Dismantle the U.S. National-Security State, Now

by Jacob G. Hornberger

February 28, 2022

https://www.fff.org/2022/02/28/dismantle-the-u-s-national-security-state-now/

Let’s begin with a book that I have been recommending to people for quite some time now. It is entitled National Security and Double Government by Michael J. Glennon. According to Wikipedia, “From 1977-1980, he was counsel to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Glennon was a professor of law at the University of California, Davis from 1987-to 2002, and a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars from 2001-to 2002. Since 2002, he has been a professor of international law at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.”

Glennon’s thesis is a discomforting and ominous one. He states that within the federal governmental structure, it is not the president, Congress, or the Supreme Court that is in charge. Instead, it is the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA that are actually running the federal government, especially with respect to foreign affairs. The other three parts of the federal government, while being permitted to maintain the veneer of power, are actually subservient to the national-security part. 

As longtime supporters of FFF know, I have been long convinced that Glennon is right, which is why I continue to recommend his book every chance I get. If we are to set our nation on the right course — a course toward liberty, peace, prosperity, morality, and harmony with the people of the world, it is essential that Americans come to grips with the reality of our national-security state form of federal governmental structure.

Why is this so important? Because it is the political gamesmanship in which the Pentagon and the CIA have engaged that has led America, Russia, and the world to the crisis in Ukraine, a crisis that not only is bringing massive death and destruction to innocent people but also has the distinct potential of bringing about an all-out nuclear exchange between Russia and the United States.

At the end of the Cold War, the Pentagon and the CIA understood full well what Russia’s reaction would be toward NATO’s absorption of Ukraine. They knew that Russia’s reaction would be the same as the Pentagon’s and the CIA’s reaction when the Soviet Union installed nuclear missiles in Cuba 60 years ago — and what the Pentagon’s and the CIA’s reaction would be if Russia installed nuclear missiles in Cuba today — or along the Mexican side of the U.S.-Mexico border. 

At the ostensible end of the Cold War, the Pentagon and the CIA should have simply dismantled NATO. Its ostensible mission of protecting Western Europe from a Soviet invasion was over. The Soviet Union had been dismantled. NATO was nothing more than a Cold War dinosaur. 

But the Pentagon and the CIA were not about to let go of NATO. They were not about to let go of the Cold War. They were not about to let go of Russia as an official enemy, one that could be used to continue flooding ever-increasing amounts of taxpayer largess into the coffers of the Pentagon, the military-industrial complex, the CIA, the NSA, and their ever-growing army of “defense” contractors who were prospering by feeding at the national-security-state trough.

Thus, in an act of highly dangerous political gamesmanship, they had NATO gradually move eastward, absorbing former members of the Warsaw Pact, which would enable the Pentagon and the CIA to install their military bases, missiles, tanks, troops, and other weaponry ever closer to Russia’s border. At the same time, they continued to demonize Russia every chance they got. 

That’s why they were so angry at President Trump when he was running for president — because Trump expressed an interest in establishing friendly relations with Russia. In the minds of the national-security establishment, that policy was a no-go, which is why the Pentagon’s and the CIA’s assets in Congress initiated the Robert Mueller investigation into whether Trump was a covert Russian agent. 

For that matter, it’s why they hated President Kennedy so deeply, especially after he entered into his Cuban Missile Crisis settlement with the Soviets in which he promised the Soviets that the Pentagon and the CIA would not invade Cuba and especially after his Peace Speech at American University in which he announced that the United States would henceforth have a peaceful and friendly relationship with the Soviet Union and the communist world. 

When the Pentagon and the CIA had NATO threaten to absorb Ukraine, they knew exactly what they were doing and what the result would be. Their political gamesmanship placed Russia in the untenable position of (1) permitting the Pentagon and the CIA to install their military bases, missiles, tanks, weaponry, and troops on Russia’s border, or (2) invading Ukraine to prevent that from happening. 

When they began their act of political gamesmanship, the Pentagon and the CIA knew, as an absolute certainty, that Russia would select option (2), just as the Pentagon and the CIA would, as an absolute certainty, select option (2) to prevent Russia from doing the same in Cuba or Mexico. 

In other words, one can exclaim all day long about the evil nature of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but that doesn’t address the fundamentally important question: Why would the Pentagon and the CIA engage in political gamesmanship with the aim of bringing about that evil choice? (See my article “The Evil and Malevolence of the Pentagon’s Brilliant Strategy in Ukraine.” Also, see Andrew Bacevich’s excellent article “The US Can’t Absolve Itself of responsibility for Putin’s Ukraine Invasion.”)

And then the gamesmanship entails having the Pentagon and the CIA play the innocent. “We’re shocked!” they exclaim. “Russia has altered the post-World War II order,” they scream. “Russia is threatening the rest of Europe!” they cry. “The Russians are coming to America,” they warn. “Russia must be punished for its act of aggression,” they hold.

And now we see the modern-day results of Operation Mockingbird, the CIA’s sophisticated scheme to acquire assets within the mainstream press to give voice to the Pentagon’s and the CIA’s highly sophisticated propaganda campaign. Almost in unison, the mockingbirds within the mainstream press are reciting the Pentagon’s and the CIA’s official propaganda lines. 

In the process, of course, everyone forgets that for decades the Pentagon and the CIA have been doing to foreign nations what Russia has done to Ukraine. Just ask the people of Iraq and  Afghanistan. Or the people of Libya. Or just ask media acolyte Hillary Clinton, who is still basking in the media glory of having cleverly exclaimed, “We came. We saw. He died” in response to the brutal murder of Libya’s dictator Moammar Gaddafi as part of the Pentagon’s and CIA’s regime-change operation in Libya. Or just ask the people of Iran, Guatemala, Cuba, Chile, Indonesia, Nicaragua, Grenada, or a host of others, including democratically elected regimes, that have been targeted for regime change by the Pentagon and the CIA and that have suffered massive death, suffering, impoverishment, and destruction as a consequence.

Thus, the critically important question for Americans is: Why do Americans continue to support an evil type of governmental structure — a national-security state — one that characterizes Russia and, for that matter, China, North Korea, Cuba, Egypt, and other totalitarian and authoritarian regimes, especially given that the Pentagon and the CIA, through their political gamesmanship, have, once again, brought America perilously close to all-out nuclear war, as they did during the Cuban Missile Crisis when they were pressuring President Kennedy to invade Cuba prior to the crisis for the purpose of bringing about regime change?

Consider what the Pentagon and the CIA are now doing. With their patented evil system of sanctions, they are now targeting Russian officials and the Russian people with impoverishment and death in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. To be sure, the Pentagon and the CIA are not bombing Russia or shooting at Russian planes or troops, but they are nonetheless trying their best to destroy Russia and everyone within Russia with their evil system of sanctions. In the process, they are also flooding weaponry into Ukraine to help Ukrainians kill Russian soldiers.

In other words, the Pentagon and the CIA are now indirectly waging a very real war against Russia and without any congressional declaration of war, as the Constitution requires. They are doing their best to destroy Russia’s regime and the Russian people without resorting to bombs and missiles. And they are persuading, inducing, and pressuring other countries to join them in this endeavor. Is it any wonder why Russia has placed its nuclear establishment on high alert? When one nation is doing its best to destroy another nation, will the latter nation go down without retaliating?

There is something else that Americans should keep in mind. Russia has never taken away any of our rights and liberties. That cannot be said, of course, about the U.S. national-security establishment. It has destroyed our rights and liberties, just as President Eisenhower and President Kennedy warned us it would. And now it’s not just our rights and liberties that are at stake but also our very lives, which are now at risk owing to a potential miscalculation that could easily bring about a nuclear holocaust. 

That’s why Americans need to engage in some serious soul-searching and do it now. Buy and read Glennon’s book. We need to get rid of this evil governmental monstrosity known as a national-security state and restore our founding governmental system of a limited-government republic. We need to do it now because there is no guarantee that later will be available.