The "Clinton Doctrine"

"Well, I think there’s an important principle here that I hope will be now upheld in the future, and not just by the United States, not just by NATO, but also by the leading countries of the world through the United Nations. And that is that while there may well be a great deal of ethnic and religious conflict in the world, that whether within or beyond the borders of the country, if the world community has the power to stop it, we ought to stop genocide and ethnic cleansing." President William Jefferson Clinton, responding to a question by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on June 20, 1999

As soon as NATO stopped bombing Serbia and the Serb forces pulled out of Kosovo, the light blue flag of the United Nations was raised over Pristina, the capital of Kosovo. As the KLA, the nationalist "liberation" force of the Kosovar Albanians will now be forced to lay down their weapons and lower the Albanian Flag, Kosovo will be run by bureaucrats of other nations commissioned by the UN, not by the Albanians, much less the Serbs.

Already, agents of America’s Federal Bureau of Investigation have been flown to Kosovo to investigate "war crimes." And America has announced the offer of a $5 million reward for information leading to the capture of Slobodan Milosevic, the Serbian President accused of war crimes. The next step, most assuredly, will be to place Mr. Milosevic on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list.

This is the Clinton Doctrine in action. American armed might is to be employed for the "common interest" of humanity, not the national security or national defense of these United States of America. The proclaimed end of the war over Kosovo has signaled to the world that national boundaries and domestic jurisdiction mean nothing. With the "end" of the war over Kosovo, we are told, the age of the nation-state has come to an end.

The beginning of the end was 1948, when the United States and its World War II allies forged the United Nations, the purpose of which was to do away with war and to marshal the armed forces of the world to protect the "common interest."

Within two years, this grandiose purpose of the United Nations was put to the test — in Korea. When President Harry Truman called up American troops to fight for the United Nations on the side of the South Koreans, he called the "War" a "police action." Why?

No More War
After the adoption of the UN Charter, there could be no more war, because the United Nations claimed total jurisdiction over the whole world. Thus, if the armed force of any nation were deployed in the name of the UN, it would be no different "legally" than when that nation would send its police force into a city or country to enforce its domestic criminal law.

So President Clinton and his Balkan allies — charging Milosevic with "crimes against humanity" — sent in the bombers, as if they were a high-tech SWAT team of the FBI assigned to wipe out the New York City Mafia headquarters and degrade its "hit" squads. Not surprisingly, after the "SWAT team" had done its job, the FBI showed up to conduct its investigation.

By design, then, the United Nations Charter has displaced the Congress of the United States with the United Nations Security Council, or some other ruling international council of a "regional alliance" of nations, such as NATO. They no longer need an American President to go to Congress to obtain a declaration of war, as required by Article I, Section 8, Clause 11. For in the world governed by the United Nations Charter — there is no war that can be declared.

This deliberate displacement of Congress went unnoticed in the United States Senate at the time of the ratification of the UN Charter, because members of the Truman administration assured the Senators that the President could not assign even one American soldier, airman, sailor, or Marine to serve under UN command without the express consent of Congress.

No such express consent has ever been given to an American President, even though there are statutes on the books requiring such consent. And while American servicemen still execute an oath of office swearing to "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States," they are — and will continue to be — court-martialed, unless they abandon their oath in order to serve under UN command — as in the case of Michael New. So long as the United States remains in the United Nations this policy will not change.

The Billion Dollar Bailout
For several years now, a few members of the House and an occasional Senator have called for the withdrawal of the United States from the United Nations. In late June, 1999, however, the United States Senate voted by 98 to 1 to pay America’s past-due "debt" to the UN. (Later, claiming that he had made a "mistake," Senator Robert Smith of New Hampshire changed his vote from "aye," to "nay," making the final tally 97 to 2.)

The only initial dissenting vote was cast by liberal Democratic Senator Paul Sarbanes of Maryland who objected to the bill because it conditioned the debt payment upon the UN’s implementing "reform" to reduce fraud, mismanagement, and waste that has plagued it for years. Only a United States Senator would believe that an unelected bureaucracy — which lines its pockets through fraud, mismanagement, and waste — would reform itself.

The "debt" that the United States allegedly owes to the UN are "dues" fixed by the UN. These "dues" are, in fact, taxes levied upon the American people by an international body which is not composed of representatives elected by them. Thus, by imposing "dues" upon the United States as a member nation, the UN indirectly claims jurisdiction to tax the American people just as the English Parliament claimed back in 1765 when it passed the Stamp Act.

The only difference between now and then is that the American people have no leaders to raise the battle cry — "No Taxation Without Representation!" — against this unconstitutional UN tax. Instead, Congress is so accustomed to ignoring the Constitution, that it cannot even insist that a UN dues assessment is a "bill for raising revenue" and that Article I, Section 7, Clause 1 requires that, "All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives."

An Illegitimate Covenant
To understand this congressional betrayal of fundamental constitutional principle and procedure, one must return to 1948. In the Preamble of the United Nations Charter, the United States government and allied governments claimed to create the United Nations in the name of "The Peoples of the United Nations."

By invoking the authority of the "People" to propose the formation of a new world government, the architects of the United Nations sought to establish the United Nations on the same foundation as the government of the United States of America. But they left out a crucial step. While the government of the United States of America was proposed in the name of "We the People of the United States," it did not become that government until it was ratified by the people through constitutional conventions held in each of the sovereign and independent states.

The United Nations Charter has never been presented to the people of any member nation for ratification. Instead, it was submitted to each member nation’s government officials for approval, thereby bypassing the people. In addition, only the original Charter was submitted for approval, as if it were just a treaty.

In the United States, the original Charter was approved by the two-thirds vote of the United States Senate, as required for the ratification of treaties under Article II, Section 2, Clause 2. But new member nations have been added without Senate approval. Indeed, the Charter explicitly provides that it may be amended by vote of the member nations and that such a vote binds other member nations to that amendment, even if their UN representatives did not vote for it.

Such unilateral power to amend and to add members is not the hallmark of a treaty, but that of a permanent covenant. Because the United Nations Charter is not a true treaty, it cannot be the supreme law of the land, even though ratified by the Senate as provided in Article VI, Clause 2 of the Constitution.

To the contrary, because the United Nations Charter is, by its own terms, a civil covenant, it must be ratified by the people, just as was the case with the United States Constitution. Having not been so ratified, the United Nations Charter is illegitimate and void.

Conclusion
There is only one constitutional response, then, to the United Nations. The President and the Congress must withdraw the United States from the United Nations and require the United Nations to withdraw from the United States. Only by taking such action can the national sovereignty and independence of these United States of America be preserved, and the "Clinton Doctrine" be erased. Otherwise, Kosovo will become a precedent justifying other nations to bomb America and punish her for "crimes against humanity" — as soon as those nations have the "power" to do so.