Photo by Clem Onojeghuo
If the Pentagon’s proxy war against Russia in Ukraine somehow turns nuclear and both Russia and the United States hit each other with their entire nuclear arsenals, I wonder how Americans who supported the Pentagon in the crisis would react. I’m referring, of course, to those Americans who would survive the nuclear onslaught. Most, if not all, of them, would undoubtedly be radiated. And many of them would be hoping that Mexico would not close its borders to American citizens attempting to survive by moving south.
But here are some critically important questions that I think each such surviving American would be asking himself: Was it worth it? Was it worth provoking Russia by using NATO to expand eastward after the purported end of the Cold War? Was it worth it to use NATO to absorb those former members of the Warsaw Pact? Was it worth it to cross Russia’s “red line” by threatening to absorb Ukraine into NATO? Was it worth it to install American nuclear missiles ever closer to Russia’s borders?
My hunch is that most of these radiated Americans would say to themselves, “No, in retrospect I don’t think it was worth it. Yes, we have wiped out the Pentagon’s mortal enemy Russia but just look at what has been done to our nation. A nuclear desert with pockets of life, all under strict military control for the rest of our short lives. I now realize that those libertarians were right in opposing the Pentagon’s extreme anti-Russia, interventionist antics. I wish I had listened.”
Longtime supporters of The Future of Freedom Foundation know that I have long called for the dismantling of the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA — that is, what we know as the “national-security state” — and for the restoration of our nation’s founding system of a limited-government republic. Over the years I have provided a number of reasons for this, among the biggest being that the adoption of a national-security state ended up destroying our rights and liberties. Examples include the national-security establishment’s arsenal of omnipotent powers, including assassination, torture, and indefinite detention for both American citizens and foreign citizens.
But the Ukraine crisis provides another reason, perhaps bigger than the destruction of our liberty: the willingness — even eagerness — of the Pentagon to push our nation to the very edge of life-destroying nuclear war. The way I figure it is that any governmental entity that does that deserves to be dissolved immediately.
Keep in mind, after all, that this isn’t the first time that the Pentagon has brought America to the edge of nuclear war. Owing to its severe anti-Russia, anti-communist mentality, it did it back in the early 1960s by pressuring President Kennedy to invade Cuba to effect regime change on the island. That’s what the infamous top-secret false-flag operation known as Operation Northwoods was all about. That’s why the Soviets installed nuclear missiles in Cuba — to deter the Pentagon and the CIA from invading Cuba again, especially after the failed CIA invasion at Cuba’s Bay of Pigs. It was the Pentagon’s and CIA’s extreme anti-Russia, anti-communist mentality that bought our nation within an inch of all-out nuclear war, just as what they are now doing in Ukraine. (See my recent article “The Pentagon Brought on Both Nuclear Crises.”)
Why do we even need a national-security state? That’s what every American needs to be asking himself. The reason that this totalitarian type of governmental system was adopted in the first place was because statists said it was needed to avoid being taken over by the Reds. But the Cold War purportedly ended in 1989. Why then do we still have to live under this totalitarian type of system, one that is, once again, bringing us to the edge of life-destroying nuclear war?
There is no nation on earth that has the remotest capability of invading and conquering the United States. As we have seen in Ukraine, Russia is no threat whatsoever to the United States. It is a second-rate military power. Moreover, China, which is now also converted into an official “enemy,” “rival,” “opponent,” or “adversary,” lacks the military capability, resources, logistics, money, and even interest to successfully cross the Pacific and invade and conquer the United States. There is also no possibility whatsoever that any nation in the Western Hemisphere can or will invade or conquer the United States.
There is no better time than now to dissolve the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA and restore our nation’s founding system of a limited-government republic. That would mean a relatively small, basic military force, one that would serve as a mobilizing force in the unlikely event of a foreign invasion. Most Americans would be more than willing and able to respond immediately to a genuine threat to their families and to our nation.
Let’s just hope that we have the opportunity to effect this change. If we have survived to live in a nuclear wasteland, it will obviously be too late.
This first appeared on Jacob Hornberger’s Expand Freedom blog.