The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity
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Jacob G. Hornberger

Why Immunity for the CIA?

Thursday August 13, 2020

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Amidst the controversy over the doctrine of qualified immunity for cops, no one is talking about the full immunity accorded to the Central Intelligence Agency, an agency within the national-security establishment that wields omnipotent power.
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Truman’s War Crimes at Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Thursday August 6, 2020

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This month marks the 75th anniversary of the US atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. While proponents of the bombings have long justified them on the basis that they shortened World War II, the fact is that they were war crimes. The only reason why President Truman and the pilots who dropped the bombs were not prosecuted as war criminals is because the United States ended up winning the war.

It has long been pointed out that Japan had expressed a willingness to surrender. The only condition was that the Japanese emperor not be abused or executed.

President Truman refused to agree to that condition. Like his predecessor Franklin Roosevelt, Truman demanded “unconditional surrender.”

That was why Japan continued fighting. Japanese officials naturally assumed that US officials were going to do some very bad things to their emperor, including torture and execution. In the minds of Japanese officials, why else would the United States not be willing to agree to that one condition, especially given that it would have meant the end of the war?
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Empire is the Root of US-China Hostilities

Monday August 3, 2020

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The biggest factor that has led the US government to initiate a hostile relationship against China involves the concept of empire. An empire wants to be the only empire or at least the dominant empire. That is, it wants to control everyone and everybody within its realm, which ideally encompasses the entire world.

That was the way it is with the US Empire, whose core is the US national-security state, which encompasses the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA.

As the Soviet Union was dismantling with its unilateral decision to end the Cold War in 1989, the US empire found itself to be the only empire standing in the world. Given the scope, range, and money of the US national-security state, that meant putting countries all over the world under US control and dominion.

Throughout history, empires have hated the rise of other empires because they pose a threat to the control and dominion of the already-existing empire. Rising empires have long been considered by existing empires to be “rivals,” “opponents,” “competitors,” “adversaries,” and even “enemies.”
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The 'Greatest' Generation’s Refusal to Fight the 'Good War'

Thursday June 25, 2020

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The most sacred shibboleth of US foreign interventionists is World War II. Whenever the issue of foreign interventionism arises, you can count on interventionists to raise what they call the “good war” and the “greatest” generation who fought it. If the “greatest” generation had not intervened in the “good war,” they exclaim, Nazi Germany and imperial Japan would have ended up conquering the United States and the rest of the world.

Yet, there is an important oddity about World War II that is never raised in any discussions about the war. According to the website of the National WWII Museum, 38.8% (6,332,000) men were volunteers in World War II while 61.2% (11,535,000) were draftees.

What’s up with that?

Let’s keep in mind something important about the “draft” — or as it is also known, “conscription”: It’s not voluntary. Conscription or drafting people to fight a war means forcing them to do something that they are not willing to do voluntarily. If a man refused to comply with a draft order in World War II, the government sent armed agents to seize him forcibly, after which he would be criminally prosecuted and incarcerated.
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Why Foreign Interventionism?

Friday May 1, 2020

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What is the point of US foreign interventionism?

Why are US troops killing and dying in faraway countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Somalia?

Why does the US government have 165,000 troops stationed in more than 150 foreign countries?

Why is the US government enforcing economic sanctions and embargoes against the people of Iran, North Korea, Cuba, and other countries?

Why are US officials waging trade wars against foreign nations?

Why do the CIA and the Pentagon assassinate foreigners?

Why are US officials provoking conflicts with Iran and Venezuela?

Why is regime change a core feature of US foreign policy?

Why do US officials partner with tyrannical foreign regimes?
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Regime Change through the Drug War

Wednesday April 1, 2020

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The Justice Department’s securing of a criminal indictment of Venezuela’s president Nicolás Maduro reminds us that when it comes to the US government’s regime-change operations, coups, invasions, sanctions, embargoes, and state-sponsored assassinations are not the only ways to achieve regime change. Another way is through a criminal indictment issued by a federal grand jury that deferentially accedes to the wishes of federal prosecutors.

The best example of this regime change method involved the president of Panama, Manuel Noriega.

Like many corrupt and brutal dictators around the world, Noriega was a partner and ally of the US government. In fact, he was actually trained at the Pentagon’s School of the Americas, which is referred to in Latin America as the School of Assassins. He later served as a paid asset of the CIA. He also served as a conduit for the US government’s illegal war in Nicaragua, where US officials were using the Contra rebels to effect a regime change in that country.

But like other loyal pro-US dictators, Noriega fell out of favor with US officials, who decided they wanted him out of office and replaced with someone more to their liking.

The big problem, of course, is the one that always afflicts US regime-change aspirations: Noriega refused to go voluntarily.
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More Dying for Nothing in Iraq

Friday March 13, 2020

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Two more US soldiers have been killed in Iraq. Yes, that Iraq — the Iraq that never attacked the United States or even threatened to do so — the Iraq that the US government invaded and has occupied for umpteen years under the rubric of “Operation Iraqi Freedom.”

What did those two soldiers die for? They died for the same thing that 58,000 US soldiers died for in Vietnam — nothing.

They certainly didn’t die for freedom. Just as the North Vietnamese were never threatening the freedom of the American people, neither is anyone in Iraq, including ISIS, the group that the US invasion and occupation of Iraq brought into existence.

The Pentagon announced that it has retaliated for the killings by bombing an “Iranian-backed militia” that the Pentagon is “confident” was responsible for the killing.

And then what? Then that Iranian-backed militia retaliates by killing more US soldiers, which then motivates the Pentagon to retaliate again, which causes the Iranian-backed militia to retaliate again.
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Lift the US Embargo on Cuba

Saturday March 7, 2020

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The US embargo on Cuba has been in effect for 60 years. It’s time to end it.

The embargo makes it a criminal offense for any American to spend money in Cuba or to do business in Cuba. If an American travels to Cuba and spends money there or does business there, he is subject to criminal prosecution, conviction, fine, and imprisonment by his own government upon his return to the United States.

The purpose of the embargo is regime change. The idea is to squeeze the Cuban people economically with the aim of causing discontent against Cuba’s communist regime. If the discontent gets significant enough, US officials believe, the population will revolt and re-install a pro-US regime into power.

Where is the morality in targeting the civilian population with death and impoverishment with the aim of achieving a political goal? Isn’t that why we condemn terrorism?
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Drug War Obtuseness

Thursday February 20, 2020

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Sometimes I wonder how super-smart people can be so obtuse when it comes to the drug war. A recent example of this phenomenon is Ioan Grillo, a contributing editor for the New York Times. Grillo is the author of two books on the drug war: El Narco: Inside Mexico’s Criminal Insurgency, which was translated into five languages and was a Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist, and his new book Gangster Warlords.

Clearly, Ioan Grillo is a super-smart person.

The problem is that he, like so many other super-smart people in the mainstream press, is also super-obtuse when it comes to the war on drugs.

Grillo thinks he has found a way to win the war on drugs. In an op-ed entitled “Dismantling Mexico’s Narco State,” he says that the secret is for the Mexican and US governments to start targeting for criminal prosecution Mexican government officials who protect the drug cartels. The corruption within the Mexican government would then be ended, which would mean an end to the official protection for the drug cartels and drug lords, which would enable law enforcement to finally — finally — shut them down. Victory in the drug war!

Why, that’s ingenious! Why didn’t anyone come up with this brilliant idea before now?

Maybe because it is so ludicrous.
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