MEMO
To: Terrorists of the World
From: Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr.
Date: End of the Century
The U.S. State Department and every other official agency is telling us
to be on the lookout for terrorist attacks from you guys. The attacks could
come in any form, say the press releases, from a letter bomb to a truck
bomb. Security at airports and U.S. borders is tighter than ever. But it is
not just you swarthy foreign types who are under suspicion, but also regular
Joe citizens. We are all suspects.
It's hard to know what to make of these warnings. You might not be
plotting anything at all. This could just be propaganda designed to instill
fear in the American people. All governments know that people living in fear
of attack are more likely to be obedient. Or it could just be an excuse to
step up
violations of civil liberties: searching us, interrogating us, snooping in
our bank accounts, reading our emails, and tapping our phones.
It could also be a sign of our own government's deepening paranoia.
Certainly since the Oklahoma bombing, but even before, the U.S. government
has become very defensive. Washington, D.C., is an armed camp. It is hard to
believe that when I was a young man, all government buildings were open to
the public, and in my father's day, anyone could knock on the White House
door. But back then, the U.S. government was small and didn't attempt to run
the world. Through commerce and example, the U.S. sought the friendship of
nations.
On the other hand, these warnings may indeed be justified. Because of its
foreign policy, imperial military reach, and global arrogance, the U.S.
government is the most hated in the world. It's not surprising that some of
you might want to vent your anger. But before you do so, you should consider
this: what the U.S. government has done to you and to everyone else in the
world has nothing to do with the American people. Don't blame us for the
actions of the government.
You are undoubtedly outraged at the bombings and ongoing sanctions
against Iraq. It's true that these actions are grossly contrary to morality.
It's also true that tens of thousands of civilians have died because of
them. But these actions were undertaken by the dictatorial executive branch,
and with only the tacit approval of the Congress. No one asked the American
people if we wanted this. Thanks to the long, progressive seizure of power
by the presidency, the Clinton administration can act on its own, and pursue
its own agenda apart from the will of the American people.
The same goes for the bombing of that pharmaceutical factory in the
Sudan. It's true that this was a ghastly crime. It's an outrage that the
Clinton administration has still not issued a formal apology or offered to
compensate the factory's owner for the property damage. But here again, the
American people were not asked if they wanted to lob bombs on innocents. The
decision was undertaken at the highest levels, in consultation with half a
dozen un-elected bureaucrats.
The same point applies to all the other grievances you have against us.
The American people were not asked if we wanted to bomb the Chinese embassy
in Yugoslavia. That happened in the midst of a war that was never even
declared by Congress. The official polls showed that the war was only
supported by 40 percent, and there's no telling how many of those were just
wanting to please the
pollsters and get off the phone. Pollsters can be very intimidating; to
average Americans,
they have the air of officialdom about them, and that is hardly an
inaccurate perception.
Americans are not war-like by nature. If you look at the U.S.
Constitution, you can see the powers of the president listed in Article II.
There's nothing about the power to go to war, which is found in Article I,
under Congress. Even there, the power is way down a long list of items in
Section 8. Clearly the men who drew up this document did not envision the
U.S. as a warfare state.
If the U.S. military's actions are unconstitutional, how can the
president get away with it? Over the course of the decades, the Constitution
has become something of a dead letter. It began in the last century, when
the president used the military to stop half the states from exercising
their right to secede, and to terrorize dissenters in the North. It was
downhill from there, though only since the 1950s has the government
routinely gone to war without the approval of the American
people.
You might object that the American people elected Clinton and elected the
Congress which has the power to impeach and remove him from office. That's
true, but that doesn't mean that we should be held responsible for
everything they do. You also need to understand something about the American
electoral system. It is not separate from the government itself. The two
major parties are as closely tied to the central state as any parties in any
country in the world.
Yes, we have the vote. But look at the choices we have. The candidates
usually offered up to us have already been vetted by the political
establishment. Most of the time, that puts voters in the position of
choosing the lesser of two evils, which is still evil. We are not allowed to
choose "none of the above." For that reason and many others, fewer and fewer
people are showing up at the polls.
Besides, most of the people who run our lives never appear on the ballot,
especially judges. And the federal government employs 2 million people as
full-time bureaucrats, their salaries crowbarred out of the American
taxpayer. They never run for office and they can't be fired. If we could
unseat them, we would. But the system is set up to lockout citizen
influence.
So, you see, you are not the only ones with complaints and gripes about
the behavior of the U.S. The American people suffer under its thumb too. In
many ways, we are all in the same boat -- victims of an imperial, grasping,
unaccountable and rogue regime that cares little for human rights and
liberties, except as propaganda devices.
What can be done about it? You may propose violence, but that would be
wrong, and it can only lead to more bombings, more interventions, and more
crackdowns on liberties, at home and abroad. Indeed, terrorism can only play
into the hands of the government because it seems to validate everything the
Clinton administration is saying.
There's a better way. The American people do not revere their leaders as
they once did. In every way that is permitted, and some that are not, the
American people are systematically withdrawing their consent from the powers
that be. As we saw in Eastern Europe ten years ago, in Iran under the Shah
and India under Gandhi, or in the American colonies in the 1770s, no
government can continue to hold power once the people withdraw their
consent.
So be patient. The U.S. military dominance of the world will not last
forever. Give it some time; we'll curb the power of the Leviathan. In the
meantime, refrain from blaming the American people for the actions of our
government, and from the violence that can only aid the empire.