The statist outrage against Julian Assange and WikiLeaks is rooted in the U.S. government's imperial foreign policy. In fact, the entire war on terrorism and the ever-growing infringements on the fundamental rights and liberties of the American people revolve around the existence and the activities of the U.S. Empire.

What's the primary mission of the U.S. Empire? Diplomatic and military domination of the world, primarily by getting its people in public office in foreign regimes. The idea is that as foreign regimes join the Empire and submit to its will, the Empire will be better able to keep order and stability in the universe.

Some Americans, unable to come to grips with the fact that the United States is no longer a republic, as implied in the much-recited, socialist-created Pledge of Allegiance that people memorize in the government's public schools, exclaim, "The United States can't be an empire because the U.S. government never tries to take over foreign lands or install U.S. officials as rulers in foreign countries, as the Roman Empire or the British Empire did."

What those Americans fail to realize, however, is that the U.S. Empire is modeled more on the model of the Soviet Empire, which included the countries of Eastern Europe and East Germany, which the U.S. government had surrendered to the Soviet communists near the end of World War II. The Soviet Empire would permit such countries to be ruled by native puppets whose strings would be pulled from Moscow.

That's the way the U.S. Empire works. It counts on native lackies in countries around the world to do what the Empire orders but otherwise gives them free reign over their own people, including the unfettered authority to incarcerate, torture, abuse, or execute them. What matters is loyalty to the Empire and order in the universe. That's why the Empire has always preferred brutal, vicious, unelected dictators, especially military ones, for example in such countries as Iran (the Shah of Iran), Chile (Pinochet), Iraq (Saddam Hussein), Pakistan (Musharraf), and many others, especially in Latin America.

What are the means by which the Empire acquires members and maintains order in the universe? Assassinations, kidnappings, coups, executions, invasions, occupations, sanctions, embargoes, secret prisons, foreign aid, aid to NGOs, torture, and matters relating to sexual humiliation (e.g. Abu Ghraib and Gitmo). Whenever a foreign regime is headed by a ruler who shows resistance to the Empire, the Empire's sights immediately shift to that regime, and it becomes a potential target for regime change. Examples include Venezuela (Hugo Chavez), Cuba (Fidel Castro), Nicaragua (Daniel Ortega), and Bolivia (Evo Morales).

The reason that both statists and the Empire are so angry at Julian Assange and Wikileaks is that the documents that are being released expose the dirtiness and hypocrisy of Empire operations. For decades, it is been imperative that the Empire keep Americans innocently convinced that nothing changed with the advent of the U.S national security state after World War II. Americans were expected to just keep trusting that officials in the national security state were keeping America safe by having the U.S. Cold War Empire maintain stability and order in the world, to protect America and the world from the communists. And Americans were supposed to just keep thinking that everything U.S. officials were doing was positive and good, sort of like a big bunch of James Bonds out there protecting America from the bad guys.

What was actually occurring was a lot of dirty, unsavory conduct. But an implicit deal had been struck between the national security state and the American citizenry, as follows:

The State: To keep you safe, we might need to do some unsavory things but we will keep them secret from you on grounds of national security.

The Citizenry: We understand the need for the secrecy and we don't want to know what you're doing anyway. Do whatever you need to do to keep us safe and don't tell us about it. Cite national security.

Along comes WikiLeaks and reveals just a few of the lies and dirtiness that lie at the heart of the darkness and rot of the national security state and the U.S. Empire. That's why the statists and U.S. officials hate WikiLeaks so much. It has committed the unpardonable sin: It has revealed some of the dirty secrets of the national security state and the U.S. Empire, thereby piercing the conscience and consciousness of the American citizenry with reality and truth.

I know that statists don't like it whenever one brings up Nazi Germany in the context of the U.S. national security state and the U.S. Empire, but the words of Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels seem to me to be apropos: "The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth becomes the greatest enemy of the State."

Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.

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