By Jacob G. Hornberger
The Future of Freedom Foundation
October 17, 2026
In a Wall Street Journal article about how the U.S. government's deportation machine now has Democrat Rep. Ilhan Omar in its sights, the Wall Street Journal's assistant editor James Freeman included a phrase that caught my eye. He wrote: "Rep. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) has always made one wonder how a person could flee oppression in Somalia, find freedom in the U.S., and somehow end up viewing America as the villain in global affairs."
"Viewing America as the villain in global affairs" ? I'm no expert on Omar's views but I doubt very seriously whether she views America as the villain in global affairs. My hunch is that she views the U.S. government - and especially the national-security-state branch of the U.S. government - as the villain in global affairs.
One of the big problems with conservatives is that they conflate the U.S. government with America the nation. For them, the government and the country are one and the same thing. Thus, given that mindset, it stands to reason that if one criticizes or condemns the U.S. government's evil and immoral acts in foreign affairs, conservatives consider that person to be criticizing our country.
But that conservative conflation of the government and the country is totally wrong-headed. The fact is that we are talking about two separate and distinct entities: The U.S. government and America the country.
This phenomenon is perfectly reflected by the Bill of Rights, which expressly protects the country from the federal government. That concept, needless to say, befuddles conservatives. The conservative no doubt asks himself: How can the Bill of Rights protect the country from the federal government given that the federal government and the country are one and the same thing?
But they are not one and the same thing. They are two separate and distinct entities. The fact that the U.S. government commits evil and immoral acts around the world does not mean that America is committing those evil and immoral acts. In fact, when a government is engaged in committing evil and immoral acts, it is up to people of that nation to put a stop to such wrongful conduct on the part of their government. That process oftentimes begins with the citizenry criticizing and condemning the government's wrongful conduct. Indeed, it might be said that an apathetic, indifferent, frightened, or even supportive populace bears moral responsibility for the evil and immorality committed by their own government.
Martin Luther King, Jr., specifically identified "my own government," not America, as the biggest purveyor of violence in the world. I don't see how any reasonable person, including Freeman or any other conservative, can dispute King's assessment. Let's go back to King's era - during the old Cold War racket, when U.S. officials and conservatives were claiming that there was an international communist conspiracy based in Moscow by which America was in danger of being taken over by the Reds (rather than by the terrorists, the Muslims, the drug dealers, and the illegal-immigrant invaders).
Does Freeman dispute the fact that the U.S. government launched an illegal, unconstitutional, and immoral military intervention in Vietnam, one that brought untold death, injuries, and destruction to people in that part of the world ? Let's not forget that the Vietnam War was waged by conscripting - forcing - American men, especially black men, to travel thousands of miles away from American shores to protect America's freedom, including the "freedom" to live under a government-imposed segregationist system. Let's also not forget that some 58,000 American military personnel were sacrificed for nothing in that evil, illegal, unconstitutional, and immoral intervention. At the risk of belaboring the obvious, it wasn't America, including King and other American blacks, who launched the Vietnam War. It was the U.S. government that did that.
Or how about the U.S. government's conspiracy with the Mafia to assassinate Cuban leader Fidel Castro ? Surely Freeman doesn't defend that conspiracy on the basis that the only good communist is a dead communist. Surely, he sees that a U.S.-orchestrated assassination, including one targeting a socialist or a communist, is nothing more than an evil, immoral, illegal, and unconstitutional murder. Again, it wasn't America that conspired with the Mafia to murder Castro. It was the U.S. government, and specifically the U.S. national-security branch of the government, that did that.
Consider the U.S. government's involvement in a 1970 conspiracy to kidnap the head of Chile's armed forces, Gen. René Schneider, simply because Schneider opposed a military coup that would prevent socialist Salvador Allende from assuming the presidency. The CIA supported Chilean military conspirators who were plotting Schneider's removal. Schneider was subsequently shot during a kidnapping attempt and died of his wounds. It wasn't America that became involved in this criminal conspiracy. It was the U.S. government.
Or consider the Chilean coup itself in 1973 and the aftermath of the brutal and deadly military dictatorship that the U.S. government helped bring about and subsequently supported. Indeed, let's not forget Operation Condor, a vast international assassination and kidnapping network. It was the U.S. government that participated in that criminal enterprise, not America.
The pathetic part about King's assessment of the U.S. government back in the 1960s is that his assessment applies to today as well. How can any reasonable person not see that ? How can anyone not see the evil and immorality, as just one example, of targeting the Venezuelan populace with deadly and destructive economic sanctions as a way to achieve regime change and then deporting Venezuelan refugees when they fled dire economic conditions in a desperate attempt to survive?
How can anyone not see the evil and immorality of a decades-long drug-war racket, one that was recently used to justify a violent U.S. military raid on Venezuela that left around 100 people dead?
How can anyone not see the evil and immorality of the U.S. government's current partnership with the unelected, illegitimate communist-socialist, narco-terrorist regime in Venezuela now headed by Marxist interim president Delcy Rodriguez, a regime that it condemned and sanctioned for decades?
Moreover, how can anyone not see the evil and immorality of drug-war assassinations of people traveling on the high seas in little boats simply on the basis of supposed secret information and without according them due process of law that the Fifth Amendment expressly requires?
U.S. immigration officials might well succeed in their effort to strip Rep. Omar of her citizenship and subject her to deportation. But whatever happens to Omar, one fundamental truth remains: The U.S. government is not America, and criticizing the evil and immoral actions of the U.S. government is not the same thing as criticizing America. Indeed, exposing and opposing such wrongdoing is one of the most important responsibilities of a free people.
This article was originally published at The Future of Freedom Foundation.