Grievance 5 - Aggression

The U.S. Constitution failed to prohibit U.S. military aggression
against other nations, and was not specific in its language that would
require the people's elected representatives in Congress to authorize
the initiation of hostile military action. While it reserved to
Congress the power to "declare war", it failed to directly ban the
President, as "Commander in Chief" of the armed forces, or any other
official, from initiating force without such declaration.

There appeared a pattern of aggression that seemed to be aimed at
control or great influence over much of the world for economic gain.
Prior to World War II, the U.S. militarily invaded such sovereign
nations as Russia, China, Nicaragua, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Haiti, Mexico,
Hawai`i and the Philippines. Aggression continued after World War II
with troop invasions and/or air attacks on the Dominican Republic,
Haiti, Cambodia, Lebanon, Granada, Panama, Libya, Iraq, Somalia, Bosnia,
Sudan, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia.

Without direct formal congressional authorization, U.S. officials
announced in February 1999 a "war on terrorism" with a policy to attack
alleged terrorist facilities found anywhere in the world. Its first
missile assaults struck Sudan and Afghanistan, and the Sudan site was
later confirmed to have been wrongly targeted by the CIA. A month
later, the government went beyond terrorist targets and, under the
banner of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, launched a
"humanitarian" bombing and missile war on Yugoslavia's Serbs who had
been engaged in periodic civil war with ethnic Albanians for centuries.

NATO, comprised of unelected ambassadors from several mostly-European
governments, circumvented its own Charter as a "defense" organization,
and violated the United Nations Charter as well in the aggression on
Yugoslavia. Casualty figures were estimated at 2,000 dead in less than
six weeks of the undeclared war. Historically, such aggression was
popularly regarded as the "law of the jungle".

The U.S. took military control of Haiti with 20,000 troops in 1994.
Five years and billions of taxpayer dollars later, General Charles
Wilhelm of the Southern Command recommended military withdrawal due
to failure to establish a permanent internal peace on the island, but U.S.
political figures rejected the idea. Some Haitian resources, natural
and human, were economically valuable.

In secret operations, the US participated in mercenary attacks in such
places of rich resources as Angola, Mozambique, East Timor, South Yemen,
Western Sahara, Cambodia and Cuba. Fighting in Angola took an estimated
l.5 million lives.

Michael Kronenwetter, author of "The Military Power of the President"
(1988), said the U.S. was involved in several hundred wars and other
military operations up to the time he published his book, and that only
five had been declared "war" by Congress.

Richard Shenkman, author of "I Love Paul Revere Whether He Rode or Not"(1991), said the historical record showed Americans were sharply divided
or opposed to U.S. military actions;

"The War of 1812 was so controversial
that New Englanders seriously considered
seceding from the Union to avoid
supporting it. The Mexican-American
War aroused such passion that Abraham
Lincoln gave a stirring speech in Congress
against it."

The Spanish-American War provoked a national debate about imperialistic
aggression, and World War I in Europe divided the U.S. government to the
extent that Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan resigned his office in protect.Almost as many people were opposed to the Korean War as ultimately condemned the Vietnam War, forcing its end.

Foreign interventions took on the appearance of imperialistic aggression
by a government under control of its manipulators rather than the
American people at-large.

U.S. aggression against North Vietnam became a major undeclared war on
the basis of a "battle" that never occurred, according to Medal of Honor
winner Navy Admiral James B. Stockdale. He stated in his book "In Love
and War" that President Lyndon Johnson ordered air strikes and troop
buildup in 1964 after a false report was made that U.S. ships were under
attack in the Gulf of Tonkin. Stockdale commanded a squadron of Navy
fighter planes from the aircraft carrier Ticonderoga in the area of the
alleged incident;

"No boats, no boat wakes, no ricochets
off boats, no torpedo wakes...nothing
but black sea and American firepower."

Stockdale was shot down a year later and spent more than seven years as
a prisoner in North Vietnam, while 55,000 American troops died in losing
the war. No congressional investigation was held to determine the
source of the Tonkin Gulf lie.

Within the war itself, aggression was so ingrained in U.S. troops that
they massacred 500 Vietnamese civilians at My Lai before three of the
troops stopped the slaughter by pointing their weapons at their fellow
Americans. Thirty three years later, the trio were officially proclaimed Army heroes.

The same war saw additional U.S. aggression with 3,630 bombing missions on alleged Viet Cong bases in neutral Cambodia. This helped swing Cambodian sentiment in favor of the fledgling Khmer Rouge movement under Pol Pot, who soon sparked the murder of an estimated two-million of his fellow Cambodians.

In 1989, U.S. troops were ordered by President George Bush to invade
Panama, again with no congressional declaration of war. Hundreds of
civilians were killed in addition to military defenders. Panama
"strongman" Manuel Noriega, who had boasted that he had Bush "by the
balls" in connection with CIA drug operations, was taken captive and
convicted in a U.S. court for alleged drug trafficking and drug money
laundering. While an international court of justice would have been an
impartial setting, it would also serve to expose Secret Government drug
operations, and the U.S. strongly opposed such a court.

On the excuse of defending tiny Kuwait against Iraqi aggression in 1991,
the U.S. spearheaded the mobilization of a multi-national military force
of 200,000 that killed thousands of Iraqi's in the oil-rich region. It
ended with the U.S. taking control of northern and southern Iraqi air
space and an ongoing policy of air attacks on Iraqi air defense sites.
U.S.-led trade sanctions were also imposed on Iraq through the small but
powerful U.N. Security Council.

U.S. aggression was officially honored when President Bill Clinton
proclaimed as a "hero" an Air Force pilot who had been shot down after
violating Bosnian air space.

Throughout the years, the government rolled out propaganda machinery,
mobilized public relations forces, purchased advertising, spread
misinformation and disinformation, and took free television and radio
time to defend aggressive acts around the world, while secretly plotting
other possible actions, such as a nuclear attack on China's nuclear test
facilities in the 1960's.

With an Authentic Constitution in harmony with the natural Cosmic Laws
of the universe, and producing High Moral Values and Democratic Ideals,
the act of "initiating" forceful or hostile action against human beings
is prohibited.

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