At the end of World War II, U.S. officials told the American people that despite the Allied victory over Nazi Germany, America could not rest. That was because, they said, the United States now faced a new official enemy, one, they said, was arguably a bigger threat to Americans than Nazi Germany was. That new official enemy was the communist Soviet Union, which, ironically, had been America's World War II partner and ally.

To combat this new threat, U.S. officials said, it would be necessary to convert the federal government from a limited-government republic to what is known as a national-security state, which would consist of a gigantic and permanent military-intelligence establishment.

There was an important distinguishing characteristic of this new segment of the federal government: Unlike the rest of the government, whose powers were limited to those enumerated in the Constitution, the national-security section of the government would wield the same type of totalitarian powers that were being wielded by communist regimes.

The justification that was provided to the American people was that there was a worldwide communist conspiracy, with its base in Russia. This supposed conspiracy entailed communists coming to get us and taking control of our government and our minds.

Freedom and limited government, U.S. officials said, were insufficient to prevent a communist takeover of the United States. To prevail over the communists, it was necessary, they claimed, for America to adopt the policies and practices that the communists were engaged in. The idea was that it was necessary to become Red to fight the Reds, sort of like using fire to fight fire.

Look at what North Korea has done to 22-year-old Otto Warmbier, an American tourist in that communist country. He was charged with taking some communist propaganda poster as a souvenir, convicted, and sentenced to 15 years of harsh labor. A few days ago, he was returned to the United States in a coma and died shortly thereafter.

We don't know what exactly happened to Warmbier, but it's a safe bet that he was tortured brutally by the North Korean communist personnel. At least, that wouldn't surprise anyone. This is how totalitarian regimes behave. They are paranoid and powerful. They see enemies everywhere and employ brutal measures to smash anything that hints of being a threat to national security.

That's something important to note: North Korea, like post-World War II United States, is a national-security state, one that wields the same omnipotent powers that the U.S. national-security state wields, including torture, assassination, and indefinite detention.

This is how the U.S. government became a government founded on torture. It copied North Korea, the Soviet Union, Red China, and other communist regimes. U.S. officials said that it was necessary to become like them in order to defeat them.

Indeed, that's how the U.S. government came to engage in secret medical experimentation on people, which was no different in principle from what the Nazi regime had done to people. When the CIA learned that the communists were doing, they concluded that America needed to do it too. Indeed, since the Soviet Union was employing Nazis within their regime, the CIA decided that it needed to do the same. That's how the American people ended up with MKULTRA.