NATO, which has now taken over enforcement of the no-fly zone, has morphed from an organization which pledged mutual support to defend North Atlantic states from aggression in military operations reaching from Libya to the Chinese border in Afghanistan. We need to now ask what role the French Air Force General Abrial and current Supreme Allied Commander of NATO for Transformation may have played in the development of Operation Southern Storm and in discussions with the U.S. in the expansion of the UN Mandate into a NATO operation. What has been the role of the US African Command and Central Command in discussions leading up to this conflict? What did we know and when did we know it?
The United Nations Security Council process is at risk when its members are not fully informed of all the facts when they authorize a military operation. It is at risk from NATO which is usurping its mandate without specific authorization of Security Council Resolution 1973. The United States pays 25% of the military expense of NATO and NATO may be participating in the expansion of the UN mandate.
The United Nations relies not only on its moral authority, but on the moral cooperation of its member nations. If America exceeds its legal authority and determines to redefine international law, we journey away from an international moral order and into the amorality of power politics where the rule of force trumps the rule of law.
What are the fundamental principles at stake in America today?
First and foremost is our system of checks and balances built into the Constitution to ensure that important decisions of state are developed through mutual respect and shared responsibility in order to ensure that collective knowledge, indeed the collective wisdom of the people, is brought to bear. Two former Secretaries of State, James Baker and Warren Christopher have spoken jointly to the "importance of meaningful consultation between the President and Congress before the nation is committed to war."
Our nation has an inherent right to defend itself and a solemn obligation to defend the Constitution. From the Gulf of Tonkin in Vietnam to the allegations of Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq we have learned from bitter experience that the determination to go to war must be based on verifiable facts carefully considered.
Finally, civilian deaths are always to be regretted. But, we must understand from our own Civil War more than 150 years ago that nations must resolve their own conflicts and shape their own destiny internally.
However horrible those internal conflicts may be, these local conflicts can become even more dreadful if armed intervention in a civil war results in the internationalization of that conflict.
The belief that war is inevitable makes of war a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The United States, in this new and complex world wracked with great movements of masses to transform their own government, must itself be open to transformation, away from intervention, away from trying to determine the leadership of other nations, away from covert operations to try to manipulate events, and towards a rendezvous with those great principles of self-determination which gave us birth.
In a world which is interconnected and interdependent. In a world which cries out for human unity, we must call upon the wisdom of our namesake and Founding Father, George Washington, to guide us in the days ahead.
"The constitution vests the power of declaring war in Congress; therefore no offensive expedition of importance can be undertaken until after they shall have deliberated upon the subject and authorized such a measure."
Washington also had a wish for the future America: "My wish is to see this plague of mankind, war, banished from the earth."
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
10
7
4
