I am a big fan of Alexandr Solzhenitsyn. His 1974 essay "LIve Not By Lies" is a powerful reminder of how seductive lies can be in our society.
But his essay was for Russians in the USSR, not Americans in 2025. So I reworked his essay to make it more relevant and easy to read today.
The original is here:https://www.solzhenitsyncenter.org/live-not-by-lies
Here is my rewrite. Feel free to share:
Live Not by Lies: A Call to Truth in an Age of Deception
There was a time when Americans hesitated to speak the truth. But now, in hushed voices, we grumble about the madness around us—how the powerful manipulate reality, how our nation is crumbling from within while leaders prop up foreign regimes, how justice is weaponized against political opponents, and how corruption festers under the guise of virtue. Yet, we watch, paralyzed, convinced that we are powerless.
We stand at the brink—not just of political decay but of a spiritual unraveling. A moral darkness threatens to engulf our children, while we look on, shrugging our shoulders, whispering:
"But what can we do? We are too weak."
For the promise of comfort, we have surrendered our principles, our dignity, our history, and even our future. We have bartered truth for convenience, righteousness for security. We fear not nuclear war nor economic collapse as much as we fear standing apart from the herd. We dare not risk losing our position, our platform, our paycheck, or even the approval of strangers. We have been trained well by those who despise us: keep your head down, comply, and all will be well.
But they lied.
It is not "they"—the elites, the politicians, the media—who are solely responsible for the decay of our nation. It is we who have allowed it. It is our silence, our complicity, our cowardice that have enabled their power.
Some will argue: "But we have no real choices! Elections are rigged, protests are ignored, the institutions are corrupt! How can we fight back?"
We do not need revolutions of blood or uprisings of violence. We do not need to march in the streets or storm the halls of power. There is a far more effective—and far more devastating—weapon within our grasp:
Refuse to live by lies.
When evil rises, it does not come boldly at first, shouting its intentions. It sneaks in under the cover of deception, demanding only that we comply with small falsehoods, seemingly insignificant distortions. At first, all it asks is that we say what we do not believe, nod along with what we know to be untrue, and remain silent when truth cries out for a voice.
But we can refuse.
If we would only resist in this simplest of ways, lies would collapse under their own weight. For deception cannot stand alone; it must be upheld by our participation. Lies require hosts, just as parasites require living bodies to feed upon.
So let us decide, today, that we will not comply.
We are not called to march in protest. We are not required to shout defiance in the streets. We are merely required to stand. To refuse. To say, "No, I will not go along with this." We will not affirm what we know to be false. We will not repeat scripted propaganda. We will not pretend that evil is good and good is evil. We will not sacrifice the truth to keep the peace, for a false peace is no peace at all.
Let each of us determine, from this day forward, that:
We will not write, publish, or sign our names to any statement that distorts truth.
We will not speak falsehoods, whether at work, in private, or in public, to preserve comfort or avoid consequences.
We will not create, share, or promote anything—books, articles, films, music—that contradicts what we know to be true.
We will not quote or cite anything as truth unless we truly believe it.
We will not attend rallies, demonstrations, or corporate trainings that demand our compliance with lies.
We will not vote for any candidate we know to be dishonest, nor will we remain silent about those who betray truth.
We will not remain in meetings, lectures, or classrooms where truth is silenced and lies are enforced.
We will not subscribe to media that deliberately distorts or hides the truth.
This is only the beginning. He who begins to cleanse his life of deception will soon see clearly other ways in which he has been complicit.
Yes, it may cost us. Some will lose jobs. Some will face ridicule. Young people who choose truth may find their education obstructed. But we cannot serve both truth and deception. We must choose.
And let none boast of their intellect, their achievements, or their status while cowering before the demands of falsehood. For he who will not stand for truth is nothing but a slave—content with his chains as long as they are padded.
For those who say this is too hard, I say: Is it really harder than facing eternity knowing you bowed to evil? Is it really harder than answering to your children when they ask why you were silent while their future was stolen?
We are not the first to face this choice. Others have stood firm against tyrants before us, from the early Christians who refused to burn incense to Caesar to the persecuted believers in Soviet Russia. They chose truth, even unto death. And we, in our far lesser trials, must do the same.
If we do this—if we stand by truth, if we reject deception—then those who wield power will find their grip weakening. They will not be able to silence us all. And we will not recognize our country, not because it has fallen further into darkness, but because it has awakened to the light.
If, however, we choose to remain silent, to comply, to submit—then let us have no more complaints. Let us not whimper that the world has become unbearable. For we will have made it so.
And let it not be said of us, as the poet Pushkin lamented:
Why offer herds their liberation?
Their heritage each generation—
The yoke with jingles, and the whip.
We were not made for servitude. We were made for truth. And truth—real, unchanging, eternal truth—has only one source: God’s Word.
If we stand on that truth, then nothing—not threats, not lies, not even death—can shake us.
So let us rise, and live not by lies.
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Breaking news this Saturday: three Americans are dead in Syria tonight, three more are wounded, and the attack—described by U.S. Central Command as an ambush carried out by a lone ISIS gunman—has once again dragged the Syrian war back into the American consciousness for a few brief hours, which is usually all the time the public gives it before the news cycle moves on and the families are left to carry the weight alone.
CENTCOM says two of the dead were U.S. service members and one was an American civilian contractor, and that the attacker was engaged and killed as well, with names being withheld until next of kin are notified, which is the right thing to do; but even with those official facts in hand, I want to slow the pace down a little bit and do what I always try to do here—put this in context—because in a place like Syria, the story you get in the headline is almost never the story that explains why this happened.
I’m not interested in reporting tragedy like it’s a scoreboard, and I’m not interested in repeating a paragraph of breaking news without the background that makes it intelligible; I spent eight years in the military, and I’ve spent more than twenty years following the U.S. military across the globe—Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria included, with more than a dozen trips into Afghanistan, roughly fifteen into Iraq, and seven or so into Syria—so when Americans die in a place most people couldn’t find on a map, I feel a responsibility to show you what the map actually means.
The reported location of the attack is Palmyra—Palmira on some maps—an ancient city in central Syria that sits on the edge of a brutal expanse of desert, the kind of wide open, sun-blasted country where outsiders assume nothing lives and nothing happens, when in reality it’s exactly the kind of terrain insurgents love because “nothing” is a perfect disguise, a perfect place to move, cache weapons, blend into small villages, disappear into wadis, and wait for opportunities.
Palmyra also sits inside territory controlled by Syria’s new administration under Ahmed al-Sharaa, and if that name makes you pause, it should, because this is where Syrian politics gets complicated in the way only Syria can do: al-Sharaa rose through jihadist ranks, he has a history tied to insurgent warfare against Americans in Iraq, he was captured and held for years, and he later returned to Syria and consolidated power with strong Turkish backing—so when you hear phrases like “new Syrian administration” or “transitional government,” don’t imagine a Western-style democracy that suddenly appeared out of the sand; imagine a patchwork of militias, alliances of convenience, old enemies wearing new uniforms, and a leadership class that wants international legitimacy while carrying a past that cannot be scrubbed clean with a new suit and a new flag.
Now layer on top of that the reality that ISIS is not gone from Syria, not even close.
U.S. estimates have long suggested there are still roughly 2,000 to 3,000 ISIS fighters operating in and around the central Syrian desert, and there are far more than that if you include facilitators, family networks, financiers, and the enormous number of ISIS-linked detainees and relatives held in camps and makeshift prisons; and while that fight has mostly slipped out of the American public’s view, it continues quietly, relentlessly, week after week, because the moment pressure is relieved in a place like this, the violence doesn’t fade—it regroups.
The United States currently has about 900 troops in Syria, a number that matters because it tells you how thin the margin is between “containment” and “collapse,” especially when the enemy has deep local roots and decades of practice living off the land and off the grievances of the people around them; and those American troops are there for one primary purpose: to keep a lid on ISIS so we don’t wake up one day to another wave of mass executions, terror-state governance, and regional destabilization that forces the world back into a far more expensive war.
That’s the mission, and it’s not abstract; when ISIS surged the last time, the human cost was staggering, and it wasn’t paid by politicians or pundits—it was paid by Iraqi soldiers, Kurdish fighters, civilians, and yes, Americans too—and the reason our presence in Syria still functions as a deterrent is that in a powder keg region, a small, capable American footprint has a way of discouraging ambitious actors from taking the final step that turns instability into open war.
But here is the part that doesn’t get said out loud very often: the mission in Syria is increasingly tangled up in partnerships that are, at best, uneasy and, at worst, morally and strategically risky.
I’m coming to you today from Panama, where I’ve been digging into a story that’s far bigger than most people realize. It involves a shadowy network of ships—1,423 of them at last count—that roam the world’s oceans moving sanctioned oil for regimes like Russia, Iran, and Venezuela. Some call it the dark fleet, others the ghost fleet, but whatever the name, it’s become a lifeline for the world’s worst dictators.
Out of those 1,423 vessels, roughly 920 are sanctioned themselves. These aren’t just ships doing business in a gray area—they are part of a global ecosystem of deception, fraud, and corruption that props up authoritarian governments and undermines the international rules that keep maritime trade safe. They spoof GPS signals, turn off their transponders, swap oil with “cleaner” tankers in the dead of night, operate under shell-company ownership, and sail uninsured—floating environmental disasters just waiting to happen.
And for years, not much was done about it. But that may be changing.
Just days ago, the United States seized a massive VLCC tanker—the Skipper—carrying 1.8 million barrels of Venezuelan crude bound for Cuba. It’s a move that seems small on its own, but it hints at something larger: Washington may finally be realizing that targeting the dark fleet isn’t just desirable—it’s strategically powerful.
That raises a fascinating question: What would happen if the U.S. and its allies cracked down hard on these ghost ships—everywhere, all at once? Could it reshape global power? Could it even topple Maduro?
Let’s dig into that.
These ghost ships function by exploiting cracks in the global maritime system. They manipulate AIS beacons, swap oil mid-ocean, hide ownership behind layers of shell companies, fly false flags, and operate without legitimate insurance. The UN’s maritime regulator has warned that these rusted, poorly maintained hulks are ticking time bombs—and we’ve already seen “Ukrainian sanctions” in action when Ukrainian sea drones blew up several shadow-fleet tankers in the Black Sea.
Imagine what happens if one of these decrepit tankers explodes in a global choke point like the Strait of Hormuz. You’d see a shock to oil markets overnight.
And yet, that’s the system that keeps Venezuela, Iran, and Russia afloat.
The seizure of the Skipper wasn’t random. It’s part of a broader pressure campaign—one that former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has openly supported. He said plainly that going after these vessels is a direct way to choke off the revenue Maduro depends on to stay in power.
Pompeo also noted something key: Maduro’s regime probably has “weeks, not months” of financial runway without this illicit revenue stream. And Cuba—already experiencing rolling blackouts—relies on Venezuela for about a quarter of its total energy supply. This single tanker seizure hurts Havana even more than Caracas.
But perhaps the most important variable is geography. Satellite data reveals dozens of sanctioned tankers parked just off Venezuela’s northern coast. In theory, if the U.S. waits for them to exit Venezuela’s 200-mile EEZ, it could legally seize many of them—especially the stateless ones.
Imagine the U.S. grabbing one tanker per day.
The ripple effects would be enormous.
