Two
Critically Important Debates: What The Imperialists Say -
Crazy
12 January 2010By Jacob G. Hornberger
Two of the most important debates facing the American
people involve two particular issues, one in domestic
policy and one in foreign policy. Both debates are
critically important because they entail diagnosing
two major woes that are facing our country and
arriving at correct solutions to resolve the problems.
The domestic debate, which I and many other
libertarians have addressed several times in the past,
involves the question of what has caused America’s
economic woes.
One side — the statist side — claims that the problem
lies in freedom and free enterprise.
The other side — the libertarian side — contends that
our nation’s economic woes lies in the failure of the
welfare-state, regulated-economy way of life that
America has embraced since at least the 1930s.
The different diagnoses lead to two completely
different solutions.
The statists say that since the problem is rooted in
too much economic freedom and not enough regulation,
the solution is to establish more government control
over economic activity.
The libertarians say that since the problem is rooted
in socialism and interventionism, the solution is to
dismantle the welfare-state and regulatory programs
(and the taxation funding them) and let genuine
economic liberty reign.
The foreign policy debate involves the issue of what
motivates people of Muslim faith to commit terrorist
acts against the United States.
One side — the imperialist side — says that people of
Muslim faith are motivated by hatred for America’s
“freedom and values” and by religious principles in
the Koran.
The other side — the libertarian side — holds that
people of Muslim faith are motivated by anger over bad
things that the U.S. government has done to Muslim
people over the past several decades.
The imperialists say that since Muslims are set on
killing Americans because of religious and cultural
reasons, the U.S. government must send its military
and paramilitary forces abroad to kill Islamic
extremists before they make it to the United States
and kill Americans.
The libertarians say that that’s crazy, not only
because it is what fuels the anger and hatred in the
first place, but also because it’s the sure-fire way
to push ordinary Muslims into the arms of the
extremists.
Over the weekend, there were two interesting videos
posted on the Internet regarding motivation. One
showed White House correspondent Helen Thomas asking a
question at a White House briefing on the Detroit
airline bomb incident. The other video showed the wife
of the suicide bomber who killed several CIA agents in
Afghanistan.
Thomas created significant discomfort within White
House personnel by asking the question that no other
White House correspondent dares ask: What is it that
motivates the terrorists? When she pressed the
question, you could almost sense the feeling of
irritability in John Brennan, deputy assistant to the
president and deputy national security advisor for
Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, as he
delivered the stock answer of the imperialists — that
it’s all because the terrorists are motivated by a
warped interpretation of Islam and just want to wreak
death and destruction on Americans..
In other words, according to Brennan, anger against
the United States in the Middle East has nothing to do
with all the imperialist and interventionist actions
that the U.S. government has been taking in that part
of the world, and in Afghanistan, for the past several
decades — the coups, assassinations, sanctions,
embargoes, torture, support of brutal and corrupt
dictatorships, rendition, torture, kidnappings, U.S.
troops on Muslim holy lands, military invasions,
occupations, no-fly zones, official indifference to
the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children
from the sanctions, unconditional military and
financial support of the Israeli government, and so
forth. Presumably, Brennan would argue, with a
straight face, that all that death, maiming, harm,
humiliation, and destruction could not possibly be a
factor in how people in that part of the world feel
about America.
Yet, the other videotape that surfaced over the
weekend — that of the wife of the suicide bomber who
killed those CIA agents in Afghanistan — contradicts
Brennan’s claim about motive. She says, “He was very
disturbed. For example he was outraged over news that
our sisters were raped at Abu Ghraib. He was
constantly expressing his anger about the invasion of
Muslim lands…. I think the war against America must
goes on. We must oppose it as he tries to put the
entire world under its sovereignty.”
The woman’s sentiments are no different from those
expressed by the suicide bomber’s father, who told the
New York Times: “Fighting the arrogant, unjust,
haughty and tyrant American who kills civilians and
innocent people makes the whole Islamic world hate
America.”
Indeed, the suicide bomber himself left a video in
which he stated that his attack was carried out in
revenge for the 2009 [CIA] killing of the Pakistani
Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud.
While we’re on the subject of motive, perhaps we
should ask two questions: (1) What is that motivates
U.S. statists to blame America’s economic woes on
“freedom and free enterprise” rather than on America’s
70-year experiment with welfare-statism and
regulation. And (2) what is it that motivates U.S.
imperialists to blame America’s foreign-policy woes on
Muslims’ hatred for America’s cultural and religious
values rather than on U.S. foreign policy?
It seems to me that the answer to those two questions
is the same: If enough Americans figure out that we
libertarians are right, the days of socialism,
interventionism, and imperialism in America might well
be numbered.
Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of The
Future of Freedom Foundation.
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