War Crimes & Blind Obedience Home

War Crimes & Blind Obedience: We have Met the Enemy and . . . Does the U.S. have the right to initiate aggression against another sovereign nation because we object to it fighting terrorists inside its borders? Not according to President Clinton, who told the Turkish National Assembly back in November "Neither America nor Europe not anyone else has the right to shape your destiny for you." And we don't have the right to bomb another sovereign nation under International Law, either. Nations who initiate aggression are called criminal. Nations whose soldiers violate the Geneva Convention - by attacking civilian targets like the offices of Serbian political parties or journalists - are called to account by having the politicians who gave the bombing orders AND THE MILITARY MEN WHO CARRIED THEM OUT prosecuted as war criminals. Just ask the Nazis. Everyone knows this, but military officers now claim they are "shocked" to learn that the War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague is conducting a confidential investigation into U.S. military activities during Operation Allied Force, according to a report by Rowan Scarborough in the Washington Times. We're sure the White House is shocked. The Canadian liberal who was the War Crimes Tribunal's lead prosecutor has been replaced by Carla Del Ponte, a Swiss, who does not appear to be an ideological Friend of Bill or Tony Blair. Del Ponte told the London Sunday Observer she is willing to press charges against NATO personnel. Lies by Presidents & Admirals Responding to the War Crimes investigations, both the White House and Pentagon Spokesman Rear Admiral Craig Quigley told obvious lies. The White House said: "We point out that NATO fully followed the laws of armed conflict in training, targeting, and operations involving Kosovo and that NATO undertook extraordinary efforts to minimize collateral damage. Any inquiry into the conduct of its pilots would be completely unjustified." Pentagon Spokesman RADM Quigley said: "We're darn sure we followed the laws of armed conflict for anything and everything in Kosovo. I'd be hard pressed to think of an instance when a nation or coalition was more scrupulous in trying to avoid civilian casualties or collateral damage. . . . It was central to our planning and conduct. . . . Any look at the way we did business there would stand the toughest scrutiny." Sorry gents, that just ain't so. Compare these statements to what Democrat Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT) said, during the conflict, was the goal of our bombing: "to bring the war in Kosovo home to the people, the civilians, in Belgrade . . . . That's what we have been doing for the last couple of months. We're not only hitting military targets. Otherwise, why would we be cutting off the water supply and knocking out the power stations, turning the lights off? We are trying, through the air campaign, to break the will of the Serbian people, so they will force their leader to break his will . . . ." The U.S. military's blind obedience in Clinton's Kosovo Catastrophe must be questioned, not only because the operation was illegal under U.S. and International Law, but because, by targeting civilians, it marked a radical departure from how nations in the West wage war. Blind Obedience is NOT Our Duty As U.S. military men and women, we swear to support and defend the Constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic. Our oath tells us explicitly our job is not to blindly obey when ordered to attack another nation but to uphold the ideas that define how free government in the United States works and what its powers are. One of the most important of these ideas is the Separation of Powers, the concept that when some in government break the law, they can be stopped by others who obey it. Citizens have a right to expect us to obey the law, even when others - including the President - do not. Clinton's Operation Allied Force violated the Constitution for three reasons: It violated the Constitutional Separation of Powers - only Congress has the power to declare war. As Commander-in-Chief, the President may not conduct war without Congress' approval. He may order a military attack only when the threat to U.S. interests is so imminent it requires action before Congress can meet and deliberate. And this attack must stop if Congress does not declare war or vote to approve it. It violated the War Powers Resolution - the War Powers Resolution simply makes the Constitutional doctrine discussed above part of U.S. statute law. Congress enacted it because, as U.S. citizens have forgotten the ideas on which their nation is founded, presidents have been able to get away with ordering citizens to die in "wars" - like Korea and Viet Nam - that the people, acting through their representatives, never declared. It violated International Law that our nation promised to obey - Neither the NATO Treaty nor the U.N. Charter allow the U.S. to use military force unless we or our allies are attacked first. Serbia's fight against KLA terrorists inside its own borders did not furnish the needed justification. Clinton also violated the Convention on Treaties when he threatened, during negotiations, to bomb Serbia unless it surrendered the province of Kosovo, and he violated the Geneva Convention in deliberately bombing civilian targets like press and political party offices. Sometimes, it is only our own courage and initiative that can keep the nation on course. When Congress sued Clinton to halt Operation Allied Force, the District Court of D.C., in a cowardly and lawless decision, said that while Congress had refused to declare war or authorize Clinton's operation, only the pilot with his hand on the bombing lever had the right to sue Clinton for breaking the law. While this decision is wrong under our system, it just goes to show that ultimately it is us as military men and women - just like the Nazi concentration camp guards - who bear responsibility for the orders we carry out. How We Got in This Mess and What We Can Do About It Why would military men think they were doing their duty in carrying out orders that violate the Constitution? It can only be because they do not understand that Constitution. They do not understand the ideas that define and limit a government that would be called "free," and that define and preserve the rights and responsibilities of free men. It is a fact that the Declaration of Independence bases our right to form our own government - and every other right we possess if we are "free" - on "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God." Our Constitution reflects the Founders' understanding of the "eternal immutable principles of right and wrong to which God Himself conforms" applied to government. These ideas developed over about 800 years as Europeans came to know the Bible and apply its principles to government. The reason military folks no longer know these ideas is that over the last 130 years liberals have done everything possible to remove God's ideas from society. Operation Allied Force flows directly from the evolutionists' claim that there is no God and the atheist's crusade for "separation of church and state." Because we no longer teach God's ideas, we no longer understand the Constitution that is based on them. The proof of this claim is the way we "brought the war in Kosovo home to civilians in Belgrade." It is only in the Christian West that the notion of "limited war" - a war waged only against the military forces, not the civilian populace of an enemy state - has ever been understood. In Korea, Viet Nam, and our fight against Muslim terrorists, we learned that non-Christians view enemy civilians as legitimate targets. So it should not surprise us that, because we no longer understand how God's ideas limit government, we also no longer obey how God's rules limit war. To our shame, this is exactly what the Serbs were fighting. The anarchy, assassinations, and atrocities against both Albanian and Serb civilians the KLA is perpetrating in Kosovo NOW prove that we fought for terrorists engaged in a violent rebellion to grab power, not to install Godly freedom. If we want to stop being war criminals, we better make "darn sure" that we start teaching the ideas on which our nation - and our freedom - are based. There is no other way we can honor our oath to support and defend the Constitution. Note: The prosecutor for the War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague, Carla Del Ponte - who works for the United Nations - has decided not to puruse an investigation against the U.S. for war crimes against Serbia. The Washington Times reports the threatened investigation and prosecutions might have caused the U.S. to pull back from paying its U.N. dues, no doubt the primary factor in Ms. Del Ponte's decision. Of course, Del Ponte's failure to prosecute cannot make Clinton's actions legal under U.S. law.