Jacob G. Hornberger – December 31, 2018
With all the born-again fervor for truth among the mainstream press within the context of the Donald Trump regime, would it be too much to ask for the truth regarding the U.S. Department of “Defense.”
I mean, come on, there is no way that what U.S. troops have been doing overseas for the past 70 years has anything to do with the defense of the United States. Instead, it has all been about empire and intervention.
So, while we are on the subject of truth, how about if we change the name of the Department of Defense to the Department of Empire and Intervention?
Just consider all the millions (yes, millions!) of people in foreign lands who the Pentagon has killed since World War II. We’re talking about Koreans, Vietnamese, Iraqis, Guatemalans, Iranians, Chileans, Afghans, Yemenis, Libyans, Syrians, Chinese, Congolese, Cubans, and many, many more.
It’s important to note that not one of those people was ever invading the United States. They were all “over there” when the Pentagon killed them. Why, even the 9/11 attacks were terrorist retaliation for U.S. interventionism abroad rather than an attempt to invade and conquer the United States.
Thus, there is no way that the Pentagon can truthfully say that they were defending the United States when its troops killed those millions of people in faraway lands. The truth is that the troops were defending the “right” of the U.S. government to intervene in the affairs of other nations and to defend U.S. military installations in faraway lands.
What would a true Department of Defense look like? It would look like Switzerland. Notice that the Swiss government doesn’t have a military death machine killing people on a regular basis in the Middle East, Latin America, Africa, Afghanistan, and anywhere else in the world. The Swiss government and the Swiss citizenry are limited strictly to defending their nation from the possibility of an invasion.
Everything in Switzerland is oriented toward defense. Most every citizen is heavily armed and knows where to report in the event of an emergency. Obstructions are set up all across the nation to interfere with an invading force. The army’s plans are centered entirely on defense.
With the Swiss, there is no foreign empire or foreign intervention. No interventions in the Korean War, or the Vietnam War, or the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. No coups, no kidnappings, no torture, no assassinations. No installation of or partnerships with dictatorial regimes. Just defense.
And notice something important about Switzerland: No one jacks with the Swiss. No one would be stupid enough to invade Switzerland. Even Nazi Germany understood that principle.
Thus, a true Department of Defense would be limited to doing just that — defending the United States. That’s clearly not what the Department of “Defense” is doing or has been doing since its name was changed in 1949 from the “National Military Establishment” to the “Department of Defense.”
In an era of born-again devotion to the truth, a good place to begin would be by changing the name of the Department of “Defense” to the Department of Empire and Intervention.
Better yet, let’s keep the name Department of Defense and restore America’s founding principles of non-interventionism and a limited-government republic to our land.
This article was originally published at FFF.org. Jacob G. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. He 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. In 1987, Mr. Hornberger left the practice of law to become director of programs at the Foundation for Economic Education. He has advanced freedom and free markets on talk-radio stations all across the country as well as on Fox News’ Neil Cavuto and Greta van Susteren shows and he appeared as a regular commentator on Judge Andrew Napolitano’s show Freedom Watch.
