The
Surreal World of Foreign Interventionism
By
Jacob G. Hornberger
April
02, 2017 "Information
Clearing House"
- "
FFF"
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On March 21 — 9
days ago — I published an article entitled “Prepare
Now for Blowback,”
in which I pointed out what would seem to be
obvious to any reasonable person after some 27
continuous years of U.S. interventionism in the
Middle East and 16 continuous years of
interventionism in Afghanistan: that some people
who sympathize with the people who the U.S.
government is killing, bombing, and destroying
are going to retaliate with terrorist attacks.
It’s just a fact of interventionist life.
I
suggested that people should ponder the blowback
from U.S foreign policy now, when things are
relatively calm, because when another big
retaliatory terrorist attack occurs here in the
United States, rational thinking is going to be
in short supply. That’s when U.S. officials will
be exclaiming about how the terrorists (or the
Muslims) hate us for our freedom and values and
will be completely ignoring the role that U.S.
interventionism plays in producing the deep
anger and hatred that motivates acts of
anti-American revenge.
Back on December 1, 2016, I published an article
entitled, “OSU’s
Foreign Policy Blowback,”
in which I commented on how large crowds of
people on sidewalks in Las Vegas were an
inviting target for a terrorist vehicle attack.
I wrote: “There was nothing local authorities in
Las Vegas could do to prevent a car going at top
speed from plowing into the throng of people on
some sidewalk on the strip.”
A
couple of weeks later, on December 19, 2016, a
terrorist intentionally drove a giant truck into
a crowded market in Berlin with the intent to
kill as many people as possible. He succeeded in
killing 12.
Then,
last week, two days after I published my March
21 article, a terrorist struck in London by
intentionally driving a sport utility vehicle
into pedestrians on Westminster Bridge, killing
four and injuring dozens more.
No, I
am not some sort of Nostradamus or psychic who
is able to predict the future. It’s just a
matter of logic and common sense. When a
government goes abroad and kills, maims, bombs,
assassinates, and destroys individuals, wedding
parties, families and homes, businesses, and
properties, there are likely to be some people
who get angry about that.
Of
course, from the standpoint of the U.S.
government, the ideal is that foreign citizens
passively and submissively accept their death
and and destruction as simply their plight in
life.
But
that ideal is not reality. The fact is that
people tend to get angry when a foreign regime
invades their lands and kills, maims, bombs, and
destroys people, businesses, and country, and
some of them inevitably decide to retaliate.
Longtime readers of FFF know that prior to the
9/11 attacks, here at FFF we were saying that
there was likely to be more blowback on American
soil. I say “more” because what many Americans
tend to forget is that there was pre-9/11
terrorist blowback from the massive death and
destruction that the U.S. government had been
wreaking in Iraq throughout the 1990s, including
the killings of hundreds of thousands of
innocent Iraqi children with the sanctions that
the U.S. government and the UN were enforcing
against Iraq. That pre-9/11 blowback included
the 1993 terrorist attack on the World Trade
Center, the attack on the USS Cole, and the
attacks on the U.S. embassies in East Africa.
That’s
how we were able to foresee the 9/11 attacks —
we had seen the terrorist blowback arising from
U.S. foreign policy prior to 9/11.
It also came as no surprise to us when U.S.
officials immediately claimed that the 9/11
attacks were motivated by terrorist (or Muslim)
hatred for America’s “freedom and values.” When
I brought up U.S. foreign policy as the
motivating attack in an article entitled “Is
This the Wrong Time to Question Foreign Policy?”
on 9/27/2001, FFF was inundated with hateful
emails, cancellation of support, and invective
that suggested that we we were blaming America
and that we were terrorist justifiers — anything
to avoid focusing on the imperialist and
interventionist actions of the U.S. government.
Like I say, when blowback from U.S. foreign
policy comes, there is a severe shortage of
rational thinking.
Consider the recent attack in London. According
to the New
York Times,
immediately after the attack, British Prime
Minister Theresa May issued a variation of the
“they hate us for our freedom and values”
nonsense that we heard here in the United States
after the 9/11 attacks. She said “an act of
terrorism tried to silence our democracy” and
that it was “an attack on free people
everywhere.” Britain’s foreign secretary, Boris
Johnson, doubled down and implied that it was a
Muslim or Islam problem: “The world is united to
defeat the people who launched this attack and
to defeat their bankrupt and odious ideology.”
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See
what I mean? Just like after the 9/11 attacks,
these people cannot bring themselves to
acknowledge the concept of blowback from the
death, maiming, and destruction that comes with
interventionism. To do that would cause people
to focus on the root cause of the terrorism —
foreign interventionism. People would then be
faced with a choice: Interventionism, along with
the perpetual threat of terrorism, or
non-interventionism, along with a peaceful and
harmonious society.
Why
attack Great Britain when it is the U.S.
government that is the driving force of
imperialism and interventionism? Because ever
since Great Britain lost its empire as a
consequence of World War II, it has served as a
loyal poodle of American interventionists,
loyally supporting U.S. interventionism in the
Middle East and Afghanistan. That puts the
British people at risk for the blowback that
comes with U.S. interventionism.
Notice
something important here: The terrorists (or the
Muslims) haven’t attacked Switzerland with
terrorist attacks. Switzerland has the same
“freedom and values” as people in Great Britain
and the United States. The difference is that
the Swiss government hasn’t been killing,
bombing, shooting, and assassinating Muslims and
others for the past 27 years, as the U.S. and
British governments have.
Meanwhile, U.S. officials are now acknowledging
that a recent U.S. bombing attack in Mosul,
Iraq, the country they have been attacking,
invading, or occupying for 27 long years killed
scores of innocent civilians, perhaps as many as
100. “My initial assessment is that we probably
had a role in these casualties,” stated Lt. Gen.
Stephen J. Townsend.
Mark my
words: If blowback comes from family members of
any of those victims, U.S. officials will
immediately tell us how the attackers just hate
America for its freedom and values, are trying
to destroy our democracy, have an odious
ideology and religion, and that killing and
maiming their loved ones in that bombing attack
in Mosul had absolutely nothing to do with the
terrorism.
An
important point I have been making since FFF’s
inception 27 years ago bears reemphasizing,
especially before the next terrorist blowback:
If Americans want a peaceful, prosperous,
harmonious, and free society, a necessary
prerequisite is: Dismantle America’s military
empire and end all foreign interventionism.
Bring the troops home — all of them
from everywhere — and discharge them and abandon
all foreign military bases. Limit the U.S.
government to defending the United States, just
as the Swiss government does for Switzerland.
Restore a constitutionally limited-government
republic to our land.
Otherwise, everyone should continue to continue
to brace himself for endless terrorist blowback,
along the anti-American terrorist blowback, loss
of liberty and privacy, and financial financial
bankruptcy that come with foreign empire and
interventionism.
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. Send him
email.
The
views expressed in this article are solely those
of the author and do not necessarily reflect the
opinions of Information Clearing House.
