Sanctions Kill Innocent People and Also Destroy Our Liberty

by
Jacob G. Hornberger
My articles My booksMy videos
Follow on:

While American statists are cheering the U.S. government’s sanctions on Russia, 71-year-old John Hanick shows us how the cheers are also for the destruction of the rights and liberties of the American people. That’s because U.S. officials have just charged Hanick, who is an American citizen who once worked at Fox News as a director, with a federal criminal offense for violating U.S. sanctions on Russia.

Hanick now faces up to 20 years in a federal penitentiary, not to mention of course, that he will have to incur tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars in lawyer fees to defend himself against this malevolent criminal prosecution.

What did Hanick do to earn the wrath of the U.S. Justice Department? He was working for a Russian oligarch named Konstantin Malofeyev to establish a Russian cable news network as well as other media outlets in Europe. It turns out that Malofeyev was made one of the specific targets of U.S. sanctions on Russia several years ago as part of the U.S. government’s longtime anti-Russia crusade.

In other words, Hanick didn’t rob, kill, rape, assault, or initiate force or fraud against anyone. His conduct was entirely peaceful and economic in nature. All he did was enter into an economic transaction in which one person paid him money in return for services rendered. That’s why the feds are now going after him with a vengeance. 

Thus, it’s easy to assume that sanctions just target foreigners with death and impoverishment as a way to achieve a political goal, which is evil enough. But the fact is that they also serve to destroy the economic liberty and the right of freedom of association of the American people and, in the process, place our own economic activities under the command and control of federal officials. The irony, of course, is that that’s how things work in Russia too! 

This isn’t the only example of how sanctions destroy our own rights and liberties. Ever since 1961, whenever U.S. officials have discovered that an American has traveled to Cuba and spent money there without the permission of U.S. officials, they have gone after him with a vengeance for daring to violate their sacred embargo. They’ve indicted, prosecuted, incarcerated, and fined Americans who have committed the grave “offense” of violating the sacred deadly and destructive U.S. embargo against the Cuban people. So much for the rights of freedom of travel and freedom of association as well as the right to spend your own money any way you want.

One of the infamous demonstrations as to how sanctions have contributed to the destruction of American liberty was what they did to Bert Sacks, an American who lives in Washington state. Unwilling to passively acquiesce to the evil of the U.S. government’s sanctions on Iraq in the 1990s, Sacks traveled to Iraq with medicines and other supplies. 

U.S. officials went ballistic. In their mind, Sacks was akin to a traitor by daring to help people who U.S. officials were doing their best to kill and impoverish with their sanctions. Recall, after all, that the U.S. sanctions on Iraq contributed to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children. Recall also U.S. Ambassador to the UN Madeline Albright’s declaring that the deaths of half-a-million Iraqi children from the sanctions were “worth it.” Sacks was considered to be a super “bad guy” for trying to alleviate the suffering of the victims of the U.S. sanctions. After all, he was an American and, therefore, supposed to stand with his government, not with his government’s official enemies, opponents, or rivals.

They fined Sacks $10,000. To his everlasting credit — and why he will always be one of my modern-day heroes — Sacks steadfastly refused to pay their evil fine. They hounded him for years trying to extract the money from him. But Sacks held out, and he ultimately beat them by never paying a single penny of their evil fine. See my 2012 article “Bert Sacks: A Hero in Our Time.”

It’s pathetic enough to see American statists cheering sanctions that U.S. officials inflict on foreigners with the aim of bringing death and impoverishment to them. Ironically, even while cheering the manifest evil of sanctions, many of these same statists go to church on Sundays and pray that God will bring peace and love to the world. It’s equally pathetic when statists cheer the destruction of their own rights and liberties — and our’s as well — at the hands of their own government officials.

You Might Also Like

Pushing toward Nuclear War

2022-03-09

According to Yahoo! News, “More than two dozen foreign policy experts have called for the United States and NATO to institute a partial no-fly zone over Ukraine, which would serve as an escalation of the conflict with Russia.” Joining them is Illinois Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger, who also happens to be a former Air Force combat officer. That would mean the U.S. military would be shooting down Russian planes containing Russian soldiers. 
So far, the idea is being resisted by President Biden and the military-intelligence establishment. However, given the extreme anti-Putin mentality that characterizes Biden, the Pentagon, and the CIA, their position could easily change on a moment’s notice.
The matter brings to mind what happened during the John Kennedy administration, the

Winner and Losers in the Ukraine Crisis

2022-03-09

Let’s examine winners and losers in the Ukraine crisis. Let’s start with the losers. The biggest loser are the people of Ukraine. They are being killed, injured, and maimed by the Russian invasion of their country. The invasion is also destroying their homes, businesses, and, well, their entire country. 

The Cold War Racket Never Ended for the U.S.

2022-01-30

There is something important to recognize about the Cold War: It was not ended by the U.S. government. Instead, it was ended by the Soviet Union. If it had been up to the U.S. national-security establishment, the Cold War would have gone on forever because it is the best racket in U.S. history, one that continually expanded the tax-funded largess, power, and influence of the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA.

Healthcare Freedom

2022-01-14

As the Omicron variation of COVID-19 continues to spread, the American people need to be asking themselves an important question: Do they want healthcare freedom or not? 

The Debt Ceiling and Inflation

2021-12-19

Not surprisingly, both houses of Congress approved another increase in the debt ceiling and have sent the bill to President Biden, who will most assuredly sign it. The bill raises the debt ceiling to $31.5 trillion. This debt ceiling is expected to last through the upcoming mid-term elections so that incumbent elected officials don’t have to deal with it in their campaigns for reelection.

A Great U.S. Boycott

2021-12-16

I never thought I would find myself saying this but President Biden has just instituted a great boycott. It’s against China, which U.S. officials have been trying their best to reconvert into a Cold War enemy, opponent, rival, or adversary. 
What’s so good about this boycott? It purports to punish China by prohibiting U.S. government officials from attending the Winter Olympics in China.

The Omnipotent Power of the Pentagon

2021-12-11

No matter how you feel about the Pentagon and the military-industrial complex, you can’t help but be impressed at how they are able to successfully plunder and loot American taxpayers, no matter how much needless death, suffering, and destruction they wreak on people around the world.

What the CIA Is Hiding in the JFK Assassination

2021-10-27

With President Biden succumbing to the CIA’s demand to continue keeping the CIA’s records relating to the Kennedy assassination secret, the question naturally arises: What is the CIA still hiding? (See my blog post of yesterday entitled “Surprise! Biden Continues the CIA’s JFK Assassination Cover-Up.”)