Friday, April 30, 2004
Two responses to my article “Is Fox News Supporting the Troops or the President?” and my rejoinders to these responses have been posted on Antiwar.com’s “Backtalk”:
Kari Mencik: “This is the most irresponsible article I’ve read….”
Jacob Hornberger: “Speaking of Berlin and Germany, let’s not forget the “liberation” and occupation….”
***
Rachel Bass: “This man claims that you cannot support both the troops and the President. He claims that we are no longer fighting for freedom because Saddam has been caught! Does this man pay attention to the news? We are not occupying the Middle East to merely throw our weight around…. I am a member of the United States Army….”
Jacob Hornberger: “….The real truth, which Bass and so many other American soldiers find it painful to accept, is that they are nothing more than pawns that are being sacrificed for the grand and glorious cause of installing a U.S.-friendly regime in Iraq, which has been the goal of US officials from the get-go….”
See Antiwar.com’s “Backtalk.” (Scroll down.)
Thursday, April 29, 2004
President Bush often refers to Saddam Hussein’s “torture chambers,” the most notorious of which were located at the Abu Ghraib prison, where Saddam incarcerated and tortured enemies of his regime. CIA Bureau Chief Bob Baer said, “I visited Abu Ghraib a couple of days after it was liberated. It was the most awful sight I’ve ever seen.”
Unfortunately, after the Iraq war was over, U.S. officials decided to keep Abu Ghraib open and operational, as a place to incarcerate enemies of the U.S. occupation of Iraq. Even worse, it turns out that U.S. military officials have been using Saddam Hussein’s torture chambers to torture Iraqi prisoners.
According to CBS, photographs show American GIs posing with naked Iraqi prisoners. “In some, the male prisoners are positioned to simulate sex with each other. And in most of the pictures, the Americans are laughing, posing, pointing, or giving the camera a thumbs-up.” Another photograph shows a prisoner with wires attached to his genitals. Another photograph shows a prisoner being attacked by a dog.
According to CBS, “One Iraqi soldier was told to stand on a box with his head covered, wires attached to his hands. He was told that if he fell off the box, he would be electrocuted.”
One photograph is of “an Iraqi man who appears to be dead — and badly beaten.”
Not surprisingly, the Pentagon has kept the matter under wraps until now. It has announced that 17 soldiers, including Brigadier General Janice Karpinski, the commanding officer at the prison, have been removed from duty and that six soldiers are going to be court-martialed.
One of the soldiers facing court martial, Army Reserve Staff Sgt. Chip Frederick, who is being charged with striking prisoners and ordering them to strike each other, says that he’s not guilty because the Army never provided rules and regulations or training as to how he was supposed to behave toward the prisoners.
Former Marine Lt. Col. Bill Cowan said, “We went into Iraq to stop things like this from happening, and, indeed, here they are happening under out tutelage.”
Brigadier General Mark Kimmett, deputy director of coalition operations in Iraq, correctly observed, “Our soldiers could be taken prisoner as well. And we expect our soldiers to be treated well by the adversary, by the enemy. And if we can’t hold ourselves up as an example of how to treat people with dignity and respect … We can’t ask that other nations to that to our soldiers as well.”
Wednesday, April 28, 2004
If nothing else, at least the Iraq war has enabled people to clearly see that it is U.S. foreign policy that is at the root of terrorism against Americans rather than hatred for America’s “freedom and values,” as U.S. officials often maintain.
After all, think about it: As President Bush himself has finally admitted, there is no evidence that Saddam Hussein had any role in the 9/11 attacks. But the invasion, war of aggression, and brutal occupation of Iraq have now produced a whole new crop of terrorists, to such an extent that Iraq has not only been morphed into the “war on terrorism,” it’s also, according to U.S. officials, become the major front in the “war on terrorism.”
Of course, it was no different with the 9/11 terrorist attacks and, for that matter, the 1993 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, which were terrorist retaliatory responses to the U.S. government’s policies in the Middle East, including its brutal 10-year embargo against the Iraqi people which killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children.
So, there you have the perfect formula for perpetual war, perpetually increasing Pentagon budgets, and perpetual assaults on civil liberties: Meddle in the affairs of other countries, produce the anger and hatred that motivates people to respond with terrorist attacks, declare “war on terrorism” against the terrorists who have responded, and then continue doing more of the same as part of the “war on terrorism.”
Tuesday, April 27, 2004
The capture and release of Japanese hostages in Iraq has exposed even more hypocrisy within the U.S. government. According to a Sunday New York Times article, the Japanese civilians, who were in Iraq for humanitarian and journalistic purposes, have been treated with disdain by both the Japanese government and the Japanese people for, as Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen explained, “endangering Japan’s humanitarian mission in Iraq. For disobeying a government advisory and going to Iraq in the first place. For putting their own goals above those of the nation.”
Weighing in on the controversy, former U.S. Army general and current Secretary of State Colin Powell stated, “If nobody was willing to take a risk, then we would never move forward. We would never move our world forward.And so I’m pleased that these Japanese citizens were willing to put themselves at risk for a greater good, for a better purpose. And the Japanese people should be very proud that they have citizens like this willing to do that.”
Oh?
Well, given that Gen. Powell has now become a champion of courageous acts of private humanitarianism, perhaps he’ll explain and even apologize for the U.S. government’s prosecution of Americans who traveled to Iraq throughout the 1990s to deliver medicines and other essential items to relieve the suffering of the Iraqi people from the brutal 10-year military embargo inflicted on Iraqi by both the U.S. government and the United Nations.
Monday, April 26, 2004
Well, those who were hoping that the unprovoked war of choice against Iraq was going to end terrorism might be surprised to know that the exact opposite has happened, as we here at FFF repeatedly predicted prior to the president’s invasion of that country. A front-page New York Times article today says that “the call to Jihad is rising in the streets of Europe, and is being answered, counterterrorism officials say…. In Hamburg, Dr. Mustafa Yoldas, the director of the Council of Islamic Communities, saw a correlation to the discord in Iraq. ‘This is a very dangerous situation at the moment,’ Dr. Yoldas said. ‘My impression is that Muslims have become more and more angry against the United States.’”
Of course, the same thing happened when the 1993 and 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center occurred after the Gulf War intervention, the 10-year brutal embargo against the Iraqi people, the stationing of troops on Islamic holy lands, and the unconditional financial and military support of Israeli policies.
One critical problem with the U.S. government’s claim that terrorists hate the United States for its “freedom and values” rather than for its government’s foreign policy is that, as George Santayana put it, “those who cannot learn from history are condemned to repeat it.”
Saturday, April 24, 2004
Bush administration officials have clarified what exactly they mean by “sovereignty” when sovereignty over Iraq is turned over to the Iraqi Governing Council or some other group that might be chosen by UN officials and U.S. officials before the June 30 deadline. It turns out that decisions of the newly “sovereign” Iraqi government, including the power to boot the U.S. out of their country, will need the permission of occupation officials. In fact, President Bush has now clarified that the new “sovereign” government in Iraq will not even have the power to enact new laws! (Hey, maybe President Bush will impose “sovereignty” on Congress too!)
Wait a minute? Excuse me for thinking, but I thought “sovereign” meant sovereign!
Type the following phrase into Google:
Define: sovereignty
Here is what you get: “government free from external control.”
Now, if the Iraqi council that is now “sovereign” must receive the permission of U.S. military officials before making decisions, then how in the world can it be considered a “government free from external control”? (Duh!)
Sounds like a puppet regime to me, with U.S. military officials pulling the strings of their Iraqi puppets!
Let’s be honest: Wasn’t that what the invasion and war of aggression against Iraq were all about from the get-got? Not about WMD. Not about liberation. Not about terrorism. Not about democracy. The deaths of thousands upon thousands of people, both American and Iraqi, have been about political power and the installation of a U.S.-friendly puppet regime, one now that will even consist of remnants of the regime of Saddam Hussein, a brutal dictator who himself was once a close ally of the U.S. government, just as is the non-democratically elected brutal army dictator currently oppressing his people in Pakistan.
Friday, April 23, 2004
U.S. officials are complaining that Syria is shipping weapons across the border into Iraq for the purpose of using them against occupation troops in Iraq. Maybe the Syrians got the idea from the U.S. government’s shipment of weapons to Osama bin Laden across the Afghan border for the purpose of using them against Russian GIs during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Of course, Soviet officials took the same position as U.S. officials — that they were “supporting their troops” through their military occupation of Afghanistan for the purpose of “liberating” the Afghan people.
Thursday, April 22, 2004
Faced with rising chaos and violence in Iraq and insurgency and terrorism against occupation forces in Iraq, the U.S. government has now decided to hire officials from the Saddam Hussein regime, including military officers, to help crack down on recalcitrant Iraqis. It’s almost enough to bring to mind the U.S. government’s employment of former Nazis after the end of World War II.
Hey, doesn’t the end justify the means?
Oh well, certainly no one can argue that Saddam’s old cohorts aren’t proficient in the “crack-down” business. Of course, I can just hear it now, after new victims of Saddam’s cohorts attack Americans in the future: “They hate us for our freedom and values!”
By the way, the unification of Saddam’s men with occupational forces should be old-home week for some of them, given the U.S. government’s ardent support of Saddam Hussein during the 1980s.
Wednesday, April 21, 2004
Uh, oh! U.S. officials are undoubtedly grinding their teeth some more over the failure of U.S. troops to kill Saddam Hussein instead of capturing him, as they did with Saddam’s two sons. The French attorney (that should give FOX News commentators the shakes) who is representing Saddam, Jacques Verges, announced that he intends to call top U.S. officials to testify about U.S. support of Saddam Hussein during the 1980s, which would be a nightmare for U.S. officials who want Americans to continue believing that Saddam Hussein acquired his WMD from some unknown source, such as from international terrorists.
After all, how many Americans realize that the U.S. was one of the principle suppliers of WMD to Saddam — you know, those infamous WMD that U.S. officials used to scare the American people into supporting the president’s invasion and war of aggression against Iraq? How many Americans know about those chummy meetings between Rummy and Saddam in Baghdad, the details of which Rummy has trouble remembering?
It’s not all bad new for U.S. officials however. According to CNN, a man named Salem Chalabi has been named to head Saddam’s tribunal. He’s the nephew of Ahmed Chalabi, the member of the Iraqi Governing Council, the man who is on the lam for a conviction for bank fraud and embezzlement in Jordan and who is having his pockets stuffed with U.S. taxpayer cash to the tune of $350,000 every month.
Maybe U.S. officials can ask Ahmed to speak to his nephew about adopting President Bush’s and the Pentagon’s type of criminal-justice system and barring Saddam from speaking to his lawyer and calling witnesses or even having a trial, as the president and the Pentagon are doing with Padilla, Hamdi, Guantanamo, and Moussaoui.
Tuesday, April 20, 2004
Pity the poor Iraqi men who out of conscience refused to fight in Saddam Hussein’s army—Saddam forced them to undergo surgery to remove one of their ears so that everyone would know about their “cowardice.”
For that matter, pity American servicemen who refuse out of conscience to “serve” in Iraq—the Pentagon forces them to undergo a criminal trial for “cowardice” where the penalty on conviction is death.
Monday, April 19, 2004
Last night, the USA television network broadcast part 1 of its made-for-tv movie “Spartacus,” which is about a massive slave rebellion against the Roman Empire. Part 2 is tonight. The movie is actually a remake of the 1960 “Spartacus”, a much better movie starring Kirk Douglas. One of the fascinating lines in last night’s movie is when one Roman official remarks to another that fear is a remarkable weapon because it makes the electorate more malleable. One can only wonder whether the people at FOX News are now going to call for the FCC to revoke USA’s broadcast license for glorifying terrorism and treason against the Roman Empire.
Saturday, April 17, 2004
Last week 20-year-old Michelle Witmer, who had joined the National Guard as a military policeman to help with her college expenses, was buried, having been killed in an ambush in Iraq. The U.S. Army is now offering her two sisters, who also were serving in a Guard unit in Iraq, a choice of not returning to Iraq.
Why not give the same choice to all the other soldiers serving in Iraq, including those 20,000 troops whose one-year tour of duty is now being involuntarily extended? After all, the president and the Pentagon continue to tell us that the troops believe in what they’re doing in Iraq. Why not put that claim to the test? And what better way to test it than by offering the same choice to the all other troops that the Pentagon has offered to the surviving Witmer sisters? That would mean, of course, that the Pentagon would also have to discontinue its prosecution of Staff Sgt. Camilo Mejia, who has refused out of conscience to return to Iraq to take part in what he believes is an “oil-driven war.”
Friday, April 16, 2004
It’s both sad and perverted that the U.S. government has morphed its “war on terrorism” with its invasion, war of aggression, and occupation against Iraq. Sad because U.S. officials apparently don’t realize that it’s their interventions in the Middle East that have given rise to the hatred and anger that produced the terrorism — including the Gulf War, the intentional destruction of Iraq’s water and sewage treatment plants, the 10-year embargo against the Iraqi people, the stationing of U.S. troops on Islamic holy lands, and the U.S. government’s unconditional support of Israeli government policies. Perverted because the invasion, war of aggression, and occupation of Iraq are just more of the same interventionist policies that produced the terrorism in the first place. Thus, when U.S. officials say that their invasion, war of aggression, and occupation of Iraq are necessary to wage war on terrorism, don’t forget that these interventionist policies are what produce the terrorism that then requires a war on terrorism.
Thursday, April 15, 2004
Martha Stewart is seeking a new trial based on lies purportedly issued by a juror in the case, Chappell Hartridge. He’s the juror who announced after the verdict that Stewart’s conviction for lying was a victory for the “little guy.”
Hartridge’s alleged lies related to his juror information form, which each juror customarily fills out under penalty of perjury and which the parties to a case rely on in selecting who should serve on the jury in the case.
Stewart alleges that Hartridge failed to disclose that he had confessed to embezzling from a Little League organization and to a cocaine habit; that he had been charged with assaulting a woman; and that his son had been convicted on attempted robbery.
According to CNN, federal prosecutors said that “the disclosures about Hartridge were not enough to warrant a hearing, much less a new trial.”
In other words, Stewart’s issuance of a few minor and immaterial lies to a federal bureaucrat about breaches of economic regulations in which there were no victims justifies the prosecution, conviction, and incarceration of one of the most remarkable and successful entrepreneurs of our time while Hartridge’s lying under oath in a federal judicial proceeding in which a citizen’s liberty is at stake would be just no big deal.
Oh, well, when it comes to justice, no one has ever accused the Justice Department of overwhelming consistency.
Wednesday, April 14, 2004
Given that federal incompetence and negligence were major factors in the failure to prevent the 9/11 attacks, is it starting to make sense why many of us opposed turning over airport security to the federal keystone cops after the 9/11 attacks?
Tuesday, April 13, 2004
Last Sunday, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said that the war in Iraq was part of a “historic struggle” against dictatorship, terrorism, and fanaticism across the globe. Unfortunately, Blair failed to reconcile that assertion with the alliance that he and President Bush have entered into with Pakistan’s dictator, Pervez Musharraf, an army general who took over in a coup, best (former) friend of the Taliban, and the Pakistani official who very quickly pardoned the Pakistani scientist who illegally sold nuclear technology around the world. For that matter, Blair also failed to explain how the West’s support of Saddam Hussein, well-known former dictator of Iraq and accused supporter of terrorism and fanaticism, and its delivery of weapons of mass destruction to Saddam, were part of that “historic struggle.” And while we’re on the subject, Blair also failed to explain the U.S. government’s prior support of Osama bin Laden, a well-known international terrorist and fanatic. Oh well, I suppose no “historic struggle” is ever perfect.
Monday, April 12, 2004
Some of President Bush’s supporters have compared 9/11 to Pearl Harbor. Not a good idea! Why? Because over the years an increasing body of circumstantial evidence indicates that Roosevelt not only knew the Japanese were going to attack somewhere but actually wanted them to attack, as a way to finally overcome American resistance to involvement in World War II.
Even while declassifying the August 6 daily briefing to President Bush indicating Osama bin Laden’s intent to attack in the United States, U.S. officials still refuse to declassify the documents revealing whether or not the U.S. had broken the Japanese military code prior to the Pearl Harbor attack. (It has long been established that they had broken the diplomatic code before the attack and that they were reading the diplomatic messages between Japan and its agents in the United States.)
Moreover, some of FDR’s supporters have even defended his conduct by saying that his intentional sacrifice of U.S. soldiers would have been morally justified in order to provide him entry into a war that would save civilization and mankind from Nazi tyranny.
Here are some pertinent articles that FFF has published over the years on the subject:
December 7, 1941: The Infamy of FDR by Jacob G. Hornberger (1991)
Pearl Harbor: The Controversy Continues by Sheldon Richman (1991)
Betrayal at Pearl Harbor: How Churchill Lured Roosevelt into World War II, a review by Richard M. Ebeling (1991)
A Time for War: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Path to Pearl Harbor, a review by Richard M. Ebeling (1992)
Scapegoats: A Defense of Kimmel and Short at Pearl Harbor, a review by Richard M. Ebeling (1995)
A Different Look at World War II by Jacob G. Hornberger (2001)
9/11 and Pearl Harbor by Jacob G. Hornberger (2002)
Days of Infamy: MacArthur, Roosevelt, Churchill—The Shocking Truth Revealed, a review by Richard M. Ebeling (1995)
Saturday, April 10, 2004
Last week Susan McGovern, the daughter of 1972 Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern, challenged 2004 Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry to make a “strong statement” against President Bush’s foreign policy record. Kerry’s response? “You tell me if this is strong enough. George Bush and the Republicans in Washington today have run the most arrogant, inept, reckless and ideological foreign policy in the modern history of this country.”
Yeah, that sure is strong, Senator Kerry! Especially given that you were one of the ones who blindly supported the president by giving him an unconstitutional blank check to invade Iraq without a congressional declaration of war and now fully support giving the president a blank check to continue sacrificing American troops in the continued occupation of Iraq with the goal of installing a U.S.-friendly regime into power.
I suppose that what Kerry is saying is that if he had been president, he also would have invaded and occupied Iraq but would have been less arrogant, more competent, less reckless, and less ideological in doing so.
Of course, Kerry has that good old standby answer that is becoming increasingly popular among the members of Congress who blindly supported the president’s invasion and war of aggression: “Let’s get the UN involved in the process!” Whoopdeedoo! Is that a strong stance or what? Never mind that the UN doesn’t want to get involved, and never mind that Bush, Kerry, and the rest of the officials who got our country into this mess, not the UN, bear the responsibility to get us out of it. It’s a safe position to take, which of course is why Kerry and his cohorts in the U.S. Senate are taking it.
Friday, April 9, 2004
The movie “The Alamo” opens today, which commemorates the fight for Texas independence. Texas had originally formed a province of the Mexican State of Coahuila, in the northern part of the country. The residents of Texas, most of whom had become Mexican citizens and had pledged allegiance to the flag of the Republic of Mexico, were upset with their president, Santa Anna, for doing the following things:
- closing the border to immigration;
- collecting tariffs at Galveston;
- imposing and enforcing economic rules and regulations issued by federal bureaucrats in Mexico City, the nation’s capital;
- using military force to suppress attempts by the Texas residents to require Santa Anna to comply with the Mexican constitution of 1824 (the fight was not about independence at first);
and, most important, Santa Anna’s decision to establish a strong federal government rather than permit decentralization of power to the respective Mexican states.Sound familiar?
Thursday, April 8, 2004
President Bush, Colin Powell, and Donald Rumsfeld all say that they’re not responsible for the deception regarding Iraq’s non-existent weapons of mass destruction because the fault lay with faulty intelligence reports issued by the CIA. For this part, George Tenet, CIA director, says that the CIA is not responsible for the faulty intelligence reports given to the president because intelligence-gathering is an inexact science. But all that “It ain’t my fault” posturing still doesn’t explain why U.S. officials refused to accept Iraq’s invitation to permit CIA officials to lead UN inspectors to the areas that Bush, Powell, Rumsfeld, and Tenet supposedly believed contained weapons of mass destruction. Or could it be that regime change was the goal the entire time and that the president and his minions were simply using the WMD as the cover for the operation, with the obvious hope that they could invade, find some WMD, and jump up and down with cries of “We saved the world from Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction!” while installing a puppet regime that would do their bidding?
Wednesday, April 7, 2004
President Bush is intensifying efforts to capture or kill Osama bin Laden prior to the November 5 elections so that he can proclaim that his “war on terrorism” is finally being won. But didn’t U.S. officials repeatedly tell us that if they could just capture or kill Saddam Hussein and his two sons, the resistance to the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq would end because Iraqis would no longer have to fear Saddam coming back into power? Yet, wasn’t March the second-deadliest month in Iraq since President Bush announced the end of hostilities one year ago? The uncomfortable truth is that even if Osama is captured or killed amidst tremendous political and media fanfare, new terrorist leaders will continue to inflict terrorism against Americans for the simple reason that U.S. policies that engender deep anger and hatred for the United States will unfortunately continue, including the invasion, war of aggression, and occupation of Iraq.
Tuesday, April 6, 2004
It seems that some FBI agents have some sticky fingers. It turns out that while they were investigating the World Trade Center rubble, they pocketed some of the valuables that had belonged to the victims rather than returning them to their families. The Washington Post reports that among these items was a Tiffany crystal globe paperweight that now has a value of about $5,000. Oh well, maybe the FBI agents, who rely on tax monies for their salaries, just felt they were entitled to a salary bonus and figured they’d eliminate the middleman—the IRS—in the process.
Monday, April 5, 2004
The Republican-controlled Congress has gone on another great big spending binge that would make any drunken sailor proud. Despite the fact that the U.S. dollar is cratering in international markets due ever-increasing federal spending, the Congress has approved a $275 billion highway bill which—surprise, surprise—is laden with pork for the home districts of the members of Congress. Hey, it’s election time! What better way for incumbents to purchase votes from the electorate than “Look at the free candy I have brought to you voters, compliments of the taxpayers in other parts of the country.” Oh well, if the U.S. government can spend billions of dollars rebuilding highways in Iraq, why not here too? Let’s all just remember to chime in when those exalted, patriotic members of Congress blame OPEC, speculators, profiteers, entrepreneurs, and “unseen forces” as commodity prices continue to soar in response to the continuing debasement of the U.S. dollar.
Saturday, April 3, 2004
Oh, the wonders of election time! President Bush caved in with respect to Condoleezza Rice’s testimony because of one reason: Election Day is right around the corner. You can bet your bottom dollar that there won’t be similar cave-ins on November 6 and for about 3 years thereafter, if Bush is reelected. (The same, of course, applies to Kerry if he is elected). Campaign season is the one period of time that incumbents running for office have to curry favor with the citizenry. Compare Bush’s resilient campaign-season attitude with, say, that of U.S. Proconsul Paul Bremer, who runs Iraq and who doesn’t have to worry about running for election. Bremer’s response to protests over his decision to shut down a newspaper in Iraq for criticizing the conduct of occupation forces in Iraq was: Tough luck. Ironically, President Bush and the Pentagon continue to hold that the Iraqi people are free because, unlike the situation under Saddam, the Iraqi people are now free to protest censorship by their non-elected ruler.
Friday, April 2, 2004
Speaking of lying, Washington, D.C., officials have been publicly stating that they didn’t know that there was lead contamination in the drinking water of D.C. residents. Unfortunately for these officials, however, someone got a Freedom of Information request granted, which turned up documents showing that D.C. officials actually knew about the problem more than a year ago. While D.C.s mayor, Anthony Williams, is now making the customary call for an “internal review” (yawn, yawn) into governmental deception that affects the health of hundreds of thousands of people, Martha Stewart, a private citizen with lots of money, continues to face jail time for minor and immaterial lies to bureaucrats about a personal stock trade that didn’t hurt anyone.
Thursday, April 1, 2004
With Congress’s repeal of our nation’s socialistic welfare-warfare state that the socialists and interventionists foisted upon our nation in the 20th century (under the guise of saving and advancing “free enterprise), today — April 1, 2004 — is a grand day for celebration for all Americans!
All along, the wars on drugs, poverty, wealth, illiteracy, guns, terrorism, and immigrants were nothing more than a political grab bag for more power and more money by the political elite. And as the American people ultimately realized, these wars brought nothing but terrible harm and damage to our country. Congress’s decision to end these horrible and destructive wars will restore harmony, peace, and prosperity to our lives.
Today, we also celebrate the congressional repeal of all socialistic welfare-state programs, including the crown jewel of government paternalism, Social Security, the most anti-family government program in the history of our nation. It was only a matter of time that Americans would discover the fraud and sham behind these socialist programs, not to mention their horrific destructiveness. Today, with the repeal of Medicare and Medicaid, we are on the road to restoring the finest health care system in the world to America. With the repeal of public schooling, educational sovereignty is now restored to American families, who are now free to rely on the free market to provide the educational needs of their children. Today, with the repeal of all welfare and government subsidies, charity is removed from the coercive government sector and restored to the private, voluntary sector, where it rightfully belongs.
Today, we celebrate the return of 350,000 U.S. soldiers from more than 100 foreign countries and their discharge into the private sector, along with a massive downsize of the military-industrial complex in America. Not only will this bring an end to the overseas military meddling that has engendered so much anger and hatred toward our country, it will also bring an end to the massive American dependency on military spending, which has long been just another form of governmental welfare.
Today, we also celebrate the dismantling of one of the most feared and terrifying agencies in the history of nations — the Internal Revenue Service, more commonly known as the IRS. From this day forward, Americans will experience the exhilaration that our ancestors experienced from 1787 to 1913 — the freedom to accumulate unlimited amounts of wealth without government interference and the freedom to do with it what they wish.
Today, we lead the world to the highest reaches of freedom ever seen by man. Today is a day that will be remembered throughout history. Today — April 1, 2004 — is a grand day — our Day of Freedom! Let us celebrate it well!
