war on terrorism, the entire world is the battlefield. That includes the United States. Therefore, it logically follows that whatever powers Bush and Obama claim, as a wartime commander in chief, to kill people overseas extends to the United States. Again, in the war on terrorism, as U.S. officials have never ceased to remind us, the entire world is the battlefield. At the risk of belaboring the obvious, the entire world includes the United States.

Thus, there can be no doubt whatsoever that President Obama claims the authority to assassinate the enemy not only abroad but also right here in the United States. After all, ask yourself: why would he say that he lacks the authority to wage war here in the United States when the United States is part of the worldwide battlefield in the global war on terrorism?

Eric Holder’s initial statements confirm that position. Saying that the president isn’t currently planning to assassinate Americans isn’t the same thing as saying that the president lacks the legal authority to assassinate Americans. Instead, it’s saying the exact opposite. It’s saying that while the president does, in fact, have the authority to assassinate Americans, he’s simply not choosing to exercise that authority at the present time. However, if there is another major terrorist attack on American soil or some other big crisis, then, as Holder makes clear, all bets are off and the president might well expand his assassinations to American terrorists operating within the United States.

What about Holder’s supplemental letter read yesterday by White House Press Secretary Carney? A careful reading of it reveals that it’s simply a clever device to obfuscate Obama’s real position. It’s saying that the president lacks the authority to use a drone to assassinate an innocent American—i.e., an American “not engaged in combat on American soil.”

But neither Bush nor Obama have ever claimed the authority to assassinate innocent Americans. The authority they have always claimed has been to assassinate guilty Americans (and guilty foreigners)—that is, those people who are guilty of being terrorists.

Well, guess who decides whether a person is a terrorist. You got it! The president makes that determination. And once he decides that a person is a terrorist in his global “war on terrorism,” that’s the end of the discussion. The assassination is carried out by his loyal military and intelligence forces, and that’s the end of the matter. Under our post-9/11 system of government, neither the president nor the military nor the CIA is required to explain, justify, or even acknowledge the assassination.

Senator Paul deserves credit for flushing the president and his minions out into the open. But make no mistake about it: While the president is not currently assassinating Americans on American soil (American citizens Anwar al-Awlaki and his 16-year-old son Abdulrahman were assassinated in Yemen) or even rounding them up and transporting them to concentration camps or military dungeons, as he did with Jose Padilla, the reality is that under our system of government, he now has the power to do so.

As a practical matter, all that Obama needs is a good crisis for him to remove the sword from the sheath. But when that type of sword hangs over a nation, even when it is within the sheath, there is no possible way to consider that a free society. That’s a society whose ruler is wielding powers that characterize the greatest tyrannies in history.

Reprinted from The Future of Freedom Foundation.

Jacob Hornberger [send him mail] is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.

The Best of Jacob Hornberger

Recently by Jacob G. Hornberger: The Ongoing Kennedy Casket Mystery

Article 2, Section 4, of the U.S. Constitution reads as follows: The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.u201D

In 1998, President Bill Clinton was impeached for perjury and obstruction of justice for matters arising out of the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal.

If perjury and obstruction of justice constitute high crimes or misdemeanors, then doesn't it seem rather obvious that the murder of an American citizen by the president would also constitute a high crime or misdemeanor, especially if the citizen is a child?

That's precisely what President Obama, acting through U.S. national-security state agents, did on October 14, 2011. He murdered a 16-year-old American boy who was traveling in Yemen. The boy was Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, who was the son of accused terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki, who the CIA had assassinated two weeks before.

Why did President Obama and the CIA or the military kill Abdulrahman? The president, the CIA, and the Pentagon have all chosen to remain silent on the matter, refusing to even acknowledge that they killed the boy. But White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs implicitly provided the justification: u201CI would suggest that you should have a far more responsible father if they are truly concerned about the well being of their children. I don't think becoming an al Qaeda jihadist terrorist is the best way to go about doing your business.u201D

So, there you have it: the boy was apparently killed because he was considered to have the wrong father.

But if that's a legitimate justification for killing a child, there are obviously a lot more children at risk in this country.

Proponents of the war on terrorism argue that the killing of the teenager wasn't really a murder but rather an assassination. But isn't that a distinction without a difference?

After all, compare Obama's killing of Abdulrahman with Chilean Gen. Augusto Pinochet's killing of Orlando Letelier. Pinochet took power in 1973, during the time that the Cold War and the war on communism were being waged. Pinochet, who the U.S. national-security state had helped install into power, not only began rounding up, incarcerating, torturing, abusing, and executing suspected communists without any judicial process, he also embarked on an program to assassinate Chilean communists found overseas.

Agents of Pinochet's counterpart to the CIA, a secret police force called DINA, planned and orchestrated the killing of Orlando Letelier on the streets of Washington, D.C. Why was Letelier targeted for death? He was a socialist, a Chilean citizen who had served in the administration of President Salvador Allende, the democratically elected Marxist president whom Pinochet, President Richard Nixon, the CIA, and the U.S. military ousted from power and replaced with Pinochet's military dictatorship. Therefore, as part of the war on communism, Letelier was considered to be a legitimate target for assassination.

On September 21, 1976, an assassination team headed by a man named Michael Townley exploded a bomb that the team had planted under Letelier's car. Letelier was killed, along with his American assistant who was also in the car, 25-year-old Ronni Moffitt.

Interestingly, the U.S. Justice Department did not consider the assassination to be legitimate under the concept of war and enemy combatants, notwithstanding the fact that the Cold War and global war on communism were still being waged. The Justice Department treated the killings of Letelier and Moffitt as murders. Townley and his team were indicted and prosecuted for the murders of Letelier and Moffitt.

How is Obama's killing of Abdulrahman any different from Pinochet's murder of Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffitt? In the one case, a 16-year-old boy has had his life snuffed out because he had the wrong father. In the other case, a man had his life snuffed out because he had the wrong philosophical beliefs. Given that the Letelier and Moffitt killings were treated as murders, why shouldn't the Abdulraham killing be treated as murder too?

An interesting twist to these killings is a common denominator – the CIA. It turned out that Townley was an agent of the CIA. He claimed that at the time he set off the bomb he was no longer working for the CIA, which, not surprisingly, is what the CIA claimed also. But the problem, of course, is that they would say that even if he was still employed by the CIA. And, in fact, the CIA was supporting and working closely with DINA after Pinochet came to power. It says a lot that for the pre-meditated, cold-blooded murder of Letelier and Moffitt, Townley served a grand total of about five years in jail before being released – get this – into the federal witness protection program, where he remains safely ensconced and anonymous today.

We also shouldn't forget that the U.S. national-security state also participated in the execution of 31-year-old American journalist Charles Horman during the Pinochet coup, a crime that U.S. officials have never investigated or prosecuted CIA officials or U.S. military officials for. What was the justification for murdering Horman? We can’t know for sure because U.S. military and CIA officials have never provided it, but most likely it was because Horman had acquired secret information about U.S. involvement in the coup and because Horman was a socialist who supported the Allende regime. (See here and here.) In an interesting twist, just recently Chilean officials charged a U.S. military officer with conspiracy to murder Horman during the coup.

What remedy do the family members of an American who has been murdered by the president and the national-security state have?

They obviously can't look to the Justice Department, which answers to the president and which isn't ever going to take on the CIA with a criminal prosecution for a crime that was ordered by the president.

They also can't look to the federal courts, which display the same deference and submissiveness to the military and the CIA that Chilean courts displayed toward the Pinochet's military and DINA. In any wrongful death action brought by the victim's family, all the military and CIA have to do is announce to the presiding judge the same sorts of things that Pinochet's people would announce to Chilean federal judges: u201CNational security, war on terrorism, and state secrets, your honor,u201D and every federal judge in the land will quickly slam down his gavel and declare, u201CCase dismissed.u201D

That leaves the families of the victim with only one course of action: impeachment and removal from office by Congress. It's not only the right thing to do, it's also the only practical way to induce President Obama to explain why a child's father provides the justification for murdering his child.

Reprinted from The Future of Freedom Foundation.

Jacob Hornberger [send him mail] is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.

The Best of Jacob Hornberger

Recently by Jacob G. Hornberger: Drug Evil

On the 49th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, among the glaring issues that cry out for explanation is the multiple delivery of Kennedy's body to the Bethesda morgue on the evening of the assassination. After almost half-a-century, the government agencies and government officials who were involved still refuse to provide an explanation into that highly unusual and very mysterious episode. In fact, they still won't even acknowledge that it happened despite the overwhelming amount of evidence that it did happen.

The facts are detailed in an article I published on November 22, 2010, entitled, u201CThe Kennedy Casket Conspiracy,u201D which was based on two books: Best Evidence by David Lifton and Inside the Assassination Records Review Board: The U.S. Government’s Final Attempt to Reconcile the Conflicting Medical Evidence in the Assassination of JFK by Douglas P. Horne.

Here's what happened:

After Kennedy was declared dead at Parkland Hospital in Dallas, his body was wrapped in sheets and placed into an extremely expensive, heavy, ornate casket. The casket was taken from Parkland and delivered to Dallas Love Field, where it was placed into the back of Air Force One, the plane in which the new president, Lyndon Johnson, was now traveling.

A few hours later, the plane landed at Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington, D.C. The casket was removed from the plane and placed into an automobile in which the deceased president's wife Jacqueline was riding. The automobile slowly made its way to Bethesda Naval Hospital. It arrived in the front of the hospital at 6:55 p.m. and the casket was officially carried into the morgue at 8:00 p.m. (after an unofficial secret delivery of the casket into the morgue at 7:17 p.m.). In the meantime, Mrs. Kennedy was escorted into the hospital to a VIP waiting lounge.

There was one big problem, however, one that Mrs. Kennedy was unaware of: The expensive, heavy, ornate casket which she thought contained the body of her husband didn't. Unbeknownst to her, her husband's body had secretly been removed from the Parkland casket and placed into a body bag and a cheap shipping casket similar to those used by the U.S. military in the Vietnam War.

That cheap shipping casket, with the president's body inside it, was secretly placed into a black hearse containing a team of men in suits, who secretly transported the casket to the back of the Bethesda facility, where the morgue was located.

A waiting team of soldiers carried the cheap shipping casket, with the president's body in it, into the morgue at 6:35 p.m., even while Mrs. Kennedy was still slowly traveling from Andrews Air Force Base to the Bethesda facilities under the assumption, erroneous as it was, that her husband's body was still inside the expensive, heavy, ornate casket that was riding in the back of her car.

How do we know this happened? Because it was witnessed by several Navy and Marine enlisted men who were there and saw it happen.

Moreover, their eyewitness accounts are buttressed by two documents that were discovered in the 1990s by the Assassination Records Review Board, the agency that had been created in the wake of the storm over government secrecy in the Kennedy assassination produced by Oliver Stone's 1991 movie u201CJFK.u201D

The first document was a written report of the funeral home that handled the embalming of the president's body. It contained the following notation: u201CBody removed from metal shipping casket at NSNH at Bethesda.u201D

The second document was an official military report filed four days after the assassination by Marine Sgt. Roger Boyajian, which stated in part: u201CThe detail arrived at the hospital at approximately 1800 [6:00 p.m.] and after reporting as ordered several members of the detail were posted at entrances to prevent unauthorized persons from entering the prescribed area…. At approximately 18:35 [6:35 p.m.] the casket was received at the morgue entrance and taken inside.u201D (Brackets added.)

Who were the other enlisted men who confirmed the early delivery of the president's body into the Bethesda morgue?

They included E-6 Navy corpsman Dennis David, who later became a Navy officer and who served for 11 years in the Medical Services Corps, until he retired from active duty in 1976. It was under his supervision that a team of sailors offloaded the cheap shipping casket from the black hearse containing the team of men in suits and carried it into the Bethesda morgue.

In fact, David said that when he saw Mrs. Kennedy walking into the front of the Bethesda hospital at 6:55 p.m., he knew what she did not know: that the expensive, heavy, ornate casket from Parkland that was sitting in front of Bethesda Naval Hospital did not contain the deceased president's body.

Also confirming the early delivery of Kennedy's body to the Bethesda morgue were E-4 Navy corpsman Paul O'Connor, E-5 Navy corpsman Floyd Riebe, E-4 Navy corpsman Jerrol Custer, E-4 Navy corpsman Ed Reed, and E-4 Navy corpsman James Jenkins.

The overwhelming weight of the evidence renders a virtually inescapable conclusion: that some time between Parkland Hospital and Andrews Air Force Base, unidentified agents of the U.S. government secretly removed the president's body from the expensive, heavy, ornate casket into which it had been placed at Parkland and then secretly delivered it in a cheap shipping casket to the Bethesda morgue at 6:35 p.m.

The president's body was later officially carried into the Bethesda morgue at 8:00 p.m. inside the expensive, heavy, ornate casket into which it had been placed at Parkland Hospital. That was confirmed by an official report filed by Army 1st Lt. Samuel Bird, who headed up an honor guard of soldiers in dress uniform and white gloves representing all the branches of the military.

How did the body get reinserted into the expensive, heavy, ornate casket from Parkland? That fascinating story is detailed in my article, u201CThe Kennedy Casket Conspiracy.u201D

But the more important questions are: Why did the government do this? What was the purpose of the secret, early delivery of the president's body to the Bethesda morgue? Who were the team of unidentified men in suits who secretly transported the president's body to the Bethesda morgue? Were they military men? CIA? Secret Service? Why was the entire episode kept secret? Why have U.S. military officials steadfastly refused to provide any explanation for what they did?

It seems to me that there can be only one conclusion drawn from all this: government officials were up to no good. I don't see how there can be an innocent explanation placed on what happened here. If there were an innocent explanation, wouldn't it have been provided by now?

Of course, there are those who will claim that this just didn't happen – that the government, especially the military, would never do anything like this. The problem with that reasoning, however, is that it places those who engage in it in a very discomforting position, for it places them in a position of accusing all those enlisted men, along with the funeral home, of lying and, even worse, of having entered into a conspiracy to concoct a fake and false story involving the early delivery of the president's body into the Bethesda morgue.

Think about it: There are only two alternatives here. Either those enlisted men and the funeral home are lying or they're telling the truth. There are no other choices.

Now, ask yourself: Why would those enlisted men and the funeral home lie about such a thing? More important, how in the world would they have entered into a conspiracy to concoct such a story on the very day of assassination? How would they have gotten together to plan such a thing? Why would they have done so? What would have been their motive?

Obviously, the notion that those enlisted men conspired with the funeral home to concoct such a story would constitute one of the most ridiculous and outlandish conspiracy theories ever devised by man. Yet, that's where those who challenge the veracity of those enlisted men and the funeral home find themselves – as proponents of a patently ludicrous conspiracy theory.

Indeed, if those men had really entered into such a conspiracy, don't you know that they would have been immediately investigated, court martialed, and prosecuted, especially when Marine Sgt. Boyajian filed his official report with the Department of the Navy four days after the assassination confirming the early delivery of the president's body to the Bethesda morgue? Would U.S. military officials really have made E-6 Navy corpsman Dennis David a Navy officer and permitted him to continue serving in the military until he retired if he had actually been a co-conspirator who had helped concoct a fake and false story about the early delivery of the president's body to the Bethesda morgue?

Once one realizes that the possibility of such a conspiracy among those enlisted men and the funeral home is virtually nonexistent, then that leaves but one alternative: they were telling the truth – that there was, in fact, an early, secret delivery of the president's body into the Bethesda morgue in a cheap shipping casket.

The episode obviously cries out for explanation. Even though the participants in it might well be dead by now, if there is an innocent explanation for it, there almost certainly would be records within the Navy as to why it occurred and why the military felt it was necessary to keep it secret.

It seems to me, however, that there can be only one explanation for what happened and, unfortunately, it's a dark and nefarious one: to alter Kennedy's body prior to the start of the official autopsy to hide evidence of shots having been fired from the front, so as to cover up evidence of a conspiracy in the assassination of President Kennedy.

Don't forget, after all, that the team of doctors that treated Kennedy at Parkland held a press conference immediately after the president had been declared dead, at which they announced that the hole in the front of Kennedy's neck was an entry wound. Don't forget also that several witnesses verified that there was a big hole in the back of Kennedy's head that denoted an exit wound, indicating that the shot that hit him in the head had also come from the front.

It is undisputed that the accused shooter of the president, Lee Harvey Oswald, was situated behind him and, therefore, could not have fired any shots into Kennedy from the front.

If the purpose of the early delivery of the president's body to the Bethesda morgue was to alter the body to cover up forensic evidence of a conspiracy in his assassination, then other occurrences in Dallas would start to make sense. We would now understand why the team of Secret Service agents at Parkland Hospital brandished guns, threatening the use of deadly force, to prevent the Parkland medical examiner from conducting the autopsy, as Texas law required. It would also make sense as to why Lyndon Johnson would wait for the president's casket to be delivered to his plane instead of immediately taking off and returning to Washington. It would also explain the need to place the autopsy under the control of the military, which could be relied upon to follow orders, do their duty, and keep the entire episode top secret.

If the government's original plan for secrecy in the Kennedy assassination had been followed, we would never have found out about the early delivery of the president's body into the Bethesda morgue. Don't forget that the government initially ordered that official records in the assassination be kept sealed for 75 years, which would have meant that all those enlisted men would have taken their testimony to the grave. In fact, to doubly-ensure their silence, they were all ordered by the military on the weekend of the assassination to sign written secrecy oaths and threatened with severe reprisals if they ever violated them. It was only because of demands in the 1970s and 1990s that much of the government secrecy surrounding the Kennedy assassination be lifted that people were able to finally learn about the early, secret delivery of the president's body to the Bethesda morgue.

Now that we know what happened, why can't the government, especially the military, come clean and provide an explanation into why all this was done? What harm to national security could possibly occur with a truthful explanation? If there's an innocent explanation, then let's have it. If the explanation isn't innocent, Americans are entitled to it anyway.

What doesn't wash is continued silence, 49 years after the assassination, about what was obviously a very important part of the aftermath of the Kennedy assassination.

Reprinted from The Future of Freedom Foundation.

Jacob Hornberger [send him mail] is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.

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Foreword to Laurence M. Vance, The War on Drugs Is a War on Freedom (Vance Publications, 2012), xvi + 103 pgs., paperback, $9.95.

It would be difficult to find a better example of a failed government program than the war on drugs. Not only has the drug war failed to stem the use of illicit drugs in American society; it has also allowed the federal government to gain vast power over the American people, at the expense of individual liberty. Moreover, in an era in which out-of-control federal spending and debt are of paramount concern to American taxpayers, U.S. officials continue to spend more than $40 billion a year to wage the drug war.

Just as the prohibition of alcohol during the 1920s led to the illegal production of booze and widespread violence at the hands of illegal alcohol producers, so it has been with the prohibition of drugs, which has led to drug cartels, gang warfare, murders, robberies, muggings, and official corruption. The entire 40-year history of the war on drugs is a testament to Santayana's famous dictum, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

In the pages of this book, Laurence Vance sets forth a persuasive case for ending the drug war on practical grounds. As most everyone acknowledges, this federal program just hasn't worked, and it's extremely destructive. Vance doesn't mince words:

The federal war on drugs is undefendable. Not only has it failed to curtail drug use, it has eroded civil liberties, destroyed financial privacy, corrupted law enforcement, crowded prisons with non-violent offenders, ruined countless lives, and wasted hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars.

The utilitarian case that Vance sets forth for ending the drug war, however, is not what sets this book apart. The power of this book is the moral case that Vance makes for totally legalizing drugs — all drugs.

Under what moral authority does government punish people for ingesting substances that the authorities consider harmful? How can such a power — the power to fine, incarcerate, and imprison a person for ingesting a harmful substance — be reconciled with the fundamental principles of individual liberty?

Freedom entails the right to engage in any behavior whatsoever, so long as it is peaceful. As long as a person isn't trespassing on the rights of others through violence or fraud, the principles of freedom entitle him to make whatever choices he wants in life, no matter how irresponsible, dangerous, or unhealthy they might be.

A society in which the government punishes people for actions considered self-destructive, irresponsible, or unhealthy cannot truly be considered a free society. It's not a coincidence that laws criminalizing the possession, use, or distribution of drugs are an integral part of such totalitarian regimes as those in Cuba, North Korea, China, and Myanmar.

Here is how Vance compares societies that are free with those that are not:

In a free society the individual makes his own decisions about his health and lifestyle; in an authoritarian society the state thinks it knows best how to make those decisions. In a free society the individual is free to make bad decisions; in an authoritarian society the state thinks it knows best what decisions people should make….

Philosophically, it is not the purpose of government to be a nanny state that monitors the behavior of its citizens. It is simply not the purpose of government to protect people from bad habits or harmful substances or punish people for risky behavior or vice. Drug prohibition is impossible to reconcile with a limited government.

One of the most fascinating parts of this book is chapter 16: "Should Christians Support the War on Drugs?" Because illicit drugs are considered bad, all too many Christians automatically conclude that the prohibition of such drugs should be rendered unto Caesar. Not so, argues Vance. There are some sins — specifically the ones entailing non-violent behavior — that do not legitimately fall within the realm of government control. Adultery, blasphemy, and covetousness come to mind. In fact, that the drug war has proven to be such a fiasco is persuasive evidence that God has created a consistent universe, one in which evil means beget bad consequences.

Vance also reminds us of the hypocrisy of drug prohibition. Alcohol and tobacco are much more destructive than, say, marijuana. Yet liquor and cigarettes are legal while marijuana is not. Why the difference?

Unlike many other opponents of the drug war, however, Vance doesn't limit his case to calling for the legalization of marijuana. He makes the principled case for the legalization of all drugs, arguing that the illegality of any drug not only produces destructive consequences but, more important, constitutes a grave violation of people's freedom to live their lives the way they choose.

What about the Constitution? Does it play a role here? Vance reminds us that the Constitution established a federal government of limited, enumerated powers. Is the power to punish people for ingesting harmful substances among those enumerated powers? It is not, which is why Americans had to seek a constitutional amendment to criminalize the possession and distribution of alcohol, an amendment that was later repealed owing to the horrible consequences of Prohibition.

Many of the articles in this book were originally published by The Future of Freedom Foundation, where I serve as president. Ever since our founding in 1989, we have taken a firm, uncompromising stance against the war on drugs. We have always held that the drug war has brought nothing but death, destruction, robberies, muggings, assassinations, corruption, drug gangs, domestic warfare, overcrowded prisons, wasted money, and ruined lives. More important, it has been one of the greatest governmental assaults on liberty and privacy in our nation's history.

We were pleased to have published Laurence Vance's powerful essays on the drug war when he originally submitted them to us, and we are just as pleased that they now form part of this powerful book, a book that should be read by every American who is concerned about the principles of morality, freedom, free markets, the Constitution, and limited government.

Jacob Hornberger [send him mail] is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.

The Best of Jacob Hornberger

In early 1976 the National Enquirer published a story that shocked the elite political class in Washington, D.C. The story disclosed that a woman named Mary Pinchot Meyer, who was a divorced spouse of a high CIA official named Cord Meyer, had been engaged in a two-year sexual affair with President John F. Kennedy. By the time the article was published, JFK had been assassinated, and Mary Pinchot Meyer herself was dead, a victim of a murder that took place in Washington on October 12, 1964.

The murder of Mary Pinchot Meyer is the subject of a fascinating and gripping new book by Peter Janney, who was childhood friends with Mary Meyer’s three sons and whose father himself was a high CIA official. Janney’s father and mother socialized in the 1950s with the Meyers and other high-level CIA officials.

Janney’s book, Mary’s Mosaic, is one of those books that you just can’t put down once you start reading it. It has everything a reader could ever want in a work of nonfiction – politics, love, sex, war, intrigue, history, culture, murder, spies, racism, and perhaps the biggest criminal trial in the history of our nation’s capital.

Just past noon on the day of the murder, Mary Meyer was on her daily walk on the C&O Canal Trail near the Key Bridge in Washington, D.C. Someone grabbed her and shot a .38-caliber bullet into the left side of her head. Meyer continued struggling despite the almost certainly fatal wound, so the murderer shot her again, this time downward through her right shoulder. The second bullet struck directly into her heart, killing her instantly.

A 21-year-old black man named Raymond Crump Jr., who lived in one of the poorest sections of D.C., was arrested near the site of the crime and charged with the murder. Crump denied committing the crime.

There were two eyewitnesses. One witness, Henry Wiggins Jr., said that he saw a black man standing over the body wearing a beige jacket, a dark cap, dark pants, and dark shoes, and then he identified Crump as the man he had seen. Another witness, William L. Mitchell, said that prior to the murder, he had been jogging on the trail when he saw a black man dressed in the same manner following Meyer a short time before she was killed.

When Crump was arrested, he was wearing dark pants and dark shoes. Police later found his beige jacket and dark cap in the water near the trail.

It certainly did not look good for Ray Crump, as he himself said to the police. Nonetheless, he steadfastly denied having anything to do with the murder.

Crump’s family retained one of D.C.’s most renowned and respected attorneys, an African American woman named Dovey Johnson Roundtree, who was around 50 years old at the time. (See Justice Older than the Law: The Life of Dovey Johnson Roundtree, an autobiography co-authored by Katie McCabe.) Roundtree met with Crump and became absolutely convinced of his innocence. She agreed to take the case for a fee of one dollar.

When the case came to trial, the prosecution, which was led by one of the Justice Department’s top prosecutors, called 27 witnesses and introduced more than 50 exhibits. Dovey Roundtree presented 3 character witnesses and then rested her case, without calling Ray Crump to the stand.

The jury returned a verdict of not guilty.

As Janney documents slowly and meticulously, the case against Ray Crump had all the makings of a good frame, but not a perfect one. For example, the two eyewitnesses had stated that the black man they saw was about 5 inches taller than Ray Crump and about 40 pounds heavier. Moreover, there wasn’t a drop of blood on Ray Crump’s clothing. Furthermore, there wasn’t a bit of Crump’s hair, blood, or bodily fluids on the clothing or body of Mary Meyer. Despite an extensive search of the area, including a draining of the nearby canal and a search of the Potomac, the police never found a gun.

After 35 years of researching and investigating the case, Janney pins the murder of Mary Pinchot Meyer on the Central Intelligence Agency. What would have been the CIA’s motive? To silence an independent-minded woman who apparently did not accept the official lone-nut explanation for the assassination of John F. Kennedy – and who had apparently concluded instead that Kennedy was the victim of a high-level conspiracy involving officials of the CIA.

Immediately after Kennedy’s assassination, Meyer telephoned famed LSD guru Timothy Leary, with whom she had consulted regarding the use of LSD, not only for herself but also for unidentified important men in Washington to whom she wanted to expose the drug. Highly emotional, she exclaimed to Leary, “They couldn’t control him anymore. He was changing too fast. They’ve covered everything up. I gotta come see you. I’m afraid. Be careful.”

Meyer was referring to the dramatic shift that took place within President Kennedy after the Cuban Missile Crisis, the seminal event that had brought the United States and the Soviet Union to the brink of nuclear war. As James W. Douglass carefully documents in his book JFK and the Unspeakable, a book that Janney mentions with favor, Kennedy was seared by that experience, especially given that his own children might well have been killed in the nuclear holocaust.

After the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy began moving America in a dramatically different direction; he intended to end the Cold War through personal negotiations with Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev, who desired to do the same thing. The idea was that the United States and the Soviet Union would peacefully coexist, much as communist China and the United States do today. Kennedy’s dramatic shift was exemplified by his “Peace Speech” at American University, a speech that Soviet officials permitted to be broadcast all across the Soviet Union. That was followed by the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which in turn was followed by an executive order signed by Kennedy that began the withdrawal of troops from Vietnam.

Perhaps most significant, however, were Kennedy’s secret personal communications with Khrushchev and Kennedy’s secret personal outreach to Cuban president Fidel Castro, with the aim of ending the Cold War and normalizing relations with Cuba. Those personal communications were kept secret from the American people, but, more significantly, Kennedy also tried to keep them secret from the U.S. military and the CIA.

Why would the president do that?

Because by that time, Kennedy had lost confidence in both the Pentagon and the CIA. He didn’t trust them, and he had no confidence in their counsel or judgment. He believed that they would do whatever was necessary to obstruct his attempts to end the Cold War and normalize relations with Cuba – which of course could have spelled the end of the U.S. national-security state, including both the enormous military-industrial complex and the CIA. Don’t forget, after all, that after the disaster at the Bay of Pigs and after Kennedy had fired CIA director Alan Dulles and two other high CIA officials, he had also promised to “splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds.”

Janney’s book places Meyer’s murder within the context of the Kennedy murder, which had taken place 11 months before, in November 1963. The book brilliantly weaves the two cases into an easily readable, easily understandable analysis.

In Janney’s book, there are two revelations about Mary Meyer’s murder that I found especially disturbing:

1. The eyewitness who claimed to be jogging on the trail when he saw a black man following Mary Meyer does not seem to be who he claimed to be.

The man told the police that his name was William L. Mitchell and that he was a U.S. Army 2nd lieutenant who was stationed at the Pentagon.

Janney relates that according to a contemporaneous “news clip” in the Washington Star, by the time the trial began, Mitchell was no longer in the military and instead was now serving as a math instructor at Georgetown University.

Janney’s investigation revealed, however, that Georgetown had no record of Mitchell’s having taught there. His investigation also revealed that the CIA oftentimes used Georgetown University as a cover for its agents.

Janney investigated the personal address that Mitchell gave both to the police and at trial. It turns out that the building served as a CIA “safe house.” What was Mitchell, who supposedly was a U.S. Army lieutenant and then a Georgetown math instructor, doing living in a CIA “safe house”?

Janney was never able to locate Mitchell. You would think that a man who had testified in one of the most important murder cases in D.C. history would have surfaced, from time to time, to talk about his role in the case. Or that friends or relatives of his would have popped up and said that he had told them about his role in the trial.

Nope. It’s as if William L. Mitchell just disappeared off the face of the earth – well, except for some circumstantial evidence that Janney uncovered indicating that Mitchell was actually an agent of the CIA.

For example, in 1993 an author named Leo Damore, who had written a book entitled Senatorial Privilege about the Ted Kennedy/Chappaquiddick episode, was conducting his own investigation into Mary Pinchot Meyer’s murder, with the aim of writing a book on the case. Damore ended up committing suicide before finishing his book. But in the process of his investigation, he telephoned his lawyer, a former federal judge named Jimmy Smith, telling Smith that after a long, unsuccessful attempt to locate Mitchell, Damore had finally received a telephone call from a man identifying himself as Mitchell. According to Smith’s written notes of the conversation, a copy of which are at the back of Janney’s book, the man purporting to be Mitchell admitted to having murdered Mary Pinchot Meyer as part of a CIA plot to silence her.

In 1998, an author named Nina Burleigh wrote her own book about Meyer’s murder, entitled A Very Private Woman, in which she concluded that Crump really had committed the murder despite his acquittal.

Just recently, Burleigh published a critical review of Janney’s book at The Daily Beast, in which she acknowledges the likelihood that given the large amount of evidence that has been uncovered over the past decade, the CIA did, in fact, play a role in the assassination of President Kennedy.

In her review, however, Burleigh ridiculed the notion that the CIA would use its assassin in the Meyer case to also serve as a witness to the murder. It’s a fair enough critique, especially given that the information is hearsay on hearsay and Damore isn’t alive to relate the details of his purported telephone conversation with Mitchell or to provide a tape recording of the exchange.

But what I found fascinating is that Burleigh failed to confront the other half of the problem: even if Mitchell wasn’t the assassin, there is still the problem of his possibly having been a fake witness who provided manufactured and perjured testimony in a federal criminal proceeding.

I couldn’t understand how Burleigh could fail to see how important that point is. I figured I’d go take a look at her book. Imagine my surprise when a search for “Mitchell” in the Kindle edition turned up no results. I asked myself, How is that possible? How could this author totally fail to mention the name of one of the two eyewitnesses in the case?

So, I decided to read through her book to see if I could come up with an answer. It turns out that she describes Mitchell simply as a “jogger” (without mentioning his name) who said that he had seen a black man following Meyer and described the clothing the man was wearing. What is bizarre is that while she did point out, repeatedly, the name of the other eyewitness – Henry Wiggins Jr. – not once does she mention the name of the “jogger.” The omission is conspicuous and almost comical, given sentences such as this: “Wiggins and the jogger both guessed the presumed killer’s height at five foot eight” and “The shoes gave Crump the extra inches of height to make him the size described by Wiggins and the jogger.”

Why this strange treatment of one of the two important eye witnesses in the case? Only Burleigh can answer that one. But given her extensive investigation of the case, I wish she would have included in her critique of Janney’s book a detailed account of the efforts, if any, she made to locate “the jogger” and the fruits, if any, of those efforts. Perhaps The Daily Beast would be willing to commission Burleigh to write a supplemental article to that effect.

We should keep in mind that a criminal-justice system depends on the integrity of the process. If one side or the other feels free to use fake witnesses and perjured testimony with impunity, knowing that no one within the government will ever investigate or prosecute it, then the entire criminal-justice system becomes worthless or, even worse, tyrannical.

Prior to the publication of his book at the beginning of April, Janney issued a press release in which he stated that he planned to mail a request to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to reopen the investigation into the murder of Mary Pinchot Meyer based on the evidence that Janney uncovered as part of his research for the book.

He need not bother. In 1973, nine years after the murder of Mary Pinchot Meyer, 31-year-old American journalist Charles Horman was murdered in Chile during the U.S.-supported coup that brought military strongman Augusto Pinochet into power. Twenty-six years later – 1999 – U.S. officials released a State Department memorandum confessing the CIA’s participation in Horman’s murder. The CIA’s motive? Apparently to silence Horman, who intended to publicly disclose the role of the U.S. military and the CIA in the Chilean coup. Despite the official acknowledgment by the State Department of CIA complicity in the murder of this young American, not one single subpoena has ever been issued by the Justice Department or Congress seeking to find out who the CIA agents who murdered Horman were, why they murdered him, and whether they did so on orders from above.

How much trouble would it be for the Justice Department to issue subpoenas to the Pentagon and the CIA for all records relating to William L. Mitchell, including military and CIA service records and last known addresses? Or a subpoena for records relating to the CIA “safe house” in which Mitchell resided? Or a subpoena for records pertaining to the CIA’s use of Georgetown University as a cover for CIA agents? Or a subpoena to Georgetown University for records relating to William L. Mitchell and records relating to the CIA’s use of Georgetown University as a cover for CIA agents?

No trouble at all. But the chances of it occurring are nil.

2. The second especially disturbing part of Janney’s book relates to Mary Pinchot Meyer’s diary. On either the night of Meyer’s murder or the following morning, the CIA’s counterintelligence chief, James Jesus Angleton, burglarized Meyer’s home and art studio and stole her personal diary, which very likely contained detailed descriptions about her affair with President Kennedy. It also might have contained her suspicions that Kennedy had been the victim of a high-level assassination plot orchestrated by the CIA. Angleton took the diary with the aim of destroying it, but it’s still not certain what exactly he did with it.

Angleton later claimed that his actions were done at the request of Meyer’s close friend, Anne Truitt, whom Meyer had supposedly entrusted with the diary in the event anything happened to her. But Truitt had no legal authority to authorize Angleton or anyone else to break into Meyer’s house or studio and take possession of any of her personal belongings.

Unless the diary ever shows up, no one will ever know whether Kennedy and Meyer discussed the transformation that Kennedy was undergoing after the Cuban Missile Crisis. But one thing is for sure: given Meyer’s deep devotion to peace, which stretched all the way back to her college days, she and Kennedy were certainly on the same wavelength after the crisis. Moreover, given Meyer’s fearful statement to Timothy Leary immediately after the assassination, as detailed above, there is little doubt as to what Meyer was thinking with respect to who had killed JFK and why.

Angleton also arguably committed obstruction of justice by failing to turn Mary Meyer’s diary over to the police, the prosecutor, and the defense in Ray Crump’s case. After all, even if the diary didn’t point in the direction of the CIA as having orchestrated the assassination of John Kennedy, at the very least it had to have described the sexual affair between Meyer and the president. The police and the defense were both entitled to that information, if for no other reason than to investigate whether Meyer had been killed by someone who didn’t want the affair to be disclosed to the public. The fact that Angleton failed to disclose the diary’s existence to the judge, the prosecutor, and the defendant in a criminal proceeding in which a man was being prosecuted for a death-penalty offense speaks volumes.

One of the eerie aspects of this case is that prior to her murder, Meyer told friends that there was evidence that someone had been breaking into and entering her house. Now, one might say that the CIA is too competent to leave that type of evidence when it breaks into someone’s home. I agree. But the evidence might well have been meant to serve as a CIA calling card containing the following message to Mary Pinchot Meyer: “We are watching you, and we know what you are doing. If you know what’s good for you, cease and desist and keep your mouth shut.”

But Mary Pinchot Meyer wasn’t that kind of woman. She was independent minded, strong willed, and outspoken. In fact, when she attended CIA parties with her husband, Cord Meyer, she was known to make negative wisecracks about the agency. One of the other CIA wives commented that Mary just didn’t know when to keep her mouth shut.

If the CIA did, in fact, orchestrate the assassination of John F. Kennedy – and, as Nina Burleigh observes, the overwhelming weight of the circumstantial evidence certainly points in that direction – Mary Pinchot Meyer, given her relationship to the CIA, her close contacts within the Kennedy administration, and her penchant for being outspoken, could have proven to be a very dangerous adversary.

In his introduction to Mary’s Mosaic, Janney places the murders of John Kennedy and Mary Pinchot Meyer in a larger context:

The tapestry of President Kennedy’s killing is enormous; the tapestry of Mary Meyer’s, much smaller. And yet they are connected, one to another, in ways that became increasingly apparent to me as I dug ever more deeply into her relationship with Jack Kennedy and the circumstances surrounding her demise. To understand the complex weave of elements that led to her death is to understand, in a deeper way, one of the most abominable, despicable events of our country’s history.

Therein lies the cancerous tumor upon the soul of America. The CIA’s inception and entrance into the American landscape fundamentally altered not only the functioning of our government, but the entire character of American life. The CIA’s reign during the Cold War era has contaminated the pursuit of historical truth. While the dismantling of America’s republic didn’t begin in Dallas in 1963, that day surely marked an unprecedented acceleration of the erosion of constitutional democracy. America has never recovered. Today in 2012, the ongoing disintegration of our country is ultimately about the corruption of our government, a government that has consistently and intentionally misrepresented and lied about what really took place in Dallas in 1963, as it did about the escalation of the Vietnam War that followed, and which it presently continues to do about so many things.

Once revered as a refuge from tyranny, America has become a sponsor and patron of tyrants. Like Rome before it, America is – in its own way – burning. Indeed, the Roman goddess Libertas, her embodiment the Statue of Liberty, still stands at the entrance of New York harbor to welcome all newcomers. Her iconic torch of freedom ablaze, her tabula ansata specifically memorializing the rule of law and the American Declaration of Independence, the chains of tyranny are broken at her feet. She wears ‘peace’ sandals – not war boots. While her presence should be an inescapable reminder that we are all “immigrants,” her torch reminds us that the core principles for which she stands require truth telling by each and every one of us. As long as any vestige of our democracy remains, each of us has a solemn duty to defend it, putting our personal and family loyalties aside. “Patriotism” – real patriotism – has a most important venue, and it’s not always about putting on a uniform to fight some senseless, insane war in order to sustain the meaningless myths about “freedom” or “America’s greatness.” There is a higher loyalty that real patriotism demands and encompasses, and that loyalty is to the pursuit of truth, no matter how painful or uncomfortable the journey.

Buy Peter Janney’s book Mary’s Mosaic. But be sure to set aside a couple of days for reading it, because once you start, you won’t be able to put the book down.

Reprinted from The Future of Freedom Foundation.

Jacob Hornberger [send him mail] is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.

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The Kennedy Casket Conspiracy

Last November a new book entitled The Kennedy Detail: JFK’s Secret Service Agents Break Their Silence, by Gerald Blaine and Lisa McCubbin, promised to “reveal the inside story of the assassination, the weeks and days that led to it and its heartrending aftermath.”

Unfortunately, however, while providing details of the events leading up to the assassination, the assassination itself, and President Kennedy’s funeral, the book provided hardly any information on one of the most mysterious aspects of the assassination: what happened when Kennedy’s body was delivered to the morgue at Bethesda Naval Hospital on the evening of the assassination.

For almost 50 years, people have debated the Kennedy assassination. Some claim that the Warren Commission got it right – that Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald, a lone-nut assassin. Others contend that Kennedy was killed as part of a conspiracy.

It is not the purpose of this article to engage in that debate. The purpose of this article is simply to focus on what happened at Bethesda Naval Hospital on the evening of November 22, 1963, and, specifically, the events that took place prior to Kennedy’s autopsy. What happened that night is so unusual that it cries out for truthful explanation even after 47 years.

U.S. officials have long maintained that Kennedy’s body was delivered to the Bethesda morgue in the heavy, ornamental, bronze casket in which the body had been placed at Parkland Hospital in Dallas.

The problem, however, is that the evidence establishes that Kennedy’s body was actually delivered to the Bethesda morgue twice, at separate times and in separate caskets.

How does one resolve this problem? One option, obviously, is just to forget about it, given that the assassination took place almost a half-century ago. But it seems to me that since the matter is so unusual and since it involves a president of the United States, the American people – regardless of which side of the divide they fall on – lone-nut assassin or conspiracy – are entitled to a truthful explanation of what happened that night at Bethesda. And the only ones who can provide it are U.S. officials, especially those in the Secret Service, the FBI, and the U.S. military, the agencies that were in control of events at Bethesda that night.

The facts of the casket controversy are set forth in detail in a five-volume work that was published in 2009 entitled Inside the Assassination Records Review Board: The U.S. Government’s Final Attempt to Reconcile the Conflicting Medical Evidence in the Assassination of JFK. The author is Douglas P. Horne, who served as chief analyst for military records for the Assassination Records Review Board. The ARRB was the official board established to administer the JFK Records Act, which required federal departments and agencies to divulge to the public their files and records relating to the Kennedy assassination. The act was enacted after Oliver Stone’s 1991 movie,

The Daily Bell is pleased to publish an exclusive interview with Jacob G. Hornberger.

Introduction: 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 (FEE) in Irvington-on-Hudson, New York, publisher of Ideas on Liberty. In 1989, Mr. Hornberger founded The Future of Freedom Foundation. He is a regular writer for The Foundation’s publication, Freedom Daily.

Daily Bell: You have a military background. Tell us about it and how it affected your perception of libertarianism – of which you are certainly a prime exponent.

Jacob Hornberger: My four years at Virginia Military Institute (VMI) and, to a lesser extent, my 8 years in the Army Reserves, taught me that I never want to live in an environment in which military officials take care of me, watch every move I make, regulate my every act, and tightly control my behavior. It was a great lesson in learning to despise socialist systems and to love free societies. On the other hand, VMI taught me the importance of personal integrity, provided me with an excellent education and convinced me that a free society depends on citizen soldiers, not a professional standing army, to defend the nation from invasion.

Daily Bell: You are a lawyer as well. As a person with a military background and a law degree, it is something a miracle that you ended up being as iconoclastic as you are. How did this happen? Is it a personality trait?

Jacob Hornberger: I was born a libertarian but I didn’t realize it until a few years after I had started practicing law. My practice of law gave me a deep appreciation for the vital importance of the Constitution and of civil liberties in a society – and the threat that zealous and even well-meaning government officials pose to our liberties. If it weren’t for criminal-defense lawyers zealously guarding the rights of their clients, there would be a lot more people in jail or executed. That’s why totalitarian regimes hate lawyers.

Daily Bell: You were a trial attorney, and trained as so. So let’s ask some legal questions if you don’t mind. What do you think of American justice and the court system?

Jacob Hornberger: The system of criminal justice established by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and which stretches back into centuries of resistance to British tyranny by the English people certainly has its faults, but given the protections of habeas corpus and the Bill of Rights, America’s criminal-justice system has always been the finest in the world – that is, until federal officials used the pretense of the war on terrorism to circumvent the protections and guarantees in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Daily Bell: We have arrived, at long last, as the conclusion that tribal justice is the best. The system that seems to have worked in the world for tens of thousands of years was one that combined family feuds (unto the seventh generation) with honor feuds (duels with deadly weapons) and negotiated settlements with or without "wise men." In other words, the system was familial, tribal and laissez faire and depended on the threat of force to discourage illegal acts. It had no state involvement except when the tribal/clan leader was approached for settlement purposes. It was not even a Common Law system, as it predates British common law. It predates Roman law as well and we call it "tribal law" as a catch-all, or "private justice." Do you have some thoughts? Is this practical in any way? Is it even worth discussing within the context of the current judicial juggernaut?

Jacob Hornberger: I believe that justice depends on a judicial system in which people can fairly present their case before an independent tribunal, preferably with juries composed of regular citizens, and where the state has a monopoly of force to enforce the judicial judgments. It doesn’t guarantee perfect justice but no system can. At least it ensures that people will have the opportunity to be heard, especially with lawyers to present their case, and that winners will have the ability to enforce their judgments without gun battles in the streets.

Daily Bell: Is the American system of justice now Admiralty justice? Is it true lawyers are instructed not to cite precedent before 1930 and that courts will not recognize previous precedent?

Jacob Hornberger: Under the Constitution, U.S. federal district courts have jurisdiction over admiralty or maritime cases, but I assume you mean by the term "admiralty justice" the claim that some tax protestors make that American courts are admiralty courts and, therefore, have no jurisdiction over such tax protestors. I agree with the conclusion reached by the courts that such a claim is meritless and frivolous. No, it is not true that lawyers are instructed not to cite precedent before 1930 or it is not true that courts will not recognize previous precedent. Lawyers are free to cite any precedent that is pertinent to their case.

Daily Bell: What do you think of the ICC? We think there is no such thing as a crime against humanity. One might as well commit a crime against a paper bag. Your thoughts?

Jacob Hornberger: I have mixed feelings about this. I understand the desire to have an international criminal court to bring to justice officials who engage in criminal conduct but whose government won’t do anything about it (e.g., the U.S. officials who waged their undeclared war of aggression against Iraq or kidnapped, tortured, renditioned, or executed people without due process). On the other hand though, I don’t see how such a court acquires jurisdiction over the world and I agree that a "crime against humanity" is too nebulous. Also, the procedures of the ICC aren’t ideal either, including no regard for trial by jury.

Daily Bell: Is an illegal system of justice being erected around the world?

Jacob Hornberger: The judicial system that the Pentagon has established to compete against U.S. federal district courts in terrorism cases is illegal under our form of government, but there is little chance that the Supreme Court will declare it unconstitutional, in large part because the Court knows that the president and the Pentagon wouldn’t comply anyway. This is a very bad thing and has brought disgrace and shame to our country. Our criminal justice system – the one the Framers established in the Constitution – with the guarantees provided in the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments, and habeas corpus in the Constitution – is the best criminal justice system in the world, including for the crime of terrorism.

Daily Bell: Let’s switch gears. Tell us about your relationship with Richard M. Ebeling and how you came to found the Future of Freedom Foundation, whose mission is to present an uncompromising moral, philosophical, and economic case for the libertarian philosophy.

Jacob Hornberger: I met Richard when I was practicing law in Dallas, Texas, and he was teaching economics at the University of Dallas. We became good friends, and I hired him to give me a personal chapter-by-chapter tutorial in Ludwig von Mises’s magnum opus Human Action. In 1987, I gave up the practice of law to accept the position of program director at The Future of Freedom Foundation, and Richard later moved to Hillsdale College where he became the Ludwig von Mises Professor of Economics. Two years later – 1989 – I left FEE to establish FFF and Richard served as vice president of academic affairs for FFF in addition to his duties at Hillsdale, providing invaluable counsel and contributing a regular monthly article from January 1990 continuously until 2003, when he became president of FEE.

Daily Bell: Tell us about some of the accomplishments of the Future of Freedom Foundation.

Jacob Hornberger: FFF is the recipient of Ron Paul’s Liberty in Media Award for Outstanding Freedom Website. In 2007 and 2008 we had two of the finest conferences on foreign policy and civil liberties in the history of the libertarian movement, the lectures of which are posted online at our website (www.fff.org). Every month since January 1990, we have published our monthly journal of essays, Freedom Daily, all of which are posted on our website. For the past several years, we have published our daily FFF Email Update, one of the best libertarian commentary pages on the Internet. We also have a monthly Economic Liberty Lecture Series in conjunction with the George Mason University Econ Society, a student group interested in libertarianism and Austrian economics. Prior to that, we had a great lecture series on libertarianism and Austrian economics for several years entitled The Vienna Coffee Club.

Daily Bell: You’d served three terms on the platform committee of the national Libertarian Party by 2000. In 1996, the Libertarian Party awarded you the Thomas Paine award for outstanding communication of libertarian principles. Are you going to try to run as a Libertarian candidate for president again?

Jacob Hornberger: My three terms on the LP platform committee were very enjoyable and rewarding. I was particularly struck by the ideological purity of the platform, which is why I agreed to serve on the committee. I always considered the platform to be the anchor by which the LP protected itself from LP candidates who were tempted to compromise libertarian principles in the hopes of garnering votes. It one of the biggest honors of my life when the LP awarded me its Thomas Paine award. I have no plans to run as an LP candidate for president again. I think political activity is a great vehicle for spreading libertarianism but I love the educational-foundation arena much more.

Daily Bell: You’ve written a number of books. Please describe the following BRIEFLY so our viewers can purchase them as they wish.

The Dangers of Socialized Medicine (co-written with Richard M. Ebeling) (1994) ISBN ISBN 0964044706.

Jacob Hornberger: This book shows how government intervention into the healthcare arena, with Medicare and Medicaid, occupational licensure, and regulation, are the root cause of America’s healthcare woes. It calls for a complete separation of healthcare and the state, entailing a complete repeal, not reform, of these programs and interventions.

The Failure of America’s Foreign Wars (co-written with Richard M. Ebeling) (1996) ISBN 0964044765.

Jacob Hornberger: This book explains how America’s foreign wars have been a disaster and calls for the total dismantling of America’s foreign military empire, which would entail closing all the foreign bases and bringing all the troops home and discharging them.

Liberty, Security, and the War on Terrorism C) (2003) ISBN 1890687049.

Jacob Hornberger: This book shows how U.S. foreign policy is the root cause of the anger and hatred toward the United States that has led to a constant threat of terrorism, which government officials then use to infringe upon our fundamental rights and freedoms. It calls for an end to foreign intervention and a repeal of all measures that infringe on liberty and privacy.

Daily Bell: Back to politics. Why doesn’t the Libertarian party do better in national elections?

Jacob Hornberger: One reason is the horrible ballot-access restrictions placed by the Democrats and Republicans, including ridiculous petitioning requirements. Libertarians have to spend so much money on that that they then lack the money to run campaigns.

Another reason is campaign-donation limits. If people were free to give unlimited amounts of money to candidates, Libertarian candidates could call on a few wealthy libertarian donors to fund their campaigns. And another reason is the propensity of people to vote only for major party candidates.

Finally, the Republicans and Democrats abandoned their principles long ago in exchange for votes, which is why they preach such things as "free enterprise and limited government" and "loving the poor, needy, and disadvantaged" while supporting such socialist, imperialist, and interventionist programs as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, public schooling, the drug war, the war on immigrants, torture, wars of aggression, and denial of due process. Statists like to mock the LP for its lack of electoral success, but the fact is that the LP has always placed a higher value on libertarian principles than getting votes, which has made its job in the electoral process more difficult. After all, while things seem to be changing now, American voters have historically oriented toward statism, despite its manifest immorality and destructiveness.

Daily Bell: Was Ron Paul right to position himself as a libertarian republican? It’s probably killing the Libertarian party, yes?

Jacob Hornberger: I think he was right because as a practical matter, I don’t think voters would have elected him to Congress as an LP candidate, and he has been a tremendously positive force for libertarianism in Congress. No, I don’t think he’s killing the Libertarian Party. On the contrary, I think he’s bringing libertarianism and the Libertarian Party to the attention of ever-increasing numbers of people. One of the most admirable things about Ron Paul is how he has consistently embraced libertarians and the Libertarian Party throughout his congressional terms and during his campaign for president.

Daily Bell: What do you think of Ron Paul? Rand Paul?

Jacob Hornberger: Ron Paul is one of my real-life heroes, and he has been one of the libertarian movement’s most effective advocates ever. Rand Paul is not as libertarian as his father, especially when it comes to foreign policy and the war on terrorism, but he is certainly heads and shoulders above standard Republicans when it comes libertarian philosophy, economic principles, and civil liberties. Moreover, Rand Paul’s positions on monetary policy and his attacks on the Patriot Act have been extremely admirable.

Daily Bell: Have you become a gradualist about government change or do you remain a radical "Libertarian Outlaw."

Jacob Hornberger: I ardently oppose gradualism and I remain a radical "Libertarian Outlaw." If there were button that could be pushed that would immediately repeal every since welfare-state program, including Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, and every since warfare-warfare-state program, including the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, I’d push it. When a thief is caught embezzling funds, do we gradually reduce his dependency on the money or do we terminate it immediately? Moral principles are immutable. They’re either followed or not.

Daily Bell: You’re a born-again Christian and a libertarian. We’re always amused by those who believe that a libertarian society would be godless or at least non-religious when the reverse is true. The freer the society, the more spiritual or at least religious it usually is because people need some sort of moral or behavioral structure. We can see this in pre-revolutionary America. How do you see it?

Jacob Hornberger: As a Christian and as a libertarian, I believe people should be free to live their lives any way they want, so long as their conduct is peaceful. That might mean living life in an irresponsible, immoral, and even self-destructive manner.

I agree with you and I do believe that a free society tends to nurture the values that most of us hold dear, such as morality, compassion, and responsibility. But by the same token, it is impossible to predict the outcome of a free society, which scares a lot of people. One of my beefs with conservatives is when they intimate that such values are a prerequisite to having a free society and that people can’t be trusted with freedom until they are responsible, moral, and compassionate. As a libertarian, I say nonsense to that. Freedom entails the right to be irresponsible, uncaring, and immoral, so long as your conduct is peaceful (i.e., no murder, rape, theft, fraud, etc.)

Daily Bell: Isn’t it true the more government there is, the more corrupt and lawless society becomes?

Jacob Hornberger: Yes, but only when the government is doing things that it shouldn’t be doing, such as regulating economic activity or criminalizing the possession or distribution of drugs. When government is limited to doing the things it should be doing – such as going after murderers, rapists, and thieves – more government might be better and society will less corrupt and lawless.

Daily Bell: Should drugs be legalized? Is the war on drugs a failure?

Jacob Hornberger: Yes, absolutely, immediately. With the possible exception of public (i.e., government) schooling, it would be difficult to find a better example of a failed, immoral, and destructive government program. Not only has the drug war not achieved its purported end, it has actually made society much worse off in terms of violence, death, and destruction.

Daily Bell: We think the Internet like the Gutenberg Press before it is collapsing the Anglo-American empire. Reaction?

Jacob Hornberger: The Internet is certainly helping us libertarians educate people to the reality of their government has become – a socialist, imperialist, interventionist monstrosity that is taking our country down the road to moral debauchery, government dependency, and financial bankruptcy. Time will tell though whether a critical mass of Americans decide to restore a free-market, limited-government republic to our land.

Daily Bell: We think the Internet like the Gutenberg Press before it is creating a new Renaissance and new Reformation – Internet Reformation, if you will? Response?

Jacob Hornberger: It certainly is providing people with the means to circumvent the long-established mainstream media outlets, which is a great thing.

Daily Bell: Many believe that a New World Order is being created by an elite group of banking families residing in the City of London. Conspiracy theory?

Jacob Hornberger: It’s a conspiracy theory that I don’t personally find persuasive. But whether one believes that such a conspiracy exists or not, our goal should be the same – to end all the socialist, imperialist, and interventionist programs and establish a total separation of economy and state, money and state, healthcare and state, and education and state, dismantle our nation’s overseas military empire, its standing army, and its military industrial complex, and restore civil liberties to our land.

Daily Bell: Is the US Dollar on the way out?

Jacob Hornberger: It might well be on the way out since the government keeps spending and borrowing and the Federal Reserve keeps inflating and debasing to enable the government to continue spending and borrowing.

Daily Bell: We will see a gold backed currency in your lifetime?

Jacob Hornberger: Possibly, but I would prefer a free-market in money – what Friedrich Hayek, the libertarian Nobel Prize winning economist, called "the denationalization of money." Government has no more business in currency and money than it does in health care, education, or charity. Separate money and the state by repealing legal tender laws, abolish the fed, and free the market so that people can use any type of money they want.

Daily Bell: Interesting point. Can you give us your take on free-banking, clearinghouses and private fractional reserve banking? We’re all for money competition generally.

Jacob Hornberger: Yes, I favor free banking, along with the likely possibility of fractional reserve banking, and private clearinghouses. The argument that fractional reserve banking in a free market is fraud, which some libertarians make, is, in my opinion, ill-founded because fraud involves an intentional misrepresentation of a material fact (or omission of a material fact) with the intent to deceive. If the bank represents up front that it is engaged in fractional-reserve banking and the customer agrees, then there cannot be fraud. The customer voluntarily takes the risk of a bank run and the bank’s going under. Those customers who don’t want to take such a risk can find banks that don’t engage in fractional reserve banking and serve simply as warehouses for people’s money.

Daily Bell: Let the market decide … Maybe because the market has been so powerfully regulated it’s having difficulty operating. Are we in the midst of a rolling, global depression?

Jacob Hornberger: It sure seems like it to me. In fact, we might actually be in a perfect storm of failure and destruction of statism all over the world, including our nation’s own socialism, imperialism, and interventionism.

Daily Bell: Is the war on terror a phony war?

Jacob Hornberger: It’s more a fraudulent war. The U.S. government goes abroad and provokes people with things like sanctions, foreign interventions, invasions, support of dictatorships, and foreign aid. Then when the victims retaliate, as they did on 9/11, the government cries, "Oh, it had nothing to do with what we did to provoke them. It’s all because they hate us for our freedom and values." And then feds use the terrorist threat to do more of the same, including invasions and occupations, thereby producing a perpetual need for government "protection," which comes in the form of ever-growing infringements on our privacy and freedom, such as the fondling at the airports, the Patriot Act, the spying on Americans, the secret searches of financial information, and so forth.

Daily Bell: Is al-Qaeda a made up enemy?

Jacob Hornberger: No. Its roots go back to the extremist Muslims that the U.S. government was supporting when they were trying to oust the Soviet Union from Afghanistan. After the Soviets were evicted, al-Qaeda committed itself to ousting the U.S. Empire from the Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Middle East.

Daily Bell: Is there ever a justification for "wars of overseas aggression?"

Jacob Hornberger: No.

Daily Bell: Does the US seek overseas conflict to further domestic repression?

Jacob Hornberger: Perhaps but regardless of whether they intend it or not, that is the logical outcome of its overseas interventions. James Madison pointed out that the officials of the Roman Empire were famous for inciting foreign crises whenever the Roman citizenry became restless over the Empire’s ever-growing taxes, debt, and regulations.

Daily Bell: Is the US becoming a police state?

Jacob Hornberger: The U.S. has become a police state. Federal officials now have many of the powers wielded by the Middle East dictatorships that the U.S. government supports. These include the power to label people as suspected terrorists, arrest and detain them indefinitely without trial, ignore verdicts of acquittal in federal court terrorism cases, torture people, execute people after kangaroo tribunals, kidnap people and rendition them to friendly dictatorships for torture. Also, we’ve got the Patriot Act, the CIA, the ATF, and the NSA. Then when you combine the powers being wielded in the war on terrorism with the powers wielded by increasingly militarized cops in the war on drugs, that’s what a police state looks like. Doesn’t the United States jail more people per capita than communist China and every other country? I think we’re Number 1 in this regard.

Daily Bell: Is Obama a better president than George W. Bush?

Jacob Hornberger: They are both the same. Obama is Bush’s third term. He is an absolute disaster. Not only does he embrace socialist economic policies and big spending and big borrowing, he’s been as big a disaster on civil liberties and foreign policy as Bush.

Daily Bell: Is the EU on the way out? How about the euro?

Jacob Hornberger: I don’t know. For sure the welfare states of Europe are collapsing before our eyes, especially given the enormous spending and borrowing burdens placed on their citizenry. Where it will lead is anyone’s guess, but I have a feeling it’s not going to be pretty.

Daily Bell: Is every law a price fix?

Jacob Hornberger: I’m not sure what you mean by that. Laws against murder, rape, stealing, and other violent crimes place a price on violation, but I consider such laws perfectly valid. Economic crimes, such as minimum-wage laws or price controls, fix prices and are invalid and destructive.

Daily Bell: Are laws and regulations ever necessary, hypothetically speaking?

Jacob Hornberger: Laws that punish actions in which people initiate force against others are necessary. Murder, rape, stealing, fraud, etc., are examples. Laws and regulations that punish peaceful conduct are illegitimate. Examples including drug laws, insider-trading laws, and minimum-wage laws.

Daily Bell: Are central banks necessary? Should they be done away with?

Jacob Hornberger: No, central banks are unnecessary and are highly destructive. They are one of the twin engines by which the federal government confiscates people’s wealth. (The other one is the IRS.) It should be done away with immediately. (So should the IRS and the income tax.)

Daily Bell: Are gold and silver going higher in terms of purchasing power? How high?

Jacob Hornberger: Owning gold and silver might not be for the faint of heart because of the stomach-churning plunges in price. But as long as federal spending and borrowing continue soaring, the longer the Fed will be debasing the currency, which means gold and silver will be going higher, at least in terms of the dollar. How high is anyone’s guess.

Daily Bell: Where do you go from here? How about your Foundation?

Jacob Hornberger: We continue fighting for a free society by spreading sound ideas on liberty. With crisis comes opportunity – to opportunity to restore a free, peaceful, and prosperous society to our land. We invite everyone to subscribe to our daily FFF Email Update and to our monthly journal "Freedom Daily" and to support our work with tax-deductible donations and bequests. Our work depends on the financial support that people give us. As Mises pointed out, when society is headed toward destruction, none of us can stand aside. We all have a stake in the outcome. We must all throw ourselves vigorously into the battle.

Daily Bell: Are you working on any other books?

Jacob Hornberger: No, we are using the Internet as our primary means to disseminate our libertarian perspectives.

Daily Bell: Is this an exciting era in which to be a libertarian?

Jacob Hornberger: This is the most exciting time ever to be a libertarian. People are finally figuring out that something is fundamentally wrong in our country. If they can only achieve the breakthrough that we libertarians have achieved – that long ago America abandoned its philosophy of freedom, free markets, and a limited government republic and embraced socialism, imperialism, and interventionism, then we’ve got a real shot at ridding our nation of the statism that afflicts our land, along with all the horrible consequences it has wrought. More people are becoming interested in libertarianism than ever before, especially young people. With two libertarians who can competently and eloquently defend libertarianism now running for the Republican presidential nomination – Ron Paul and Gary Johnson – this will certainly add to libertarian excitement.

Daily Bell: Any other thoughts?

Jacob Hornberger: Thank you for the interview. It’s an honor to be added to your cast of interviewees, many of whom have been heroes of mine for a long time.

Daily Bell: Thanks for sitting down patiently through an extensive interview and answering the "tough" questions. It’s been a pleasure and honor to interview you.

Daily Bell After Thoughts

Like so many others, we’ve admired Jacob Hornberger’s dedication to the spread of libertarianism and the eloquent writing he’s produced. The Future of Freedom Foundation is an essential free-market voice, and he’s been an effective spokesperson throughout his career.

As a former military man and lawyer, he could have aimed his life’s work toward a number of areas. There are certainly more lucrative ways to make a living, but he decided to focus on what he loved and believed in. He was "born" to do what he’s doing and his passion is evident.

We learned a lot in this interview, as we expected to. Jacob Hornberger is a widely read individual, and that comes through in his books and articles as well as his interviews and radio appearances. His remarks on religion, free banking and the West’s growing militarism were most thoughtful in our opinion. One issue where we still have questions (though admittedly his opinion is more mainstream than ours) is his perspective on the American justice system.

We pointed out some of our conclusions about tribal and clan justice as a workable and ancient system that predates British Common Law and emphasized familial as well as "elder" negotiation. His reply, as you can see in the interview, above, emphasized the system as it had evolved, including a trial by jury before an independent tribunal "where the state has a monopoly of force to enforce the judicial judgments."

Of course, once the state has a monopoly of force, doesn’t that allow the state a good deal of latitude? It seems to us that we’re reaping the unfortunate results of a monopoly of force, today, given the growing government lawlessness both in America and Europe. We also asked him about the idea that modern US courts operate under Admiralty law. He seemed to answer this question carefully: "I agree with the conclusion reached by the courts that such a claim is meritless and frivolous."

He was far blunter in regard to the how US courts evolved in the 20th century. His answer was unequivocal: "No, it is not true that lawyers are instructed not to cite precedent before 1930 or it is not true that courts will not recognize previous precedent. Lawyers are free to cite any precedent that is pertinent to their case."

He was clear about the ICC, stating that he doesn’t see how "such a court acquires jurisdiction over the world" and that a "crime against humanity is too nebulous." We certainly agree with that and were not surprised by his perspective or willingness to speak out.

We thanked him at the end of the interview for answering "tough" questions but he’s been taking on tough issues throughout his professional career. Those in the libertarian community are lucky to have his eloquence and influential think-tank the Future of Freedom Foundation to call on. The fight for freedom has never been more necessary than today.

Reprinted with permission from The Daily Bell.

Anthony Wile is an author, columnist, media commentator and entrepreneur focused on developing projects that promote the general advancement of free-market thinking concepts. He is the chief editor of the popular free-market oriented news site, TheDailyBell.com. Mr. Wile is the Executive Director of The Foundation for the Advancement of Free-Market Thinking — a non-profit Liechtenstein-based foundation. His most popular book, High Alert, is now in its third edition and available in several languages. Other notable books written by Mr. Wile include The Liberation of Flockhead (2002) and The Value of Gold (2002).

The Best of Anthony Wile

Dear Troops:

Yesterday – Memorial Day – some people asserted, once again, that you are “defending our freedoms” overseas.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Those people are just repeating tired old mantras. The reality is that you are not defending our freedoms with your actions overseas. In fact, it is the exact opposite. Your actions overseas are placing our freedoms here at home in ever-greater jeopardy.

Consider your occupation of Iraq, a country that, as you know, never attacked the United States, making it the defender in the war and the United States the aggressor. Think about that: Every single person that the troops have killed, maimed, or tortured in Iraq had absolutely nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks.

Yet, the countless victims of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq have friends and relatives, many of whom have become filled with anger and rage and who now would stop at nothing to retaliate with terrorist attacks against Americans.

Pray tell: How does that constitute defending our freedoms?

It was no different prior to 9/11. At the end of the Persian Gulf War, the troops intentionally destroyed Iraq’s water and sewage facilities after a Pentagon study showed that this would help spread infectious illnesses among the Iraqi people.

It worked. For 11 years after that, the troops enforced the cruel and brutal sanctions on Iraq that killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children. (See “America’s Peacetime Crimes against Iraq” by Anthony Gregory.) You’ll recall U.S. Ambassador to the UN Madeleine Albright’s infamous statement that the deaths of half-a-million Iraqi children from the sanctions were “worth it.”

By “it” she meant the attempted ouster of Saddam Hussein from power. You will recall that he was a dictator who was the U.S. government’s ally and partner during the 1980s, when the United States was furnishing him with those infamous WMDs that U.S. officials later used to excite the American people into supporting your invasion of Iraq.

The truth is that 9/11 furnished U.S. officials with the excuse to do what their sanctions (and the deaths of all those Iraqi children) had failed to accomplish: ridding Iraq of Saddam Hussein and replacing him with a U.S-approved regime.

That’s what your post-9/11 invasion of Iraq was all about – to achieve the regime change that the pre-9/11 deadly sanctions that killed all those children had failed to achieve.

No, not mushroom clouds, not freedom, not democracy, and certainly not defending our freedoms here at home. Just plain old regime change.

In the process, all that you – the troops – have done with your invasion and occupation of Iraq is produce even more enmity toward the United States by people in the Middle East, especially those Iraqis who have lost loved ones or friends in the process or simply watched their country be destroyed.

In principle, it’s no different with Afghanistan. I’d estimate that 99 percent of the people the troops have killed, maimed, or tortured in that country had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11.

Why did you invade Afghanistan or, more precisely, why did President Bush order you to do so?

No, not because the Taliban participated in the 9/11 attacks and, no, not because the Taliban were even aware that the attacks were going to take place

President Bush ordered the troops to invade Afghanistan – and, of course, kill Afghan citizens in the process – because the Afghan government — the Taliban – refused to comply with his unconditional extradition demand. You will recall that the Taliban offered to turn bin Laden over to an independent tribunal to stand trial upon the receipt of evidence from the United States indicating his complicity in the 9/11 attacks.

Bush responded to the Taliban’s offer by issuing his order to the troops to invade Afghanistan, kill Afghans, and occupy the country. In the process, U.S. officials installed one of the most crooked, corrupt, and dictatorial rulers it could find to govern the country, one who is so incompetent he cannot even hide the manifest fraud by which he has supposedly been elected to office.

In the process of installing and defending the Karzai regime, the troops have killed brides, grooms, children, fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, uncles, aunts, cousins, friends, and countrymen, most of whom never attacked the United States on 9/11 or at any other time. They simply became “collateral damage” or “bad guys” for having the audacity to oppose the invasion and occupation of their country by a foreign regime. (It should be noted for the record that U.S. officials considered these types of “bad guys,” as well as Osama bin Laden and other fundamentalist Muslims, to be “good guys” when they were trying to oust Soviet troops from Afghanistan.)

Was there another way to bring bin Laden to justice? Yes, the criminal-justice route, which was the route used after the 1993 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.

That’s right. Same target, different date. In fact, the accused terrorists – Ramzi Yousef in 1993 and Osama bin Laden in 2001 – were ultimately located in the same country, Pakistan.

In Yousef’s case, he was arrested some three years after the attack, brought back to the United States, prosecuted, and convicted in federal district court. He’s now serving a life sentence in a federal penitentiary.

No invasions, no bombings, no occupations, no killing of countless innocent people, no torture, no war on terrorism, and no anger and rage that such actions inevitably would have produced among the victims, their families, and friends.

In bin Laden’s case, we instead got a military invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, where the troops have killed, maimed, tortured, and hurt countless people who had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks.

How in the world have your invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq defended our freedoms here at home? Indeed, how have the assassinations and bombings in Pakistan, Yemen, Libya, and who knows where else defended our freedoms?

All these things have accomplished is keeping foreigners angry at us, thereby subjecting us to the constant and ever-growing threat of terrorist retaliation here at home. As I have pointed out before, the U.S. military – that is, you, the troops – have become the biggest terrorist-producing machine in history. Every time you kill some Iraqi or Afghan citizen, even when accidental, ten more offer to take his place out of anger and rage.

That’s the same thing that was happening prior to 9/11. In fact, there were some, including those of us here at The Future of Freedom Foundation, who were warning prior to 9/11 that unless the U.S. Empire stopped what it was doing to people in the Middle East (including the deadly sanctions on Iraq, the support of Middle East dictators, the stationing of U.S. troops near Islamic holy lands, and the unconditional money and armaments to the Israeli regime), Americans would be increasingly subject to terrorist attacks. On 9/11, we were proven right, unfortunately. (See Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire by Chalmers Johnson.)

How does the constant threat of terrorist retaliation arising from your actions in Iraq and Afghanistan make us freer here at home, especially when you – the troops – are responsible for engendering the anger and rage that culminates in such threats, owing to what you are doing to people over there?

Consider also what the U.S. government does to our freedoms here at home as a direct consequence of the terrorist threat that you, the troops, are producing over there. It uses that threat of terrorism to infringe upon our freedoms here at home! You know what I mean – the fondling at the airports, the 10-year-old Patriot Act, the illegal spying on Americans, the indefinite detention, the torture, the kangaroo tribunals, Gitmo, and the entire war on terrorism – all necessary, they tell us, to keep us safe from the terrorists – that is, the people you all are producing with your actions over there.

In other words, if you all weren’t producing an endless stream of terrorists with your invasions, occupations, torture, assassinations, bombings, and Gitmo, the U.S. government – the entity you are working for – would no longer have that excuse for taking away our freedoms.

This past Sunday, the Washington Post carried an article about American wives who were recently greeting their husbands on their return from Afghanistan. Newlywed Anne Krolicki, 24, commented to her husband on the death of one of her friends’ husband: “It’s a pointless war,” she said.

That lady has her head on straight. She’s has a grip on reality, doesn’t deal in tired old mantras, and speaks the truth. Every U.S. soldier who dies in Iraq and Afghanistan dies for nothing, which was the same thing that some 58,000 men of my generation died for in Vietnam.

Please don’t write me to tell me that you all are good people or that you’re “patriots” for simply following whatever orders you are given. All that is irrelevant. What matters is what you are doing over there. And what you are doing is not defending our freedoms, you are jeopardizing them

Sincerely,

Jacob G. Hornberger President The Future of Freedom Foundation

Reprinted from The Future of Freedom Foundation.

Jacob Hornberger [send him mail] is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.

The Best of Jacob Hornberger

All of us have been born and raised within a statist box, one in which the federal government’s primary roles are to take care of people, regulate their economic activities, and maintain an overseas military empire that intervenes in the affairs of other countries.

Both liberals and conservatives have come to accept this statist box as a permanent feature of American life. Even worse, they have convinced themselves that life in this statist box is actually freedom.

What makes libertarians different from liberals and conservatives is that, although we too have been born and raised within the statist box, we have broken free of it, in an intellectual and moral sense. Moreover, unlike liberals and conservatives, we recognize that statism isn’t freedom at all. It’s the opposite of freedom. Genuine freedom, libertarians contend, entails a dismantling of the statist box in which we all live.

Let’s set aside, for the purposes of this discussion, the warfare state, and consider the welfare state, which is an economic system in which the federal government taxes people in order to transfer the money to other people, after deducting hefty administrative costs associated with making those transfers.

Welfare-state programs include Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, grants, subsidies, foreign aid, and bank bailouts. Every one of those programs involves the federal government’s forcible taking of people’s money in order to give it to other people.

Most people living today have been raised with all or most of those programs. They are considered a core element of American life. While people often call for reforming the programs, hardly anyone other than libertarians questions the propriety of their existence. The attitude seems to be that the welfare state is here to stay and that we just need to continue devoting our efforts to trying to make it work and continue telling ourselves that it is equivalent to the free society.

It is not surprising that most people view the welfare state as freedom. From their earliest years, American children are taught that they live in a free country. The message that America is a free country is repeated and reinforced in school five days a week for 12 years. Those who are sent into government schools (i.e., public schools) receive an extra-strength dose of the freedom message, oftentimes beginning with the Pledge of Allegiance every morning. Those who resist the message are inevitably provided with such drugs as Ritalin or Adderall to make their minds more receptive to the official freedom message.

So by the time American children are 18 years old, the vast majority of them have no doubts that they live in a free country. They may even find themselves singing, “I’m proud to be an American where at least I know I’m free.” At some events, they stand to proudly recite the Pledge of Allegiance, which of course all of them will know by heart, even if they’re not aware that it was authored by an avowed socialist. Those who go to church on Sunday are exhorted by the minister to pray for the troops who are somewhere overseas protecting and defending the freedoms enjoyed by Americans.

In the mindset of the average American, freedom entails having the government take care of people, which it does by having the IRS take money from those who own it and giving it to others. Presumably, the more the government takes care of people (and, therefore, the more money it takes from people), the freer Americans are. In other words, the more people are taken care of with Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, grants, subsidies, and aid, the freer the American people become.

North Korea, Venezuela, and America

Suppose we asked Americans whether, in their opinion, people living in North Korea are free. Most would say no. When asked why, most of them would respond, “Because North Korea is a communist dictatorship, not a democracy.”

Very few Americans would focus on North Korea’s socialist economic system in framing their answer.

Now, suppose Americans were asked the same question about people living in Venezuela. They might be tempted to say that Venezuelans are free because there are elections in Venezuela, ignoring the fact that a democratically elected ruler can be a dictator.

Again, few Americans would focus on Venezuela’s socialist economic system in responding to a question that asks whether Venezuelans are free. It simply would not enter their minds.

The fact is that North Korea and Venezuela have the same welfare-state programs as the United States: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, grants, subsidies, and aid. And people in those countries are as convinced that all that welfare-statism is freedom as the average American is.

This is one of the things that distinguish libertarians from statists. We oppose all welfare-state programs, including the crown jewels of the welfare state – Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. We favor the immediate termination of all those socialistic programs.

The libertarian concept of freedom

Libertarians view freedom differently from statists. Our concept of freedom, in an economic sense, is as follows:

We believe that people should be free to engage in any occupation or profession without any government-issued license, permit, or other form of official permission. Let consumers, not the government, decide who engages in different lines of work.

We believe that people should be free to enter into mutually beneficial transactions with anyone else in the world, without interference by the government. That includes such things as hiring a housekeeper from Mexico and selling food to a Cuban.

We believe that people should be free to accumulate unlimited amounts of wealth and, equally important, to decide for themselves what to do with it – spend, save, invest, or donate it. Thus, we hold that people should be free to plan for their own retirement (or not), to donate to their church or other causes (or not), and to help out their elderly or ailing parents (or not).

For us libertarians, that is what genuine freedom is all about, in terms of economic activity.

Compare the statist interpretation of freedom, an interpretation that libertarians consider to be false, fraudulent, and counterfeit. The statist version of freedom holds that government, not the individual, is sovereign and supreme. If people want to engage in a line of work, they’ve got to ask the government for permission. The government restricts them from engaging in mutually beneficial transactions with others, through such devices as minimum-wage laws, trade restrictions, and immigration controls. Everybody’s income is subject to being taxed in any amount deemed proper by government officials and redistributed to others. People are forced to share their money with others, be it the elderly, the sick, or simply the politically privileged.

Thus, when libertarians are asked whether they live in a free country, our answer is opposite to that of liberals and conservatives. Our answer is “no,” because an essential aspect of freedom is economic liberty. If people in a society don’t have economic liberty, then they cannot truly be considered free. And statists are not free merely because they think they are. A denial of reality, no matter how severe, doesn’t affect reality itself.

It is how libertarians view freedom that befuddles and confuses, and sometimes even angers, American statists. They’re simply unable to comprehend how libertarians are able to honestly believe that Americans are not free. That’s because in the minds of American statists, it’s obvious that Americans are free. Everyone knows that the United States is a free country.

The reason for this phenomenon is, again, that, while all of us are living within a statist box, most Americans have not been able to break out of the box, mentally speaking, and question and challenge the legitimacy of the statist box itself. Undoubtedly, that is in large part because of the powerful indoctrination that takes place in people’s formative years – a period in which their minds are molded so that they believe that the welfare state is, in fact, freedom. Thus, when a statist encounters a libertarian, who wants to bring freedom to America, the statist becomes confused, befuddled, and even angry because in his mind he’s already free, thanks to the welfare state.

The managed economy

Here’s another example of how different libertarians are from statists in the realm of economics – the concept of the managed economy. What is the standard debate that takes place between liberals and conservatives in the political arena? It is that the party in power has “mismanaged the economy.” Most of the time, the accusation is directed at the president. When President George W. Bush was causing federal spending and debt to soar through the roof, what did the Democrats say? “He’s mismanaging the economy!” And what have Republicans been saying about President Obama’s exorbitant federal spending and borrowing ever since he took office? “He’s mismanaging the economy!”

The entire process is simply a game in which voters transfer power back and forth between the two wings of what is really just one big political party – the Statist Party.

Sometimes, liberals and conservatives will ask libertarians, “What’s your plan for managing the economy?” Our answer: “We don’t have a plan for managing the economy,” which causes statists to go ballistic. They respond, “Oh, you libertarians are so impractical. How do you expect to win elections if you don’t have a plan for managing the economy?”

Well, there is a very simple reason that libertarians don’t have a plan for managing the economy. We don’t believe that it’s a rightful role of government in a free society to manage the economy. We believe that people should be free to manage their own economic activity and that government should stay out of the process entirely.

Thus, there are fundamental differences between libertarians and statists over the concept of freedom and the role of government in a free society.

Statists hold that freedom entails the government’s having the power to seize money from people in order to take care of others and to manage and control economic activity.

Libertarians, on the other hand, hold that freedom entails people’s having the right to manage their own economic activity in any way they want, including engaging in enterprise free of government control, accumulating unlimited amounts of wealth, and deciding for themselves what to do with it.

Another big difference between libertarians and statists relates to morality. Liberals and conservatives see nothing wrong, in a moral sense, with government’s forcibly taking money from people in order to give it to other people. In fact, for both liberals and conservatives, the welfare state is the epitome of morality. The forcible seizure and redistribution of wealth, they say, actually reflects how good, caring, and compassionate the American people are.

Libertarians hold the contrary. We say that it’s wrong for government to forcibly take money that belongs to one person in order to give it to another person. We call that stealing. And we say that stealing is immoral even when the thief puts what he steals to good use, such as funding the education of a poor student, helping a destitute elderly couple, or paying for a medical operation for a sick person.

Interesting enough, statists would agree with libertarians when the stealing is done by a private thief. They would say that such theft is morally wrong, even when the money is used for some good purpose.

The difference arises when government enters the picture. For the statist, what would ordinarily be considered to be an immoral act is suddenly converted into a moral act when the government is doing it. In other words, if the thief is a private person, the statist joins the libertarian in condemning the act. If the thief is the government, the statist praises the act, while the libertarian condemns it.

Finally, we must consider the economic consequences of the welfare state and the managed economy. Imagine a spectrum that has libertarianism at one end and total statism at the other end. At the statist end, the government owns and controls everything, and everyone is working for the state. At the libertarian end, people engage in free enterprise (that is, enterprise free of government control or management), have the right to accumulate unlimited amounts of wealth (that is, no income taxation), and are free to decide what to do with their own money (that is, no Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, grants, subsidies, or other welfare-state programs).

Drifting to total statism

What liberals and conservatives fail to realize is that the totally statist society will be one that is on the verge of starvation. At the other end of the spectrum – the libertarian end – people will be enjoying the benefits of a rapidly growing, prosperous economy, one in which people are using their resources in different ways – consumption, saving, donating, et cetera.

The reason for this economic outcome lies in savings and capital. When people are free to keep everything they earn, they inevitably save a part of it. Their savings provides the capital that businesses use to expand their operations. The expansion produces higher revenues and profits, enabling firms to pay higher wages. In that way, standards of living rise. In the totally statist society, where the state owns everything, private savings and capital are squeezed out of existence, thereby dooming everyone to a life of extreme impoverishment, possibly even starvation.

In the middle of the spectrum are the welfare state and the managed economy, whereby the state attempts to extract sufficient wealth from the private sector to sustain its ever-growing welfare sector. What inevitably happens, however, is that the welfare sector becomes so large and so voracious that the private sector shrinks to a point where it cannot sustain the burden. The result is an environment of crisis and chaos, one in which people in the parasitic sector are demanding that the government do something to save them.

Because statists are convinced they’re free, they inevitably blame the economic woes on freedom and free enterprise rather than on the government’s socialistic redistributive programs and its interventionist economic policies. Thus, statists call on the government to move further along the spectrum toward more government control over economic activity and wealth.

It comes as no surprise then, that libertarians have an entirely different diagnosis of the problem. It’s the welfare-state programs and the interventionism that are the root of the economic woes, libertarians hold. The solution lies not in more government control but rather in more freedom. The solution lies in repealing the welfare-state programs and separating economy from the state.

For decades, libertarians have been telling Americans that the welfare state is not freedom and that it would inevitably lead to economic hardship, maybe even destitution. Americans haven’t listened, in large part because their minds have been trapped within the statist mindset that was mostly molded during their 12 years of childhood schooling.

Today, an increasing number of Americans are asking questions and challenging out-of-control federal spending, debt, and even inflation. Time will tell whether they’re able to do what libertarians have done – recognize the statist box for what it is, break free of it, and call for its dismantling rather than for its reform. If so, we libertarians will have a much better chance of overcoming the decades of statism under which our nation has suffered and restore a free, prosperous, and harmonious economic system to our land.

Reprinted from The Future of Freedom Foundation.

Jacob Hornberger [send him mail] is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.

The Best of Jacob Hornberger

The standard
explanations for the Arizona killings are now being set forth, such
as widespread violence in America and right-wing extremism. I’d
like to weigh in with another possible factor, one that I can’t
prove but one that I think Americans ought to at least consider:
the fact that killing has now become an accepted, essential, normal,
and permanent part of American life.

No, I’m
not referring to the widespread gun violence in America that liberals
point to as part of their gun-control agenda. I’m not even
referring to the widespread violence that accompanies the decades-long
drug war, especially in Mexico. I’m instead referring to the
U.S. government’s regular killing of people thousands of miles
away in Afghanistan and Iraq, killing that has now gone on regularly
for some 10 years and that has become a fairly hum-drum part of
our daily lives.

Six people
were killed and 14 were injured in the Arizona shootings, including
a woman who was shot through the head and a 9-year-old girl whose
life was snuffed out. Everyone is shocked over the horror, which
is detailed on the front page of every newspaper across the country.

But let’s
face it: Such killings go on every week in Afghanistan and Iraq
and have for some 10 years. Parents, children, brothers, sisters,
cousins, grandparents, friends, brides, grooms, and wedding parties.
People are killed in those two countries every week, and the killing
has now expanded to people in Pakistan.

We don’t
see those deaths on the front pages of American newspapers. They’re
buried on page 14 of the papers in small news reports, if at all.

Why don’t
those killings get front-page coverage?

One, the killings
have become commonplace. They’re now just considered normal.
Massive death on a massive scale, but normal. We just put all the
deaths at the back of our minds. The football playoffs are this
weekend. Got to pay the bills this month. Life demands our attention.
Anyway, it’s not as if we, the American citizenry, are doing
the killing. It’s the military and the CIA that are doing it.

Two, our public
officials say that we’re at war and that people are always
killed in war. Never mind that what we have in Afghanistan and Iraq
are military occupations, not war. The idea is that a military occupation
is a sort of war and, therefore, we shouldn’t let the daily
killings affect our consciences. Moreover, since we’ve been
told that the war on terrorism is considered permanent, we just
have to get used to the fact that the weekly killings will be a
normal and regular part of our lives for as long as we live.

Third, we are
told that the people being killed are terrorists, enemy combatants,
or unfortunate collateral damage. Never mind that our public officials
have had 10 years to kill terrorists and enemy combatants to their
hearts’ content but apparently still haven’t gotten them
all. Never mind that the terrorists and enemy combatants might well
now consist primarily of people who are simply trying to oust their
country of a foreign occupier, like people did when it was the Soviet
Union that was doing the occupying. Never mind that the number of
terrorists and enemy combatants continues to rise with each new
killing. It’s all just part and parcel of the new normality
for American society.

In the process,
life is cheapened – well, the lives of Afghans, Iraqis, and
Pakistanis. The weekly killings of adults and children from those
three countries are relegated to page 14 of the newspaper because
they’re just Afghans, Iraqis, and Pakistanis. It’s not
as if they’re Americans, after all, people who place a much
higher value on human life than others.

We mustn’t
forget how, for the last 10 years, the lives of Afghans and Iraqis
have been expendable for the greater good of their society. How
many times have we been reminded, for example, that the deaths of
countless Iraqis have been worth the effort to bring democracy to
Iraq? In fact, one of the most fascinating phenomena about the Iraq
War, an illegal and unconstitutional undeclared war of aggression
that the U.S. government waged against a country that had never
attacked the United States or even threatened to do so, is that
there has never been an upper limit on the number of Iraqi deaths
that would justify the achievement of democracy in Iraq. Any number
of Iraqi deaths, no matter how high, has been considered worth it.

We saw this
same reasoning through 11 years of brutal sanctions on Iraq, which
were imposed for the purpose of achieving regime change – the
ouster of Saddam Hussein from power and his replacement by a pro-U.S.
regime. When Bill Clinton’s U.S. Ambassador to the UN, Madeleine
Albright, was asked by Sixty Minutes whether the deaths of half-a-million
Iraqi children had been worth it, her answer perfectly reflected
the mindset of Washington officials for the past two decades: “I
think this is a very hard choice, but the price – we think
the price is worth it.”

How much value
is placed on the life of people, including children, who are sacrificed
for the greater good of society? Not much value at all. Life is
supposed to be sacrosanct. But then again, those are Iraqi people
we’re talking about.

How can all
this massive, regular, permanent death and destruction not affect
and infect a society? Sure, it all takes place thousands of miles
away. Sure, it’s buried on page 14 of the newspaper. We don’t
see the caskets or the burials. We don’t see the crying, the
anguish, or the anger of the survivors. We just go about our daily
business, deferring to authority. Our public officials know what
is best. That is their job. We have to trust their judgment. If
they say that American soldiers and CIA officials have to stay in
Afghanistan and Iraq permanently and just go on killing people forever,
then we, the citizenry, just have to accept that. If they say they
have to expand the killing to Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia or wherever,
then that is just the way things are. They are the experts. They
are in charge.

In the process,
everyone convinces himself that the people who are being killed
are “bad guys” or people who just happened to be too close
to the bad guys, including their wives, children, other family members,
or friends.

Of course,
the possibility that the U.S. government – the invader, the
occupier, the interloper – is the “bad guy” doesn’t
even enter into most people’s minds. The thought is too horrible,
too terrifying. It might cause citizens to have to search their
consciences. Easier to simply continue “supporting the troops”
who are “defending our freedoms” by killing all those
people on a regular, weekly basis.

The news media
are reporting that the accused Arizona shooter, Jared Loughner,
tried to join the U.S. military but was unsuccessful. The irony
is that if he had been successful, he would have gone to Iraq or
Afghanistan and participated in the weekly death-fest and, upon
his return, public officials, pundits, media personalities, and
even some church ministers would be hailing his heroism and thanking
him for serving his country by killing Iraqis, Afghans, Pakistanis,
and others in the “defense of our freedoms” here at home.

Did the normalization
and trivialization of killing and the denigration and devaluation
of life in Afghanistan and Iraq trigger something inside the apparently
disturbed mind of the accused Arizona killer? I don’t know.
But how can such actions not have a horrible long-term adverse effect
on people whose government is permanently engaged in such evil?

Reprinted
from The Future of Freedom Foundation.

January
13, 2011

Jacob
Hornberger [send him mail]
is founder and president of The Future
of Freedom Foundation.

The
Best of Jacob Hornberger

Last November
a new book entitled The
Kennedy Detail: JFK’s Secret Service Agents Break Their Silence,
by Gerald Blaine and Lisa McCubbin, promised to “reveal the
inside story of the assassination, the weeks and days that led to
it and its heartrending aftermath.”

Unfortunately,
however, while providing details of the events leading up to the
assassination, the assassination itself, and President Kennedy’s
funeral, the book provided hardly any information on one of the
most mysterious aspects of the assassination: what happened when
Kennedy’s body was delivered to the morgue at Bethesda Naval
Hospital on the evening of the assassination.

For almost
50 years, people have debated the Kennedy assassination. Some claim
that the Warren Commission got it right – that Kennedy was
assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald, a lone-nut assassin. Others contend
that Kennedy was killed as part of a conspiracy.

It is not
the purpose of this article to engage in that debate. The purpose
of this article is simply to focus on what happened at Bethesda
Naval Hospital on the evening of November 22, 1963, and, specifically,
the events that took place prior to Kennedy’s autopsy. What
happened that night is so unusual that it cries out for truthful
explanation even after 47 years.

U.S. officials
have long maintained that Kennedy’s body was delivered to the
Bethesda morgue in the heavy, ornamental, bronze casket in which
the body had been placed at Parkland Hospital in Dallas.

The problem,
however, is that the evidence establishes that Kennedy’s body
was actually delivered to the Bethesda morgue twice, at separate
times and in separate caskets.

How does one
resolve this problem? One option, obviously, is just to forget about
it, given that the assassination took place almost a half-century
ago. But it seems to me that since the matter is so unusual and
since it involves a president of the United States, the American
people – regardless of which side of the divide they fall on
– lone-nut assassin or conspiracy – are entitled to a
truthful explanation of what happened that night at Bethesda. And
the only ones who can provide it are U.S. officials, especially
those in the Secret Service, the FBI, and the U.S. military, the
agencies that were in control of events at Bethesda that night.

The facts of
the casket controversy are set forth in detail in a five-volume
work that was published in 2009 entitled Inside
the Assassination Records Review Board: The U.S. Government’s
Final Attempt to Reconcile the Conflicting Medical Evidence in the
Assassination of JFK. The author is Douglas P. Horne, who
served as chief analyst for military records for the Assassination
Records Review Board. The ARRB was the official board established
to administer the JFK Records Act, which required federal departments
and agencies to divulge to the public their files and records relating
to the Kennedy assassination. The act was enacted after Oliver Stone’s
1991 movie,

I can’t help but comment on the latest liberal attack on libertarians because the entire episode is so humorous. This newest attack comes from Joshua Holland, senior editor at Alternet.org, one of the most liberal organizations in the country.

The controversy involves a decision by a fire department in Obion County, Tennessee, to stand by and watch a house burn down because the owner hadn’t paid the $75 fee to be protected by the fire department.

Holland went on the attack, describing the episode as an example of libertarianism and “Ayn Rand conservativism” at work. Holland wrote: “It’s a picture of a society in which u2018rugged individualism’ run amok means every man for himself. Call it Ayn Rand’s stark, anti-governmental dream come true.”

Well, except for one important detail: It was a government-owned, government-operated fire department!

In other words, Holland took a decision made by a socialist enterprise and used it to attack libertarianism!

How’s that for liberal logic at work?

One of the principal tenets of liberals is their overarching belief in the goodness of government.

Indeed, whenever libertarians call for the repeal of socialist welfare-state programs, what is the standard attack leveled by liberals?

“You hate the poor, the needy, and the disadvantaged!”

The implication, of course, is that government can be trusted to love the poor, needy, and disadvantaged.

Well, I don’t know how poor that homeowner was whose house burned down or how disadvantaged he was, but I do know one thing: He was quite needy at the time his house was burning down.

Where was the much-vaunted government compassion when his house was burning down? It was nowhere to be found!

Needless to say though, liberals aren’t going to condemn a government-owned enterprise. That would be akin to blasphemy. Better to use the lack of compassion by government bureaucrats to attack libertarians instead!

Let’s assume that the fire department was entirely private, as libertarians call for. Would a private fire department have made the same decision as the socialized, governmental-owned fire department?

Holland says yes because he obviously thinks that people in the private sector would be just as uncaring and indifferent to the sufferings of people as those government bureaucrats were.

Sure, it’s entirely possible that a private fire department would have made the same decision as the socialized, government-owned fire department.

But not very likely.

You see, Holland ignores a critical difference between the private sector and the government sector: the profit motive. The private company exists to make money. Therefore, a private fire department would have the incentive to have pre-written contracts in which an owner who had failed to purchase fire protection would be asked to agree to pay, say, double the costs of putting out the fire.

When that guy whose house was burning down offered to pay the costs of putting out the fire, the government bureaucrats not only didn’t accept the offer, they didn’t make a counter-offer. Socialized institutions aren’t driven by the profit motive.

In a follow-up post to his article, Holland displayed a surprising navet about another point about government operations that libertarians have long made: that people are “taxed at gunpoint.”

(This isn’t the only area in which liberals have a blind spot. Another one is their support of minimum-wage laws, as I pointed out in my article “Why Do Daily Kos and Alternet Support a Racist Program?”)

Holland writes: “Fun fact: if you don’t pay your taxes, you get a letter in the mail informing you that your wages will be garnished or a lein (sic) is being placed on your property. No guns involved!”

I hate to burst Holland’s bubble but he’s obviously unfamiliar with what happens after the government places a lien on someone’s house. It’s not fun, if the property owner steadfastly refuses to pay his taxes. Here’s what happens. The government will proceed to foreclose its lien by advertising a foreclosure sale. At the foreclosure sale, a government official auctions the property and sells it to the highest bidder. A deed transferring ownership of the property is given to the new owner. He now legally owns the property.

The new owner calls the taxpayer and says, “Get out of my house.” The taxpayer says, “Nope. This is my house, not yours.”

The new owner goes to a judge and secures a writ of possession and an order commanding the taxpayer to get out of the house. The writ and order will be served by deputy sheriffs (or deputy U.S. Marshalls in the case of IRS liens), all of whom have loaded guns on them. What happens if the taxpayer refuses to vacate? What happens if he decides to use force against those deputy sheriffs who are charged with evicting him? They will pull their guns out and they will use them against the recalcitrant taxpayer who is using his guns to resist the eviction. The final outcome of the encounter will be called “resisting arrest.”

As libertarians have long pointed out, the entire socialist paradigm is founded on force, which is antithetical to principles of individual liberty, free markets, and voluntary charity. That’s reason enough to reject such collectivist notions as government-owned fire departments as well as such immoral and destructive socialist programs as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, education grants, agricultural subsidies, bank bailouts, food stamps, foreign aid, and other welfare programs.

Reprinted from The Future of Freedom Foundation.

Jacob Hornberger [send him mail] is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.

The Best of Jacob Hornberger

Whenever government officials are assassinated, the normal reaction of law enforcement is to pull out all the stops in an attempt to ensure that no one who was involved in the crime escapes punishment.

Yet the more one reads about the Kennedy assassination, the more one gets the uneasy feeling that the reaction of the FBI and other federal officials was precisely the opposite. They seem to have been overeager to conclude that Lee Harvey Oswald was a lone assassin and overpassive in investigating the possible involvement of others in the killing.

For example, there were several witnesses who were certain that a shot had been fired from the grassy knoll. Whether such a shot was fired or not, one would naturally expect law-enforcement officials to aggressively pursue that possibility, given that a senior federal official had just been shot and killed. Yet, having settled on Oswald as a lone assassin who fired from behind the president, federal investigators not only did not aggressively pursue the possibility of shot’s having been fired from the front, they often actually belittled and berated witnesses who were certain that such a shot had been fired.

That makes no sense to me. That just isn’t the way law-enforcement officials operate when a federal official is killed.

For example, consider what happens when a DEA agent is murdered. Federal agents focus not only on the likely perpetrator but also on all other “likely suspects” who might have been involved in the plot. In fact, that’s one reason that criminal elements generally avoid killing law-enforcement officials. They know that the investigatory hammer is going to fall heavily on the entire criminal community.

I recall this phenomenon in the case of federal Judge John Wood of Texas, who was assassinated in 1979. After Wood was murdered, federal officials embarked on one of the biggest, most expensive, and most aggressive criminal investigations in U.S. history. They were relentless, even going so far as to secretly record jailhouse conversations between a convicted drug kingpin named Jimmy Chagra and his lawyer-brother, Joe Chagra. The investigation ultimately led not only to the conviction of the man who fired the shot, Charles Harrelson, but also to conspiracy convictions for Joe Chagra and Jimmy’s wife, Elizabeth. Jimmy Chagra was also prosecuted for the murder but was acquitted.

Suppose that immediately after the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, U.S. officials had made the following announcement: “Our fellow Americans, we have completed our investigation into this heinous act and have concluded that the only people who were involved in committing it were the deranged terrorist fanatics who hijacked the planes and flew them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. We are closing the case.”

Even if that later proved to be true, wouldn’t you think to yourself, “Wait a minute! That’s not the way the feds operate, especially when federal officials are killed. They pull out all the stops to determine whether there were others involved.”

And in fact, as everyone knows the feds did pull out all the stops after 9/11, rounding up and jailing thousands of people, many of them innocent, establishing secret prison camps around the world, kidnapping and torturing hundreds of suspects, and invading and occupying two countries.

That’s how we expect the feds to react in such a case.

Yet, what is odd is that that was not the way federal officials reacted after the president of the United States was assassinated. Instead, having fairly quickly fixed on Oswald as a lone assassin, federal investigators seem to have then directed their efforts to establishing that thesis and failing to aggressively pursue the possibility that others might have been involved in the shooting.

Why?

Targeting the CIA

One possibility is that early on, federal officials might have begun reaching an uncomfortable suspicion, one that pointed in the direction of the CIA, a suspicion that would be fueled by information provided to the Warren Commission by Texas Attorney General Waggoner Carr, who was heading up the state’s investigation into the murder, indicating that Oswald had been on the payroll of the FBI, an allegation denied by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.

If federal officials did in fact consider the possibility that the federal government’s primary intelligence agency might have to be accused of murder, conspiracy, and a coup, it is not difficult to imagine their concluding, “This is not a road we want to go down,” especially at the height of the Cold War, when the prospect of an all-out war against the CIA could easily have been seen as a genuine threat to national security.

Of course, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the CIA was actually involved in the Kennedy assassination, but it is to say this:

First, with one exception, there is virtually no possibility that anyone in the federal government, including the president, the FBI, the Warren Commission, and Congress, would have been willing to openly support targeting the CIA in a criminal investigation into whether it killed the president. The only exception might have been Attorney General Bobby Kennedy, but his ability to initiate such an investigation was nonexistent, not only because the assassination of a president wasn’t a federal criminal offense in 1963 but also because there is no way that President Johnson and Hoover, both of whom hated the younger Kennedy, would have ever supported such an investigation.

Second, there would have been no way that such a conspiracy could have ever been pierced in the absence of a fierce and honest criminal prosecutor, one who had the full support of the president and the FBI, along with an incorruptible and fearless presiding judge willing to enforce subpoenas served on the CIA with contempt charges.

Obviously, the appointment of a federal special prosecutor wasn’t a realistic possibility, not only because the president’s murder didn’t violate a federal law but also because, as a practical matter, Johnson would never have ever gone down that road anyway.

That would have meant that it would have been left to a Texas state prosecutor to have initiated such an investigation. But as we all know, the state of Texas quickly accepted the official federal position that Oswald was a lone-nut assassin and never initiated an investigation specifically targeting the CIA as a possible suspect in the assassination.

To quell concern within the public that Kennedy might have been the victim of a conspiracy, Johnson appointed a political commission composed of prominent, establishment politicians. However, none of them was the type of person who would have had any interest in specifically targeting the CIA as a possible assassin and doing the aggressive investigatory work that would have been needed to pierce such a conspiracy.

After all, don’t forget that the Warren Commission included two U.S. Senators, two U.S. Representatives, the Chief Justice of the United States, a former member of the World Bank, and even the former director of the CIA whom Kennedy had fired after the Bay of Pigs fiasco.

Not exactly the type of people who are going to tear the federal government apart in a war in which the CIA is suspected of having assassinated the president of the United States.

“Offensive on its face”

Last October the New York Times published a story that shone a spotlight into one of the CIA’s best-kept secrets involving the Kennedy case; that story can be accessed here. The story involved a CIA agent named George Joannides, whose interesting involvement in the Kennedy case did not become public until after his death in 1990. A former Washington Post reporter, Jefferson Morley, became aware of Joannides’s role from documents that the CIA had released in response to a congressional law enacted after Oliver Stone’s movie JFK, which posited that the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies had conspired to kill Kennedy.

I’ll return to the Joannides story later because it reveals some important things about the CIA and its relationship to the Kennedy assassination. For now, I’d like to focus on a statement made to the Times in that article by a CIA spokesman named Paul Gimigliano, who was defending the CIA’s continued efforts to keep its files on Joannides secret from the public. Responding to implications that the CIA might be hiding something nefarious about possible CIA involvement in the Kennedy assassination, Gimigliano stated that any such suggestion was “offensive on its face.”

What Gimigliano was essentially saying is that it is absolutely inconceivable that the CIA would ever commit such a dastardly act as killing the president of the United States. It is a mindset that simply cannot imagine that any such thing is reasonably possible.

Ever since the Kennedy assassination, there have been vast numbers of people on both sides of the divide. One side has steadfastly maintained that Kennedy was killed by a lone-nut gunman named Lee Harvey Oswald.

The other side has steadfastly maintained that Kennedy was killed as a result of a conspiracy involving the CIA, U.S. intelligence, the Mafia, right-wing extremists, anti-Castro Cubans, Fidel Castro, the Soviets, or others.

The lone-nut proponents claim that the overwhelming weight of the evidence supports but one conclusion: that Oswald, a disgruntled communist sympathizer who had defected to the Soviet Union and who returned to the United States, where he lobbied for fair treatment for Cuba, gunned down the president. The lone-nut proponents point to the vast amount of circumstantial evidence that the conspiracy crowd has amassed over the years and pooh-pooh it for lacking a “smoking-gun” quality.

In doing so, however, the lone-nut proponents miss a critically important point: If the CIA was actually involved in the assassination of John Kennedy, there was no way that such involvement could ever have been definitely determined without a fierce, independent, fearless, and incorruptible criminal prosecutor charged with the specific authority of targeting the CIA for investigation, and fully supported by the president of the United States and the FBI, under the auspices of an incorruptible and courageous presiding judge.

A political or bureaucratic panel, such as the Warren Commission or the House Select Committee, never had a chance of piercing such a conspiracy, not only because of the mindset that characterizes people like Gimigliano, the mindset that finds such a notion “offensive on its face,” but also because of the extreme reluctance that members of such a group would have had to target a federal agency that was considered absolutely essential to the national security of the United States, especially at the height of the Cold War.

In other words, suppose a member of the Warren Commission had the same mindset as Paul Gimigliano, which I hold is a very likely possibility. He would have considered the possibility that the CIA was involved in the assassination to be ludicrous on its face and, therefore, would never have permitted the aggressive investigation that would have been needed to pierce such a conspiracy.

But there might well have been members of the Warren Commission — and indeed, many other federal officials — who had a different mindset, one in which they would not have discounted the possibility that the CIA had done such a thing but who would have believed that aggressively targeting the CIA for criminal investigation would have ripped apart the federal government to such an extent that the nation would have been made vulnerable to a surprise attack from the Soviet Union.

Don’t forget, after all, that Kennedy was killed just 13 months after the Cuban missile crisis, which involved the Soviets’ basing nuclear missiles aimed at the United States only 90 miles away from American shores.

Thus, regardless which of these two mindsets characterized the members of the Warren Commission — the one that holds that it is inconceivable that the CIA had done such a thing or the one that holds that we just couldn’t afford to go down that road — the result would have been the same: no aggressive criminal investigation that specifically targeted the CIA.

Was there sufficient evidence to warrant targeting the CIA as a specific suspect in the Kennedy case?

There can be no question about it. Again, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the CIA was, in fact, involved in such a plot. It is simply to say that there was more than sufficient evidence to warrant a criminal investigation specifically targeting the CIA and that U.S. officials should have supported such an investigation.

Let’s examine that evidence.

Among the reasons the CIA should have been made a specific target of a criminal investigation in the John Kennedy assassination were: (1) the CIA was the world’s premier expert in assassination and coups; and (2) the CIA was in a partnership with one of the most crooked and murderous private organizations in history, the Mafia, a partnership whose express purpose was the assassination of a public official, Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

In 1953 — 10 years before the Kennedy assassination — the CIA pulled off a coup in Iran. The operation was conducted secretly and surreptitiously and successfully. It ousted the democratically elected prime minister of Iran and replaced him with the unelected shah of Iran, a man who would be loyal to the U.S. government for the next 26 years but who also would brutalize his own people in the process.

It is no surprise, then, that the CIA celebrated this regime-change operation in Iran as a great victory for the United States. Never mind that the CIA’s coup installed a cruel dictator who would terrorize and brutalize his own citizenry until the Iranian people ousted him from power in 1979.

One year later — 1954 — the CIA pulled off a similar coup in Guatemala. Successfully employing deceptive tactics, including radio broadcasts reporting a fake military invasion of the country, the CIA induced the democratically elected president of Guatemala to abdicate in favor of an unelected military strongman who was loyal to the U.S. government. The CIA, once again, celebrated its interference with Guatemala’s internal affairs as another great victory for the United States. Of course, it could not know that its coup would precipitate a three-decade civil war in which more than a million Guatemalans would be killed.

Nine years later — 1963 — the CIA pulled off another successful coup, this time in Vietnam. That regime-change operation occurred in October, one month before Kennedy was murdered. Dissatisfied with South Vietnam’s corrupt, autocratic president Ngo Dinh Diem, Kennedy authorized the CIA to oust him from power. With the support of the CIA, the operation was successfully carried out by South Vietnamese generals, who then proceeded to assassinate Diem, albeit apparently without Kennedy’s foreknowledge or approval.

Now, let’s spring forward 10 years — 1973 — to the Chilean coup that ousted communist President Salvador Allende and replaced him with right-wing military strongman Augusto Pinochet. Granted, that coup took place a decade after the Kennedy assassination, but I think it nonetheless holds valuable lessons about how the CIA operates and its attitude toward assassination.

It is commonly claimed that the CIA had nothing to do with the Chilean coup or, at least, that no smoking-gun has ever been uncovered evidencing CIA involvement. However, that claim rings hollow for two reasons. One, it is undisputed that ever since Allende’s election, the U.S. government had been actively trying to figure out how to get rid of him. Second, and much more important, the circumstantial evidence conclusively establishes that the CIA did participate in the Chilean coup, for how else to explain the fact that the CIA played a role in the murder of an American journalist during the coup? In other words, if the CIA really wasn’t playing a role in the coup, why would it have been helping to murder an American during the coup?

The case of Charles Horman

The murder of the 31-year-old American, a man named Charles Horman, reveals quite a lot, not only about the CIA but also about how U.S. public officials respond to a CIA murder of an American citizen.

For one thing, the Horman murder shows that 10 years after the Kennedy assassination, the CIA was not above murdering Americans. Sure, the coups in Iran, Guatemala, and Vietnam produced some deaths, but they were foreigners’ deaths. In Chile, among the dead was an American — well, actually, two Americans, for another American journalist named Frank Terrugi also was killed, but it’s not clear yet whether the CIA was involved in his murder too.

But there’s no question about whether the CIA played a role in Horman’s murder. According to an entry on Horman on Wikipedia, “Horman was in the resort town of Vina del Mar, near the port of Valparaiso, which was a key base for both the Chilean coup plotters and U.S. military and intelligence personnel who were supporting them. While there, he spoke with several U.S. operatives and took notes documenting the role of the United States in overthrowing the Allende government.”

For years, the CIA denied any role in Horman’s murder, just as it denied playing any role in the Chilean coup. But at the very least, the first denial turned out to be false, intentionally false. In 1999 — more than 25 years after Horman’s death — the State Department released a document stating that the CIA had, in fact, played an “unfortunate role” in Horman’s murder.

What role exactly? We don’t know. After the release of that document, the CIA did not come forward and explain why it had lied about its participation in Horman’s murder, what its operatives had done to kill Horman, or whether CIA higher-ups had approved the assassination. Even more telling, neither Congress nor the Justice Department pursued the matter with a congressional investigation or with grand-jury subpoenas and indictments.

Think about that. Here was evidence, some 25 years after the fact, that U.S. government officials had helped to murder an American citizen. Yet not one congressional subpoena was issued to any CIA official demanding to know what the CIA’s role in the murder had been, why the CIA had lied and covered up the matter for so long, or whether there were murderers still alive and on the loose. Moreover, no federal grand jury was requested to issue subpoenas to the CIA demanding the production of a single relevant witness to the murder and its cover-up or documents regarding them.

In other words, the CIA got away with obstruction of justice and murder, the murder of an American citizen, because for some reason U.S. officials decided that it would be better to let sleeping dogs lie, at least with respect to the CIA assassination of American Charles Horman.

Now, none of this, of course, establishes that the CIA was involved in the Kennedy assassination. In fact, it’s not even circumstantial evidence that it was. But it is to say that the CIA’s successful coups in Iran, Guatemala, and Vietnam should have made the CIA a suspect in the Kennedy assassination and, consequently, a specific target of a criminal investigation. Moreover, the CIA’s post-Kennedy involvement in the murder of American Charles Horman should have caused people after 1973 to reflect upon the fact that the CIA was fully capable of assassinating an American citizen and lying about it and covering it up.

The CIA-Mafia partnership

The CIA’s expertise in regime-change operations wasn’t the only the thing that should have justified a particular and specific investigatory focus on the CIA. There was also the CIA’s partnership with the Mafia, one of the most crooked, corrupt, and murderous organizations in history.

The whole idea simply boggles the mind. Imagine: A primary agency of the U.S. government, the CIA, actually enters into a partnership with a private organization whose methods involve violence, illegality, murder, narcotics, bribery, perjury, and, well, probably just about every crime on the books.

What was the purpose of the CIA-Mafia partnership? Murder! The partnership was formed for the specific purpose of assassinating Fidel Castro, the president of a sovereign and independent country. The CIA and the Mafia, two organizations whose expertise involved murder, got together to pull off the murder of a foreign public official.

But that’s not all. What is also noteworthy here, at least with respect to the Kennedy assassination, is the fact that U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy, the brother of the president, was actually waging a federal war against the Mafia during the time that the CIA-Mafia partnership was operating. He was securing federal grand-jury indictments against Mafia leaders, prosecuting them, and doing everything he could to get them incarcerated. In effect, his goal was actually to destroy the Mafia, the very organization that the CIA had chosen to be its assassination partner.

Again, that’s not to say that such facts warrant a conclusion that the CIA assassinated Kennedy out of loyalty to its partner, the Mafia, which the Kennedys were trying to destroy. But it is to say that, once it was known, that relationship — and the specific purpose of the relationship — i.e., murder of a country’s president — should have been more than enough to warrant a specific and targeted investigation of the CIA, to determine whether the CIA-Mafia partnership had turned its sights away from Castro and toward Kennedy.

There’s another interesting aspect to the Mafia-CIA partnership that is worth mentioning here. One of the common things that one hears about the Kennedy assassination is that if the CIA were, in fact, involved in the assassination, someone would have leaked the information by now. That’s not necessarily true. Both the CIA and the Mafia are experts at keeping secrets, especially when it comes to murder.

After all, how much do you know about the Horman murder? Don’t forget that the CIA successfully kept its role in that murder secret for more than 25 years, and that involved just the murder of an ordinary American citizen. Do you know the identities of the CIA agents who were involved in Horman’s murder? Do you know the actual extent of their involvement?

No. And the reason you don’t know these things is that the CIA has successfully kept them secret.

But there is a much more relevant example of silence when it comes to murder, the murder of Mafia kingpin Johnny Roselli. He was the Mafia mobster who served as liaison to the CIA as part of the CIA-Mafia partnership to assassinate Fidel Castro. In 1976, Roselli testified before the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence about the Kennedy assassination and was recalled for further testimony. Before he could respond, however, he was murdered. On August 9, 1976, his body was found in a 55-gallon steel drum floating in the waters off Miami. He had been strangled and shot and his legs had been sawed off. According to an entry on Roselli on Wikipedia, “Some believed that boss [Santo] Trafficante ordered Roselli’s death [because he felt] Roselli had revealed too much about the Kennedy assassination and Castro murder plots during his Senate testimony, violating the strict Mafia code of omerta (silence).”

The Roselli murder shows that the Mafia can keep secrets, especially when it comes to murder, for as of this date it is still undetermined who killed Roselli. As we know from the Horman case, the Mafia’s assassination partner, the CIA, can keep secrets too.

Moreover, one who decides to leak information about Mafia operations, especially those involving murder, know that they probably won’t be long for this world. One can wonder whether the Mafia’s partner, the CIA, wouldn’t feel the same way. After all, who can say with certainty that Roselli’s murderers were from the Mafia and not part of the Mafia-CIA partnership?

Did the CIA employ its expertise pulling off coups here in the United States in November 1963? Did the CIA-Mafia partnership to murder Fidel Castro switch its sights from Fidel Castro to John Kennedy? At the very least, that expertise and that partnership warranted making the CIA a specific target in a criminal investigation.

Let’s now examine, in the context of motive, the animosity that existed between John Kennedy and the CIA after the Bay of Pigs debacle and the Cuban missile crisis.

Even though the CIA was the premier government agency in the world whose expertise was assassination, coups, and regime change, it does not necessarily follow that it employed its talents and abilities here in the United States in November 1963. But it’s an important factor that should have been considered in determining whether to target the CIA in a special criminal investigation.

Another important factor was motive. In my opinion, the overwhelming weight of the evidence establishes that the CIA had much more motive than Oswald to kill Kennedy.

In fact, after all these years, I still don’t have a clear understanding of what Oswald’s motive in killing Kennedy was supposed to have been. If he was nothing more than a disgruntled, unhappy, confused communist sympathizer who was seeking fame for killing the president, then why did he deny committing the offense and, even more mysterious, why did he claim to have been set up? Wouldn’t you think that someone who was seeking fame would glory in his achievement? And if he were planning to deny the offense, then why would he leave such an obvious trail behind him, such as purchasing his rifle by mail order rather than over the counter with cash?

Moreover, one big problem is that Oswald’s strange background, on which the lone-nut proponents base a large part of their case with respect to motive, is entirely consistent with his being an operative for the CIA or military intelligence.

How many committed communists join the U.S. Marines? How did Oswald become fluent in the Russian language while he was in the Marines, given the enormous difficulty in learning a foreign language, especially without a tutor?

Why was a communist Marine assigned a military security clearance? Why wasn’t Oswald arrested on his return from the Soviet Union, where he tried to defect, and hauled before a federal grand jury to face the possibility of indictment for treason? After all, this was the height of the Cold War, when communism was considered a much greater threat to the United States than terrorism is considered today.

When Oswald was living in New Orleans, why did he stamp a return address on pro-Cuba pamphlets that was located in the same building as an ex-FBI agent named Guy Bannister? Was that just a coincidence? When he was jailed for disorderly conduct after an altercation with the head of an anti-Castro group, why did the FBI grant his request to send an agent to talk to him? After Oswald was killed, why did an FBI agent tear up a note that Oswald had delivered to him prior to the assassination?

The questions go on and on. Of course, if it were ultimately to turn out that Oswald was a U.S. intelligence operative, that wouldn’t necessarily mean that he didn’t assassinate Kennedy. But it would certainly require the lone-nut proponents to totally reevaluate their case. Obviously, the CIA would have some explaining to do as well.

Possible CIA motives

What about the CIA’s motive for killing Kennedy? The best book that sets forth the various factors establishing a CIA motive is JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters, by James W. Douglass, which I highly recommend.

Consider, first, the Bay of Pigs disaster. The CIA’s invasion of Cuba had already been planned when Kennedy took office. When he was asked to approve the plan, the CIA assured him that no air support would be needed. But that representation was false and the CIA knew it was false. CIA officials were setting Kennedy up. They felt that once the invasion was under way, he would have no choice but to send in the required air support in order to avert a disaster.

But the CIA miscalculated. Even as CIA operatives and friends were being killed and captured at the Bay of Pigs, Kennedy refused to send in the air support, an action that would earn him the everlasting enmity of anti-Castro Cubans and the CIA itself.

While Kennedy took responsibility for the debacle in public, he knew what the CIA had done. He fired the CIA director, Allen Dulles (who would later serve on the Warren Commission!), and vowed to “splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it into the winds.”

We should bear in mind that while Kennedy was threatening to dismantle the CIA, his brother Robert, the U.S. attorney general, was doing his best to dismantle the CIA’s partner, the Mafia.

To make matters worse, from the standpoint of the CIA, to resolve the Cuban Missile Crisis Kennedy vowed that the United States would not invade Cuba, a vow that essentially meant that Castro would remain permanently in power. Kennedy’s pledge served to fuel the rage and distrust that were already boiling within the CIA (and the anti-Castro community).

Did the CIA’s anger over losing friends and associates at the Bay of Pigs and suffering a humiliating defeat at the hands of archenemy Fidel Castro, combined with what could have been construed as a vow to dismantle and abolish the CIA, motivate CIA officials to take out Kennedy? Maybe; maybe not. But it was certainly a matter that needed to be investigated fully in a criminal proceeding.

Equally important, as Douglass sets forth in his book, was the epiphany about the Cold War that Kennedy seemed to have reached after the Cuban Missile Crisis. Realizing how close the world had come to nuclear war, he began raising his vision to a higher level, one that involved figuring out a way to end the Cold War. As part of that process, he indicated to close associates his intention to withdraw all U.S. troops from Vietnam after the 1964 elections. He also established communications not only with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, who, according to Douglass, was experiencing the same type of epiphany as Kennedy, but also with the CIA’s sworn enemy, Fidel Castro, whom the CIA was committed to assassinating.

Kennedy’s actions were not taken lightly by the CIA, the Pentagon, or the military-industrial complex. It is impossible to adequately describe how dangerous and grave those agencies viewed the international communist threat to America during the 1960s. Communism was considered a thousand times more dangerous than the terrorist threat against America today. The Pentagon and the CIA both felt that unless the United States took an aggressive stand against communism, including an aggressive military stand, a communist takeover of the United States was all but certain. In fact, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, many members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff were calling on Kennedy to attack Cuba, which they knew would mean war with the Soviet Union. They had calculated that a nuclear war would cost the Soviet Union many more millions of citizens than it would America.

So here you had a young, inexperienced president who had supposedly double-crossed his own intelligence agency at the Bay of Pigs, threatened to destroy that intelligence agency at the height of the Cold War, permanently surrendered Cuba to the communists, and effectively pledged to surrender Vietnam to the communists, and was now reaching out to communist leaders in an attempt to reach a peaceful accord with them.

What better evidence of a threat to national security than that, at least from the perspective of the CIA? If the CIA honestly believed that the American people had made a mistake in electing Kennedy to office, a mistake that was threatening to place America under communist rule, would that agency, charged with guarding the national security of the country, do what was necessary to save America, no matter how distasteful the task was?

Perhaps; perhaps not. But it was certainly a matter that deserved the close scrutiny of a criminal investigation. After all, other nations’ intelligence agencies had killed their rulers to protect their national security. Consider, as just one example, South Vietnam, where military officials in that country assassinated their president in a coup, a coup that was fully supported by the CIA.

Finally, there was Kennedy’s philandering with Hollywood star Marilyn Monroe; Mafia girlfriend Judith Exner; Mary Meyer, wife of CIA official Cord Meyer; and others. The sexual escapades could have easily been considered more evidence that the American people had made a grave error in their 1960 election, one that jeopardized the security of the nation.

George Joannides

In the 1990s, pursuant to the JFK Assassination Records Collection Act, the CIA released documents that raised some serious questions about the CIA. The documents revealed that one of its agents, named George Joannides, who was dead by that time, had played at least two interesting roles.

First, prior to the assassination Joannides had served as the CIA’s liaison to a fiercely anti-Castro group named the Directorio Revolucionaro Estudiantil (DRE) and, in fact, had funneled large sums of CIA money into that organization. The DRE was the group I mentioned previously with which Oswald had had an altercation while he was handing out pro-Castro literature.

On the surface, Joannides’s relationship to the DRE doesn’t seem to be any big deal. For some reason, however, the CIA chose to keep it secret — secret from everyone, including the Warren Commission.

Why did the CIA do that? We don’t know. The CIA refuses to say. Here’s a good article to read on the CIA’s stonewalling in the matter, entitled “CIA Is Still Cagey About Oswald Mystery,” published last October in the New York Times:

Second, in the 1970s, when the House Select Committee on Assassinations investigated the possibility of a conspiracy in the Kennedy assassination, the CIA called Joannides out of retirement to serve as the liaison between the House Committee and the CIA. His job ostensibly was to facilitate CIA cooperation with the investigation.

There was a big problem, however: Again, the CIA did not disclose the connection between Joannides and the DRE prior to the assassination, which meant, at the very least, that Joannides had a serious conflict of interest serving as a liaison to the House committee.

Did the CIA call Joannides out of retirement to serve as a legitimate liaison or to serve as a loyal blocking force for the CIA? Again, we don’t know. The CIA isn’t talking.

What we do know is that the CIA’s conduct verges on obstruction of justice with respect to the House’s official investigation. G. Robert Blakey, former chief counsel of the committee, stated, “[Joannides's] conduct was criminal. He obstructed our investigation.” Federal Judge John R. Tunheim, who chaired the 1990s Assassination Review Board, stated, “I think we were probably misled by the agency. This material should be released.” Even Gerald Posner, author of the famed anti-conspiracy book Case Closed, stated, “The agency is stonewalling. It’s a perfect example of why the public has so little trust in the CIA’s willingness to be truthful.”

The person who discovered the Joannides matter within the CIA’s documents was a journalist named Jefferson Morley, who used to be a reporter for the Washington Post. For more than 10 years, Morley has fought a relentless battle in the courts seeking the release of the CIA’s files on Joannides. The CIA has battled the lawsuit every step of the way, and continues to do so. Morley’s articles on the subject make for fascinating reading, and I highly recommend them. They are listed and linked at the bottom of the article I wrote last year entitled “Appoint a Special Prosecutor in the JFK-Joannides Matter.”

Did the CIA assassinate John F. Kennedy? No one can say with any certainty, one way or the other. What we do know is that there was no intelligence agency in the world that was more capable of pulling off such a feat than the CIA. We also know that if there was ever an agency with a motive for murdering a ruler, it was, again, the CIA.

Safe from prosecution

It bears repeating, though, that motive, ability, and opportunity do not automatically mean that the CIA did, in fact, kill Kennedy. It’s only to say that the CIA should have been made a target of an aggressive criminal investigation. As I stated in the first part of this article, if the CIA did, in fact, participate in Kennedy’s assassination, there was no possibility that a political or bureaucratic panel or commission would have been able to break through the stone wall that the CIA would have constructed to keep its role in the assassination secret. Only a fierce criminal prosecutor, backed by a fearless and incorruptible judge, could have broken through such a wall.

If the CIA did conspire to kill Kennedy, it would have known that the possibility of such an investigation was virtually nonexistent. For one thing, the CIA would have known that it would not have to fear a criminal investigation at the federal level. Why? Because assassinating a president wasn’t a federal crime at the time Kennedy was shot, a fact that the CIA would have been well aware of. That means that the CIA would not have had to fear taking on the FBI, the Justice Department, or an aggressive special federal prosecutor.

The CIA would have also known that it could easily stonewall a political or bureaucratic commission, such as the Warren Commission or the House Select Committee, which generally lack the will and tenacity that characterize a criminal prosecution. The CIA’s successful stonewalling regarding the Joannides matter fully demonstrates that. Moreover, Lyndon Johnson’s appointment of former CIA Director Allen Dulles, whom Kennedy had fired after the Bay of Pigs disaster, to the Warren Commission effectively blocked the possibility of any serious investigation into the CIA’s possible role in the assassination.

Thus, the only thing that the CIA would have had to be concerned about was a criminal prosecution by the district attorney of Dallas County, Texas, where the murder took place. But what was the likelihood that a local district attorney would take on the CIA in such a proceeding? Not very high, especially if the president of the United States, a Texan, was calling for all investigations to cease except the one that was to be conducted by the Warren Commission.

In fact, as Jim Garrison, the New Orleans district attorney who initiated his own criminal investigation into the Kennedy assassination, discovered, a state-level prosecution had virtually no chance of succeeding without the full cooperation of the president of the United States and the Justice Department. Not only did U.S. officials do their best to obstruct his investigation, they also sent a powerful message to all future district attorneys in Dallas County, which had continuing jurisdiction over the murder, by retaliating against Garrison with a bogus federal criminal indictment for bribery, a charge on which he was ultimately acquitted.

If the CIA conspired to kill Kennedy, it would have known that the chances that Johnson would authorize the Justice Department and the FBI to cooperate with a state criminal investigation targeting the CIA were nil. After all, don’t forget that we’re talking about the Cold War, when U.S. officials genuinely believed that the United States was in grave danger of a communist takeover. And they were even more convinced then that the CIA was absolutely essential to national security than they are today under the war on terrorism.

Therefore, the CIA would have known that the last thing the new president would do was involve himself and his administration in an enormously vicious war between state and federal officials, a war in which state officials would be targeting an agency that most federal officials, including those in Congress, considered absolutely vital to national security.

Persistent doubts

But that’s precisely what Johnson should have done. He should have made it clear from the outset that he expected the Dallas district attorney to pursue all leads, including targeting a very likely suspect in Kennedy’s murder, the CIA. That would have included an order to the Secret Service to cease and desist its efforts to whisk Kennedy’s body out of the state, given that an autopsy was required under Texas state law and was essential to a criminal investigation.

Did the CIA do it or not? Those who say yes will undoubtedly continue to add to their stockpile of circumstantial evidence indicating CIA complicity in the murder. Those who say no will continue to proclaim that there is no “smoking gun” firmly establishing a CIA conspiracy to kill the president.

An aggressive criminal investigation making the CIA a target of interest wouldn’t necessarily have been definitive one way or the other, but at least the American people would have gotten a sense that justice had been served with such an investigation. Given the failure to pursue such an investigation, a cloud of doubt will always hang over whether the CIA played a role in the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Reprinted from The Future of Freedom Foundation.

Jacob Hornberger [send him mail] is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.

The Best of Jacob Hornberger

Liberals claim to combat poverty in two principal ways.

First, they use the force of government (e.g., income taxes) to take money from those who have earned it in order to give it to the poor.

Second, they restrict people’s use of their property to enable the poor to have access to such property.

What liberals fail to understand, however, is that the very means they choose to combat poverty — socialism and interventionism — actually exacerbate the problem that they claim to address. Their war on poverty hurts the very people they say they are trying to assist.

In proposing welfare-state programs, by necessity liberals always make an important assumption. They assume that there is wealth in society. After all, if there is no wealth then what good would welfare-state policies do? The welfare state operates on the assumption that there are people who are earning wealth or have accumulated wealth. Those are the people from whom the government takes money in order to redistribute it to the poor.

Let’s consider a hypothetical case based on science fiction. Astronomers discover that an inhabitable planet is hurtling toward our solar system and will soon join the other planets in orbit around the sun. Faced with overcrowding of its prisons, the federal government decides to exile 50,000 prisoners on a spaceship to the planet. Everyone is given six months of supplies on which to survive — food, water, and clothing — and nothing else.

When the prisoners arrive on the planet, they call into existence a federal government, democratically elected. Federal officials are empowered to do everything and anything they can to combat the extreme poverty that is immediately facing society.

Liberals are elected to the presidency and to Congress. They propose a massive welfare-state program modeled on Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal and Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. Social Security. Medicare and Medicaid. Public housing. Food stamps. Grants to education. Agricultural subsidies. Unemployment relief.

Do you see the problem? The federal government isn’t a fountain of wealth. It has no money. Its coffers are empty. In order to get the money to distribute all these welfare benefits to people, it must first impose a tax on people.

But do you see the next problem? There are no wealthy or even middle-class people who can be taxed because everyone in this society is poor.

In proposing their array of welfare programs to help the poor, liberals operate under the mindless assumption that wealth exists naturally in a society. Even worse, they give nary a thought to the possibility that a society in which wealth is growing is the greatest benefit to the poor. Worst of all, they don’t consider the distinct possibility that their own tax-and-redistribute policies tend toward destroying the base of wealth in society, thereby relegating everyone to poverty.

Let’s return to our hypothetical example regarding the prisoners on the new planet. Everyone is poor. Welfare-state policies to combat the poverty will obviously not work because there are no wealthy people to take money from in order to redistribute it to the poor. So what can be done to combat poverty?

Ownership, collective and private

The liberals come up with a novel solution. They adopt a system by which the government owns everything and by which everyone works for the government. People will be assigned houses to build, businesses to run, or places in fields to grow crops. Government officials will be in charge of planning everything — which crops will be planted, which occupations people will be assigned to, which houses will be built, which consumer goods will be produced. Central planners will distribute food, housing, clothing, and other essentials in accordance with the needs of each person and each family.

Everyone seems happy with the scheme, especially since it mirrors much of the prison life to which the prisoners had been accustomed. But a problem arises, one involving human nature. No one feels like working very hard. Agricultural workers are constantly getting sick. People are doing jobs for which they are ill-suited. Goods and services are scarce, and the situation is getting worse for everyone.

Actually, this hypothetical society isn’t far from reality. It is pretty much what happened when the first colonists arrived at Plymouth Rock. They formed a society in which most property would be collectively owned and shared.

The result? Starvation and famine.

One day, Governor Bradford changed the system. From that day forward, everyone would be entitled to own his own property and keep the fruits of his labor for himself and his family. No longer would people be forced to share their earnings with others.

Immediately, everyone began working harder and accumulating wealth. No more starvation and famine. The bounty produced by this private-property system formed the foundation for the first Thanksgiving.

What would be the solution to poverty in our hypothetical example? It would a libertarian one, a solution based on private property and free markets. Everyone would be free to go into any business he chose. In that way, people could pursue their own interests and talents in an attempt to provide goods or services that other people would be interested in purchasing.

People would be free to engage in any economic trade with anyone else, without interference or regulation by the government.

People would also be free to accumulate the fruits of their earnings. There would be no income tax imposed on the people.

Obviously, at first there would still be manifest poverty, given the difficulties in accumulating wealth. People struggling to survive have a difficult time saving any money. But by the time of the second generation, things will have improved a bit, with families actually accumulating savings that they would then be free to pass down to the third generation.

Within a few decades, such a system of free enterprise would not only generate millionaires but also raise the standard of living for those at the bottom of the economic ladder. Equally important, the poor would know that they had a chance to join the ranks of the middle class and wealthy simply by working hard and providing a product or service that other people were willing to pay for.

This, too, is not as hypothetical as it sounds, as it pretty much describes the situation in the United States after the adoption of the Constitution in 1787 and continuing through the early 1900s. For the first time in history, people were able to engage in enterprise freely (that is, without government regulation or control) and accumulate unlimited amounts of wealth (that is, without their incomes’ being taxed).

That’s not to say, however, that the process of wealth creation was an immediate one. For the first few decades, life was very difficult, as it would be in any society in which there exists only a small base of wealth.

Liberals often point to the Industrial Revolution as an example of the horrors of the free-market system. Factory conditions, for example, were horrific for those working there, including wives and children, as liberals are so fond in reminding us.

But liberals miss an important point. Those factories, as bad as they were, offered a chance for survival to those who were working in them. A society in which there is no foundation of wealth and no chance of accumulating wealth will inevitably have people starving to death.

A society in which there is limited wealth but in which people are free to engage in enterprise and accumulate wealth will inevitably have people struggling to survive but at least having a chance to survive.

That’s what was occurring during the Industrial Revolution. American husbands and fathers were sending their wives and children into factories not because they hated them but because they knew that that was the only chance they had to keep them alive.

Then, as families began accumulating wealth, the need to send the entire family into the factories became less desperate. It was not government but rather capital — the accumulation of savings — that ultimately brought wives and children out of the factories.

The key, then, to a rising standard of living in a society lies in savings and capital. Let’s examine how this is so.

The role of capital

Let’s assume that a farmer owns a 100-acre tract of land on which he grows various crops. He employs one worker, whose sole piece of equipment is a hoe. The farmer pays the worker $10,000 per year and has additional expenses of $5,000. At the end of the year, the farmer sells his crops at market for $20,000, earning him a profit of $5,000.

Since the farmer has earned a profit of $5,000, he can use part of that money to give his worker a raise. But let’s assume that a $5,000 profit is the minimum amount of profit that the farmer has concluded he needs to remain in business. Since farming is a risky business, one in which a crop could sell for much less than anticipated, the farmer just doesn’t feel it’s worth his while to engage in farming if he can’t earn at least $5,000 for himself and his family.

Assuming that things stay the same from year to year, that means that the worker’s income simply cannot go up. It must remain the same, given that the farmer lacks the financial means by which to pay the worker more money.

But what if the farmer can somehow increase production? Suppose he can double the output on his 100-acre tract of land? If he’s able to do that, he’s then able to give his worker a pay raise.

So how does the farmer pull that off? That’s where capital comes into play. Each year, the farmer puts away $500 of his profit. After a few years, he uses his savings to purchase a used tractor. Now, the worker is no longer using a hoe. He’s got a tractor to plant, cultivate, and harvest the crops. Let’s say that production doubles, which increases the farmer’s profit to $10,000.

That means that the farmer now has more money at his disposal to increase the pay of the worker.

Does the worker need to rely on the beneficence of his employer to guarantee the pay raise? No, because the worker knows that there are surrounding farms that are also employing workers. All that he has to do is check around and see what competing farms are offering and ask his employer to match it. If the farmer fails to do so, the employee can accept a competing offer, leaving his employer with no one to work on his farm.

Thus, the people who are among the primary beneficiaries of capital accumulation are the poor — those who are wage-earners at the bottom of the economic ladder. They have as much interest in the success of the company they’re working for as the owner has. The more the company invests its profits in productive capital, the more profits the company stands to earn, enabling more money to be devoted to pay raises. Moreover, the more other companies are doing the same, the more they are able to bid up the real wage rates of the wage-earning class.

Return to poverty

Now, let’s return to our science-fiction example where the prisoners are living on that new planet. Let’s propel them forward by 100 years. By that time, people have accumulated massive amounts of wealth and everyone has a very high standard of living. There are, of course, those who are much wealthier than others but by the same token, those who are the poorest have a nice living standard. Everyone understands that the high standard of living depends, in fact, on the savings and capital accumulation engaged in by the very wealthy and by everyone else.

Reenter the liberals. Seeing all this wealth, they exclaim, “Notwithstanding God’s injunction against coveting, it’s simply not fair that some have more when others have less. We wish to declare war on poverty. Let us rid ourselves of this libertarian free-market scourge and establish a socialistic welfare state, one in which the federal government will take from those at the top of the economic ladder and redistribute it to those at the bottom of the economic ladder.”

People succumb to the liberals’ siren song. At first, everything works fine. Old people are getting free retirement payments and health care. Poor people are getting free housing, food, and clothing. Producers are getting free subsidies. Children are getting free education.

People fail to notice, however, a disquieting phenomenon. The ranks of the wealthy slowly start dropping because those who are barely on the margin of the wealthy and middle class drop back into the lower category, owing to the new income taxes imposed on them to fund all the free programs.

As the process grows, the tax base shrinks, causing federal officials to extend their income tax to the middle class. That causes people on the margin between the poor and middle class to begin dropping back into the lower category.

Gradually, taxes continue to expand and rise to keep the socialistic system going, bringing about an ominous development — a gradual reduction in savings and capital accumulation, the keys to a rising standard of living.

In fact, our hypothetical case is not so hypothetical. It describes the economic history of the United States for most of the 20th century. After 19th-century Americans had brought into existence an unprecedented accumulation of capital and, consequently, the highest standard of living in history, 20th-century liberals saw a golden opportunity, one that would enable them to tax the wealthy, and later the middle class, to help out the poor. That is what Roosevelt’s New Deal and Johnson’s Great Society were all about — using government to take money from those who had earned it and giving it to those who had not earned it.

Over time, socialism returns people to a state of poverty, one in which everyone is equal by virtue of everyone’s having nothing. Cuba is a good example. By taking everything away from the wealthy and middle class, including their businesses, homes, and bank accounts, with the alleged intent of helping the poor, Fidel Castro carried the socialist principle to its logical conclusion.

The result? Manifest poverty. In fact, if it hadn’t been for loans and grants from the Soviet Union (which itself was based on the socialist confiscation-and-redistribution principle), Cubans would have faced the same result as the people at Plymouth Rock — starvation and famine.

The only reason that the U.S. standard of living continued rising during the era of American socialism was that the private sector continued accumulating savings and wealth faster than federal officials were confiscating it. The invention of computers, for example, almost immediately made workers much more productive.

But it is impossible to say how much more productive Americans would be — how much higher our standards of living would be — if the wealth-producing process that our American ancestors had brought into existence had been free to continue. If Americans had never adopted the income tax and the welfare state, it boggles the mind to think how much better off the American people would be, especially those at the bottom of the economic ladder.

When it comes to economic policy, liberals suffer from two major weaknesses.

One, they believe that all that matters with respect to policy are good intentions. As long as liberals mean well, they think that the policies they implement, especially with respect to the poor, are justified.

Two, they have a woeful lack of understanding of economic principles, which inevitably leads them to think that they can change the natural laws of economics through the simple act of enacting legislation.

Arguably, the people who have paid the highest price for these two liberal weaknesses are the poor, the class of people around whom liberal domestic policy has claimed to primarily revolve since at least the time of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal.

It would be difficult to find a better example of all this than minimum-wage laws. These are laws by which liberals claim to help the poor by requiring employers to pay their employees a minimum hourly rate set by the government. The notion is that this helps the poor by preventing employers from paying less than a subsistence wage. In the absence of a minimum-wage law, the liberals say, employers would be paying workers so little that the poor would be starving in the streets.

The truth, however, is that no matter how well intended liberals might be, a minimum-wage law actually serves as a monumental attack on the poor. It is a classic example of how a lack of understanding about economic principles leads liberals into harming the very people they claim to want to help.

Let’s examine some fundamental economic principles to show how the poor — those at the bottom of the economic ladders — are damaged by minimum-wage laws.

In every exchange, both sides give up something they value less for something they value more. It’s a natural principle on which trade is based.

Let’s assume that I have 10 apples and you have 10 oranges and that I give you 7 apples and you give me 3 oranges. Someone might say that that’s an unequal exchange because I gave up more than you did. Not so. I gave up something I valued less — 7 apples — for something I valued more — 3 oranges. But you did the same — you gave up something you valued less — 3 oranges — for something you valued more — 7 apples.

Both of us have benefited from the exchange. We have both given up something we value less for something we value more. We have improved our respective standard of living through the simple act of exchange.

Employment and subjective value

This principle applies not only in the trading of goods, but also in the trading of labor services. When an employer and employee enter into a labor agreement, each of them is giving up something he values less for something he values more.

The employer gives up a certain amount of money in exchange for the labor services of the employee. He values the money less than he values the work that the employee is performing.

By the same token, the employee gives up his time and labor in exchange for the money he receives from the employer. The employee places a higher value on the money than he does on the time and labor he’s devoting to the employer.

There is an important economic principle involved here: Value is entirely subjective. It lies in the eyes of the beholder. The value that I place on a particular item is likely to be different from the value that you place on it. Thus, I might well be willing to pay a higher price for certain things than you would, and the same applies to you.

This principle of subjective value applies to employers when they’re hiring employees. When contemplating whether to hire a certain worker, employers subjectively determine the applicants’ value. By the same token, the subjective determination of the worker will determine whether he takes the job.

Whether a person is hired or not will ultimately turn on the subjective determinations of both employer and worker. An employer might think to himself, “That person is worth $5 an hour to me.” The worker might think to himself, “I’m worth $6 an hour.” If neither side budges, then no trade will take place. That means that the worker will not be employed at that business and must seek other employment where the employer says, “That worker is worth $6 an hour to me.” And the first employer has to continue looking for someone who will work for $5 an hour. There will be a meeting of the minds when each side gives up something he values less for something he values more, enabling an employment contract to come into existence.

This is an area in which liberals go astray. They simply do not understand the concept of subjective value. They think that everything and everybody has some sort of objectively determined value, one that can be legislatively imposed.

Let’s consider an example. Suppose an 18-year-old man is looking for a job. He comes from a very poor family, dresses very badly, and speaks poor English. He has no work experience.

Everywhere he goes looking for a job, he is met with the same answer: No. No matter how many businesses he visits, he simply cannot get a job.

Finally, he walks into a business and says, “I’m willing to work for a dollar an hour. I’ll do whatever you want me to.” For his part, the employer finds that offer extremely attractive. He has menial tasks to be performed and it is worth it to him to pay $1 an hour to get them done.

Thus, both sides — the employer and the worker — have arrived at a meeting of the minds. Each is willing to give up something he values less for something he values more. Their decisions are based on their subjective valuation of the elements being exchanged — labor and money.

Creating unemployment

Will the deal go through? Not today. The reason? The federal minimum-wage law, which requires employers to pay workers at a minimal rate of $7.25 per hour.

The reasoning employed by liberals goes like this: Nobody can survive earning a dollar an hour. To sustain one’s life, liberals say, requires a minimal rate of $7.25 an hour. Therefore, liberals enact a law that requires employers to pay their workers that minimal rate. In the process, liberals portray themselves as great heroes for the poor.

But there’s obviously a problem here, one involving subjective value. In our example, that 18-year-old is unable to find any employer willing to pay him $7.25. All they’re willing to pay him is $1 an hour, a rate that he is willing to accept but is precluded from doing so because of the minimum-wage law.

What happens to that 18-year-old? As a result of the minimum-wage law, he goes unemployed, permanently. He simply cannot get a job at the federally established minimum because employers do not place that value on his labor.

That leaves the worker with the following choices: die by starvation, live on charity, engage in criminal conduct, or go on government welfare.

Keep in mind that when a minimum-wage law is enacted, the government does not require employers to hire people at that rate. Instead, what the government does is to require people who are hired to be paid at that minimal rate.

The obvious question arises with respect to subjective value: What happens to people whose labor is valued by employers at less than the governmentally established minimum?

The answer is as obvious as the question, but unfortunately it’s one that liberals simply fail to consider. Those people are laid off and, even worse, permanently locked out of the labor market, assuming that valuations remain the same.

That is, as long as employers place a subjective value on the labor of unemployed people that is lower than the governmentally established minimum, those people are going to be out of work. Employers will simply refuse to hire them.

To make the matter clearer, suppose that Congress enacted a minimum wage of $1,000 an hour. Wouldn’t that be a great thing for workers? No, because it’s easy to see that lots of people would be laid off. The reason? Subjective value. All those workers whose labor is valued by employers at less than $1,000 an hour would be terminated.

Liberals will rail against this natural law of economics. They’ll exclaim, “Every employer should place a high value on the work of employees. The value they place should at least equal the amount we set in our minimum-wage law.”

But that’s not how life works. Again, value is subjective, not objective. Employers have their own personal, subjective valuations. For their part, so do workers.

Thus, in an unhampered market economy — that is, one unhampered by such governmental interventions as minimum-wage laws — there will be no permanent unemployment because people will be able to find jobs at wage rates that are acceptable to them and to their employers, even if it is at rates that liberals consider too low.

Liberals say that it is abhorrent that that 18-year-old would have to work at a dollar an hour. They say that no one could survive at that rate. They say that it’s unconscionable that anyone should have to work at that less-than-subsistence wage rate.

But in their paternalistic approach to this situation, they block out of their minds some important things. Even though the young man is making only a dollar an hour, he’s not only earning a bit of money he’s also learning work skills and a work ethic. He’s learning the business he’s working for. He’s building up his stock of knowledge, which will enable him to become more marketable down the road or perhaps even open his own business to compete against already-established businesses.

Unemployment and crime

But when a teenager willing to work is locked out of the labor market, thanks to the minimum-wage law, he doesn’t acquire any of those things. As a result of the supposedly good intentions of the liberals, the minimum-wage law locks him out of the labor market and relegates him to a life of charity, illegal activity (e.g., theft or drug dealing), or welfare.

Liberals cry, “But the boy could never survive on a dollar an hour.” Nonsense! There are all sorts of things he could do to make do, especially knowing that the situation is likely to be temporary. He could live with family or with a large bunch of friends who are sharing expenses. He would do what was necessary to survive during the time he was improving his work skills.

With their minimum-wage laws, liberals never give that 18-year-old a chance. With their supposedly good intentions, they make him permanently unemployable.

Is there a real-life example of this phenomenon? Last October the New York Times published a news story about runaway teenagers in America (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/26/us/26runaway.html?_r=2), the number of which has soared because of family financial problems arising from the recession. Citing federal studies and experts, the article stated that 1.6 million juveniles become runaways annually.

According to the article, “Legitimate employment was hard to find in the summer of 2009; the Labor Department said fewer than 30 percent of teenagers had jobs.” The runaways supported themselves by selling drugs, panhandling, and prostitution.

Why weren’t the runaway teenagers choosing to work at legitimate jobs to support themselves?

The answer: minimum-wage laws. There are no jobs being offered at low wage rates to 14-year-old runaways with minimal education, rates that many of the runaways might well be willing to work at. All the available jobs are being offered at the minimum wage because that’s what the law requires. And employers simply do not place that value on the work of runaway teenagers who lack an education and work experience.

(A related factor here is teen work permits, another ludicrous regulation that most states require.)

Suppose there was no minimum-wage law. Then there would be all sorts of jobs being offered on the market at hourly rates of $5, $4, $1. Runaway teenagers would have an array of available options open to them from which to choose.

But those options are never permitted to come into existence because of the government’s minimum-wage law. It relegates runaway teenagers to surviving by working in such activities as drug dealing and prostitution.

High wages

Liberals say that in the absence of minimum-wage laws, employers would pay everyone below-subsistence wages.

But that’s obviously ridiculous, for the labor market is filled with instances of employers paying their workers more than the minimum wage. How do liberals explain that?

In other words, if employers would pay everyone below-subsistence wages in the absence of a minimum-wage law, why would so many employers today be paying many of their workers more than the minimum? Wouldn’t you think that they would be paying the minimum amount established by law and not a penny more?

The answer lies, again, in the concept of subjective value. The reason that employers pay some workers higher than the minimum wage is that they subjectively place a higher value on the labor of such workers. Thus, some employers are willing to trade, say, $20 an hour in exchange for the labor of their employees.

Why would employers do that? Why not pay less rather than more, even if you place a higher valuation on the labor of the workers? Because there are other businesses that are competing for the labor of those workers, which tends to send labor rates upward.

Thus, it is in the interests of workers to have as many businesses operating as possible. More businesses mean greater competition for workers.

Yet, because of minimum-wage laws and other such governmental interventions, many businesses cannot survive. For example, a company that is barely operating at the margin cannot afford to give its workers a governmentally established pay raise. With the increase in the minimum wage, such a business has no choice but to close down, thereby laying off its workers.

Add to that all the businesses that have to shut down as a result of other governmental interventions. Among the people who are hurt are the poor because there are fewer businesses competing for their services.

Liberals operate under the quaint notion that such natural laws as the law of supply and demand can be repealed by public officials. They cannot be.

Minimum-wage laws are just one example among many of a government intervention that hurts the poor. Other examples include price controls, welfare, protectionism, licensure, and subsidies.

Good intentions don’t matter and a lack of understanding of economic principles is no excuse. What matters are the actual consequences of government policy. Those whom liberals claim to love — the poor — are the ones who suffer the most from liberal economic policies.

Reprinted from The Future of Freedom Foundation.

Jacob Hornberger [send him mail] is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.

The Best of Jacob Hornberger

For example, consider these links to two of the most prominent liberal websites on the Internet: Dailykos.com and Alternet.org: here and here, respectively.

Those two links take the reader to lists of articles on those two websites that extol the virtues of the minimum wage. Indeed, the devotion that these two liberal websites have to the minimum wage was just recently reflected by their publication of an article entitled, “What Conservatives Mean When They Say ‘Libertarian’,” in which the author, John Sumner, criticized me for praising the virtues of economic liberty in 1800, a period characterized by the absence of a federal minimum-wage law and other interventionist programs. (My response to Sumner’s article, entitled “Economic Ignorance and Liberal Hypocrisy at Dailykos.com,” can be found here.)

The first thing one notices whenever liberals advocate the minimum wage is their stinginess, for they always limit their calls for a minimum wage to no more than $10 an hour. Despite their supposed love for the poor, you never see liberals calling for a minimum wage of, say, $100 an hour. They always keep it down to the $10-an-hour area.

Let’s examine why it’s a good thing, at least for the poor, that liberals don’t call for a $100-an-hour minimum wage. It will help us to see how liberals attack the poor, and especially the poor who are black, with their $10 or lower minimum wage.

In every economic trade, people are giving up something they value less for something they value more. That’s why they trade. They aim to improve their economic well-being through the trade.

For example, suppose A has five apples and B has five oranges. Let’s say they enter into a trade in which A gives B four apples in return for one orange. Is B the winner and A the loser in this exchange? No. They’re both winners because they both have gained from the exchange. Each of them has given up something he values less for something he values more.

It’s no different in a labor exchange. In any consensual labor relationship, each side gives up something he values less for something he values more.

Suppose, for example, an employer hires a worker at a monthly pay of $1,000. Both sides have gained; otherwise they wouldn’t have entered into the exchange. The employer values the money less than he values the work provided by the employee. The employee values the money more than the other things he could do with his time.

What’s important to keep in mind, however, is that all these valuations are entirely subjective. That is, they are in the eyes of the beholder. A person’s subjective valuation of something, including an employee, will inevitably turn on an infinite array of factors, including the amount of wealth he happens to possess and how he prefers to allocate it.

An employer, for example, will place a subjective valuation on a prospective employee. He will subjectively determine how much in additional revenue that person is likely to bring to the firm, especially compared to how much the firm is paying him. How much to offer him will be based on such factors as availability of capital and how much other firms are offering.

Suppose one day in June, a company’s employment office encounters 10 teenagers who have just graduated from high school, all of whom are seeking a job. The company and the teenagers reach a deal in which the company agrees to pay each of them $15 an hour. All of them are hired.

What that means is that the company has made a subjective valuation of their work potential, one that makes it worthwhile for the company to pay them $15 an hour. It also means that the teenagers are happy with the deal, again from an entirely subjective standpoint.

The teenagers begin work. One week later, the liberals enact a minimum-wage law requiring companies to pay their workers $100 an hour.

Do you see the problem? While the company concluded that those teenagers are worth $15 an hour, it is quite unlikely that it is going to feel the same way about paying them $100 an hour. After some quick deliberation, the company decides that it’s just not worth it to pay the higher, mandated wage rate. Its subjective determination is that the teenagers are worth no more than $15 an hour and certainly not $100 an hour.

So the law leaves the employer with no effective choice. The company lays off the teenagers. They go in search of new jobs, but every company tells them the same thing: “It’s just not worth it to us to pay you $100 an hour. We don’t have that kind of money, your skills aren’t yet sufficient to bring in significant revenues, and we’d soon go broke if we paid you that amount of money.”

So what do those teenagers do? Well, they starve to death. Or they steal. Or they push drugs. What other alternative has the $100 minimum law left them? Oh, they can also go on welfare because liberals, always concerned about the plight of the poor, enact a law that taxes the company that laid them off and uses the tax money to provide a welfare dole for the teenagers. Thus, unable to break into the labor market and learn a work ethic because of the $100 minimum-wage law, the teenagers remain on the dole through adulthood and possibly through their entire lives.

You see, the $100 minimum wage has permanently locked them out of the labor market. When libertarians show up and call for the minimum wage to be repealed, liberals hoot them down with such cries as “You hate the poor! You hate welfare! You believe in exploitation!”

But nothing can change the fact that it is the liberals — with their minimum-wage law — who have locked those teenagers out of the labor market, which then causes liberals to initiate welfare-state programs that make such people helpless, dependent wards of the state.

“But the minimum wage isn’t $100,” liberals cry. “It’s only $7.25 per hour.”

But the economic principles are no different, and this is where the racist aspects of the minimum wage come into play.

Everyone whose labor is valued by employers at less than $7.25 an hour is locked out of the labor market by the minimum wage law. It might well be fewer people than if the minimum wage were set at $100 an hour, but the fact remains: For all those people whose labor is subjectively valued in the marketplace at less than the legally established minimum, the minimum-wage law becomes a death sentence or at least one that leads to a life of crime or welfare-state dependency.

After all, don’t forget that the minimum-wage law doesn’t force any employer to hire anyone. It simply says that if you do hire someone, you must pay the mandated minimum. Thus, the law prevents those whose labor is valued by employers at less than the mandated minimum from working.

That brings us to black, inner-city teenagers, a group of people who oftentimes are extremely poor, not very well dressed, and not very well educated by the government schools they are forced to attend. Employers subjectively place a valuation on their work that is less than the government-established minimum wage.

Yet, in the absence of the minimum wage those black teenagers could find employment. They could out-compete their richer, better-dressed, better-educated, suburban white counterparts by offering to work for less. They simply would keep lowering the wage at which they’re willing to work until they met the subjectively determined valuation of an employer. That might be, say, $1 an hour. But at least the teenager could use the opportunity to learn the trade, thereby enabling him to acquire the skills that could help him start a business down the road, perhaps even competing against his employer. The $7.25 minimum wage law prevents him from ever getting that foothold. It keeps him entirely out of the labor market.

As George Mason University economics professor Walter E. Williams, who authored the book The State Against Blacks, wrote in a recent article, “The Cruelty of the Minimum Wage,” “One of the more insidious effects of minimum wages is that it lowers the cost of racial discrimination; in fact, minimum-wage laws are one of the most effective tools in the arsenals of racists everywhere….”

Empirical studies have long reinforced this theoretical analysis:

• u201CThe Lost Wages of Youthu201D (Wall Street Journal editorial, April 2010)
• u201CWaging War on Black Teensu201D by Richard W. Rahn and Izzy Santa (March 2010)
• u201CMinimum Wage Teen-Age Killeru201D by Bruce Bartlett (May 1999)
• u201C50 Years of Research on the Minimum Wageu201D by the Joint Economic Committee (February 1995)
• u201COutlawing Jobs” by Murray N. Rothbard (1995)

So why do the liberals at Daily Kos and Alternet and other liberals continue to do it? Why do they continue to support a program that is so clearly an attack on the poor, and a racist one at that?

The most likely explanation is the one I provided in my response to Sumner’s article — economic ignorance. When it comes to understanding economics, liberals have a blind spot. They honestly believe that all that is needed to end poverty in the world is passing laws.

Poverty in Haiti? Just pass a law forcing every employer to pay a minimum wage of $100 an hour, or at least $7.25 an hour. Voilà! Poverty is eliminated.

But as we all know, life is not so simple. If poverty could be eliminated by the enactment of minimum-wage laws and other welfare-state laws, poverty in the world would have come to an end a long time ago. After all, it doesn’t take much for a government to enact a law.

Instead, such laws always have terrible consequences for the very people liberals claim to help — the poor. When faced with such consequences, they always have a ready response: “Please judge us by our good intentions. We really do mean well.”

But why should we care about their good intentions? Why should the poor care about them? Why should inner-city blacks whom they have damaged so severely care about them?

All that matters are the consequences of government programs. The minimum-wage law has done untold damage to the poor, especially inner-city black teenagers. Liberals should be ashamed of themselves for continuing to support this vicious, destructive, and racist program.

Jacob Hornberger [send him mail] is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.

The Best of Jacob Hornberger

Sumner takes me to task for singing the praises of our American ancestors, who chose a federal government without such statist programs as income taxation, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, welfare, public (i.e., government) schooling, food stamps, corporate bailouts, foreign aid, a central bank, paper money, drug laws, and many, many more.

Sumner thinks that that type of society was absolutely horrible and cites the terrible things that were taking place in the United States in 1880, the year I pointed to in my article “Up from Serfdom.” Sumner’s response contains all the standard stuff that has long been taught in America’s government-approved schools, where Sumner just happens to work as a substitute teacher.

You know, like the stuff that suggests that our American ancestors hated their wives and children, as reflected in their sending them into dangerous factories to work long hours. You know, like the stuff that suggests that liberals love the poor, needy, and disadvantaged while advocates of the free market just love the rich, greedy, and selfish people in life. You know, like the stuff that suggests that without the coercive apparatus of the welfare state, poor people and old people would just be dying in the streets.

As I have long pointed out, the problem with liberals is their dismally poor understanding of economics, and Sumner’s article is just the most recent example of this phenomenon.

Permit me to explain why.

In their purported concern for the poor, liberals never ask the important question: What is it that causes wealth and prosperity to come into existence? The only question they ask themselves is, “What is the cause of poverty”?

But the latter is a ridiculous question because poverty has always been the natural state of mankind. Throughout history, most people have been poor.

Thus, the real question is: What are the causes of wealth? What is it that enables societies to break free of the chains of poverty? Why are some societies wealthier than others?

You would think that those would be important questions for a liberal, especially since liberals have long purported to be concerned about the poor.

Alas, those questions are unimportant to liberals. Sumner, not surprisingly, doesn’t raise the questions either.

Instead, he points out all the bad things that were taking place in, say 1880, and then concludes that all those statist programs that our American ancestors rejected, and which are so beloved to Sumner, should be embraced. In other words, he’s suggesting that the absence of the statist programs is the cause of the bad living conditions in American society that he laments. But his logic and his conclusions are faulty and fallacious.

No one denies that economic conditions were bad for many people in 1880. No question about it. No dispute there.

But in focusing on those bad conditions, Sumner makes a common mistake. He is comparing those conditions to conditions in which we live today or at least to some sort of ideal economic utopia. In doing that, he misses the important point, which is this: What were conditions for ordinary people prior to the Industrial Revolution? Answer: As Hobbes put it, life was nasty, brutish, and short — that is, much, much worse than it was in 1880 America.

As bad as things were in 1880 America, it was a golden era compared to the pre-industrial age. This point was made as long ago as 1954 in a book entitled Capitalism and the Historians, which was edited by libertarian Nobel Prize-winning economist Friedrich Hayek. As Austrian economist Murray Rothbard stated, “Hayek contributed to and edited a series of essays that showed conclusively that the Industrial Revolution in England, spurred by a roughly free-market economy, enormously improved rather than crippled the standard of living of the average consumer and worker in England. In this way, Hayek led the way in shattering one of the most widespread socialist myths about the Industrial Revolution.”

So, does that help clarify why I would refer to 1880 as a golden era? Not because of the bad things that were still existing (duh!) but rather because for the first time in history, massive numbers of poor people actually had a decent chance to survive and even prosper. In fact, in the 1880s there are countless stories of poor people actually becoming wealthy people! Imagine that!

And why was this so? That’s the critical question, the one that liberals never ask. They just assume that wealth is a given, that there is this big economic pie, and that the state should confiscate the pie and redistribute it in the interests of making everyone have an equal share of the pie. What liberals fail to recognize, however, is that in doing so, they begin a process that ends up condemning people to a life of massive poverty, starvation, famines, and short life spans that characterized the pre-industrial age.

To explain why I consider 1880 to be a golden era, especially for the poor, let’s consider a modern-day example, one that a good liberal like John Sumner would consider to be a model society: the socialist paradise of North Korea. In that country, everyone is equal in terms of economic condition. The state owns everything, and everyone works for the state. There are no profits, speculators, or entrepreneurs. Greed and selfishness have been stamped out of society. Total government ownership and total government control. Everyone works for the benefit of the collective.

In other words, a liberal dream!

Oh, did I mention that there is also horrific poverty, famine, and starvation in North Korea? Let’s assume, just for the sake of argumentation, that each year some 10 percent of the North Korean population is dying from malnutrition or illness.

Now, suppose we asked Sumner to give us his recommendation for ending poverty in North Korea. What would he say? He would say: “Adopt a welfare state and a controlled economy! Create bureaucratic departments, modeled on the IRS and U.S. welfare agencies, whose job it is to confiscate wealth from the rich and give it to the poor!”

Do you see the problem though? Sumner would be doing what liberals always do: they assume that there is a pie of wealth to confiscate and redistribute. That’s their solution to ending poverty. But he would be missing the obvious point: They already have total socialism in North Korea, which is precisely why there is no pie for Sumner to confiscate and redistribute. Everyone has nothing.

So, obviously the standard liberal statist solution for ending poverty isn’t going to work in our North Korea hypothetical. Instead, we have come up with another solution.

Let’s try a free-market-oriented solution, similar to the one that our American ancestors adopted and embraced. (I say “oriented” because freedom isn’t really freedom when government is permitting people to exercise it.) Let’s assume that the North Korea authorities place 60 percent of the land and buildings in North Korea under private ownership. They also enact a law that permits 60 percent of the North Korean populace to engage in any economic enterprise they want, without any permission or interference from the state. The people in that sector will be free to engage in any mutually beneficial exchange with anyone in the world. There will be no income tax, and people will be free to accumulate unlimited amounts of wealth. There will be no economic regulations whatsoever, including price controls, minimum-wage laws, and anti-speculation laws. There will be no Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, or any other government welfare plan. No central bank and no paper money; the market will determine the media of exchange. No one will be coerced into helping another person but will be free to do so if he wishes. There will be no restrictions on emigration or immigration.

After 10 years, Sumner and I make a visit to North Korea. We discover that there is now an enormous difference between the liberated sector and the government-owned sector. In the liberated sector, there are no more famines, no more starvation. People’s real standard of living is soaring.

That’s not to say though that things are easy in the liberated sector. There is still much poverty given that it was only 10 years ago that people had absolutely nothing and were on the verge of starvation. People are having to work long hours in difficult working conditions, and that includes spouses and children. But everyone knows that those conditions are a blessing, compared to what is still happening in the government-controlled sector, where everyone is suffering much more horrific poverty and where 10 percent of the populace continues to die, year after year.

Now, I would call that a golden era, one in which 60 percent of the population was not only being saved but actually prospering.

What would Sumner say in response? He would say, “Why, that’s just the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard! That’s no golden era because the people in the government-owned sector are still suffering and dying. Hornberger must think that all that misery and death is a good thing. And look at how much poverty there still is in the liberated section.”

Even worse is what Sumner would propose. Furious over the fact that people in the free-market sector now have more wealth than people in the government-owned sector, he would propose statist programs that would restore government control and ownership over the free-market sector. As a good liberal, what would matter to him is that everyone should be made equal, even if everyone is made equally poor.

Would his criticism leveled at me be valid? Would I really be praising the government-owned sector when I referred to this period as a golden one? Of course not! What I would be praising is that libertarian economic means — i.e., the free market — have been used to bring 60 percent of the population out of horrific poverty and given them a chance to survive and even to prosper, especially as the generations progress.

What would be my solution to the bad things still remaining? That’s obvious — I would expand private-property, free-market principles to the 40 percent sector, enabling everyone in North Korean society to experience the benefits of the unhampered market economy.

And this is precisely what was going on in the United States throughout the 1800s, notwithstanding the fact that there were a large number of people to whom free-market principles were not being applied, such as the slaves. But for the sector that was liberated, it was the most phenomenal era in history, insofar as living standards were concerned. People were actually going from rags to riches into one, two, or three generations.

The proof of the pudding was the thousands of penniless immigrants who were fleeing the lands of government control and regulation to come to the land of little or no income taxation, regulation, or welfare. They just wanted a chance to make it, all on their own.

Did I mention that 19th-century America was not only the most prosperous nation in history but also the most charitable nation in history? In a land with no income tax and no welfare state, it was voluntary contributions that built the churches, opera houses, museums, and so much more.

So, what was the obvious solution to those Americans who were not permitted to experience the benefits of economic liberty? Expand it to them! What was the solution to the restrictions on liberty still being enacted in the 19th century? Repeal them!

In fact, the best thing Americans could ever do today is enact a constitutional amendment for economic liberty similar to the one our American ancestors enacted for religious liberty: “No law shall be passed respecting the regulation of commerce or abridging the free exercise thereof.”

The worst thing that could have ever happened was to return to the old, bankrupt idea of government ownership and control. But that’s precisely where liberals took us, with their socialistic welfare state. Gripped by envy and covetousness and unable to control themselves as they saw the enormous wealth coming into existence because of the free market, liberals (or “progressives” as some of them like to call themselves) brought into existence in the 20th century a massive confiscatory and redistributive socialist system, one that has been taking our country down the road to serfdom, impoverishment, and loss of liberty, the road that humanity has traveled throughout the ages.

Liberals have long justified their socialist and interventionist schemes under the pretense of loving the poor, needy, and disadvantaged. And their favorite justification whenever their programs go awry is, “But we have good intentions.” But good intentions are irrelevant. All that matters is reality, especially in terms of the immorality and destructiveness that have accompanied socialism and interventionism.

Sumner piously points out that 1880, the year that I used as an example of economic liberty, was characterized by the Chinese Exclusion Act. Of course, that couldn’t be true given that the Act wasn’t enacted until 1882. (Oh well, what’s a couple of years?) But his real point in bringing it up was to imply that the period wasn’t really golden because there was an immigration restriction on Chinese immigrants.

But let’s use Sumner’s example to show the rank hypocrisy with which liberals have long suffered. He complains about a law that excluded Chinese from freely immigrating to America, and rightfully so. Yet, look at what 20th-century liberals have done for decades: They’ve used immigration controls to exclude not only Chinese but also Mexicans, Nicaraguans, Africans, Haitians, and, well, the poor of just about every country in the world.

Isn’t it the liberals — the lovers of the poor — under liberal icon Barack Obama who are continuing the building of that fortified fence along our southern border, to keep the poor from coming here and trying to sustain their life through labor? Isn’t it the liberals who are conducting those raids on businesses all across the land, rounding up poor people who just want to work and improve the lot of their families, deporting them to their home countries where they can experience a life of hardship and poverty?

In fact, wasn’t it under the regime of liberal icon Bill Clinton that U.S. forces were attacking defenseless poor people, including women and children, who had escaped socialist and communist tyranny in Cuba and were trying to make it to the United States? Didn’t liberals forcibly repatriate those refugees to Cuba? Oh well, maybe Sumner would argue that is was for their own good, since in Cuba there is free education, free health care, and free everything else in that paternalistic society.

Please, Sumner, remind me again how much you liberals love the poor, because I’m tempted to say that an era in which there is only one group of people who are being excluded is golden compared to the massive numbers of poor people that you liberals have been excluding from our country for decades under the guise of immigration controls.

In fact, would you, as a good, poor-person-loving liberal, explain something to me that I’ve always had trouble understanding. As you know, the premier icon for you people is Franklin D. Roosevelt. You liberals say that his enactment of Social Security, the crown jewel of the socialistic welfare state, showed how much he loved the poor, needy, and disadvantaged.

Well, if that’s the case, would you please explain to me FDR’s attitude toward German Jews during the 1930s? Would you please explain to me why he refused to permit them to come to America when Hitler was willing to let them go? Weren’t they poor? And while you’re at it, can you please explain to me why he refused to let those poor Jews traveling on the SS St. Louis to disembark at Miami Harbor in the infamous “voyage of the damned”?

You see, I’m having a difficult time understanding why a man who purports to love the poor would do that to poor Jews. And I’m also having a difficult time understanding why you liberals would extol a man who did that sort of thing to poor Jews.

Please provide me with your best explanation on this, because I’m tempted to conclude that Roosevelt’s Social Security plan had nothing to do with any purported love of the poor but instead everything to do with the love of power and with making as many people dependent on the federal government as possible.

Oh, and while you are at it, would you explain to me something about FDR’s protg, the liberal icon Lyndon Johnson, who brought Medicare and Medicaid into existence because of his purported love for the poor, needy, and disadvantaged? LBJ, as I hope you know, killed some million Vietnamese people, most of whom were poor, in an illegal war that was based on nothing but lies. He also sent some 58,000 of my generation to their deaths in Vietnam, many of whom were poor because that’s who they were drafting to fight in that war.

Would you be so kind as to reconcile that one for me, because I’m getting real tempted to conclude that LBJ’s Medicare and Medicaid plans were nothing more than a political power grab designed to put more Americans under the yoke of federal power and dependency?

While we’re on the subject, I also have a question about liberal icon Bill Clinton, another purported lover of the poor, needy, and disadvantaged. During the entire 8 years he was in office, he killed hundred of thousands of Iraqi children with the brutal sanctions that he enforced against that country. His U.S. Ambassador to the UN, Madeleine Albright, another liberal icon, said that those deaths were worth the attempt to oust Saddam Hussein from power.

That’s always been difficult for me to swallow. How can the deaths of poor, innocent children ever be worth a political goal such as regime change, especially given that Saddam had once been the partner of the U.S. government?

Of course, I’d be remiss if I failed to mention the vicious attack by liberal icon Janet Reno (and Bill Clinton) on the poor people inside the Branch Davidian compound at Waco, including innocent children, given that today is the 17th anniversary of that horrific slaughter.

Oh, one final thing, Sumner. Please don’t lump conservatives with libertarians, especially since there ain’t a dime’s worth of difference between liberals and conservatives. Both of you are statist to the core, and both of you are lovers of big government, big spending, big debt, and big inflation. And both of you are taking our nation down the road to serfdom, bankruptcy, and moral debauchery.

The only solution to the woes that you statists, both liberals and conservatives, have foisted onto our nation lies with libertarianism. Our American ancestors discovered the truth, and lots of Americans are now re-discovering it, which is precisely why you statists are so terrified.

Jacob Hornberger [send him mail] is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.

The Best of Jacob Hornberger

That was especially true if a protester happened to be combining freedom of speech with the right to bear arms, as some protesters in New Hampshire and Arizona did. That drove liberals up the wall, given their deep antipathy toward gun rights and the Second Amendment.

But who really are the crazies around here? Let’s examine the issue. Among the points that liberals made to buttress their claim that the protesters were crazy was the comparison that some of the protesters made between Obama’s economic philosophy and that of the National Socialists under Hitler.

Indeed, according to the liberals, the notion that Obama’s plan for America was socialistic was itself just crazy. After all, everyone knows that America has a free-enterprise system, one that was saved by Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, an economic program that Obama, like other liberals, extols and wishes to build upon.

Yet, let’s analyze that comparison that some of the protesters were making and the insanity and irrationality that liberals claim it represents. I believe we’ll find that when it comes to sanity and rationality, those protesters had a much firmer grip on reality than the liberals who are criticizing them.

Contradictions

First of all, let’s talk about the economic system that existed in the United States from the inception of the nation to the latter part of the 19th century. The principles are simple to enumerate: No income taxation (except during the Civil War), Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, welfare, economic regulations, licensure laws, drug laws, immigration controls, or coercive transfer programs, such as farm subsidies and education grants.

There was no federal department of labor, agriculture, commerce, education, energy, health and human services, or homeland security. There was no SEC, DEA, FEMA, OSHA, or EPA.

There was no Federal Reserve System and no paper money or legal-tender laws (except during the Civil War). People used gold and silver coins as money.

There were no foreign military bases and no involvement in foreign wars. The size of the military was small.

Now, I ask you a simple question: Does that way of life resemble even in the remotest way the way of life under which Americans live today? Of course it doesn’t, because the way of life under which we live today is precisely opposite to that under which our American ancestors lived. Today’s Americans do live under all those programs, departments, and agencies, and principles that were absent during the first 125 years or so of American history.

Why is this important? Because both sets of Americans — our ancestors and Americans living today — operate under the same assumption when it comes to freedom. Our ancestors prided themselves as a free people. But modern-day Americans pride themselves on being free, too.

But how likely is it that people who live under economic and political philosophies and programs that are contradictory to one another can both be free? Not very likely at all! In fact, the likelihood is that one of them is suffering a very serious case of self-deception and self-delusion bordering on what psychiatrists might call psychosis.

American freedom

Why did early Americans consider themselves free? The answer is rooted in the principles enunciated in the Declaration of Independence. As Thomas Jefferson observed in that document, people have been endowed by their Creator with certain fundamental and inherent rights. These include, but are certainly not limited to, the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

The reason that people call government into existence is to protect the exercise of such rights. But Jefferson recognized that sometimes government becomes worse than the murderers, rapists, thieves, invaders, and marauders that it is supposed to protect the people from. In such a case, it is the right of the people to alter or even abolish the government and institute new government. Since violent revolutions inevitably involve massive death and destruction, Jefferson observed that people will often choose to put up with lots of tyranny before they finally decide to revolt.

A critical question arises: What do the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness connote?

For our American ancestors, such rights meant more than the absence of physical constraint, e.g., not being incarcerated in jail.

Freedom also meant the right to criticize government officials and protest their actions without being punished for it.

It meant the right to worship, each in his own way, or, on the other hand, not to worship at all.

It meant the right to keep and bear arms, not only as a protection against criminals and invaders but also to ensure that the right to resist tyranny was retained by the people.

It meant the protection of centuries-old procedures in the event of federal criminal prosecutions, including habeas corpus, right to counsel, trial by jury, bail, due process of law, and protection from coerced confessions, unreasonable searches, and cruel and unusual punishments.

To our ancestors, however, freedom meant even more than that, and there arises the rub with today’s liberals. Freedom, our ancestors maintained, also meant the right to keep everything you owned and to decide for yourself what to do with it. Everyone had the right, they contended, to pursue an occupation or trade without seeking the permission of the government. They had the right to enter into mutually beneficial trades with others who were doing the same thing. They had the right to accumulate unlimited amounts of wealth as part of that process. They had the right to decide for themselves what to do with their own money — spend, save, invest, speculate, or whatever. They, not the government, were responsible for how they lived their lives and how they used their money. For our American ancestors, freedom entailed the right to handle their own retirement, health care, food, clothing, transportation, charity, and other parts of everyday life.

Now obviously that’s precisely opposite to what today’s liberals believe. They say that freedom entails the power of government to take whatever portion of a person’s income or wealth it deems appropriate and give the money to people who government officials feel need it more. They say that freedom entails the power of government to require people to secure governmental permission before engaging in many occupations and trades. They say that freedom entails the power of government to control and regulate the trades that people make with others. They say that freedom entails the power of government to take care of people, especially with respect to retirement, health care, unemployment compensation, housing, and welfare.

American socialism

How did liberals arrive at a conception of freedom that is so different from that which our American ancestors had? A clue lies in the comparison that people were making between Obama’s economic philosophy and that of the National Socialists in Germany.

Take a look at this URL. There you will see an engraving. It is not an engraving of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, or any of the Founding Fathers. Instead it is an engraving of Otto von Bismarck, who served as chancellor of Germany from 1862 to 1890.

You may have noticed that the URL has the letters “ssa.gov” in it. That is the Internet domain name for the U.S. Social Security Administration.

You might then ask, What in the world is the U.S. government doing glorifying a chancellor of Germany rather than America’s Founding Fathers?

The answer is provided on the SSA’s website itself: Bismarck was the world’s first political ruler to adopt a social security program. On that web page, the SSA states, “Despite his impeccable right-wing credentials, Bismarck would be called a socialist for introducing these programs, as would President Roosevelt 70 years later. In his own speech to the Reichstag during the 1881 debates, Bismarck would reply: ‘Call it socialism or whatever you like. It is the same to me.’”

In mocking that claim of socialism, however, what the SSA doesn’t tell you is where Bismarck got the idea of social security and, for that matter, the whole idea of a paternalistic welfare state. He got the idea from German socialist intellectuals, who saw social security as an ideal way to use the state to implement the Marxian principle “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”

As the years went on, the German people became accustomed to having the government care for them, with their own money of course. Thus, by the time that Hitler became chancellor of Germany, the paternalistic welfare state had become a permanent feature of German life. Given Hitler’s devotion to National Socialism (abbreviated by the term “Nazi”), it was hardly surprising that he embraced such socialist programs as social security, national health care, and public (i.e., government) schooling.

In fact, Hitler embraced not only socialism but also fascism, an economic philosophy that leaves property in private hands but subjects it to government control and regulation. Another feature of Hitler’s fascism was partnerships between government and private industry, whose aims were to further the interests of the nation.

As Jonah Goldberg points out in his book Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning, in principle there was no difference between socialists and fascists, notwithstanding historical animosity between the two groups. They shared a deep antipathy toward economic liberty, the free market, and private property. They shared a commitment to the socialist and fascist concepts of government ownership or control of the means or results of production, albeit in different variations and degrees.

That brings us to Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal. For decades, and especially in the public schools and the state-supported colleges and universities across America, officials have indoctrinated American students with the notion that Roosevelt’s New Deal was nothing more than a series of government programs that saved America’s free-enterprise system. The idea is that free enterprise failed and caused the Great Depression and that all that Roosevelt did was to save the system by adopting needed free-market “reforms.”

Living a lie

It would be difficult to find a better example of a life of the lie and a denial of realty than that. For what Roosevelt actually did was adopt the principles of socialism and fascism that were spreading across the world, including the premier examples of Benito Mussolini’s Italy and Hitler’s Germany.

After all, ask yourself: How can social security be a socialist program in Germany and, at the same time, a free-enterprise program in the United States? How can programs that entail government control over business and industry and government-business partnerships be fascism in Italy and Germany and, at the same time, be free enterprise in the United States?

Consider the thesis of another book, Three New Deals: Reflections on Roosevelt’s America, Mussolini’s Italy, and Hitler’s Germany, 1933—1939, by Wolfgang Schivelbusch, a book that the Minneapolis Star-Tribune called “controversial, well written, and convincing.” It is a scholarly comparison of Hitler’s socialism, Mussolini’s fascism, and Roosevelt’s New Deal.

Schivelbusch carefully draws the parallels between the economic programs of Hitler, Mussolini, and Roosevelt, and anyone who reads his book is left with but one conclusion: Roosevelt’s New Deal was not free enterprise at all, as liberals have maintained for decades. Instead, it constituted a wholesale abandonment of the principles of economic liberty, free markets, and private property that had guided the United States for more than a hundred years.

A close examination of the programs that Roosevelt adopted reflects that they were no different in principle from those of Mussolini and Hitler. Social Security was based on the socialist principle of forcibly taking money from one group of people and giving it to another group. Mortgage moratorium laws entailed government interference with private contracts. The National Industrial Recovery Act converted American industry into cartels, with the power to set their own prices.

Moreover, just as Mussolini and Hitler were doing in their countries, Roosevelt resorted to propaganda and intimidation to effect compliance and conformity with his programs. That’s what his “Blue Eagle” was all about — a means by which federal officials could threaten and bludgeon American businessmen to get onboard Roosevelt’s new world order. It was also what Roosevelt’s infamous court-packing scheme was all about — to intimidate the Supreme Court into ceasing to declare his alien programs unconstitutional.

Is it surprising, then, that Hitler, the chancellor of Germany, expressed admiration for what Roosevelt was doing and how he was doing it in the United States? Not at all. Was it surprising that Winston Churchill expressed admiration for Hitler’s “New Deal”? Not at all. Was it unusual that officials in the Roosevelt administration admired Benito Mussolini for his fascism and Joseph Stalin for his socialism? Not at all.

But through it all, the lie and the denial of reality have been steadfastly maintained. From the first grade on up through college, American students are ingrained with the idea that America’s economic system is — and always will be — a free-enterprise system and that the paternalistic welfare state and controlled economy are simply needed modifications and reforms of that system.

Is it any surprise, then, that liberals feel so threatened by people who are exposing this life of the lie and this denial of reality? In a sense, such people are therapists. Through their exposition of truth, they are causing liberals to face reality, which, as the eminent late psychiatrist M. Scott Peck pointed out in his book The Road Less Traveled, is a necessary precondition to a healthy mindset.

You see, the liberal notion is that as long as people believe a lie, then everything will be okay. Sure, socialism has failed all over the world, but Americans don’t need to worry because they haven’t adopted socialism. When the programs move into chaos and crisis, it’s not that socialism has failed; it’s that free enterprise has failed, again. Thus, all that’s needed is more “reform” to further save “free enterprise.”

Then, along come people speaking the truth, pointing out that this is all sheer nonsense. What is failing are the socialistic welfare programs, the ones that have their roots in Roosevelt’s New Deal and, going back even further, to Bismarck’s Germany.

What is needed to restore a healthy society to America? The most important thing Americans need to do is get a grip on reality with respect to the type of socialist economic system that liberals have imported to their land.

Once people are ready to acknowledge the socialism that the United States has embraced, then there can be a real debate, one that focuses on whether America should continue going down the socialist road or whether the time has come to cast America’s disastrous experiment with socialism into the dustbin of history and restore its heritage of economic liberty, free markets, and private property to our land.

Jacob Hornberger [send him mail] is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.

The Best of Jacob Hornberger

Consider the war on drugs. Most everyone concedes that drug dealing and drug possession are federal criminal offenses. Drug offenses are listed as crimes in the U.S. Code. People who are caught violating them are arrested, indicted by a federal grand jury, and prosecuted in U.S. District Court. The Bill of Rights requires the government to accord drug defendants all the rights and guarantees of the Bill of Rights, including trial by jury and due process of law. Incompetent, irrelevant, and illegally acquired evidence is excluded from the trial. The defendant is presumed innocent and must be found not guilty unless the government provides sufficient evidence to convince the jury that the defendant is guilty. Cruel and unusual punishments are prohibited. The defendant has the right to remain completely silent, before, during, and after the proceeding.

Now, consider the following scenario. In a concerted effort, a couple thousand members of powerful Latin American drug cartels cross the Mexican border into the United States. Employing automatic weapons, bombs, and grenades, they begin killing DEA agents, federal judges, and local cops and blowing up federal buildings in retaliation for U.S. military actions against drug cartels in Colombia and DEA actions in Mexico. The drug gangsters slip back into the populace, only to engage in more assaults in the following weeks.

The local cops take on the drug gangs, but they are clearly outgunned. The state governors ask the president to send the U.S. military to help them out. The president persuades Congress to suspend the posse comitatus law, and he reassigns U.S. military forces fighting the drug war in Colombia to the U.S. southern border.

Question: Does the military’s participation in the drug war automatically change the drug war into a real war, like World Wars I and II and the Vietnam War?

Answer: No. The matter continues to remain one of criminal-justice. The gangsters are violating laws against murder, mayhem, drug dealing, illegal entry, and no doubt dozens of other criminal laws on the books. But the fact that the military is being employed to assist the police doesn’t mean that the matter is now governed by the laws of war. The gangsters do not become enemy combatants. They remain criminal suspects.

The military is simply being used in a police capacity, albeit one employing much more force than the cops employ. But in principle the situation remains the same: when the military is used in a police capacity, it is still subject to all the rules and processes that govern the police. When the military takes one of the drug suspects into custody, the suspect is entitled to all the rights and guarantees that drug suspects are entitled to when the police take them into custody.

Why don’t we use the military to enforce the drug war and other federal crimes here in the United States? Why is there a policy against it? After all, the U.S. military is used to wage the drug war in Colombia, and the Mexican government employs its military to fight the drug war in Mexico. Why don’t we do the same thing here?

The reason is that the mindset of a law-enforcement officer is completely different from that of a soldier.

The mindset of policeman is: apprehend the suspect and bring him to justice, which means a trial to determine whether he’s guilty, and, in the process, do your best to ensure that innocent bystanders are not hurt.

The mindset of soldier is: kill the enemy and win the war. The killing of innocent bystanders is acceptable as collateral damage, especially if the action results in the killing of the enemy and protection of U.S. troops.

That brings us to the subject of terrorism. Like drug dealing, terrorism is a federal criminal offense. No one can deny that. It has long been listed in the U.S. Code as a crime. That’s why terrorists are indicted in U.S. District Court and accorded all the rights and guarantees in the Bill of Rights, just like drug defendants. It’s why such famous terrorists as Ramzi Yousef, Zacharias Moussaoui, Jose Padilla, and Timothy McVeigh, to name only a few, were indicted, tried, and convicted in federal court.

In fact, the Yousef case provides a good example for analysis. He’s the man who committed the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in 1993, an attack which, in principle, was no different from the subsequent attack on the same building 8 years later, on September 11.

After attacking the WTC, Yousef, a foreign citizen, escaped from the United States. In 1995, Pakistani law enforcement agents learned that he was holed up in Pakistan, arrested him, and extradited him to the United States, where he stood trial for terrorism in U.S. District Court and convicted. He is now serving a life sentence without possibility of parole in a federal penitentiary.

Was Yousef’s attack on the WTC an act of war? No. It was a federal criminal offense. When he was taken into custody, he wasn’t taken to a prisoner of war camp. He was instead turned over to U.S. law-enforcement agents.

Let’s suppose that Yousef had been located in an area of Pakistan in which he was protected by 3,000 compatriots who had conspired with him to commit the terrorist attack. Would the large size of co-conspirators convert the attack into an act of war? Again, the answer is no. It doesn’t make any difference whether a criminal act has 2 co-conspirators or a thousand. It still remains a criminal act, albeit one involving a larger conspiracy.

Suppose that Yousef and his gang were armed with automatic weapons and that the Pakistani police and military were unable to take him into custody. Let’s say that the Pakistani government invites the U.S. government to send in its military forces to take Yousef into custody. The U.S. military enters the country, attacks Yousef and his cohorts, and takes him into custody.

Has the matter now been converted into a war, like World Wars I and II and the Vietnam War, simply because the U.S. military is involved and doing the apprehending?

Again, the answer is no. The issue of war does not turn on whether a nation’s military branch is used to subdue and apprehend a suspected criminal. Once the military took Yousef into custody, it would be required to do what the police did — turn him over to the authorities for trial. By subduing and apprehending Yousef, the military has simply functioned in a police capacity, albeit one with overwhelming force.

Consider Al Capone and his gang during Prohibition. They used machine guns against local cops and federal agent Elliot Ness and his "untouchables." Did that constitute war? Of course not. But what if it had been necessary to bring the military into the situation to overcome Capone’s massive firepower? Again, the military would simply have been operating in a police capacity and, thus, subject to the rules that govern the police.

The problem though, as I mentioned earlier, is that the military, because it has a different mindset than the police, will inevitably treat the matter differently than the police. For example, the police will stake out a building for days where they suspect that a criminal suspect is holed up. That’s not what the military would do. If they are reasonably certain that the suspect is in the building, they would simply drop a bomb on it. And if it turned out that the suspect was killed in the blast, the military would consider the operation to be a success, even if a several innocent bystanders were killed in the process.

All this brings us to Osama bin Laden and the military invasion of Afghanistan.

The attack on the World Trade Center on 9/11 was, in principle, no different from the attack on that same building in 1993. Again, terrorism is a federal criminal offense. As the suspected planner of the 9/11 attacks, bin Laden was in no different position from people who conspired with Ramzi Yousef to commit the 1993 attacks.

After the 9/11 attacks, President Bush demanded that the Afghan government turn over bin Laden to U.S. officials, just as Pakistan had turned over Ramzi Yousef to U.S. officials. If the Afghan government had complied with Bush’s request, then U.S. law dictated that bin Laden be treated the same way as Yousef and, for that matter, 9/11 conspirator Moussaoui, were treated — that is, indicted in U.S. District Court and prosecuted for conspiring to commit a terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.

However, the Afghan government refused to unconditionally comply with Bush’s demand. For one thing, there was no extradition agreement between the United States and Afghanistan. Nonetheless, the Afghan government expressed a willingness to deliver bin Laden to an independent third party for trial if the U.S. government provided evidence establishing bin Laden’s complicity in the attacks, the type of evidence that would have been required in an extradition hearing.

Bush refused those conditions and emphasized that his demand for bin Laden was unconditional. The Afghan government refused. At that point, the United States attacked Afghanistan. Thus, that involved the U.S. military in two separate actions: a war against the Afghan government for refusing to comply with Bush’s extradition demand and a police action to apprehend Osama bin Laden.

The action against the Afghan government constituted war, like World Wars I and II. It was a conflict between two nation states. Clearly it was an illegal war, given that it was waged without the congressional declaration of war required by the Constitution but it was a genuine war nonetheless.

Not so, however, with respect to the military action intended to apprehend bin Laden. Like our examples regarding Ramzi Yousef, Al Capone, and the Latin American drug gangs, that action remained a police action, one in which the military was being used in a foreign country to employ its overwhelming force to bring a suspected criminal to justice.

The problem arose when the U.S. government made no attempt to distinguish between legitimate prisoners of war and suspected terrorist criminals. Instead, it intentionally conflated the two and then defaulted into making all them — Afghan soldiers and al-Qaeda members alike as “illegal enemy combatants.”

At the same time, of course, was the massive war-on-terrorism propaganda that the Bush administration issued after the 9/11 attacks. In the fear-laden environment of post 9/11, federal officials embarked on a big hype campaign in which they convinced people that this particular criminal offense was either a criminal offense (which is precisely why they indicted and prosecuted 9/11 co-conspirator Moussasoui in federal court) or an act of war, at the option of U.S. officials. At the same time, by conflating the prisoners of war taken captive in the war against Afghanistan with suspected members of al-Qaeda taken captive, U.S. officials succeeded in confusing the separate issues of war and criminal justice in people’s minds.

Thus, we have the horribly muddled situation today, one in which some people are saying that some suspected terrorists should be treated as criminal defendants, while others are saying they should be treated as illegal warriors, while others are saying that the government should continue to have the option of treating them either way. Perhaps the most bizarre suggestion came from those who said that the Detroit bomb suspect should have been turned over to the military for torture and then returned to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution in federal court.

We now also have a warped dual-track judicial system with respect to suspected terrorists. One track involves criminal prosecution in the federal judicial system established by the Constitution, where people are presumed innocent and the Bill of Rights applies. The other track involves criminal prosecution in an alternative, competing military tribunal system established by the Pentagon, one in which people are presumed guilty of terrorism, subjected to torture and abuse, and tried in kangaroo proceedings where the Bill of Rights does not apply. The government has the arbitrary, ad hoc power to decide which track people are going to be subjected to.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the horrific consequences of the Bush administration’s decision to employ the military to apprehend bin Laden, unlike the case with Ramzi Yousef several years before.

In Yousef’s case, no bombs were dropped on Pakistan. U.S. officials waited patiently for two years before he finally turned up and was taken captive, with no loss of life to innocent bystanders.

Contrast that with the horrific mess in Afghanistan. In the midst of all the anger and hatred that people all over the world now have for the United States, it’s easy to forget the outpouring of sympathy and friendship that came from all over the world after 9/11, including from the Muslim community. If U.S. officials had simply waited out the situation, as they had with Yousef, bin Laden would have been isolated. That is, he could never have travelled freely and there were countless people all over the world sympathetic to the United States who would have been willing to turn him, especially for a sizable reward. His recruiting efforts would have been limited to people who were angry with U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East (e.g., unconditional support of Israel, the sanctions against Iraq, etc.)

Instead, the Bush administration sent in the military — the people with the mindset of “kill the enemy even if it kills innocent bystanders,” which produced massive death and destruction in Afghanistan, which in turn converted all that sympathy and friendship for the United States into widespread anger, hatred, and rage, which in turn greatly fueled bin Laden’s recruiting efforts. And, oh, by the way, even after 8 long years of death and destruction in Afghanistan, they still haven’t apprehended bin Laden.

Finally, I should also point out that the terrorism-is-war crowd has never answered a critically important question: How is the war on terrorism expected to end? That is, how do we know when all the terrorists in the world have been killed? Or, better yet, how do the terrorists surrender? Does the president of the TAW (the Terrorist Association of the World) sit down on a U.S. ship and sign the surrender papers, just like Japanese military officials did at the conclusion of World War II? Yes, that is ridiculous, but it goes to show what the terrorism-is-war paradigm has led us to — perpetual military conflict, along with perpetual death and destruction, along with ever-increasing military expenditures, along with ever-growing infringements on civil liberties.

It’s time to bring the military home and end its role as domestic and international cop.

Jacob Hornberger [send him mail] is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.

The Best of Jacob Hornberger

Actually, it’s not at all clear yet that the CIA is telling the truth about never having implemented its assassination program. After all, in November 2002, the CIA fired a missile into an automobile containing suspected al-Qaeda terrorists who were traveling in Yemen. The missile killed everyone in the car, including an American citizen named Ahmed Hijazi.

How did the CIA justify its Yemen assassination? The rationale has become a familiar one: since the United States is at war with the terrorists, it has the authority to kill suspected terrorists wherever it finds them. In the war on terrorism, as U.S. officials have reminded us so often, the entire world is a battlefield.

However, the fact is that terrorism is a crime. Everyone, including federal prosecutors and federal judges, will acknowledge that. It is denominated a crime in the federal criminal code. Accused terrorists are indicted by a federal grand jury and put on trial in a federal district court. They have included Zacarias Moussaoui, Jos Padilla, Ramzi Yousef, Timothy McVeigh, and many others.

So, if terrorism is a crime, how is it that the CIA assassinated people traveling in a car in Yemen? As suspected criminals, why weren’t the occupants in the car entitled to be arrested and extradited to the United States for trial rather than being assassinated?

The answer lies in a radical action taken by President George W. Bush in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. Without even the semblance of a constitutional amendment or an act of Congress, he simply declared that henceforth U.S. officials would treat terrorism as either a criminal offense or an act of war, at their option.

Thus, some suspected terrorists are treated as criminal defendants, which means that they are accorded the procedural protections provided by the Bill of Rights.

Other suspected terrorists are not so fortunate. They are treated as illegal enemy combatants and denied the protections of the Bill of Rights. Suspected terrorists in this group are also subjected to such things as torture, kangaroo tribunals, and lifetime incarceration, even in the unlikely event that a tribunal acquits them of all charges.

Bush’s war-on-terrorism paradigm obviously provides another way to treat suspected terrorists — simply by killing them. No arrests, no Miranda warnings, no presumption of innocence, no attorneys, no trials, and no other messy procedures associated with the criminal-justice system. Not even incarceration in a military dungeon, torture, or trial before a kangaroo tribunal.

Instead, just have the CIA assassinate them.

The whole thing brings to mind the movie Star Chamber, starring Michael Douglas and Hal Holbrook, which came out in 1983. The movie was about a group of judges who had grown sick and tired of suspected criminals’ getting set free on procedural “technicalities.” So they simply formed their own assassination team, which took out the suspected criminals.

America: part of the battlefield

While government officials have chafed against the restrictions in the Bill of Rights ever since it was adopted, they have never been able to ignore them, thanks to criminal defense attorneys and an independent federal judiciary willing to enforce such provisions … until, that is, federal officials figured out a way to do so under the regime of George W. Bush. By simply declaring a “war on terrorism” and announcing that this federal crime would now also be treated as an act of war, the executive branch has been able to completely ignore the Bill of Rights where this particular crime — terrorism — is concerned. It would be difficult to find a more perfect and ingenious scheme for circumventing the Bill of Rights for what everyone acknowledges is a federal criminal offense.

Keep in mind that in criminal proceedings a trial determines whether the state has provided sufficient evidence to convince a jury or judge beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty of the offense. In the war on terrorism, there is no trial, and the CIA is free to assassinate anyone it wants, so long as CIA agents believe that the target is a suspected terrorist.

One presumption in all this is that the CIA will be assassinating only foreigners in foreign lands, which some Americans might find comforting. “They’re protecting us from our enemies,” the sentiment might be. Or, as the CIA might put it, “We’re doing what’s necessary to protect the national security of our country.”

But there is a basic problem here. As U.S. officials have often reminded us, in the war on terrorism the entire world is a battlefield. That includes the fact that the United States is part of that worldwide battlefield. It also includes the possibility that American citizens can be terrorists.

That’s in fact why the CIA treated a foreign citizen — Ali al-Marri — and an American citizen — Jos Padilla — as illegal enemy combatants and transferred both of them into military custody, notwithstanding the fact that both of them had been arrested by federal law-enforcement personnel in the United States. The idea was that both of them were suspected of having committed terrorist acts and, therefore, were subject to being treated as enemy combatants in the war on terrorism, at the option of the government.

Even though federal officials later treated Padilla as a criminal defendant instead, indicting him for the federal crime of terrorism, that was after he had spent three years in prison as an illegal enemy combatant in the war on terrorism. During those three years, he was subjected to torture, sensory deprivation, denial of counsel (until the federal courts ordered otherwise), isolation, and the prospect of spending the rest of his life in a military dungeon.

But at least Padilla was alive. The disquieting fact is that under the war on terrorism, the CIA wields the same authority to do to him what it did to the American traveling in the car in Yemen — simply take him out through assassination. After all, what difference does it make whether a suspected terrorist is traveling in Yemen or in the United States, given that in the war on terrorism the entire world is a battlefield? In fact, couldn’t one make the case that an American terrorist in the United States is much more dangerous than an American terrorist traveling in Yemen?

Operation Condor

The CIA’s assassination scheme brings to mind Operation Condor, a worldwide political program of repression and assassination led in the 1970s by Chilean military strongman Augusto Pinochet’s intelligence agency, which was known as DINA. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that Operation Condor had the support and cooperation of the CIA.

Operation Condor bears some similarities to the manner in which the CIA has waged the war on terrorism. DINA took countless people into custody, tortured them, killed them, “disappeared” them, or held them indefinitely in dark dungeons. Of course, back then it was the war on communism, rather than the war on terrorism, that was used to justify these extraordinary measures.

It is no surprise that Operation Condor also employed assassination as one of its primary tools. DINA agents did not only assassinate domestic people suspected of being communists, it also sent its agents abroad to assassinate people, just as the CIA has done in the war on terrorism. DINA officials viewed the situation the same way that U.S. officials view the war on terrorism today: in the war on communism, the entire world was a battlefield and the enemy was subject to being killed wherever they could find him.

Needless to say, the battlefield in the war on communism included the United States, just as it is part of the battlefield in the global war on terrorism. One day, DINA agents, led by a man with CIA ties, Michael Townley, assassinated a Chilean citizen named Orlando Letelier on the streets of Washington, D.C. The assassination was carried out with a car bomb. Also killed in the attack was an American citizen named Ronni Moffitt, Letelier’s assistant.

Why did DINA agents assassinate Letelier? Because DINA officials believed that he was a communist. He had served in the socialist Salvador Allende regime, which had been ousted from power by Pinochet in a military coup (a coup that had the approval of U.S. officials, including those in the CIA). After the coup and after having been tortured by Pinochet’s henchmen for about a year, Letelier was released. He moved to Washington, where he lobbied against the Pinochet regime. Thus, in the eyes of Operation Condor, Letelier not only was a communist, he also constituted a danger to the Pinochet regime.

What was the difference between DINA’s assassination of Letelier and Moffitt, on the one hand, and the CIA’s assassination of the people traveling in that car in Yemen? In principle, there isn’t any. In Yemen, the CIA assassinated people it believed were terrorists, including an American citizen. In Washington, DINA assassinated people it believed were communists, including an American citizen.

A federal grand jury in Washington, however, apparently didn’t endorse the war-on-communism paradigm for justifying assassination. It indicted Townley and his group of anti-Castro Cubans who were accused of helping him to plant the car bomb. Townley was given a plea bargain that enabled him to testify against his underlings and that ultimately permitted him to live the rest of his life somewhere in the United States under the Federal Witness Protection Program.

Other assassinations

An interesting and revealing part of the Pinochet coup involved a young American journalist named Charles Horman, who was murdered during the coup. The killing was made famous in the 1982 movie Missing, which starred Jack Lemmon and Sissy Spacek. For years the CIA denied involvement in the Horman murder. In 1999, however, the State Department released a document acknowledging that the CIA had played “a role” in the killing.

What role precisely? We don’t know. Don’t forget that this is the CIA we’re talking about. Despite the State Department’s open acknowledgement that the CIA had participated in the murder of an American citizen, there was no special prosecutor appointed and there were no grand jury investigations or indictments. The CIA has been permitted to get away with participating in a murder, the murder of an American citizen, no questions asked.

Of course, the CIA’s history of assassination goes back further than the war on terrorism and Operation Condor. There was a CIA scheme to assassinate Cuban president Fidel Castro. That operation involved a partnership between the CIA and the Mafia, a criminal organization that itself is famous for its many murders. There was also a CIA scheme to assassinate Congo leader Patrice Lumumba by providing him with a toothbrush carrying a deadly disease. We also shouldn’t forget the CIA’s use of LSD and other drugs in the 1960s on American citizens without their knowledge or consent, which led to at least two deaths.

Is the existence of the CIA consistent with the principles of a free society and a limited-government republic? With its willingness to assassinate on order, the answer clearly has to be no. It’s high time that the American people dismantled this dangerous threat to democracy, freedom, and limited government.

Jacob Hornberger [send him mail] is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.

Jacob Hornberger Archives

With the possible exception of the Internal Revenue Service, the federal agency that is the greatest threat to the financial well-being and freedom of the American people is the Federal Reserve. This is the agency that has the power to wipe you out. It can destroy all your savings and the value of your income. Worst of all, it can do all this secretly and surreptitiously.

I would assume that most of you are not independently wealthy. You work for a living. You bring home a paycheck. You try to make ends meet. You try to save a portion of your income, perhaps to help pay for your children’s education, to provide for a rainy day, or for your later years in life.

But if you’re like most Americans today, you’re having a difficult time making ends meet. Moreover, not only are you not saving a large portion of your income, you’re likely not saving anything at all. You’re just getting by.

The reason for this is the Federal Reserve, in conjunction with the Internal Revenue Service.

Here’s how the process works.

With a few notable exceptions, such as Ron Paul, the federal government attracts the type of people who love spending money, as long as that money has been forcibly taken from others. This love of spending other people’s money knows no bounds. These big spenders are able to come up with an unlimited number of programs that they are convinced are essential to the security and well-being of the nation. Their imagination on how to spend other people’s money has no bounds.

Of course, we see this phenomenon play out with both the welfare state at home and the warfare state abroad.

Here at home, we have Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, education grants, SBA loans, food stamps, public housing, corporate bailouts, stimulus plans, payments to cronies on Wall Street, and much, much more.

There are also the never-ending array of regulatory agencies and programs, with the 35-year-old failed and destructive war on drugs being the premier one. There is also the SEC, with its ridiculous insider-trading laws and other silly regulations. Or the FTC. The list goes on and on.

It’s the same with the warfare state. New planes, bombs, drones, soldiers, coups, assassinations, sanctions, embargoes, invasions, wars of aggression, and occupations. The list of things on which to spend other people’s money abroad is endless. And like the welfare state and regulatory programs, they’re all considered vital to the well-being and security of the nation.

To pay for all these programs, government officials turn to the IRS, a vicious and terrifying agency if there ever was one. That’s the agency that is charged with collecting the money to pay for the grandiose welfare-warfare programs that federal officials come up. We all know what happens if someone refuses to pay the money that funds these programs. They will prosecute, incarcerate, and fine those who prove to be recalcitrant.

However, a certain problem always arises: The amount of money the IRS is collecting is not sufficient to cover the costs of the grandiose plans that federal officials come up with to spend other people’s money. The costs of the programs — which, again, have no limit in the minds of government officials — begin to far exceed the amount the IRS is forcing people to send in.

Of course, there is an obvious solution to this quandary. All that U.S. officials have to do is simply order the IRS to go out and collect a higher percentage of people’s income. Instead of requiring people to send in 25—30 percent of their income, for example, people could be ordered to send 40 percent, 50 percent, or higher to cover whatever the programs are costing.

But that approach is problematic. As taxes go higher, the taxpayers starting getting upset. Tax resistance and tax revolts become more popular, inducing the IRS to more severely crack down on people by sending more of them to jail, producing more anger and resentment. High taxes have even been known to result in revolutions. In a democracy, high taxes create a problem for incumbents because a disgruntled citizenry tends to vote them out of office.

So, what’s the solution to this problem? It’s simple. The grandiose big spenders simply go out and borrow the money to cover the difference between what they’re spending and what the IRS is collecting from people.

Now, permit me digress a moment. Some 40 years ago, both liberals and conservatives sent some 58,000 men of my generation to their deaths thousands of miles away, in Vietnam, in one of those foreign wars that are so beloved to both conservatives and liberals. The rationale for sending those men to their deaths, along with killing more than a million Vietnamese people, was the communist threat, a threat that was considered by conservatives and liberals to be even more frightening than the terrorist threat today. We were told that if these American men weren’t fighting and dying in Vietnam, the dominoes would start falling and finally end with a communist conquest of the United States. We were told that the communists were one gigantic block of people, led by the Chinese communists and Soviet communists.

We were constantly reminded of how evil and destructive these communist regimes were, which was about the only truthful thing U.S. officials ever said.

Now, some 40 years later, guess who has become the premier foreign lender-in-chief for the U.S. government. You guessed it: The Chinese communists! Imagine that. That’s where both conservatives and liberals have been borrowing a large portion of the money to fund their grandiose welfare-warfare programs for the past 8 years. What better example of moral debauchery and hypocrisy than that? After all, the Chinese communist regime in China hasn’t changed its essential nature one iota in the last 40 years.

Do you remember when liberals used to travel to China and lecture the Chinese communists on their human-rights abuses? Not anymore. Do you remember when conservatives would puff out their chests and quote Ronald Reagan’s famous line to the Soviet communists: “Tear down this wall!”? Well, you won’t see them in China declaring, “Tear down this evil system!”

The reason for the silence is not difficult to decipher. It’s not wise to antagonize one’s lender. Today, U.S. officials, from the president on down, travel to China to pay homage to their chief foreign lender and plead that it not call in the loans by dumping its U.S. debt instruments onto the market. They arrive in China, kneel before their banker, and kiss the hands of these communist tyrants. And all to fund their grandiose programs without the political costs associated with raising income taxes.

During President Obama’s recent visit to China, his lenders demanded assurances with respect to repayment of their loans. What they were referring to is the time-honored way by which governments pay off massive accumulated debts — by simply printing new money and paying off the creditors with it. After all, the alternative is to raise income taxes to pay off the accumulated debt — again, your personal share of this debt is $40,000 — something that might get voters upset.

Enter the Federal Reserve. That’s its job — to monetize the debt — to print the necessary money that pays off federal debt without raising income taxes. This is why the Fed was created. No, it had nothing to do with stabilizing the value of money. The mission of the Fed was — and is — to enable federal officials to spend to their heart’s content on their unlimited number of welfare-warfare state programs.

Now, we all know from Economics 101 that when you increase the supply of something, ordinarily its price is going to go down. The principle is no different when it comes to the supply of a currency. As the Fed cranks up the printing press and begins supplying the market with more dollars, the price of the dollar tends to fall. And there is only one way in which that decrease in price to be reflected — by rising prices of everything that dollars buy. When you see the dollar prices of everything rising, that’s a consequence of lots of newly printed Federal Reserve dollars having flooded the market.

Obviously, creditors get wiped out by this process, as they are receiving payment with money that has a significantly lower value than the money they initially loaned. We often hear that the Chinese would never be stupid enough to dump their U.S. securities onto the market all at once because they would lose a lot of money. But what happens if the Chinese decide that holding onto the securities and receiving debased currency in payment will be more costly to them than simply taking their lumps all at once by dumping the securities on the market? If that day comes, Americans might well have the opportunity of witnessing a monetary crisis that boggles the imagination.

Another group of people that are hurt by this inflationary process are the poor, the people with very low incomes who are least able to withstand a significant decrease in the value of their earnings. Or consider the little old widow whose husband was nave enough to invest in U.S. savings bonds. She soon discovers that her $1,000 in fixed monthly income now buys only $250 worth of goods and services.

Nonetheless, the liberals will continue repeating their mantra about they love the poor, needy, and disadvantaged, and conservatives will repeatedly remind people how compassionate they are.

As prices in society begin rising in response to the devaluing dollar, the average person doesn’t have any idea that the government is behind it, which is precisely why government officials love a central bank so much. They know full well that the average person is going to lay the blame for rising prices on such things as greed, capitalism, free enterprise, and profit. Seeing prices rise, he’ll blame the oil companies, the service station owners, the grocers, and clothing stores. The last thing he’ll consider is that it is the federal government itself, operating through the Federal Reserve, that is responsible.

After all, most people look upon the federal government as a friend, a parent, even a god. Our government is our provider, they say. It provides our retirement, food, unemployment compensation, health care, education, and so forth. It also protects us from the terrorists, the communists, the drug dealers, the illegal aliens, and other scary creatures. It would never do anything bad to us, much less seize our income and earnings secretly and surreptitiously through monetary debasement.

Federal officials themselves feed into this mass ignorance. Behaving as if inflation is akin the flu — like some sort of ailment that just strikes a nation at random, they exhort the citizenry to help defeat the enemy of rising prices. For example, they’ll distribute buttons for people to wear that declare “WIN — Whip Inflation Now.” More ominously, they impose price controls on businesses, which produce shortages, which make people even angrier at private-sector businesses.

Of course, government officials just smile at this entire process because from their standpoint, it is so successful. With the help of the Fed, they’re able to fund all their grandiose programs without paying the political price that would be associated with increasing the amount of money people are forced to pay to the IRS. And when prices rise in response to what the Fed is doing, people blame the private sector rather than the federal government.

Now, there’s another important aspect here to the Fed’s operations. We’ve heard a lot about socialism lately. People are saying that President Obama is moving our nation in a socialist direction, as exemplified by his national health-care plan. Of course, they’re right. After all, national health care in Cuba is the pride and joy of Fidel Castro, a socialist par excellence.

But when Republicans point their finger at Obama, they should keep in mind that three other fingers pointing back at themselves. The fact is that Republicans are as devoted to socialist programs as Democrats are, notwithstanding their pro-free-enterprise rhetoric.

But it’s important that we note that there are different aspects to socialism.

There is the pure socialism, where the government owns everything and everyone works for the government.

But there are also socialistic programs in which the government takes money from one group of people in order to give it to another group, exemplifying the Marxian principle “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”

Another aspect of socialism is when the government owns and operates particular businesses, like the communist government does in China … and like the U.S. government does here with insurance companies, banks, and auto companies.

But another aspect of socialism — one that relates directly to the Federal Reserve — is socialistic central planning. This is the process by which a group of public officials plan complex activities that would ordinarily be left to the free market. As the Nobel Prize—winning Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek pointed out, these people have a “pretense of knowledge,” honestly believing that they possess the requisite knowledge to plan and direct complex market phenomena. As the Soviets learned, central planning inevitably leads to chaos and crisis.

A good example of central planning involves public (or government) schools. A bureaucratic or political board, either at a national, state, or local level, plans, in a top-down, army-like fashion, the educational activities of hundreds, thousands, or millions of students. And people wonder why public schooling is such a mess!

It’s no different with the Federal Reserve. Here you have a board of government officials pretending to have the requisite knowledge to determine some ideal quantity of money in society. And so they’re constantly expanding and contracting, in the process producing booms and busts, chaos and crisis.

As libertarians, we understand the importance of capital to prosperity and a rising standard of living. When people save, they place their savings in the bank. That increase in the supply of available capital causes interest rates to drop, sending a signal to businesses that additional capital is available in the marketplace. Businesses borrow the money to purchase tools and equipment that make their workers more productive. More productivity increases the revenue of the firm, thereby making more money available to pay higher wages.

Along comes election time, which is an important time for incumbent public officials. To assist them, the Fed engages in intricate operations that artificially lower the interest rate, thereby sending a false signal into the market. Businessmen rely on that signal, borrow the money, and expand their operations. A couple of years later, things shake out. The so-called bubble bursts, as it has in the home-mortgage market. The irony is that the statists, Republicans and Democrats alike, blame inevitably blame the crises on “free enterprise” and call for socialist measures to solve the problem, as they have in the current mortgage crisis.

One of the most fascinating crises the Fed has caused since it was established in 1913 was the Great Depression. Oh yes, I know the official story we were all taught in our public (i.e., government) schools. The Great Depression was the failure of America’s free-enterprise system and Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal programs saved America’s free-enterprise system.

Long ago, another Nobel Prize—winning economist, Milton Friedman, established that it was actually the Federal Reserve that caused the Great Depression. Taking the same position were the Austrian economists, most notably Hayek and Ludwig von Mises. By over-expanding the money supply during the 1920s and then over-contracting, the Fed precipitated the 1929 stock-market crash that triggered the Great Depression.

Several years ago, Ben Bernanke, before he became chairman of the Federal Reserve, was speaking at a dinner in honor of Friedman. In what has turned out to be one of the most remarkable admissions by a public official, Bernanke openly and publicly admitted that it was the Federal Reserve that caused the Great Depression.

Franklin Roosevelt seized on that government-caused crisis to revolutionize America’s economic system, foisting on our land a panoply of socialist and fascist programs, in the name of “saving free enterprise.” In fact, Roosevelt’s programs mirrored what the Benito Mussolini was doing in fascist Italy and what Joseph Stalin had been doing in communist Russia. Indeed, even the chancellor of Germany in the 1930s sent Roosevelt a letter commending him on his economic programs, stating that he were doing the same thing in Germany.

So, what’s the solution to all this mess? The solution involves returning to first principles, the founding principles of our nation. We need to review the heritage of economic liberty of our nation and examine where we got off course. We need to examine why the Founding Fathers and why our American ancestors rejected not only a central bank but also an income tax and an IRS. We need to restore the principles of liberty on which our country was founded.

The Constitution expressly prohibits the states from making anything but gold and silver coins legal tender. How could you have a clearer expression of intent than that? It also prohibits the states from emitting bills of credit, which means paper money. The Constitution also did not grant the power to Congress to issue paper money or to make paper money legal tender.

In other words, the Framers clearly rejected paper money and legal-tender laws. They understood the inflationary horrors that public officials had inflicted on people throughout history. They intended us to have a gold standard.

Now, one of the biggest myths about the gold standard is that it supposedly involved some exchange ratio between paper money and gold. That’s nonsense. All that the gold standard meant was that Americans would use gold and silver coins, and nickel and copper coins for smaller transactions, as their money.

Throughout that time, federal officials would periodically borrow money — that is, borrow gold. They would evidence that indebtedness with promissory notes. Sometimes, in order to finance grandiose programs, they would over-issue notes. When people would discover that the government had issued $10 million in notes and only had $5 million in gold, the notes would begin being traded at a discount. In other words, the gold standard placed a practical limit placed on the ability of government officials to pay for their grandiose projects.

In blaming the Great Depression on free enterprise, Roosevelt and his cronies also convinced people that part of the problem was the fact that the American people were using gold coins and silver coins as their money. Nothing could be more ludicrous. Nonetheless, Roosevelt used the economic emergency to commit one of the most heinous crimes in U.S. history. He ordered every American to turn in his gold to the federal government, at a devalued price. What had been the money standard for more a century now became a federal felony offense.

There are those who are concerned that President Obama might seize their guns. It’s a legitimate concern, especially in the context of a new emergency. People should also be concerned about Obama’s potential seizure of people’s gold. Like his icon Franklin Roosevelt, Obama knows that people buy gold to protect themselves from the Federal Reserve, and statists hate that. Moreover, the re-nationalization of gold would provide a new source of revenue to fund the ever-growing, grandiose programs of the statists.

By prohibiting Americans from owning gold in the 1930s and by converting America to a fiat money standard (without even the semblance of a constitutional amendment), the big spenders in government had finally fulfilled their dreams. Decade after decade, they could spend other people’s money to their heart’s content. It is not a coincidence that the paper dollar today is worth about 5 percent of what it was worth before the Fed was created. That’s what decades of monetary debasement have accomplished.

To restore a free society to our land requires the abolition of many departments and agencies of the federal government. Chief among these are the twin jugular veins of the welfare-warfare state — the income tax and the Federal Reserve. People should be free to choose whatever money they want. It’s what Hayek called “the denationalization of money.”

We must never fall for the siren song of “reform.” We must rid our nation of these statist scourges. In the monetary arena, that can only mean one thing: End the Fed.

Jacob Hornberger [send him mail] is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.

Jacob Hornberger Archives

Yes, I know, there are going to be those who resent such a suggestion, exclaiming, u201CJust because the idea might have come from Hitler doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bad.u201D They might point, for example, to the U.S. Interstate Highway System, which was inspired by Hitler’s autobahn system. Or they might point to Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, whose programs were remarkably similar to the socialist and fascist programs of Hitler as well as those of Benito Mussolini and Joseph Stalin. (See Three New Deals: Reflections on Roosevelt’s America, Mussolini’s Italy, and Hitler’s Germany, 1933—1939 by Wolfgang Schivelbusch).

Indeed, such people might even point out the fact that Social Security under Hitler and Roosevelt had a common root — Otto von Bismarck, the so-called Iron Chancellor of Germany, who himself had gotten the idea from German socialists.

In any event, in 1933 soon after Hitler had become chancellor, the terrorists fire-bombed the German parliament building, the Reichstag, destroying most of the building. As you can imagine, the attack threw the nation into a major crisis, just as 9/11 did for the United States.

The crisis in Germany became graver when it was discovered that the suspected terrorists were communists, for that meant that Germany was now facing two major threats to national security at the same time: terrorism and communism. (To get a sense of the magnitude of the crisis, combine the U.S. cold war against the communists with the subsequent war on terrorism.)

Hitler immediately sought a suspension of civil liberties from the Reichstag to deal with the national emergency. National security is at stake, he exclaimed. In this time of national crisis, when the security of our nation is in jeopardy, we cannot afford the niceties of civil liberties, he said. I need temporary emergency powers to deal with this crisis.

The Reichstag granted Hitler’s request, suspended civil liberties, and gave him the temporary emergency powers he sought to deal with the crisis. Civil liberties could and should be temporarily sacrificed to preserve the nation, the reasoning went.

In the meantime, the people who had been charged with the terrorist strike on the Reichstag were brought to trial in Germany’s regular, constitutional judicial system. Only one of the defendants, however, was convicted. All the rest were acquitted.

Needless to say, Hitler was not happy with the court’s verdict. These were terrorists and communists, after all! Hitler and the Gestapo had said so. What more proof did the courts need than that? How dare German judges threaten national security by releasing terrorists and communists back on the street?

Hitler’s solution? To ensure that this didn’t happen again, he established a new-fangled judicial system for handling terrorism cases. It was called the People’s Court. This new judicial system had the trappings of Germany’s regular judicial system but with one big difference: There would be no more u201Cnot guiltyu201D verdicts for people that German officials said were terrorists. No more threats to national security by releasing terrorists back on the streets. Moreover, under the guise of protecting national security, the proceedings could be held in secret to preserve government secrets.

Are the circumstances and reasons for establishing a new tribunal system in Germany similar to those for establishing a new post-9/11 tribunal system in the United States?

Prior to 9/11, it was a well-established principle that terrorism cases could be tried only in federal district court. That’s not surprising given that that terrorism has long been listed in the U.S. Code as a criminal offense — and still is. That’s precisely why terrorists are still being indicted and tried in federal district court even today.

Thus, when the terrorists struck the World Trade Center in 1993, Ramzi Yousef, one of the terrorist perpetrators, was tried, convicted, and sentenced in federal district court. Again, that’s because terrorism is a criminal offense in the U.S. Code, a fact that no one disputes.

Like the Reichstag fire bombing, the 9/11 terrorist strike gave Bush and the Pentagon the excuse to establish a new-fangled judicial system for trying suspected terrorists. Like the People’s Court in Germany, it would exist independently of both the civilian courts and the military justice system. It was a brand new judicial system, one for trying terrorists, just like Hitler’s.

Unlike Hitler, however, Bush and the Pentagon established their new system in a foreign country, Cuba. The reason? To ensure that their system would not be bound by the rights and guarantees in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and to ensure that there would be no interference by the federal courts.

The primary reason for establishing a new judicial system for trying terrorists was precisely the same as Hitler’s: to ensure that terrorists were not acquitted and released back on the streets, where they could commit more terrorist acts against Americans.

In the federal courts, there are numerous obstacles to securing convictions — due process of law, criminal-defense attorneys, cross-examination of adverse witnesses, juries, the presumption of innocence, independent judges, and so forth. There is always a chance of an acquittal, even for defendants that the government is convinced 100 percent are terrorists.

It was the same problem Hitler faced after the acquittal of the Reichstag terrorists.

The solution that U.S. officials came up with was the same one that Hitler came up with: establish a brand new judicial system where convictions would be guaranteed. No more legal technicalities that would enable judges to let terrorists back on the streets. No more pesky defense attorneys ardently fighting for the acquittal of their clients. Just convictions and punishment for the terrorists.

That’s what the new-fangled judicial system in Cuba was all about. It was also what Hitler’s People’s Court was all about.

Now, it’s true that in Germany Hitler had civilian bureaucrats presiding over his tribunals while Bush and President Obama have military officials presiding over theirs. But isn’t that a distinction without a difference? The point is that in both systems tribunal officers are ultimately answerable to their superiors and have every incentive to please their superiors with a correct verdict.

While both systems have the trappings of regular court proceeding, the verdicts are never in doubt, as they are in the federal courts. In fact, both the People’s Court and the U.S. tribunals are nothing more than kangaroo proceedings, ones in which they play like justice is being administered while everyone knows what is actually going on.

Hitler’s tribunal system and the U.S. tribunal system have another characteristic in common — the ability to tightly control the proceedings, even making them secret. This has the benefit of preventing the terrorists from making a u201Ccircusu201D out of the trial by providing them a forum from which they can describe their motives to the world.

Nothing scares U.S. interventionists more than any proceeding that might focus on the bad things that the U.S. government has been doing to people overseas, which has engendered the anger and rage that has led to terrorist retaliation. The charade that the terrorists hate us for our u201Cfreedom and valuesu201D must be maintained at all costs.

A federal proceeding, one in which the public and the media have a right to attend, might end up enabling the defendants to publicly explain their motives for attacking the United States, which is precisely what happened at Ramzi Yousef’s sentencing hearing after his conviction for the 1993 terrorist attack. That danger evaporates with the U.S. tribunal system, as there is no possibility a tribunal officer would ever permit an examination into U.S. foreign policy as part of such proceedings.

One of the most fascinating trials before the People’s Court was that involving Hans and Sophie Scholl and the members of the White Rose organization. To gain a sense of how Hitler’s tribunal system operated, go rent the movie Sophie Scholl: The Final Days, which is based on actual transcripts of the proceedings. As you watch the trial, you will get a good sense of how things operate in the U.S. tribunal system in Cuba — disrespect for criminal-defense lawyers, presumption of guilt for the accused, the false trappings of a regular judicial system, and a preordained verdict.

To ensure that Germans couldn’t hear Hans and Sophie, who were in their early 20s, explain why they had published pamphlets critical of the Hitler regime and exhorting Germans not to support the troops, their tribunal trial was held in secret. When their parents tried to enter the courtroom, they were refused entry, and were told that they should have raised their children better.

Sure, there are differences in the two systems. For example, the U.S. system permits defendants a limited right to summon some witnesses on their behalf while the German system did not. (By the same token, U.S. tribunal prosecutors are entitled to use hearsay evidence and evidence acquired by torture.) Such differences, however, don’t change the essential nature and purpose of the two systems: to ensure convictions and keep defendants from publicly exposing the wrongdoing of the government.

One interesting difference between the two systems is that in Germany, all people accused of terrorism were brought before the People’s Court. That included German citizens. In the American system, the federal system and the new-fangled tribunal system have concurrent jurisdiction to try terrorism cases. That means that U.S. officials have the ad hoc, discretionary authority to treat accused terrorists in two completely different ways — either by sending them down the federal court route or the new-fangled tribunal route. It would be difficult to find a clearer violation of the principles of equal protection and the rule of law than that.

Of course, this dual system of arbitrary and capricious justice is itself a sham, given that U.S. officials wield the post-9/11 power to take any person acquitted by a federal court back into custody as a terrorist.

Was Hitler the inspiration for the post-9/11 U.S. tribunal system, as he was for America’s Interstate Highway System? I don’t know, but given the similarities in the goals, nature, and circumstances of Hitler’s People’s Court and the U.S. post-9/11 tribunal system, it’s certainly a question worth asking.

Jacob Hornberger [send him mail] is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.

Jacob Hornberger Archives

Obama demands that the Vatican open the vote to all Catholics. The Vatican responds that its method of electing the Pope is none of the U.S. government’s business. Butt out, the Pope tells Obama.

Obama orders a U.S. invasion of Vatican City, with the express aim of spreading democracy to that part of the world. The troops are ordered to mobilize and prepare for the invasion.

The Vatican condemns the coming war of aggression, pointing out that it violates the UN Charter and the principles set forth at Nuremberg. He also points out that such an invasion would violate the U.S. Constitution since the president has failed to secure the constitutionally required congressional declaration of war against the Vatican. Most important of all, the Pope points out that the killing of Vatican citizens by U.S. soldiers will constitute grave, mortal sins under God’s laws.

The president is not dissuaded. He orders the troops to undertake the invasion, reminding them that people everywhere, especially Catholics, will be grateful for their efforts to spread democracy.

For his part, the Pope orders all citizens of Vatican City, including bishops, priests, and nuns to take up arms to defend against the U.S. invasion.

How would Catholic soldiers react? Would they suffer a crisis of conscience or at least a bit of discomfort over the prospect of having to kill other Catholics, including bishops, priests, nuns, and possibly even the Pope?

Well, it really wouldn’t matter how they would react. Under U.S. military dictates, Catholic soldiers would be expected to follow orders and do their duty. Conscientious-objector status would be out of the question, since the military does not recognize such a status on a war-by-war basis. Soldiers would be counseled by military chaplains, including Catholic priests, that they could in good conscience trust the judgment of their commander in chief. God would understand and approve, the chaplains would tell their men. America is an exceptional nation.

The invasion begins. Interventionists announce that the time for debate is over and that all patriots must now come together and rally to the flag. “Support the troops” stickers immediately appear on people’s cars. Church ministers all across the land exhort their parishioners to pray for the troops, especially those in harm’s way and defending our freedoms. American flags are prominently posted in church altars.

After thousands of deaths and injuries, the U.S. government prevails in the conflict, and Americans celebrate the victory. Democracy is brought to the Vatican. Catholics everywhere now get to vote for the Pope. To ensure that democracy remains, U.S. troops continue to occupy the country, periodically killing insurgent bishops, priests, and nuns who continue to resist the occupation. Obama is hailed as an historic democracy-spreader and is nominated to receive another Nobel Peace Prize.

Meanwhile, American soldiers, especially the Catholic ones, are returning home all screwed up in the head, beating their wives and children, committing murder and suicide, and engaging in other forms of aberrant behavior. Most everyone attributes it to the stress of combat. Hardly anyone considers the possibility that the soldiers might be struggling with having chosen to surrender their consciences by following military orders that violated the laws of God.

Jacob Hornberger [send him mail] is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.

Jacob Hornberger Archives