Aletho News

The National-Security Establishment’s Message to Americans

By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | December 9, 2025

It’s easy to assume that with its drug-war killings in the Caribbean, the Pentagon is sending a message only to Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro: “We can kill your citizens with impunity and there is nothing that you or anyone else can do about it.”

In actuality, however, the Pentagon is sending the same message to the American people: “We can kill anyone we want, including American citizens, and there is nothing that you or anyone else can do about it.”

There are lots of commentators in the mainstream press pointing out the manifest illegality of intentionally, knowingly, and deliberately killing people on the high seas who U.S. officials are saying have violated the U.S. government’s drug laws. They are pointing out that the killings amount to state-sponsored murder. Under U.S. law and under the U.S. Constitution, federal officials are not permitted to kill people who are suspected of violating drug laws. Law-enforcement personnel are required to instead take them into custody, secure a grand-jury indictment, and prosecute them in a court of law, where they have the right to a lawyer, a jury trial, and other procedural guarantees.

But remember: This isn’t the DEA we are talking about. This is the U.S. national-security establishment — that is, the Pentagon, the vast military-industrial empire, the CIA, and the NSA— we are talking about. Once they become a law-enforcement agency for the drug war, everything changes. That’s because they are not bound by the same rules as regular federal law-enforcement agencies. They are not bound by any rules whatsoever. That’s what the Pentagon is reminding every American with its drug-war killings in the Caribbean.

Once the U.S. government was converted into a national-security state after World War II, the new national-security establishment — specifically, the Pentagon and the CIA — automatically acquired the power of assassination. Recognizing this reality, the federal judiciary made it crystal clear that it would never enforce the Constitution against the Pentagon’s and CIA’s omnipotent power to assassinate people, including American citizens.

Thus, no one could do anything about the national-security establishment’s plots to assassinate people like Congo leader Patrice Lumumba, Cuban president Fidel Castro, Dominican Republic leader Rafael Trujillo, Chilean general Rene Schneider, and, more recently, Iranian general Qasem Soleimani.

There was also nothing that anyone could do about the coups that would very possibly leave foreign leaders dead, such as Iranian prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh, Guatemalan president Jacobo Arbenz, and Chilean president Salvador Allende.

There was also nothing anyone could do about the national-security’s establishment’s participation in international assassination rings, such as Operation Condor.

The message has always been clear: “We can kill anyone we want, and there is nothing that anyone can do about it. Our power over you is total and complete. Accept it and get used to it.”

The message became clearer when they took out President John F. Kennedy, who had taken them on, and then crammed down American throats the “lone-nut, magic-bullet” theory of the assassination, which was always about as lame, inane, and ridiculous as labeling drug-war suspects “terrorist enemy combatants” or, for that matter, the use of scary WMDs to justify a war of aggression against Iraq, or some “attack” on the United States in the Gulf of Tonkin to justify a deadly, destructive, and senseless war in Vietnam. But Americans have always been expected to buy it all, no matter how ludicrous, and many of them deferentially have.

More recently, we shouldn’t forget their assassinations of Anwar al-Awlaki and his 16-year-old son Abdulrahman. They were American citizens, not foreigners. It was another powerful message to the American people: “We can kill anyone we want and there is nothing anyone can do about it. Accept it, embrace it, and get used to it. And don’t forget to thank us for our service.”

It’s probably also worth mentioning the federal judiciary’s deference to the authority of the national-security establishment to take American citizens into custody simply by labeling them as “suspected terrorists,” torture them, incarcerate them for the rest of their lives without a trial, and, no doubt, even execute them. That’s what the Jose Padilla case was all about.

So what if those drug-war killings in the Caribbean are illegal, as those commentators in the mainstream press are saying? What difference does it make? Everyone, and especially the national-security establishment, knows that nobody can do anything about it. That’s the powerful message that the U.S national-security establishment is sending to the American people: “We can illegally kill anyone we want, including Americans, and there is nothing anyone can do about it. We are in charge. We have total and complete control over you because we can kill you whenever we want, and there is nothing anyone can do about it.”

After all, who is going to prosecute the Pentagon and CIA killers? The Justice Department? Don’t make me laugh. The Justice Department is subordinate to the Pentagon and the CIA. The Congress? Again, please don’t make me laugh harder. Congress has long deferred to the power and majesty of the national-security establishment, especially when we consider the large number of loyal and “patriotic” military veterans and CIA officers serving in Congress. The federal judiciary? When have they ever done anything about the national-security establishment’s assassinations or, for that matter, its torture and indefinite detention camp in Cuba?

Make no mistake about it: As comforting as it might be to Americans that those illegal drug-war killings are taking place “over there” against Latin American foreigners, the fact is that the national-security establishment’s omnipotent power to kill suspected “narco-terrorists” extends to everyone right here in the United States. When the right time comes to demonstrate this point to American citizens, my hunch is that we will see lots of shocked, frightened, deferential, silent, dependent, and even supportive American sheep.

December 10, 2025 - Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | CIA, Human rights, Iran, Latin America, United States