22 November 2010
By Jacob G. Hornberger Americans are getting upset over the TSA gropers
and porn scanners. But are they now ready to support
the libertarian call to dismantle the U.S.
government's overseas military empire, which is the
root cause of the TSA groping and porn scanning? After the 9/11 attacks, the immediate cry from U.S.
officials was, "We're innocent! The terrorists have
attacked us because they hate our freedom and values."
Nonsense. As libertarians have consistently
maintained, both before 9/11 and after 9/11, the
terrorists attacked on 9/11 because of the bad things
the U.S. Empire had been doing to people in the Middle
East for decades. In fact, here at The Future of
Foundation we repeatedly warned, prior to 9/11, that
if the U.S. Empire continued doing those bad things to
people in the Middle East, the inevitable result would
be terrorism on American soil. See http://www.fff.org/freedom/0200a.asp With the 9/11 attacks, we were proved right. And we
weren't the only ones. Chalmers Johnson, author of the
pre-9/11 book Blowback: The Costs and Consequences
of American Empire, said the same thing: U.S.
foreign policy in the Middle East would bring about a
terrorist attack on American soil. Of course, U.S. imperialists and interventionists
didn't want to hear any criticism of the U.S. Empire.
In their minds, the U.S. government and our country
were one and the same thing. They suggested that
critics of the U.S. government were traitors to
America. To the statists, it was inconceivable that
genuine patriotism and a love of country sometimes
entail standing up to one's own government and
opposing its wrongdoing. What was the U.S. Empire doing to people in the
Middle East prior to 9/11? Here's a partial list: (1)
partnering with the brutal dictator Saddam Hussein and
even delivering to him those infamous WMDs that Saddam
later destroyed; (2) intervening in the Persian Gulf
War, killing countless Iraqis; (3) intentionally
bombing Iraq's water and sewage facilities with the
intent to spread infectious illnesses among the Iraqi
people; (4) enforcing one of the most brutal embargoes
in history against Iraq, preventing the repair of the
water and sewage facilities and leading to the deaths
of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children — yes,
children; (5) announcing to the world that the deaths
of half-a-million Iraqi children from the sanctions
were "worth it"; (6) enforcing the illegal no-fly
zones, killing more Iraqis in the process; (7)
stationing imperial troops near Mecca and Medina, the
holiest sites in the Muslim religion; and (8)
providing unconditional military and financial aid to
the Israeli government, year after year. What did the U.S. government do as a result of
9/11? Did it stop all these actions? Are you kidding? Hey, don't forget: U.S. officials
claimed that these things didn't have any adverse
effect on people in the Middle East. No, it was all
because they hate us for our freedom and values, they
steadfastly maintained. So, they used the 9/11 attacks to justify doing the
same sorts of things they had been doing prior to
9/11. Given that the Iraq embargo and the killing of
the Iraqi children had failed to secure the ouster of
Saddam Hussein, they used the 9/11 attacks to justify
an invasion of the country. And they did the same
thing in Afghanistan after the Taliban refused to
comply with President Bush's unconditional extradition
demand for Osama bin Laden, the man who they still
haven't captured or killed after 10 years of death and
destruction. What has been the result of the 9 or 10 years of
military occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan? Death,
mayhem, chaos, crisis, torture, tyranny, and
destruction in both countries, which means constant
anger and hatred, which means constant threat of
terrorist retaliation. Which brings us to the TSA gropers and porn
scanners. Hey, they're just keeping us safe from the
terrorists, aren't they? Isn't that what they're
supposed to do? Isn't that their job? If the
terrorists can carry liquid explosives, what are the
TSA gropers and porn-scanners supposed to do — stop
searching people's private parts? Wouldn't that then
become a likely place for terrorists to carry liquid
explosives? Anyway, don't forget what the statists often remind
us whenever they're justifying the latest assault on
civil liberty and privacy in the name of the war on
terrorism: If you're not guilty of anything, then why
should you care that they're groping your private
parts or peering at your naked body … or doing it to
your 12-year-old daughter? Today, America's overseas empire is helping to
bankrupt our nation. The empire encompasses 700-1000
overseas military bases in more than 130 countries.
The statists call it the "Department of Defense."
That's a delusion. In reality, it's the Department of
Empire and War. Coups, assassinations, support of brutal
dictatorships, torture, sanctions, embargoes,
interference in foreign elections, secret prison
camps, kangaroo tribunals, dual judicial systems,
invasions, occupations, assassinations, renditions,
kidnappings, cover-ups, lies and deception, death,
destruction, crisis, chaos, and mayhem. It's all part and parcel of the U.S. Empire, the
empire that continues to produce anger and hatred
among the victims, which then produces the threat of
terrorist retaliation, which then produces the need to
protect us from the terrorists with all those TSA
gropers and porn scanners. The solution to this inanity is plain: Dismantle
the empire, close the bases, and bring all the troops
home and discharge them. The anger and hatred
disappears, along with the threat of terrorist
retaliation. Things return to normal. No more TSA. No
more body gropers and porn scanners. The question is: What's more important to you: an
empire or your freedom, prosperity, and privacy? Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of The
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