SEQ CHAPTER \h \r 1
Rather like a wrecking ball dropped into someone's La-Z-Boy, a person cannot easily ignore issues of national security and sovereignty - unless the person's own country has become the problem. At this point willful ignorance sets in and allows the person to act one way, yet profess something else. The reason for this "double-speak" is quite simple: people do not want to take on the responsibility of forcing their government to stay within its lawful, legal, Constitutional bounds. As President George Washington said, "Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force! Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master." Because of this, the people of the united States have a legal, moral, and ethical obligation to make certain that their government never becomes the "fearful master" of which President Washington warned us. But we are shirking that duty, and one of the most glaring examples is our refusal to demand the Congress declare Constitutional, defined, and legal wars. Since World War Two no war or military policing action has been legally executed. America, once the greatest military power on earth and the country most blessed by God, has now become the enemy at the gates for the other 190 countries on earth.
Citing research from the Center for Research on Globalization (CRG), based in Montreal, Canada, estimates the United States has over two and one-half million military personnel worldwide. The CRG, citing the research of Hugh d'Andrade and Bob Wing, confirms that the United States maintains 737 military bases in 156 countries worldwide. This piecemeal occupation of other countries of the world is nothing short of unauthorized, undeclared invasion and occupation. It is as if the United States occupied your county with two and one-half million military personnel. It is utter madness to think that the United States can protect the interests of another country better than the residents of that country. History has proven, in business as well as in war, men who have something to gain, will fight and work harder, longer, better than someone to whom the objective is completely foreign or worthless. Such is the case with America's involvement overseas. It is pointless. It means nothing to the American people except bloodshed and astronomically increasing taxes. There is absolutely no sound strategic military reason to staff 737 military bases in 156 foreign countries with 2.5 million soldiers whose efforts could be better used here in their own states.
The second, and more important issue, is that of the Constitutionality of these invasions. Until Iraq and Afghanistan, the Congress has never provided for a declaration of war for them, yet America continually sends troops into war. This is a gross violation of the powers enumerated in Article Three of the Constitution. It states that the President may only send troops to an unauthorized war zone for a period of sixty days. If the Congress does not approve the President's decision to send troops to battle, they must be brought home within thirty days. Many of the troops have been deployed for months. The Iraq War has slumped into a eight-year quagmire. In all of this, there are two questions to be asked. First, what right do we as Americans have to even think that our soldiers belong overseas unless there is a declaration of war by the Congress? Second, will we continue our policies of un-Constitutional foreign aggression and attempt to be the police force of the globe, or will we demand that our President recognize the true type of government granted him, a Constitutional-Republic?
In conclusion, there are other, less-valid reasons why the rest of the world hates the United States; reasons which are invalid, but are of greater importance to them. However, as long as the United States continues to impinge the national sovereignty of the other one hundred ninety nations of the earth, we have no reason to wonder why they hate us, or to demand we be tolerated, liked, or adored. In the end it becomes a question of whether the United States is a world police force - and we are not. Since we are not the world's policeman, the United States should have absolutely no military presence in other countries unless the Congress has declared war on that country.
Nathaniel Coffey,
Tennessee State Chairman NTC