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Jacob Hornberger
Let us engage in a thought experiment. Suppose that Ukraine was headed by a pro-Russia regime. After repeated failed attempts at assassination by the CIA, the Pentagon finally decides to invade Ukraine for the purpose of bringing about regime change such as ousting the pro-Russia regime from power and replacing it with a pro-US regime.
What then would be the response of the American statists, especially those within the US mainstream press?
There is no doubt about the answer.
Everything would be different than it is today with the Russian military action against Ukraine.
The media would be proudly embedding itself within the US military’s invading forces.
Mainstream papers would be reporting and commenting on the courage of US troops.
There would be no sympathetic pictures or videos of Ukrainian civilians killed; they would all be labelled as “collateral damage.”
Church ministers across the land would be exhorting their congregations to pray for the troops.
Every statist across the land would be tripping over himself to find some soldier to thank for his service. Airlines would be inviting soldiers to board planes first as a way to honour them.
Statists would be condemning the “bad guys” — that is, those Ukrainians who were shooting at American soldiers. Every statist would be praising and glorifying the Pentagon for bringing freedom to Ukraine.
How do we know that American statists would react in this way to a Pentagon invasion of Ukraine?
Two answers: Afghanistan and Iraq. That is how statists reacted when it was the Pentagon that invaded those two countries. That is how we know that that is how statists would react if it were the Pentagon, rather than Russia, that invaded Ukraine.
When I was in high school and college, a common question that would be asked regarding World War II was: How could the German people overwhelmingly support Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party?
After all, today the Nazi regime is easily recognised by most Americans as the “gold standard” when it comes to evil. Why were the Germany people not able to see that?
The German people had the same conception about government that American statists do.
They believed that the more powerful their government, the stronger their nation. Actually, it is the exact opposite.
The more powerful the government, the weaker the nation — that is, the weaker the populace. That weakness is reflected by citizens with passive and deferential mindsets.
Consider the words of Nazi official Herman Goering at the Nuremberg trials: “Of course the people do not want war. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it is a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship.”
Is it not why US statists overwhelmingly supported the Pentagon’s invasion of Afghanistan? Did they not passively and patriotically buy into the US government’s official pronouncement that the Taliban was complicit in the 9/11 attacks?
Did they not also passively and patriotically buy into the US government’s official pronouncement that Iraq was about to unleash “mushroom clouds” over American cities?
And is it not that also why US statists are doing everything they can to avoid confronting the sordid role that the Pentagon, operating through its old Cold War dinosaur NATO, has played in producing the Russia-Ukraine war that has now killed thousands of people?
This is what happens under omnipotent government. You get a weak nation of citizens with passive, deferential mindsets, ones that go with whatever the official flow is.
As I point out in my new book An Encounter with Evil: The Abraham Zapruder Story, it is always easy to identify and confront evil in foreign regimes. Anyone can do that, as American statists are easily able to do with respect to Nazi Germany. It is a much more difficult task to identify and confront evil within one’s own regime, which is why most Germans were unable to identify and confront the evil of the Nazi regime. What we need in America is a great awakening, one in which Americans achieve a higher level of conscience, consciousness, and independence of thought. — Countrepunch
Jacob George Hornberger is an American attorney, author, and politician who was a Libertarian candidate for president in 2000 and 2020. He is the founder and president of the Future of Freedom Foundation.
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