[Peace-discuss] bzzzt.

[E. Wayne Johnson]

*Imperial Cancer*
by Jacob G. Hornberger

With the welfare state cracking apart and with rising concerns among the 
citizenry about federal spending and debt, count on federal officials to 
provoke more overseas crises as a way to frighten people into rallying 
toward the government. It is an old tried-and-true trick that government 
officials use to distract people's attention away from the problems 
government is causing and toward supporting the government's efforts to 
keep people "safe."

U.S. officials are not the only ones who have used this trick 
effectively. James Madison pointed out that officials in the Roman 
Empire did it too: "Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a 
war, whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the 
armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved the people."

In the war on terrorism, fear is the coin of the realm. "Be afraid, be 
very afraid" has become the standard catcall of the statists.

One option, of course, is for the citizenry to resist the fearmongering 
and steadfastly oppose all governmental efforts to infringe liberty and 
privacy in the name of keeping people safe. The problem with that 
approach, however, is that it can be endless since the government can 
use its forces to provoke new overseas threats whenever it wants. It can 
do things constantly to keep the people afraid.

Therefore, the only real long-tern solution is to dismantle America's 
disastrous experment with empire, interventionism, and a warfare state. 
That would entail an immediate withdrawal from Afghanistan and Iraq, 
bringing all the troops home from everywhere around the world and 
discharging them, closing most of the military bases here in the United 
States, ending all foreign aid, and ridding our nation of a standing army.

That was the type of nation --- a constitutional republic --- our 
American ancestors intended for America to be. By embracing empire and 
foreign interventionism (and a welfare state), America has deviated from 
the vision that the Founding Fathers had for our nation, and the results 
have been disastrous.

Think of the advantages that would acrue from exiting Afghanistan, Iraq, 
and the rest of the Middle East and the world, and from dismantling the 
entire U.S. military empire::

1. The biggest benefit would be that the threat of terrorism against the 
United States would evaporate. That's where motive is so important. From 
the get-go, U.S. officials wanted Americans to believe that the 9/11 
terrorists attacked America because they hated our freedom and values. 
Nonsense. The attacks were "blowback" or retaliation for the bad things 
the U.S. government was doing in the Middle East.

The empire-intervention crowd claims that the Empire must remain 
occupying Afghanistan indefinitely to ensure that the Taliban doesn't 
regain power. They say that the Taliban might make Afghanistan into a 
haven for more 9/11-type terrorists.

But that's just nonsense. For one thing, the U.S. didn't attack 
Afghanistan because the Taliban were complicit in the 9/11 attacks. It 
attacked because the Taliban refused to unconditionally comply with 
President Bush's demand to deliver bin Laden to the CIA.

Thus, the fear that drives statists to call for a permanent occupation 
of Afghanistan is that the Taliban must now be so angry over what the 
U.S. Empire did to them that they migth want to retaliate by offering a 
base from which terrorists can initiate strikes against the United States.

But that's just speculation and empire talk. There is no reason to 
believe that the Taliban will engage in such actions after the U.S. 
Empire exits the country. After all, do we see any terrorist strikes 
against Russia despite the fact that the Soviet Union wreaked untold 
death and destruction during its occupation of Afghanistan. Do we see 
any terorist strkes against the United States by North Vietnamese people 
who lost friends and relatives from U.S. bombs and bullets during the 
Vietnam War?

Moreover, since terrorism against the United States is rooted in what 
the U.S. government is doing over there, once the U.S. government is no 
longer over there, there won't be any more terrorist threat against the 
United States. In other words, what difference would it make if the 
Taliban were to announce Afghanistan as a haven for terrorists if nobody 
cared anymore about planning terrorist strikes agaisnt the United States?

Anyway, as we've seen time and time again, people who are determined to 
do harm to the United States can plan terrorist strikes from a hotel or 
house anywhere in the world. They don't need an entire country to serve 
as a safe haven for them.

2. With the anger and hatred that gives rise to terrorism having 
dissipated, the entire war-on-terrorism edifice could be dismantled, 
beginning with the Patriot Act and the Department of Homeland Security. 
Life could return to normal, without all the perpetual crises and 
fear-mongering.

3. An enormous amount of taxpayer money could be saved, perhaps as much 
as 1/3 of the federal budget.

When a person is stricken by cancer, it's important to attack the source 
of the cancer cells. The same principle applies to when the body politic 
is attacked by cancer. The source of America's cancer is the U.S. 
Empire. It's time to attack the cancer at its source by bringing all the 
troops and contractors home now, dismantling Americas' military empire, 
and ending its foreign policy of meddling and interference. That would 
go a long way toward restoring health to our nation, along with peace, 
prosperity, harmony, and normality.

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