Amidst soaring gasoline prices and significant economic damage for the American people arising from President Trump’s war on Iran, we must never forget the most important factor in America’s never-ending foreign wars: the destruction of our liberty here at home. In this regard, it’s helpful to recall the wise and insightful words of James Madison, the father of our nation’s Constitution:
Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.
Of course, some wars are necessary and just. In the highly unlikely (i.e., virtually impossible) possibility that a foreign regime were to invade the United States, most Americans would be willing to go to war to defend themselves from a foreign conquest. They would consider such a war to be just and necessary.
But that’s clearly not what we are dealing with with respect to Iran. We are dealing with Trump’s war, which he decided to wage against Iran all on his own — or, actually, in partnership with the U.S. national-security establishment and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. There was no congressional declaration of war and Trump never sought one, which makes his war illegal under our form of constitutional government. Trump’s war on Iran was clearly one of choice — his choice — a war of aggression, which was the type of war condemned at the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal.
Trump has claimed that his war of choice was actually a defensive war because, he says, Iran was about to develop a nuclear bomb. But that claim is as baseless as President George W. Bush’s claim that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was about to unleash WMDs onto the United States. Most everyone, including the U.S. intelligence agencies, agree that Iran was at least several years away from producing a nuclear bomb and several years away from developing the capability of firing it at the United States. Moreover, there is the quite obvious point that there is no reasonable possibility that Iran would ever fire a nuclear missile at the United States knowing that the United States wields the capability of smothering Iran with a carpet-bombing campaign involving nuclear weapons.
Moreover, let’s point out the obvious: If Trump’s nuclear-scare rationale for initiating his war on Iran had any validity whatsoever, does anyone really think that would he have gone to war without heavily emphasizing this imminent WMD threat to Congress and the American people before launching his war? Indeed, let’s not forget that just a few months ago, Trump stated unequivocally that a bombing spree on Iran he initiated against Iran had destroyed Iran’s nuclear capability.
It is obvious that Trump figured that his war on Iran would be quickly over in 3-4 weeks. Coming on the heels of what he considered his “successful” intervention against Venezuela, he obviously figured that his intervention against Iran would result either in a regime change that would bring a U.S. puppet into power or, like Venezuela, a compliant, submissive regime that would dutifully obey the orders of Trump and the U.S. national-security establishment.
This brings us to Madison’s point, a critically important point for those Americans who would still like to live in a free society before they die. That goal is simply not going to be realized so long as Americans continue living under a national-security state system in which the president wields the omnipotent, dictatorial power to initiate wars of choice and wars of aggression against any nation in the world with a massive standing army — one that is clearly willing to blindly obey his illegal and unconstitutional orders.
In other words, the greatest threat to our liberty and well-being does not lie with Iran. It also does not lie with Russia, China, Cuba, Vietnam, North Korea, Venezuela, or any other nation state that the U.S. Empire has labeled an enemy, opponent, competitor, or adversary. It also does not lie with the communists, the terrorists, the illegal immigrants, the Muslims, or the drug dealers.
The biggest threat to our freedom and well-being lies with our very own federal government. It is this government that has destroyed our liberty, our privacy, and our well-being with its welfare state, its warfare state, its drug war, its immigration police state, its regulated-managed economy, its debasement of our money, its progressive income tax and IRS, its $39 trillion in debt, and much more.
What Madison is pointing out is that among all the ways that government destroys the liberty of its own people, its wars are the worst. Why? Because the wars encompass all of other ways that government destroys liberty! War brings armies into existence — big, expensive, permanent armies, which means more debt and higher taxes — and rules, regulations, dictates, edicts, orders, tribunals, secret surveillance, snitches, monetary debasement, price controls, rationing, shortages, rising prices, central planning, centralization of power, conscription, suppression of dissent, and much more.
Moreover, don’t forget: When they initiate a war, they then have to protect us from retaliation, which means more destruction of our liberty and privacy here at home in the name of keeping us “safe.” Post 9/11 examples of this phenomenon include the USA PATRIOT Act, the massive illegal secret surveillance, and the TSA.
Even worse, once the war is underway, the government, under the fake and false label of “patriotism,” enlists the support of the citizenry in the destruction of their own liberty. Anyone who dares buck the war is labeled and treated as an enemy, a traitor, a betrayer, a communist, a terrorist, or an America-hater.
Madison’s point is one that every American needs to keep in mind. When one cheers for any of the president’s and the national-security establishment’s constant wars, crises, conflicts, coups, sanctions, embargoes, blockades, and the like, one is, at the same time, cheering the destruction of his own liberty and well-being at the hands of his own government.
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