The Pentagon and the CIA Were Responsible for the Cuban Missile Crisis by Jacob G. Hornberger July 23, 2013 One of the enduring U.S. myths from the Cold War is that communist Cuba, headed by Fidel Castro, and the Soviet Union were responsible for bringing the world to the brink of all-out nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. The myth holds that the Soviets and Cubans were responsible for the crisis by basing Soviet offensive ...
Michael Gerson’s Nasty Attack on Rand Paul and Jack Hunter by Jacob G. Hornberger July 22, 2013 Last week Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson leveled a nasty attack against Rand Paul for hiring longtime conservative-libertarian activist Jack Hunter as a staffer. The ostensible reason for the attack was some “neo-Confederate radio rants” that Hunter had made as a radio talk-show host when he was in his 20s. The title of Gerson’s piece was, “Rand Paul ...
Send the CIA Kidnapper Back to Italy to Face Justice by Jacob G. Hornberger July 19, 2013 An opportunity for the anti-Snowden crowd to show their consistency to principle has arisen. A convicted American kidnapper has been apprehended in Panama as a result of an international arrest warrant. The man was convicted in Italy in 2009 and sentenced to serve 9 years in jail. However, he went on the lam and has never returned to ...
Is the Drug War Now Over? by Jacob G. Hornberger July 18, 2013 Drug-war proponents are going through one of their periodic paroxysms of ecstasy over the capture this week near Nuevo, Laredo, Mexico, of a man alleged to be one of Latin America’s biggest and most brutal drug lords, 40-year-old Miguel Angel Trevino Morales. Mainstream journalists are even wondering what effect the arrest might have on the decades-old drug war. Permit me ...
The Paranoid Obsession over Cuba by Jacob G. Hornberger July 17, 2013 The U.S. government’s belligerence toward Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia, and Ecuador for sympathizing with Edward Snowden’s request for asylum brings to mind the U.S. national-security state’s Cold War mindset toward communism, a mindset characterized by deception, delusion, and paranoia, a mindset that did immeasurable harm to the American people as well as people in Latin America and that continues to ...
Edward Snowden and the Corruption of Morals and Values by Jacob G. Hornberger July 16, 2013 The vilification of Edward Snowden by U.S. officials and their spokesmen in the mainstream press reflects perfectly the extent to which the national-security state apparatus, which was foisted on America’s governmental system after World War II and without even the semblance of a constitutional amendment, has warped and perverted fundamental morals and values. After all, what exactly has Snowden done ...
Three Cheers for Trial by Jury by Jacob G. Hornberger July 15, 2013 Amid the national debate over whether George Zimmerman should have been acquitted in the murder of Trayvon Martin, we should keep in mind one critically important aspect to the case: the fact that a jury of ordinary citizens made the decision and the fact that their decision was final. Since the right of trial by jury is so engrained in ...
No Constitutional Right to Socialism in the U.S. by Jacob G. Hornberger July 12, 2013 How often do we hear American conservatives poking fun at Cuba and Venezuela for their socialist and interventionist economic systems? Almost all the time, right? To expose the rank hypocrisy of conservatives, who in actuality love Cuba's and Venezuela's economic systems, and also to show how our nation has abandoned its heritage of economic liberty, let’s take a look at ...
Conservative Blind Spots on Snowden by Jacob G. Hornberger July 11, 2013 In their haste to condemn Edward Snowden for revealing the NSA’s massive secret spy scheme on the American people, conservatives are rushing to point out how the countries that Snowden is considering for asylum — e.g., Venezuela, Bolivia, and Nicaragua — are themselves not exactly bastions of freedom. They are countries in which there is socialism, interventionism, regulation, censorship, ...
Support the Egyptian Uprising and Go to Jail by Jacob G. Hornberger July 10, 2013 For any American tempted to support the violent uprising against the Egyptian military coup, you might want to think twice because if you exhort Egyptians to violently overthrow the military tyranny under which they are suffering, you will be arrested, prosecuted, and incarcerated at the hands of the U.S. government. That’s what happened to a New York lawyer named Lynne ...
No Military Coups for America? What About November 1963? by Jacob G. Hornberger July 9, 2013 An interesting aspect of the military coup in Egypt has been the attitude of American mainstream commentators who suggest that unlike Egypt and other countries, the chances of a military coup in the United States are virtually nil. See, for example, “America the Coupless” by Rosa Brooks and “Could a Military Coup Happen in America?” by Paul ...
None Dare Call It Tyranny by Jacob G. Hornberger July 8, 2013 While the Obama administration dithers over whether the Egyptian regime-change operation constitutes a coup or not, one thing is certain: The Egyptian people are suffering under tyranny. After all, that’s what military rule is: tyranny. Our American ancestors understood this. That’s why they steadfastly opposed standing armies. They understood that standing armies constituted a grave threat to the freedom and ...
