Charles Goyette’s Empire of Lies: Fragments from the Memory Hole arrived at an uncanny moment. For months, Americans were told that military buildup around Venezuela and extrajudicial strikes on its vessels were all about stopping drug trafficking. President Donald Trump added ominous warnings that the country was “emptying its mental institutions” into the United States. Diplomats—whose job is supposed to be normalization and negotiation—leaned instead into escalation, quoting human-rights violations by Nicolás Maduro’s regime and his daring to have relations with other nations while brushing aside accusations that Washington pursued regime change.
Then came 2026, and the pretense was dropped. Following Maduro’s abduction on January 3—a operation that left dozens dead—President Trump said the quiet part out loud: “We’re gonna take back the oil that frankly we should have taken back a long time ago.” He then declared what lay ahead was not a brief intervention but a long-term U.S. occupation, stating, “We’re going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition.”
The candor slapped voters who expected Trump to rein in foreign entanglements. Instead of confronting the betrayal, prominent right-wing influencers rushed to explain it away—thesame voices who recently condemned interventionism and hailed Trump as a “peace president.” Their answer was to dust off the Monroe Doctrine and dress it up as sober statesmanship: “Our hemisphere, our rules.”
The public was told to forget accusations of “narcoterrorism” as the Department of Justice quietly dropped a claim about Maduro’s alleged cartel involvement. Forget humanitarian talk. The real motive had been spelled out loud and clear—and hardly anyone in power appeared bothered.
Meanwhile, new lies about other nations were offered as pretext for further interventions: Iran posed a threat. So did Cuba, Mexico, and Canada. Greenland should be taken—by force if necessary.
At times, the White House seemed fatigued by the need to articulate a compelling rationale. When pressed why Iran should be attacked after its nuclear facilities had already been “obliterated” by prior U.S. strikes, press secretary Karoline Leavitt offered only that “there are many reasons and arguments one could make for a strike against Iran,” without naming one.
This is where Goyette’s book becomes essential reading. Empire of Lies is not just about individual interventions or their failures. It reveals the machinery that makes deception routine: America’s “full-time occupation” requiring compelling stories to justify action. Ordinary Americans have grown weary of foreign adventures, feeling the costs—massive treasury drains, inflationary pressures, and erosion of liberty through emergency powers, surveillance, and measures like the Patriot Act. They see the human reality too: millions of civilians killed or displaced abroad, and survivors radicalized by American power perceived not as liberation but as despicable brutality.
No one could sell that picture honestly. Goyette argues something else is sold instead. He shows how 9/11 trauma was harnessed to justify conflicts unrelated to the original attack. As part of this larger narrative, he revisits Iraq’s nonexistent “weapons of mass destruction”—the most notorious case where a public marched into war on false premises. Even uncomfortable questions about allies like Saudi Arabia were quietly brushed aside because the story demanded simplicity over nuance.
Going further, Goyette examines how unresolved tensions after the Bay of Pigs revealed who truly directs American power. He traces patterns across eras: Barack Obama rode 2008 promises to wind down Iraq but stayed engaged long after campaign rhetoric faded; Trump ran as a critic of “forever wars” yet discovered the inherited machine was easier to use than dismantle. The “Deep State’s warlords,” in Goyette’s terms, are not shadowy villains but institutional forces that continuously push toward planetary projection of power—undermining both global stability and U.S. interests.
The press acts as the gearbox for this system. Instead of adversarial watchdogs, most outlets behave like faithful stenographers. Debate narrows to tactics; questioning premises becomes fringe or unpatriotic. Propaganda ranges from crude to sophisticated—built on anonymous officials and unverifiable assurances—but the effect remains the same: a public that resists intervention learns to accept it—even cheer for it.
War is presented in official narratives wrapped in ceremony, flags, speeches, and talk of sacrifice. Goyette forces readers back to physical reality: trauma, death, severed limbs, shattered families, starvation, cities reduced to rubble. Politicians then present casualties as the “price worth paying.” The gap between myth and reality is not accidental—it is deliberate strategy. Without it, none of this would be politically feasible.
Empire of Lies collects these episodes into fragments revealing a deeper pattern: interventions are not isolated mistakes but predictable outputs of a political economy that rewards force and a culture convinced of its moral superiority. Goyette shows how domestic emergency measures become permanent control architectures, how yesterday’s lies vanish into the “memory hole,” and how each intervention plants seeds for the next crisis—justifying still more action.
Some readers may find his tone severe. But severity becomes unavoidable once the pattern is visible—whether in Venezuela, Ukraine, or the Middle East. The book does not pretend this system will stop because someone appeals to virtue. It adjusts its language, finds new rationalizations, manufactures new necessities, and moves forward as if nothing has been learned.
This is where the book turns the question back on readers: What becomes of a nation that learns to live on lies?
