"A balanced perspective"
Editor's note: WND's J.R. Nyquist is a renowned
expert on America's fatal illusion of an international
balance of power; diplomatic and Cold War history;
the survivability of a thermonuclear world war; and
is the author of "Origins of the Fourth World War."
Each month Nyquist provides an exclusive in-depth
report in WorldNetDaily's monthly magazine,
WorldNet. Readers may subscribe to WorldNet
through WND's online store.
© 2000, WorldNetDaily.com, Inc.
We all have prejudices, but we should think a second
time when these prejudices involve us in blanket negative
statements. This is especially true when our blanket
negative statements apply to American institutions -- to
the police and to America's armed forces.
Those of us who can remember the 1960s know there
was a time when police were called "pigs." It was also a
time when U.S. servicemen were disrespected as "baby
killers." Not surprisingly, the attitudes reflected by 1960s
protestors have origins in communist thinking and
propaganda. The fact is, in the late 1960s communist
influences were twisting America's collective psyche into
knots, seemingly at will -- turning an activist minority of
the nation's youth into protestors and agitators.
A leading Russian military intelligence (GRU) defector,
Col. Stanislav Lunev, wrote about the youthful agitators
of the 1960s in his book, "Through the Eyes of the
Enemy." According to Lunev the "GRU and KGB helped
to fund just about every antiwar movement and
organization in America and abroad." Lunev also noted
that "the GRU and KGB had a larger budget for antiwar
propaganda in the United States than it did for economic
and military support of the Vietnamese."
Without realizing it, those in America who called the
police "pigs," who evaded the draft, who rioted and
protested, were subtly being prompted by a gigantic
clandestine propaganda machine organized by agents of
Moscow and funded to the tune of a billion dollars by the
Soviet General Staff and KGB. As Col. Lunev says in his
book, "it was a hugely successful campaign and well
worth the cost. The antiwar sentiment created an
incredible momentum that greatly weakened the U.S.
military."
Quite naturally, knowing about the history of communist
subversion and propaganda in America, I tend to react
negatively to accusations against America's police and
armed forces. Whenever someone calls America an
"empire" or a "fascist state," I listen closely to the entire
diatribe and consider who really benefits from this kind of
talk. I listen for certain code words borrowed from
Soviet or Chinese propaganda. I listen for concepts lifted
from Marx and Lenin. It doesn't matter whether the
anti-police or anti-military sentiment is expressed from
the left or the right. The question always remains: Does
this sort of talk hurt America and help its enemies?
However corrupt or inept our police and military might
prove to be, such institutions nonetheless exist for our
defense. And we need defense because -- believe it or
not -- we have enemies. Nothing is served by a blanket
condemnation of America's defensive structures.
Constructive criticism is one thing, and a necessary thing,
but there is also destructive criticism which might
eventually lead to our country's demise.
Which brings me to the conversation that triggered
today's column.
A friend of mine recently characterized the FBI as
America's "secret police." Quite naturally, I had a
knee-jerk reaction against this assessment, not because
I'm a defender of the FBI or its record, but because I
know a thing or two about real secret police
organizations -- the ones you normally think about when
the word "secret police" comes to mind. These
organizations include the Gestapo and the KGB, or the
Chinese secret police -- led by figures like Heinrich
Himmler, Lavrenti Beria and Kang Sheng. Such
organizations were instrumental in the liquidation of
millions of people, and in the incarceration of millions of
human beings whose only crime was to disagree with the
state.
I'm offended whenever somebody compares American
institutions with real totalitarian institutions. I'm offended
because American institutions are not totalitarian. We do
not have a secret police as they do in Russia or China or
Cuba. Oh yes, we have police abuses, we have a bad
man in the White House, we have imperfect institutions --
because human institutions are not infinitely perfectible.
Government is a necessary evil, as the founders taught.
And the key word here is "necessary," despite the claims
of Libertarian anarchists.
I repeat: we do not have a dicatorship, we do not have
mass executions or death camps, and any comparison of
America with regimes of this type is flat wrong. The U.S.
Senate may be corrupt and the judiciary may have lost
sight of the Constitution, but we are not murdering Jews
in ovens. We are not arresting poets and journalists for
writing against the government. Thousands are not
undergoing torture in our jails. But torture is routine in
Russian and Chinese and North Korean jails.
It is shameful, even vile to compare the sins of the United
States with those of Nazi Germany or Russia or China.
Even to hint at a comparison, in my view, is an error
which cries out for correction. It is an error because it
underestimates the evil that exists in places like China and
Cuba and Iraq. It is an error because it slanders
American institutions, making them out to be much worse
than they really are.
The FBI is indeed capable of criminal errors and
cover-ups, like at Ruby Ridge and Waco. These were
shameful events, and they must never be repeated. And
make no mistake, there are corrupt FBI special agents,
because corruption exists in every human heart. After all,
it is human nature to go astray. But there is a difference
between the systematic evil of totalitarianism and the
ordinary corruption we find in all institutions, at all times.
Totalitarianism is a system of highly organized murder and
oppression, driven by ideology. American institutions, in
comparison, were not created to facilitate mass murder
and dictatorship.
The personnel of the FBI in general -- as the FBI exists
today -- could not be used to incarcerate millions of
political prisoners or to liquidate millions of human beings.
In the first place, the FBI is much too small. In the
second place, the personnel in question are sworn to
uphold the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. It would be
a political impossibility to use the FBI, as it exists today,
to uphold a dictatorship.
But there are anti-government ideologists today, as there
were in the 1960s, who believe that our government is
the enemy of the people. No doubt the government is a
"fearful master," as George Washington warned, and we
must be vigilant against usurpations. But in our vigilance
we must avoid exaggeration.
Related to this, as America has become "the world's
policeman," we also have to be wary of the claim that
America is an "imperialist" bully. Let me remind everyone
that the communist Chinese routinely refer to America as
an "imperialist" aggressor. This is one of those
propaganda words lifted from Lenin. It is a form of
calumny and abuse meant to discredit the good name of
America. Such propaganda has been used by those who
have killed Americans -- in the Korean War and in
Vietnam. It is even used in Russian military texts to justify
a future nuclear attack on America.
Propaganda is very serious business. When you
participate in enemy propaganda against your own
country, when you unthinkingly pick up certain code
words, you indirectly give aid and comfort to the enemies
of your country. This is not the right thing to do, and
Americans should think twice before doing it.
Rather than being a true imperialist nation, I believe that
the United States is routinely manipulated and swindled
by hosts of foreign countries. In fact, if you take Pat
Buchanan's book on U.S. trade policy seriously, then we
are the ones being ripped off, year after year. Lobbyists
from foreign countries (that we allegedly dominate)
swarm the halls of Congress and buy our legislators.
Trade barriers fall and whole American industries are
wiped out or shipped overseas.
By definition an empire seeks to accumulate territory and
loot other nations. What happens in our military policy is
the exact opposite. We typically hand territory back once
we've liberated it (for example, Cuba, the Philippines,
Japan, Germany, Italy, etc.) and we lose lots of money in
the process (which is called "foreign aid"). If America
really was this evil monster country, do you think Castro
would still exist in Cuba, thumbing his nose at us for over
40 years?
Do you think Castro is shaking in his boots, expecting the
genocidal imperialists from America to arrive on his
shores at any moment?
So before we jump to the conclusion that there is an
"American empire," we ought to consider first what
communist propaganda says on this theme, and what the
underlying reality actually is. If Puerto Rico, the Virgin
Islands and Guam make us an empire, then maybe we
are imperialists after all. But as I recall we've freed every
territory other than those that we've taken outside of the
50 states. And if the world hates us for that, then the
world is an unfair judge.
America is not a perfect country. But anyone who says
we are an evil empire needs to do a more careful
comparison between U.S. history and the history of other
large countries. Those who revile the United States
should read about the British in Ireland or the Nazis in
Europe. Let them compare U.S. institutions with
communist Chinese institutions. In an honest comparison
of this kind the greater evil on the one side becomes
readily apparent.
If we attempt a balanced perspective we find that
America is not such a bad country. Our police are not
"pigs" and our soldiers are not baby killers -- though
enemy propaganda wants us all to think so.
Editor's note: WND's J.R. Nyquist is a renowned
expert on America's fatal illusion of an international
balance of power; diplomatic and Cold War history;
the survivability of a thermonuclear world war; and
is the author of "Origins of the Fourth World War."
Each month Nyquist provides an exclusive in-depth
report in WorldNetDaily's monthly magazine,
WorldNet. Readers may subscribe to WorldNet
through WND's online store.
© 2000, WorldNetDaily.com, Inc.
We all have prejudices, but we should think a second
time when these prejudices involve us in blanket negative
statements. This is especially true when our blanket
negative statements apply to American institutions -- to
the police and to America's armed forces.
Those of us who can remember the 1960s know there
was a time when police were called "pigs." It was also a
time when U.S. servicemen were disrespected as "baby
killers." Not surprisingly, the attitudes reflected by 1960s
protestors have origins in communist thinking and
propaganda. The fact is, in the late 1960s communist
influences were twisting America's collective psyche into
knots, seemingly at will -- turning an activist minority of
the nation's youth into protestors and agitators.
A leading Russian military intelligence (GRU) defector,
Col. Stanislav Lunev, wrote about the youthful agitators
of the 1960s in his book, "Through the Eyes of the
Enemy." According to Lunev the "GRU and KGB helped
to fund just about every antiwar movement and
organization in America and abroad." Lunev also noted
that "the GRU and KGB had a larger budget for antiwar
propaganda in the United States than it did for economic
and military support of the Vietnamese."
Without realizing it, those in America who called the
police "pigs," who evaded the draft, who rioted and
protested, were subtly being prompted by a gigantic
clandestine propaganda machine organized by agents of
Moscow and funded to the tune of a billion dollars by the
Soviet General Staff and KGB. As Col. Lunev says in his
book, "it was a hugely successful campaign and well
worth the cost. The antiwar sentiment created an
incredible momentum that greatly weakened the U.S.
military."
Quite naturally, knowing about the history of communist
subversion and propaganda in America, I tend to react
negatively to accusations against America's police and
armed forces. Whenever someone calls America an
"empire" or a "fascist state," I listen closely to the entire
diatribe and consider who really benefits from this kind of
talk. I listen for certain code words borrowed from
Soviet or Chinese propaganda. I listen for concepts lifted
from Marx and Lenin. It doesn't matter whether the
anti-police or anti-military sentiment is expressed from
the left or the right. The question always remains: Does
this sort of talk hurt America and help its enemies?
However corrupt or inept our police and military might
prove to be, such institutions nonetheless exist for our
defense. And we need defense because -- believe it or
not -- we have enemies. Nothing is served by a blanket
condemnation of America's defensive structures.
Constructive criticism is one thing, and a necessary thing,
but there is also destructive criticism which might
eventually lead to our country's demise.
Which brings me to the conversation that triggered
today's column.
A friend of mine recently characterized the FBI as
America's "secret police." Quite naturally, I had a
knee-jerk reaction against this assessment, not because
I'm a defender of the FBI or its record, but because I
know a thing or two about real secret police
organizations -- the ones you normally think about when
the word "secret police" comes to mind. These
organizations include the Gestapo and the KGB, or the
Chinese secret police -- led by figures like Heinrich
Himmler, Lavrenti Beria and Kang Sheng. Such
organizations were instrumental in the liquidation of
millions of people, and in the incarceration of millions of
human beings whose only crime was to disagree with the
state.
I'm offended whenever somebody compares American
institutions with real totalitarian institutions. I'm offended
because American institutions are not totalitarian. We do
not have a secret police as they do in Russia or China or
Cuba. Oh yes, we have police abuses, we have a bad
man in the White House, we have imperfect institutions --
because human institutions are not infinitely perfectible.
Government is a necessary evil, as the founders taught.
And the key word here is "necessary," despite the claims
of Libertarian anarchists.
I repeat: we do not have a dicatorship, we do not have
mass executions or death camps, and any comparison of
America with regimes of this type is flat wrong. The U.S.
Senate may be corrupt and the judiciary may have lost
sight of the Constitution, but we are not murdering Jews
in ovens. We are not arresting poets and journalists for
writing against the government. Thousands are not
undergoing torture in our jails. But torture is routine in
Russian and Chinese and North Korean jails.
It is shameful, even vile to compare the sins of the United
States with those of Nazi Germany or Russia or China.
Even to hint at a comparison, in my view, is an error
which cries out for correction. It is an error because it
underestimates the evil that exists in places like China and
Cuba and Iraq. It is an error because it slanders
American institutions, making them out to be much worse
than they really are.
The FBI is indeed capable of criminal errors and
cover-ups, like at Ruby Ridge and Waco. These were
shameful events, and they must never be repeated. And
make no mistake, there are corrupt FBI special agents,
because corruption exists in every human heart. After all,
it is human nature to go astray. But there is a difference
between the systematic evil of totalitarianism and the
ordinary corruption we find in all institutions, at all times.
Totalitarianism is a system of highly organized murder and
oppression, driven by ideology. American institutions, in
comparison, were not created to facilitate mass murder
and dictatorship.
The personnel of the FBI in general -- as the FBI exists
today -- could not be used to incarcerate millions of
political prisoners or to liquidate millions of human beings.
In the first place, the FBI is much too small. In the
second place, the personnel in question are sworn to
uphold the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. It would be
a political impossibility to use the FBI, as it exists today,
to uphold a dictatorship.
But there are anti-government ideologists today, as there
were in the 1960s, who believe that our government is
the enemy of the people. No doubt the government is a
"fearful master," as George Washington warned, and we
must be vigilant against usurpations. But in our vigilance
we must avoid exaggeration.
Related to this, as America has become "the world's
policeman," we also have to be wary of the claim that
America is an "imperialist" bully. Let me remind everyone
that the communist Chinese routinely refer to America as
an "imperialist" aggressor. This is one of those
propaganda words lifted from Lenin. It is a form of
calumny and abuse meant to discredit the good name of
America. Such propaganda has been used by those who
have killed Americans -- in the Korean War and in
Vietnam. It is even used in Russian military texts to justify
a future nuclear attack on America.
Propaganda is very serious business. When you
participate in enemy propaganda against your own
country, when you unthinkingly pick up certain code
words, you indirectly give aid and comfort to the enemies
of your country. This is not the right thing to do, and
Americans should think twice before doing it.
Rather than being a true imperialist nation, I believe that
the United States is routinely manipulated and swindled
by hosts of foreign countries. In fact, if you take Pat
Buchanan's book on U.S. trade policy seriously, then we
are the ones being ripped off, year after year. Lobbyists
from foreign countries (that we allegedly dominate)
swarm the halls of Congress and buy our legislators.
Trade barriers fall and whole American industries are
wiped out or shipped overseas.
By definition an empire seeks to accumulate territory and
loot other nations. What happens in our military policy is
the exact opposite. We typically hand territory back once
we've liberated it (for example, Cuba, the Philippines,
Japan, Germany, Italy, etc.) and we lose lots of money in
the process (which is called "foreign aid"). If America
really was this evil monster country, do you think Castro
would still exist in Cuba, thumbing his nose at us for over
40 years?
Do you think Castro is shaking in his boots, expecting the
genocidal imperialists from America to arrive on his
shores at any moment?
So before we jump to the conclusion that there is an
"American empire," we ought to consider first what
communist propaganda says on this theme, and what the
underlying reality actually is. If Puerto Rico, the Virgin
Islands and Guam make us an empire, then maybe we
are imperialists after all. But as I recall we've freed every
territory other than those that we've taken outside of the
50 states. And if the world hates us for that, then the
world is an unfair judge.
America is not a perfect country. But anyone who says
we are an evil empire needs to do a more careful
comparison between U.S. history and the history of other
large countries. Those who revile the United States
should read about the British in Ireland or the Nazis in
Europe. Let them compare U.S. institutions with
communist Chinese institutions. In an honest comparison
of this kind the greater evil on the one side becomes
readily apparent.
If we attempt a balanced perspective we find that
America is not such a bad country. Our police are not
"pigs" and our soldiers are not baby killers -- though
enemy propaganda wants us all to think so.