March 20, 2006

Dear Senator Smith:

As veterans of the armed services of the United States of America, we took an oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic” and to “bear true faith and allegiance to the same.”  Upon discharge from service, we did not renounce that oath. You took that same oath upon assuming office.

It has become painfully apparent to us that our Constitution is under attack and has been gravely violated by domestic enemies –  indeed, by that very government we served our country to preserve and protect.

Many Constitutional violations have been committed by the Bush administration, including warrantless electronic eavesdropping on American citizens in violation of the Fourth Amendment, failure to provide due process rights in violation of the Fifth and Sixth Amendments, infliction of cruel and unusual punishments in violation of the Eighth Amendment, and violation of Article VI, Paragraph 2 which specifies that all international treaties to which the United States is a signatory are “the Supreme law of the Land.”  The wars we protest today, prosecuted in our name with our national resources, are violations of all treaties defining the international laws of war since 1928, which uniformly prohibit wars of aggression.  As violations of these treaties, they also constitute flagrant and tragic violations of the United States Constitution.

The invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq are illegal wars of aggression and crimes against peace under the following international treaties, pacts, and agreements, which are also the Supreme Law of our Land:

1. The Kellogg-Briand Peace Pact of 1928 (under which Nazis were tried and executed at Nuremberg)
2. The U.N. Charter of 1945
3. The Nuremberg Charter, Judgment, and Principles of 1945

The Attack upon Afghanistan:  Terrorism is defined under international law as actions of individual criminals, not actions of states.  Terrorists are therefore subject to arrest by law enforcement authorities and are tried in criminal courts –  some 3,000 to date in 170 countries.

In accordance with internationally established protocols for dealing with terrorism suspects, the Taliban requested evidence to support the administration’s demand for extradition of bin Laden and offered to negotiate such extradition.  The Bush administration failed to provide convincing evidence and refused to negotiate, instead re-defining terrorism as “war” – which is without basis in international law – and launching a war of aggression against another U.N. member state.

Waging of the Iraq War:  Abundant evidence documents that the Bush administration “fixed the intelligence” to fraudulently force this war upon Congress and the American people.

The War Powers Resolution provided to President Bush by Congress on October 10, 2002 is riddled with the false assumptions deceptively provided by the administration, including irrelevant data from the Gulf War, spurious associations of Saddam with bin Laden, al Qaeda and 9/11, false statements about Iraqi WMDs, WMD capabilities, and aggressive intentions, and irrelevant citations of various U.N. resolution violations that would require Security Council rather than U.S. enforcement action.  It is a document based on fraud, and as such cannot be considered a legally binding contract.

 
The War Powers Resolution authorized use of armed force only to (1) defend national security against “the continuing threat posed by Iraq” – of which there was none, and (2) enforce U.N. Security Council resolutions, for which the administration failed to obtain U.N. authorization.  Having met neither condition, the administration nevertheless launched an illegal war of aggression against another U.N. member state.

Moreover, the Bush administration has failed to comply with conditions of this resolution, including assurance that diplomatic remedies had been exhausted prior to invasion (on the contrary, Saddam had re-admitted U.N. weapons inspectors), and bi-monthly reports to Congress.  On these several additional bases, the Iraq War Resolution cannot be considered binding upon Congress.

Conduct of both wars: Several prohibited and indiscriminate weapons have been used, causing many tens of thousands of civilian casualties.  These weapons have included cluster bombs, depleted uranium warheads, MK77 napalm, thermobaric explosives, and white phosphorous directed against human targets. Use of these weapons violates the following international agreements, to all of which the United States is a signatory:

4. The United Nations Charter
5. The Hague Rules of Air Warfare and the Hague Regulations on Land Warfare
6. The Nuremberg Charter, Judgment and Principles
7. The Genocide Convention
8. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Both wars have employed widespread torture and humiliation of prisoners, in violation of  the following U.S. law and international laws to which the United States is a signatory:

9. The United States War Crimes Act of 1996
10. The Third and Fourth Geneva Conventions
11. The Convention against Torture
12. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights

In addition, both wars have been conducted with reckless disregard for the safety of American troops by:

13. Failure to provide sufficient troops and adequate equipment to operate in a combat theater
14. Failure to heed the strategic and operational advice of military commanders
15. Failure to plan for the aftermath of invasion
16. Failure to insulate military decisions from political motives

These flagrant failures violate the President’s oath to “well and faithfully discharge the duties of (his) office.”

Only Congress has the power to stop these wars through control of funding.  To continue war funding makes our elected representatives complicit in these crimes. We refuse such complicity through use of our tax dollars to support illegal wars, and therefore can only support candidates who pledge to vote to terminate war funding, immediately withdraw American forces, and terminate all contracts with civilian war and post-war profiteers.

Sincerely,

Veterans Against Torture