Politics and Money

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A CALL TO MILITARY ACTION – DEFEND OUR CONSTITUTION
Posted on April 24, 2017 by Carl Herman
guest blog by “Captains America” (bio below)

The ongoing 5+ year war in Syria can be deescalated and ended by the troops in the U.S. military, and it matters not what Trump, Congress or Supreme Court do.

Many Americans, and military members, are worried about increasing military involvement and additional troop deployments in Syria, considering that one Pentagon plan calls for sending tens of thousands of troops into Syria.

“Senior White House and administration officials tell me Trump’s national security adviser, General H.R. McMaster, has been quietly pressing his colleagues to question the underlying assumptions of a draft war plan against the Islamic State that would maintain only a light U.S. ground troop presence in Syria. McMaster’s critics inside the administration say he wants to send tens of thousands of ground troops to the Euphrates River Valley. His supporters insist he is only trying to facilitate a better interagency process to develop Trump’s new strategy to defeat the self-described caliphate that controls territory in Iraq and Syria.” – Eli Lake, Bloomberg

But would such a plan, if implemented, be constitutional? One of the U.S.’s most respected constitutional experts, Jonathan Turley, weighs in:

“What is curious [however] is how the supporters [of such textualism and formalism] are largely silent this week as the Trump administration is planning to send more troops into Syria and to intervene in Yemen … all without the declaration of war required by the text of Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution.

Hundreds of more troops are planned for the Syrian conflict even though the government in the country has declared that any U.S. military operating in the country are “invaders.” We have been conducting extensive bombing raids with troops on the ground in Syria for many months. We have spent billions of dollars on the effort. All without a formal declaration by the Congress.

Now, Defense Secretary James Mattis has reportedly asked the White House to lift restrictions on U.S. military support in Yemen. The war against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels has not been going well for our Persian Gulf allies, particularly Saudi Arabia. The United States wants now to play a bigger role, but notably, the military is asking permission not from Congress but the president. It is his call. That is precisely what the Framers wanted to avoid.

The Constitution has long had its own unreliable allies in Congress. Adherence to the text of the document seems to be a forgotten value when it would take politicians to uncomfortable or inconvenient places. Politicians hate to declare wars. It is not that they hate wars. Wars are popular. Wars can be profitable.

The problem is that they can be blamed if wars do not go well. As a result, they have used open-ended resolutions that can be used by presidents to conduct wars at their whim while allowing politicians to later deny that they ever really supported interventions or were misled if the wars go badly.” – Jonathan Turley

There are roughly 1.4 million people serving in the U.S. military: 1 president, 535 people in Congress, and 9 people sitting on the U.S. Supreme Court. Recent history going back to Operation Desert Shield in January of 1991 shows us that the three branches of U.S. government are incompetent and dysfunctional, having made poor war decisions based on bad and/or fabricated intelligence.

It has been demonstrated time and time again over the past 26 years that the American people cannot depend on the 545 people in our 3 branches of government to determine the fate of the U.S. or the entire world, as they have have gotten us into illegal wars that have cost us millions of lives and trillions of dollars. Therefore, every military member must decide individually if the orders he/she are given are constitutional and lawful as measured by the Oath of Enlistment.

Military men and women should refuse to obey orders from a President to attack another country unless one of two conditions is met: 1. The foreign country has attacked the U.S. first; or 2. The foreign country has an attack planned against the U.S. (an operation that is in progress and imminent threat). Congress is limited by treaties after each world war to only the above two conditions (Article VI defines a treaty as “US supreme law”).

U.S. Presidents continue to defy the Constitution, and it’s the 24/7 responsibility of every member of our military to defend our Constitution. The President does not have the right to preemptively strike other countries because he “believes” something presents a national security threat.

Our history in now stuffed with catastrophes resulting from our involvement in foreign countries’ civil wars—Vietnam, Somalia, Iraq, and Libya are just recent examples. Our military men and women should take a stand to defend our Constitution and hopefully inspire voters to demand from their government that we have no further direct involvement in foreign wars!

Captains America are asking the ~1.4 million military members to question all future orders with regard to Syria using Jonathan Turley’s constitutional analysis as a guide, since evidence shows that orders to deploy to Syria might be illegal and unconstitutional.

The war in Syria is unlike any other war fought in modern history. This is a proxy war with Russia that has the possibility of turning into a hot war, and could easily escalate into a full-scale global, nuclear war.

The American people cannot depend on our bureaucrats and politicians to make competent decisions, and therefore we are at the mercy of our military.

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2017/04/67221.html

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Bio: Captains America is the pen-name of two decorated US Air Force members. Both now work in the private sector with no ties to government. Expert testimony always has documented facts speak for themselves; Captains America embrace this professionalism.