Despite all the highfalutin rhetoric about the U.S. government’s commitment to “freedom, democracy, and liberation,” nothing could be further from the truth. Ever since the U.S. government abandoned its role as a limited-government republic to become an imperial world interloper, the quest has been to support those dictators in the world who would do the bidding of U.S. officials, no matter how unsavory, corrupt, and brutal those dictators were. That’s in fact why the U.S. government, even while still clinging to its claim that it invaded Iraq to establish “democracy and freedom,” continues to proudly align itself with the brutal military dictator in Pakistan, who took power in a military coup.

That’s also why the U.S. government was an ardent supporter of Saddam Hussein and even delivered to him the weapons of mass destruction that were ultimately used as the excuse to invade Iraq, an action that has killed or maimed thousands upon thousands of innocent people, including both Iraqi civilians and military personnel — innocent in the sense that they had nothing to do with 9/11 and were guilty of nothing more than resisting an illegal invasion and occupation of their country by the most powerful nation in history or being at the wrong place at the wrong time when a missile, cluster bomb, or 500-pound bomb was fired or dropped in their direction.

When Saddam went independent, U.S. foreign policy dictated that he had to be replaced, and that was what the invasion of Iraq was all about — a regime change to substitute a regime that would do the bidding of U.S. officials for one that refused to do so. That the WMDs were used as the cover for the real purpose of the invasion is now repeatedly confirmed by President Bush, who says he would have still ordered the invasion even knowing that Saddam Hussein had destroyed the WMDs that the United States and other Western countries had delivered to him during the Reagan-Bush administration. Of course Bush would have invaded anyway, given that regime change was the goal the entire time, while the pretext for the invasion was the imminent threat of a WMD attack by Saddam Hussein that was used to terrify American adults into supporting the invasion.

Initially, the designated replacement for Saddam was Ahmad Chalabi, an unsavory character if there ever was one — a Pentagon darling who U.S. officials knew had been convicted of bank fraud in Jordan. Such character flaws have never concerned the U.S. government, however, any more than Saddam’s character flaws concerned them when they were supporting him. All that matters in U.S. foreign policy is whether the dictator will do the bidding of U.S. officials.

However, Chalabi went “independent” by establishing ties with Iran and thus had to be replaced. He’s now been charged with “counterfeiting” by an Iraqi judge (who serves as part of the U.S.-appointed “temporary” regime in Iraq) and is threatened with a nice long jail term if he returns from Iran to Iraq.

The new designated U.S.-approved dictator is Iyad Allawi, a man who is reported to have committed terrorist acts (i.e., killing innocent Iraqi civilians during the Saddam regime) on behalf of the CIA. In what U.S. officials Orwellianly describe as “freedom,” Allawi is an unelected dictator in Iraq, ruling by decree, operating with no elected legislature, enforcing his iron rule with U.S. military forces, jailing and punishing people at will, and imposing the death penalty on Iraqis who are resisting the illegal occupation of their country by the U.S. government. A few days ago, in another act of “freedom” in Iraq, Allawi even closed down al-Jazeera for being a threat to national security. And he’s now got U.S. military forces killing every Iraqi who dares to resist an unelected, foreign-imposed tyrannical regime, despite the fact that the insurgents had nothing to do with 9/11.

Pardon me for asking an uncomfortable question, but don’t Allawi’s actions bring to mind the way Saddam Hussein dealt with his enemies? And one more question of an uncomfortable nature — didn’t those mass graves to which President Bush often refers contain the bodies of people who were involved in the insurgency against Saddam Hussein, an insurgency that was inspired by U.S. officials? One more: What are U.S. officials going to say when Saddam’s lawyers claim at his trial (assuming he lives that long) that he and the Republican Guard were simply putting down an insurgency against his regime — just like Allawi and his military forces are doing now?

Every day, more and more Iraqi people are being killed or maimed in order to support the new Iraqi dictatorship of Iyad Allawi. When those victims or their survivors or their friends or relatives end up retaliating against the United States with terrorist acts, will the feds not immediately treat us to “They attacked us for our freedom and values”? But just as was the case in the 1993 and 2001 attacks in the United States, the claim will be false: The real reason for the new attacks will be the U.S. government’s meddling in the internal affairs of other nations, including its support of brutal dictators who do its bidding.

What better reason for the American people to rein in their federal government and restore the limited-government republic that our Founding Fathers designed for us? Do we not have a moral duty to do so?

Mr. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. Send him email.