Consequential Actions Podcast

This special episode examines the motivations of the principal actors behind the ongoing U.S.-Israeli war on Iran. It traces Benjamin Netanyahu’s thirty-four-year campaign against Iran, documents how President Trump was persuaded to launch the war he spent a decade opposing, and identifies the congressional and institutional figures across both parties who pushed for, enabled, or laid the groundwork for this conflict. The episode presents the strongest case for those who support the war before offering a libertarian, non-interventionist critique grounded in documented evidence, sourced quotations, and clearly labeled analysis.

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Empire of Liberty — Episode 10

America Hired the Nazis It Just Defeated

In 1975 a Senate committee found a secret government operating inside the constitutional one. Then Americans forgot it existed.

Before the CIA overthrew its first foreign government, it put more than 1,600 German scientists on the American payroll and absorbed Hitler’s Eastern Front intelligence chief and his entire network. Before it manipulated a foreign election, it was cultivating reporters at every major American newsroom. What followed — Cuba, the Congo, Indonesia, Chile — was funded by a classified budget that the citizens paying for it were never permitted to see. Frank Church’s committee pulled back the curtain for fourteen months. The reforms that followed constrained the covert state without transforming it.

⚠️ This episode covers mass killing in Indonesia and state torture in Chile. Treated with restraint, but present throughout the second half.

This is Episode 10 of “Empire of Liberty: America’s Foreign Entanglements from the Founders to the Forever Wars,” a series tracing how a republic that warned against entangling alliances became a global military empire.

The question underneath all of it: did this leave Americans more free, or more governed?

⏱️ CHAPTERS

0:00 — Introduction: Kennedy vs. The CIA

2:51 — The Church Committee Exposes the Secret Government

7:08 — Operation Paperclip: Recruiting Nazi Scientists

10:08 — The Gehlen Organization: Employing War Criminals

11:43 — Operation Mockingbird: Infiltrating the American Press

15:00 — The Bay of Pigs Catastrophe

17:35 — Operation Mongoose: Mafia Hitmen and Exploding Cigars

19:37 — JFK’s Conflict with the Intelligence Establishment

21:36 — The JFK Assassination: Unanswered Questions & Classified Files

25:00 — The Congo: The Overthrow and Murder of Patrice Lumumba

27:54 — Indonesia 1965: A Forgotten Massacre

32:29 — Chile: Destabilizing Salvador Allende’s Government

36:34 — The Pinochet Regime and Operation Condor

38:45 — 1975: The Church Committee Revelations

41:38 — The Legacy of Empire: Body Counts and Blowback

44:30 — Outro & Preview of Episode 11: Vietnam

📚 Companion article: https://www.consequentialactions.com/post/the-quiet-americans-cia-operations-from-cuba-to-chile

Built on the declassified record — the Church Committee reports of 1975–76, the CIA’s own “family jewels” inventory, and State Department cables on Indonesia released decades after the fact — with further reading from Carl Bernstein’s 1977 Rolling Stone investigation of the CIA and the press, Annie Jacobsen’s “Operation Paperclip,” Tim Weiner’s “Legacy of Ashes,” Peter Kornbluh’s “The Pinochet File,” and David Talbot’s “The Devil’s Chessboard.”

🎙️ Empire of Liberty — Episode 10: “The Quiet Americans: CIA Operations from Cuba to Chile”

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Consequential Actions is a libertarian, non-interventionist analysis of American constitutional and foreign policy. New episodes weekly.

𝕏: https://x.com/@jkellick

Get full access to Consequential Actions at https://www.consequentialactions.com/subscribe

Empire of Liberty — Episode 9B

This contemporary application episode examines how American regime change evolved from covert CIA operations denied for decades to open presidential assertions of authority over foreign governments. Tracing the trajectory from Korea through Syria, we analyze how President Trump’s statement that he “must be involved” in selecting Iran’s next leader represents the culmination of seven decades of executive aggrandizement and congressional abdication. We examine the Venezuela model, the Board of Peace governance structure for Gaza, explicit regime change rhetoric regarding Cuba, and the systematic failures of oversight—including the Pentagon’s eighth consecutive failed audit and Congress’s rejection of war powers resolutions by party-line votes.

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Empire of Liberty — Episode 9

$1 Million and One Month to Overthrow a Democracy

In August 1953, Kermit Roosevelt Jr. — grandson of the president who “took” Panama — sat in a Tehran basement and directed the overthrow of a democratically elected government. The operation cost less than a million dollars. It took less than a month. It installed a dictator who ruled for twenty-six years. And it set in motion a chain of consequences Americans are still paying for.

When Iranian students seized fifty-two American hostages in 1979, most Americans asked: why do they hate us? What did we do? The answer begins in that basement. This episode traces how the coup happened and who made it happen — the British oil monopoly that refused Iran a fair split, the Dulles brothers whose wartime compromises shaped their methods, and Operation Ajax itself: the manufactured chaos, the paid mobs, the first failed attempt, and Roosevelt’s refusal to abort. Then it follows the blowback — SAVAK, the revolution, the hostage crisis — and turns to a harder lesson through the cases of Kim Philby and Aldrich Ames: the same secrecy that enables covert action also enables catastrophic betrayal.

This is Episode 9 of “Empire of Liberty: America’s Foreign Entanglements from the Founders to the Forever Wars,” a series tracing how a republic that warned against entangling alliances became a global military empire. It begins Part IV — The CIA and Covert Empire.

The question underneath all of it: did this leave Americans more free, or more governed?

⏱️ CHAPTERS

0:00 — Introduction: Coinciding with Current Events

2:19 — Welcome to the Consequential Actions Podcast

2:59 — Operation Ajax: Kermit Roosevelt in Tehran

7:59 — Book Recommendations: The Prize & The Devil’s Chessboard

9:48 — The 1901 D’

Arcy Concession and British Petroleum

14:39 — Mohammad Mossadegh and the Nationalization of Oil

16:20 — Britain’s Response: Economic Warfare and Boycott

18:22 — Truman’s Refusal vs. Eisenhower’s Approval

19:49 — The Dulles Brothers: Wall Street and Covert Action

22:47 — Recruiting Former Nazis and Operation Sunrise

25:19 — The Cold War Frame: Reframing Oil as a Communist Threat

27:48 — Executing the Coup: Bribery, Chaos, and Manufactured Mobs

30:41 — The CIA Template for Regime Change Established

33:28 — The Return of the Shah and the Creation of SAVAK

36:40 — The Blowback: The 1979 Revolution and Hostage Crisis

39:23 — Covert Betrayal: Kim Philby, Aldrich Ames, and Intelligence Failures

45:08 — The Lessons and Legacy of Iran 1953

47:06 — Conclusion and Preview of the Next Episode

📚 Companion article — “Kermit’s Game — Iran 1953 and the Template for Regime Change,” citing the CIA’s own declassified 1954 clandestine service history “Overthrow of Premier Mossadeq,” Kermit Roosevelt’s memoir Countercoup, and the State Department’s Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–1954: Iran:https://www.consequentialactions.com/post/kermit-s-game-iran-1953-and-the-template-for-regime-change

🎙️ Empire of Liberty — Episode 9: “Kermit’s Game — Iran 1953 and the Template for Regime Change”—Consequential Actions is a libertarian, non-interventionist analysis of American constitutional and foreign policy. New episodes weekly.#iran1953 #operationajax #cia #mossadegh #regimechange #foreignpolicy #libertarian #noninterventionism #coldwar #blowback

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Empire of Liberty — Episode 8B

As American military operations in Iran continue, this contemporary application episode examines how the national security state—built for the Cold War, expanded for the War on Terror—has delivered the very outcome the Old Right warned against and Donald Trump himself promised to prevent. We trace the War on Terror framework that enables executive war-making without congressional authorization, the transformation of campaign promises into regime change, and the global application of targeted killing methodology from Mexico to Venezuela to Iran. The episode connects the institutions built in 1947, first deployed in Iran in 1953, to the war now underway—a seventy-three-year arc of consequence.

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The War Ended. The War Footing Never Did

Every American war before this one ended the same way: the army shrank, the emergency powers lapsed, the country went back to being a republic. After 1945, it didn’t.

In a single four-year stretch the United States built the CIA, the National Security Council, the Department of Defense, NATO, and a permanent nuclear arsenal — then fought a major war in Korea without ever asking Congress to declare one. Robert Taft called the destination correctly at every step and lost every vote. Eisenhower spent eight years constructing the machine, warned the country about it on his way out the door, and changed nothing.

This is Episode 8 of “Empire of Liberty: America’s Foreign Entanglements from the Founders to the Forever Wars,” a series tracing how a republic that warned against entangling alliances became a global military empire.

The question underneath all of it: did this leave Americans more free, or more governed?

⏱️ CHAPTERS

00:00 - Introduction: The National Security Act of 1947

01:59 - V-J Day and the Unprecedented Shift in American Post-War Demobilization

05:53 - Welcome to Episode 8: The National Security State

07:18 - The Doctrine of Unconditional Surrender and Its Consequences

09:52 - Moral Compromises: Strategic Firebombing and the Atomic Age

13:45 - Harry Truman Inherits the Presidency and the Cold War Architects

15:15 - Passing the Imperial Torch: The Truman Doctrine

19:20 - The Architecture of Permanent Empire: Creating the CIA and NSC

23:13 - The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is Formed

26:05 - The Korean War Precedent: War Without Congressional Declaration

31:03 - NSC-68: The Blueprint for Permanent Militarization

34:47 - Eisenhower’s Warning: The Military-Industrial Complex

39:20 - What the Republic Lost in the Transformation

42:46 - Questions for Reflection

44:45 - Preview of Episode 9: Iran 1953 and Covert Empire

📚 Companion article: https://www.consequentialactions.com/post/the-national-security-state-world-war-ii-s-permanent-legacy

Built on the primary record — the National Security Act of 1947, Truman’s March 1947 address to Congress, the North Atlantic Treaty, NSC-68 (classified until 1975), and Eisenhower’s farewell address — with further reading from Michael Hogan’s “A Cross of Iron,” Andrew Bacevich’s “Washington Rules,” Chalmers Johnson’s “The Sorrows of Empire,” James Patterson’s “Mr. Republican,” and Tim Weiner’s “Legacy of Ashes.”

🎙️ Empire of Liberty — Episode 8: “The National Security State: World War II’s Permanent Legacy”

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Consequential Actions is a libertarian, non-interventionist analysis of American constitutional and foreign policy. New episodes weekly.

𝕏: https://x.com/@jkellick

#coldwar #nationalsecuritystate #trumandoctrine #nsc68 #nato #koreanwar #militaryindustrialcomplex #eisenhower #libertarian #americanhistory

Empire of Liberty — Episode 7B

This contemporary application episode examines how the rhetorical techniques used to silence the Old Right in 1940-1941 continue to be deployed against critics of intervention today. We analyze the function of labels like “isolationist,” “Russian asset,” “antisemite,” and “conspiracy theorist” as tools of exclusion rather than argument. We document how the Old Right’s predictions about war’s consequences for the American republic have been vindicated by eighty years of evidence: the permanent expansion of military spending, the creation of constituencies dependent on defense contracts, and the erosion of congressional war powers. We profile modern inheritors of the non-interventionist tradition, from Ron Paul to Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna. And we discuss what listeners can do to recover constitutional limits on war-making in an era of potential conflict with Iran.

Get full access to Consequential Actions at https://www.consequentialactions.com/subscribe

800,000 Americans Fought to Stay Out of WWII

In 1940 the largest anti-war movement in American history signed up 800,000 members across 450 chapters. Its ranks included a six-time Socialist presidential candidate and a future Republican president.

They called themselves America First, and the phrase has been an epithet ever since. This episode recovers what they actually argued: the Nye Committee’s finding that munitions money had helped pull America into the last war, the Neutrality Acts Congress passed in response, and the case built by Albert Jay Nock, Garet Garrett, and John T. Flynn that war is what permanently enlarges the state. It covers Robert Taft’s constitutional objections to Lend-Lease and later to NATO, FDR promising Boston parents their boys weren’t going to any foreign wars while the destroyers-for-bases deal went around Congress entirely, and the Des Moines speech that destroyed Lindbergh and tarred the movement with him. Then the part nobody teaches: the committee dissolved four days after Pearl Harbor, Taft voted for the war, Lindbergh flew combat missions in the Pacific — and nearly every structural prediction they made came true.

This is Episode 7 of “Empire of Liberty: America’s Foreign Entanglements from the Founders to the Forever Wars,” a series tracing how a republic that warned against entangling alliances became a global military empire.

The question underneath all of it: did this leave Americans more free, or more governed?

⏱️ CHAPTERS

00:00 - Introduction & The Nye Committee Findings

01:42 - The Original America First Committee & Its Diverse Coalition

06:34 - Post-WWI Disillusionment & The Return to “Normalcy”

08:26 - The Merchants of Death Thesis

09:43 - Congress Pushes Back: The Neutrality Acts

10:39 - The Intellectual Case Against Intervention (Nock, Garrett, Flynn)

16:08 - Senator Robert A. Taft’s Principled Opposition

22:23 - The Rise of the America First Movement

24:03 - Charles Lindbergh and the Infamous Des Moines Speech

27:00 - FDR’s Promise of Peace While Maneuvering Toward War

29:00 - Lend-Lease and the “Backdoor to War” Thesis

33:07 - Pearl Harbor: The End of the Non-Intervention Debate

35:20 - Writing History: The “Isolationist” Smear

36:55 - How the Old Right’s Warnings Came True

40:10 - The Survival of the Non-Interventionist Tradition

43:48 - Weighing the True Costs of WWII Intervention

45:33 - Preview of Episode 8: The National Security State

📚 Companion article: https://www.consequentialactions.com/post/america-first-the-old-right-and-the-fight-against-intervention

The written version cites the Nye Committee hearings (1934-1936), Taft’s Senate speeches, the America First Committee papers at the Hoover Institution, and FDR’s 1940 campaign addresses — plus Wayne Cole’s America First, James Patterson’s Mr. Republican, Murray Rothbard’s The Betrayal of the American Right, Justin Raimondo’s Reclaiming the American Right, and Bill Kauffman’s America First!

🎙️ Empire of Liberty — Ep 7: “America First — The Old Right and the Fight Against Intervention”

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Consequential Actions is a libertarian, non-interventionist analysis of American constitutional and foreign policy. New episodes weekly.

𝕏: https://x.com/@jkellick

#americafirst #oldright #roberttaft #charleslindbergh #wwii #fdr #noninterventionism #libertarian #foreignpolicy #americanhistory

This contemporary application episode traces the direct line from the 1917 Balfour Declaration to present-day Gaza and the West Bank. We examine Balfour’s explicit calculation—his refusal to consult “the wishes of the present inhabitants”—and trace how that imperial logic persists in the current “ceasefire,” the Board of Peace reconstruction framework, and the accelerating annexation of the West Bank. We present data on ceasefire violations and casualties, analyze the Kushner reconstruction vision, and examine Netanyahu’s Washington visit in the context of US-Iran negotiations. Throughout, we acknowledge the propaganda on all sides and offer tools for critical thinking.

Empire of Liberty: America’s Foreign Entanglements from the Founders to the Forever Wars - Ep. 06This episode traces the destruction of the Ottoman Empire and the creation of the modern Middle East through three documents: the Hussein-McMahon Correspondence, the Sykes-Picot Agreement, and the Balfour Declaration. We examine the key figures who shaped these events—Enver Pasha and the Young Turks, Winston Churchill and the Gallipoli disaster, T.E. Lawrence and the Arab Revolt, the Hussein and Saud families—and explore how promises made and broken a century ago created conflicts America has inherited and cannot resolve. #sykespicot #middleeast #history [00:00] Prologue: A Personal Note on the Middle East[04:36] Two Dreams Betrayed: Turkish Reformers and Arab Independence[09:03] Introduction: Lines in the Sand[10:22] The Ottoman Empire and the Millet System[13:02] The Young Turks and Enver Pasha’s Catastrophic Gamble[19:27] Churchill, the Dardanelles, and the Gallipoli Disaster[28:33] Hussein, the Sharif of Mecca, and the McMahon Correspondence[32:10] T.E. Lawrence and the Arab Revolt[37:31] The Sykes-Picot Agreement: Carving Up the Middle East[41:39] The Bolsheviks Expose the Secret Treaties[44:17] The Balfour Declaration: Contradictions and Promises[47:28] The Paris Peace Conference and the Illusion of Self-Determination[50:41] The Mandate System and the Suppression of Arab Independence[53:13] Installing the Hashemites: Iraq and Transjordan[55:41] Ibn Saud and the Creation of Saudi Arabia[57:43] The Suez Crisis and America Inherits the Mantle[59:12] The Legacy of Artificial Borders and Authoritarianism[01:03:34] Conclusion: Understanding Our Imperial Inheritance[01:05:24] Questions to Consider[01:07:01] Preview of Episode 7 & Outrohttps://jeffkellick.substack.com/p/lines-in-the-sandsykes-picot-balfour-419?utm_source=youtube