U.S. Regime Change, Torture, and Murder in Chile by Future of Freedom Foundation March 29, 2010 President Bush’s recent trip to South America provides a valuable foreign-policy lesson for Americans. The president was greeted in Santiago, Chile, by some 30,000 angry demonstrators. But it was not only Bush’s invasion and war of aggression against Iraq that Chileans were angry about. Unlike so many Americans, the Chilean people have not fallen for the “We invaded Iraq to spread democracy” line that U.S. officials moved up to rationale number one after failing to find those infamous weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The reason? Chileans have not forgotten — and are still angry about — the U.S. government’s role in bringing about “regime change” in Chile in 1973. (Just as the Iranian people have not forgotten the U.S. government’s “regime change” in Iran in 1953.) Chileans still remember that in the 1973 “regime change” in their country, the U.S. government played an active role in ousting their democratically elected presidentbecause he was a socialist and replacing ...
“It Can’t Happen Here” by Future of Freedom Foundation March 25, 2010 Also see: “The Critical Dilemma Facing Pro-War Libertarians” “The Pentagon's Power to Arrest, Torture, and Execute Americans” “The Islamo-Fascist Rationale for Abandoning Liberty” In my article “The Pentagon’s Power to Arrest, Torture, and Execute Americans,” I explained that the post–9/11 power to designate Americans as “enemy combatants” in the “war on terror” has revolutionized America’s legal system by enabling the Pentagon to circumvent the rights and guarantees in the Bill of Rights. In my article “The Critical Dilemma Facing Pro-War Libertarians,” I explained that 9/11 has confronted pro-war libertarians with what undoubtedly is one of the biggest moral and philosophical quandaries of their lives — whether to remain committed to a conservative foreign policy, thereby giving up their commitment to a free society, or ...
Hornberger’s Blog, April 2009 by Future of Freedom Foundation March 13, 2010 Thursday, April 30, 2009 The Ninth Circuit v. the CIA by Jacob G. Hornberger The omnipotent power claimed by the CIA was dealt a major blow Tuesday by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in the case of Binyam Mohamed et al v. Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc. The five plaintiffs are victims of the CIA’s kidnapping, rendition, and torture program. All five were kidnapped overseas by CIA agents, transferred to brutal but CIA-friendly foreign regimes, and tortured. They filed suit against the provider of the airplane that did the transporting—Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc. Before Jeppesen even filed an answer to the lawsuit, the U.S. government intervened and requested an immediate dismissal of the case on the ground that to permit it to go forward would result in the disclosure of “state secrets” that were vital to “national security.”
Hornberger’s Blog, April 2009 by Jacob G. Hornberger March 13, 2010 Thursday, April 30, 2009 The Ninth Circuit v. the CIA by Jacob G. Hornberger The omnipotent power claimed by the CIA was dealt a major blow Tuesday by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in the case of Binyam Mohamed et al v. Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc.
Let’s Not Forget CIA Victim Charles Horman by Future of Freedom Foundation March 13, 2010 While we’re on the subject of criminal prosecutions and congressional investigations for the CIA’s kidnapping, torture, sex abuse, rendition, and disappearance program, is it too late to ask the same for the case of Charles Horman? He was the 31-year-old American journalist who was murdered in 1973 by Chilean military thugs with the support and ...
The Dark Core of the Empire by Future of Freedom Foundation March 13, 2010 Among the major obstacles to both criminal prosecutions and a truth commission regarding the CIA’s torture program is the underlying reluctance of U.S. officials to focus attention on the super-secret operations of the CIA. A criminal prosecution, after all, could get out of control, especially one that is being prosecuted by ...
Hornberger’s Blog, May 2009 by Future of Freedom Foundation March 13, 2010 Friday, May 29, 2009 The Sotomayor Nomination Is another Yawner for Libertarians by Jacob G. Hornberger As a libertarian, it’s hard for me to get all worked up over President Barack Obama’s nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, as conservatives and liberals are now doing. The ...
Hornberger’s Blog, May 2009 by Jacob G. Hornberger March 13, 2010 Friday, May 29, 2009 The Sotomayor Nomination Is another Yawner for Libertarians by Jacob G. Hornberger As a libertarian, it’s hard for me to get all worked up over President Barack Obama’s nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, as conservatives and liberals are now doing. The ...
Was Rape an Enhanced Interrogation Technique? by Future of Freedom Foundation March 13, 2010 There are those who argue that U.S. officials who authorized waterboarding and who performed waterboarding should not be held criminally accountable, notwithstanding the fact that the U.S. government prosecuted Japanese military personnel who waterboarded U.S. POWs during World War II. Their reasoning goes as follows: Since the president’s attorneys redefined torture to mean only those ...
Hornberger’s Blog, December 2009 by Future of Freedom Foundation March 13, 2010 Thursday, December 31, 2009 Fight Cuban Tyranny with American Freedom by Jacob G. Hornberger Once again, the U.S. government’s 112-year obsession with controlling Cuba rears its ugly head. This time, it involves the arrest by Cuban authorities of an American subcontractor who works for a company named “Development ...