Analyst's note: Absolutely must read and carefully consider what is being reported in this article. Plans are underway by the Obama Administration to use some of what’s left of our military to operate on behalf of the United Nations and the International Criminal Court (ICC). We now see that the “fundamental transformation” of the United States now underway at the Department of Defense. This same group thinks the American people are not watching. Please read the entire original article.
You may not have heard of PSD-10 because it has received no significant coverage from the major media. Yet, President Obama issued “Presidential Study Directive 10” last August 4, 2011, and posted it on the White House website. It amounts to a new and potentially far-reaching exercise of American military power cloaked in humanitarian language and conducted under the auspices of the United Nations and the International Criminal Court.
Under this new “Obama doctrine,” U.S. troops can be deployed to arrest or even terminate individuals wanted by the International Criminal Court, which is based on a treaty that has not been ratified by the U.S. Senate and isn’t even up for Senate consideration.
This “Presidential Study Directive on Mass Atrocities,” another name for PSD-10, declares that “Preventing mass atrocities and genocide is a core national security interest and a core moral responsibility of the United States.”
[....] Members of the public haven’t heard of PSD-10, but they may have heard of a decision Obama made on October 14, 2011, when he informed Congress that he had authorized “a small number of combat equipped U.S. forces to deploy to central Africa to provide assistance to regional forces that are working toward the removal of Joseph Kony from the battlefield.”
[....] For his part, Obama is basically deploying the U.S. Armed Forces on behalf of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which indicted Kony for war crimes in 2005 and issued an arrest warrant for him. However, not only has the U.S. Senate not ratified the ICC treaty, Congress has never authorized the use of U.S. troops to carry out the ICC’s edicts. So where does Obama get the power to deploy U.S. troops in this manner?
[....] Last October Jake Tapper of ABC News asked Obama about the decision to deploy troops “to help eliminate Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army.” Obama replied:
“Well none of these decisions are easy, but those who are familiar with the Lord’s Resistance Army and their leader, Mr. Kony, know that these are some of the most vicious killers. They terrorize villages, they take children into custody and turn them into child soldiers, they engage in rape and slaughter in villages they go through. They have been a scourge on Uganda and that entire region, eastern Africa. So there has been strong bi-partisan support and a coalition, everything from evangelical Christians to folks on the left and human rights organizations who have said it is an international obligation for us to try to take them on. And so given that bipartisan support across the board belief that we have to do something about this, what we’ve done is we’ve provided these advisors. They are not going to be in a situation where they are called upon to hunt down the Lord’s Resistance Army or actively fire on them, but they will be in a position to protect themselves. What they can do is provide the logistical support that is needed, the advice, the training and the logistical support that hopefully will allow this kind of stuff to stop.”
Notice the use of the term “international obligation.” That is not the same as a declaration of war or resolution on the use of force from Congress.
Indeed, the Obama Administration seems to have the view that it has to seek authorization for military action against foreign regimes or individuals from the U.N. or NATO, but not from Congress. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta recently told a Senate committee that the U.S. military would have to seek “international permission” before intervening in Syria. Senator Jeff Sessions responded, [....]
[....] On top of this announcement, we now learn, also from Tapper, that “according to a senior administration official, President Obama first heard about the [Kony 2012] video the same way so many people have: from one of his children. In this case, it was from Malia, 13.”
Some liberals are now complaining that the “Kony 2012” video has become a “pretext for military intervention.” If so, it is after the fact. They fear the intervention may not really be designed to find Kony. Still, it is not too late for liberals and conservatives alike to question whether Obama has superseded his constitutional and legal authority. It is certainly time for the major media to examine what Obama is getting the United States into in Africa—and on what legal basis, if any, he is doing it.
While Obama had ordered U.S. troops to apprehend Kony, he has been careful not to order them to arrest and detain Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir, a patron of Kony’s who has also been indicted by the ICC on charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. The Sudan is a member in good standing of the Organization of the Islamic Conference. The crimes of Al-Bashir dwarf those of Kony.
[....] So while the Pentagon prepares for across-the-board cuts in national security and defense programs, plans are underway by the Obama Administration to use some of what’s left of our military to operate on behalf of the United Nations and the ICC. The “fundamental transformation” of the United States is now underway at the Department of Defense.
