The FFF.ORG - September 10, 2019

9/11 Solidified the Destruction of Our Freedom

by Jacob G. Hornberger

The 9/11 attacks not only killed thousands of Americans, they also led to America’s forever wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Iran, and elsewhere, which have brought about the deaths of thousands of other Americans and millions of foreigners. But the 9/11 attacks did more than that. They also fortified the U.S. government as a national-security state, which solidified the destruction of the freedom of the American people.

What is a national-security state? It is a type of governmental structure that has an enormous, permanent military-intelligence establishment. In the case of the United States, that means the Pentagon, the vast military-industrial complex, foreign military bases, the CIA, and the NSA. It also means power — enormous power, not only for the overall government, but also within the governmental structure itself. To place things in a general context, Egypt is a national-security state. So are China, Cuba, and Russia. And the United States.

It wasn’t always that way. America was founded as a limited-government republic, which is the opposite of a national-security state. No Pentagon, no vast military-industrial complex, no foreign military bases, no CIA, and NSA. Just a relatively small army…..

Having lost its official Cold War enemy, the U.S. national-security establishment found a new one by going into the Middle East and embarking on a killing spree, especially in Iraq, where it killed hundreds of thousands of people from 1991 through 2003. The victims including Iraqi children, hundreds of thousands of them. When US Ambassador to the UN under the Bill Clinton regime, Madeleine Albright, was asked by “Sixty Minutes” whether the deaths of half-a-million Iraqi children were “worth it,” she responded that while the issue was a hard one, the deaths were in fact “worth it.” By “it,” she meant regime change in Iraq….

The 9/11 attacks then led to the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, followed by the interventions in Syria, Libya, Yemen, and elsewhere, which necessarily entailed a fortification and strengthening of America’s national-security state form of governmental structure. They also led to the Patriot Act, which eviscerated the Fourth Amendment as well as to a formalized assassination program, including the power to assassinate Americans … to torture people, including Americans … to indefinitely detain American citizens and others as “enemy combatants” in the forever “war on terrorism” … to conduct secretive surveillance schemes over the American people and others … and to conduct intrusive searches at airports through the TSA … to impose more deadly sanctions and embargoes on foreign citizens … and to initate more coups and other regime-change operations.

[Editor’s note: This is an abridged version of  Mr. Jacob G. Hornberger’s article.]

Texas-born Jacob G. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. He was born and raised in Laredo, Texas, and received his B.A. in economics from Virginia Military Institute and his law degree from the University of Texas. He was a trial attorney for twelve years in Texas. He also was an adjunct professor at the University of Dallas, where he taught law and economics.

https://www.fff.org/2019/09/10/9-11-solidified-the-destruction-of-our-freedom/

 The Journal of America Team:

 Editor in chief:
Abdus Sattar Ghazali

Senior Editor:
Prof. Arthur Scott

Special Correspondent
Maryam Turab
 

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