U.S. Officials Were Partners in Pinochet’s Kidnappings, Rapes, Torture, and Murders by Jacob G. Hornberger September 11, 2014 REMINDER: Our Upcoming One-Day Blockbuster Conference on October 18 at Columbia University in New York City. Don't be caught short. Sign up now because space is limited. Admission price: FREE. Today marks the 41st anniversary of the military coup in Chile, a coup in which Chilean military personnel under the command of Army General Augusto Pinochet brutally raped or tortured some 40,000 innocent people and murdered more than 3,000 innocent people. I use the term “innocent” in the sense that the victims had not committed any genuine crimes. Their only “crime”—and Pinochet and his henchmen believed it was a crime--was that the victims believed in communism or socialism or had supported the democratically elected regime of Salvador Allende, who himself was a believer in communism and socialism. Did Pinochet accord any of these people judicial trials, in which they were formally accused of being communists, socialists, or supporters of the Allende administration? No, he did not. He didn’t feel that trials ...
U.S. Federal Judges Owe America an Apology by Jacob G. Hornberger April 8, 2014 Chilean judges have issued a formal apology for their deference to Chile’s national-security state apparatus under the military dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet. The apology comes some 40 years after Chile’s federal judiciary failed to protect the fundamental rights and liberties of the citizenry during Pinochet’s reign of terror. “The time has come to ask for the forgiveness of victims … and of Chilean society,” said the judges. U.S. judges owe the American people the same type of apology for consistently deferring to the U.S. national-security state apparatus, thereby failing to do what the Constitution charges the judiciary with doing—protecting the fundamental rights and liberties of the American people from infringement at the hands of the national-security branch of the federal government. The most recent example involves U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer, who bent over backwards to sustain a motion to dismiss a case brought by relatives of U.S. citizens Anwar al-Awlaki, his 16-year-old son Abdulrahm, and Samir ...
A Misguided Attack on The Future of Freedom Foundation by Jacob G. Hornberger March 27, 2014 In an article at PJMedia.com, writer Keith Farrell suggests that libertarians should support foreign interventionism and specifically takes The Future of Freedom Foundation and LewRockwell.com to task for opposing foreign interventionism. Acknowledging that some U.S. interventions have proven to be absolute disasters, Farrell feels that libertarians should nonetheless be supporting U.S. foreign interventionism in selected cases. Farrell is wrong. Not only is foreign interventionism contrary to libertarian principles, it inevitably produces destructive results for both the targeted nation and for the American people. We begin with a mistake Farrell makes that is common to those who advocate foreign interventionism — his conflation of the private sector of American people and the U.S. government. Actually, they are two separate and distinct entities, a phenomenon best evidenced by the Bill of Rights, which expressly protects the American people from the federal government. I think it’s great that Farrell feels a moral duty to help people suffering tyranny and oppression overseas. He raises Venezuela ...
So What If the CIA Is Spying on Congress? by Jacob G. Hornberger March 7, 2014 At the end of the Cold War, the American people had a grand opportunity, one that entailed the dismantling of the national-security state apparatus that had been grafted onto our governmental system after the end of World War II. It would have made sense, given that the justification for making the national-security state apparatus a permanent feature of American ...
Ukraine and the U.S. National Security State by Jacob G. Hornberger March 6, 2014 At the end of the Cold War, the American people had a grand opportunity, one that entailed the dismantling of the national-security state apparatus that had been grafted onto our governmental system after the end of World War II. It would have made sense, given that the justification for making the national-security state apparatus a permanent feature of American ...
The Fifth Amendment Lies in Crumbles by Jacob G. Hornberger February 25, 2014 The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads in part as follows: Nor shall any person … be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” The term “due process of law” stretches all the way back to Magna Carta, the great charter extracted from King John in 1215 in which he was forced to acknowledge that his ...
The Strange Love for Pinochet by Jacob G. Hornberger September 11, 2013 As part of its coverage on President Obama’s plan to bomb Syria, yesterday’s New York Times reported the results of a survey it recently conducted. The article stated in part: When asked whether the United States should intervene to turn dictatorships into democracies, 72 percent said no while only 15 percent said yes. That is the highest level ...
Murder, Inc. by Jacob G. Hornberger May 23, 2013 For all his faults and failures, President Lyndon Johnson put it correctly: With its assassination program, the CIA was operating a “damned Murder Inc.” Not only does Johnson’s pointed observation observe the true nature of the federal government’s assassination program, it also serves to show that assassination has been an integral part of the U.S. national-security state apparatus since ...
My Talk at UNC by Jacob G. Hornberger March 22, 2013 On Thursday evening, I had the honor of addressing the Young Americans for Liberty (YAL) and the Students for Liberty (SDS) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The two groups were working together to oppose the U.S. government’s assassination program as well as foreign interventionism and empire in general. During the day, the students promoted the event ...
Why Isn’t the Murder of an American Boy an Impeachable Offense? by Jacob G. Hornberger February 20, 2013 Article 2, Section 4, of the U.S. Constitution reads as follows: The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.” In 1998, President Bill Clinton was impeached for perjury and obstruction of justice for matters arising out of ...
Guns and Tyranny by Jacob G. Hornberger January 4, 2013 There are three important things to remember about the Second Amendment. First, it doesn’t give people the right to own guns. Second, it is an implicit acknowledgement that the U.S. government is the biggest threat to the freedom and well-being of the American people. Third, the rationale for enacting the Second Amendment was to ensure that the American citizenry ...
Resembling the Pinochet Regime by Jacob G. Hornberger May 4, 2012 Let’s assume that an American critic of U.S. foreign policy goes abroad and travels around the Middle East delivering a series of lectures, speeches, and articles attacking the U.S. invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. He refuses to support the troops, saying that when people are engaged in wrongdoing, regardless of their particular occupation, they should not be ...
