War on Terrorism

The Ultimate Tragedy

by Sheldon Richman December 22, 2001

It will be the ultimate tragedy for the American people if our rational desire for justice -- even vengeance -- is transmogrified into an undated blank check to our government officials. The violence that such a thing would inflict on American society would not be of the metaphorical variety. It would be real, and the ...

The Implications of Forfeiting Our Freedoms Today

by Richard M. Ebeling December 20, 2001

We are witnessing in America today the consequences from a weakened appreciation of the purposes and importance of this constitutional order under the emotional shock of a terrible and evil act on September 11, 2001. Our fear and anger is clouding our reason, a reason that should guide us to first think whether the individual ...

A Foreign-Policy Primer for Children: The Fable of the Hornets

by Jacob G. Hornberger December 15, 2001

Once upon a time in a faraway land there was a happy and prosperous village filled with industrious and fun-loving people. To protect the villagers from occasional thieves and marauders, the village council had hired a policeman named Oscar. One day Oscar got bored and took a long walk into the woods, where he discovered some ...

The White Rose: Dissent and Justice in Wartime Germany

by Jacob G. Hornberger December 3, 2001

Justice was swift in the case of Hans and Sophie Scholl and their best friend, Christoph Probst. Only four days after they were arrested and accused of treason in the midst of World War II, they were put on trial before the special "People’s Court" that the Nazi regime had established in 1934, during the ...

Let’s Join the Pope

by Jacob G. Hornberger December 1, 2001

After the 1993 terrorist bombing of the World Trade Center, one of the convicted terrorists told a New York federal judge before sentencing that one of the principal reasons he had committed the attack was because of all the Iraqi children who had died as a result of the U.S. government's ...

The State Cannot Donate

by Jacob G. Hornberger December 1, 2001

At the first post-9/11 Christmas, perhaps it is appropriate to draw the distinction between the private and governmental assistance provided to the families of the World Trade Center victims. The outpouring of support from the private sector reflected the caring and compassionate nature of the American people because it came from ...

The Free Market Is Indomitable

by Sheldon Richman December 1, 2001

Deep in the November 14 New York Times report on the liberation of Kabul there was this perhaps little-noticed paragraph: "Food appeared plentiful. A central market that lines the road leading into the city had large amounts of fresh meat for sale, fruit juices from Iran and even Coca-Cola, a ...

Recovering Our Bearings

by Jacob G. Hornberger December 1, 2001

CHRISTMASTIME ALWAYS PROVIDES a good time both for reflection and for looking forward. While we usually do this as individuals and families, this year is an especially good time to do so as a nation. How did America start, how has it changed over the years, and where are we heading? Our country began as the ...

Self-Inflicted Violence

by Sheldon Richman December 1, 2001

IN OUR RUSH justice for the perpetrators of the horrors of September 11, we seem to have forgotten another kind of violence that is ready to befall America: the self-inflicted violence of an open-ended, comprehensive, and essentially secret global war conducted by the U.S. government against an enemy so amorphous it apparently cannot be ...

The Wolf, the Coyote, and the Sheep

by Jacob G. Hornberger November 27, 2001

Americans who are rushing to embrace the federal government's efforts to protect them from terrorists might want to keep in mind the story of the wolf, the coyote, and the sheep. One day the wolf and the coyote got into a battle with each other. In the midst of the fight, the coyote attacked the ...

A New Foreign-Policy Paradigm for America

by Jacob G. Hornberger November 25, 2001

Ludwig von Mises observed that government intervention inexorably leads to more government intervention until the point comes that government assumes total control over the affairs of the citizenry. The idea is that since government interventions always produce perverse consequences, government officials will inevitably enact new interventions designed to fix the problems resulting from the ...

An Unkeepable Promise

by Sheldon Richman November 20, 2001

President Bush should be wary of making promises he may not be able to keep. He’s vowed to prosecute a long and victorious war against “terrorism,” an amorphous “entity” if there ever was one. But before he extends his campaign beyond Afghanistan, which will have as its inevitable casualties a long list of civil liberties, ...