With the monstrous weapons man already has, humanity
is in danger of being trapped in this world by its moral adolescents….
The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without
conscience. We know more about war than we know about peace,
more about killing than we know about living.
November 10, 1948

General Omar N. Bradley
United States Military Academy at West Point
Class of 1915
CONTACT: James C. Ryan
jimryan62@yahoo.com


A WAR ON WARMONGERS

A “JEFFERSONIAN” REBELLION



​NEW YORK--April 4, 2016
Ten years ago, appalled by the criminal violations and lying of the Bush administration, we came together as United States service academy graduates, first as West Point Graduates Against the War (wpgaw.org) later, more generally, as sagaw.org . We thought we could help redeem the honor of the United States. We stood opposed to the gross negligence and criminal behavior of the warmongering Bush cabal. We minced no words citing the Bush gang for high crimes and misdemeanors and called for impeachment and criminal prosecution. Everything worsened. Bush went, Obama came.
 
A president laurelled with the Nobel Peace Prize, educated as a constitutional lawyer, self-described as an agent for change and, at last, a force for negotiation and tolerance became a monstrous warmonger. The violations of international law continue. Our military is not so slowly being recommitted into the Middle East quagmire. World-wide war threatens mankind. The war crimes risks grow. For the United States, the agenda seems to be perpetual war against any and all comers. Nuclear weapons are profuse. The politicians snarl like dogs of war. The people despair. The American air is redolent with fumes of fascism and conquest.
 
What a sorry, murderous record of disaster and disgrace 
 
  • The aftermath of the deceit-filled Iraq War Resolution passed by Congress on October 11, 2002 that continues.
 
  • The 2001 fiasco in Afghanistan that continues.
 
  • The Libyan debacle engineered by the CIA, the State Department and the bizarrely macabre secretary of state, Hillary Clinton.
 
  • The CIA destabilization of Syria entailing the arming, training and supplying of Islamic fundamentalist head-choppers, courtesy of the above two culprits plus America’s criminal cabal with Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Jordan.
 
  • The inexplicable destruction of every secular state in the Middle East: Iraq, Libya and Syria.
 
When the media and heads of state wonder just what has caused today’s catastrophic refugee problem, it can just note the above shameful legacy.
 
Consider the appalling illegality of it all
The United States Constitution
Article VI, paragraph 2, makes treaties adopted by the U.S. part of the “law of the land.” Thus, a violation of the U. N. Charter, Hague IV, Geneva Conventions, etc. is also a violation of the Constitution.
 
U.S. Federal Law
U.S. Federal Law 18 U.S.C. § 2441 (War Crimes Act of 1996) makes committing a war crime, defined as: “…a grave breach in any of the international conventions signed at Geneva 12 August 1949, or any protocol to such convention to which the United States is a party…” punishable by fine, imprisonment, or death.
 
U.N. General Assembly Resolution 3314
Defines the crime of aggression as “... the use of armed force by a State against the sovereignty, territorial integrity or political independence of another State…or in any other manner inconsistent with the Charter of the United Nations…” 
Article 3(g) states that “The sending by or on behalf of a State of armed bands, groups, irregulars or mercenaries, which carry out acts of armed force against another State of such gravity as to amount to the acts listed above, or its substantial involvement therein.”
 
Furthermore, regarding the use of force to effect "regime change," popularly and loudly proclaimed to be the essence of US foreign policy in Iraq, Libya and now Syria, is barred by Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, which prohibits "the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state." 
 
Simply stated, everything done and being done in the Middle East by the United States and its “partners” is illegal.
 
One could easily project the threatening rhetoric now being used against China and Russia to be criminal activity by the United States government. Only a month ago the US Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work announced that the recent test of intercontinental ballistic missiles indicates that nuclear weapons would be used by the US in defending America. Such outrageously provocative rhetoric. Defend against whom?
 
A detailed listing and analysis of the gross legal violations of the Bush era appears on the WPGAW website at http://www.wpgaw.org/laws_and_treaties_violated_by_pr.htm . They apply in even greater measure to the Obama administration.
 
What a deplorable misuse of American resources. What disgraceful warmongering “pivots” of Barack Obama. Can the corrupt and criminal foreign policy of the United States of America continue to despoil our military, our children’s future, our nation’s honor and hope for the planet?
 
Please stand with the innocent victims of this fifteen-year political and human atrocity. Stand with and for the rule of law, both domestically and global—in the final analysis that is the only protection we possess.  
 
Peace is a human right
On June 10, 1963, John F. Kennedy made a pivot too. He decried collaboration with the military-industrial complex and spoke of the lunacy of war and the commonality of human needs. This signed his death warrant. In his commencement address at American University, he delivered a speech for peace. Kennedy spoke of peace as a “human right,” asserting that peace was “the necessary, rational end of rational men.” He spoke as a person not as a politician, as a humanitarian not as a warmongering huckster. He reached out to unite a terrified world saying:  

"For in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet.
We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's futires. And we are all mortal."
 
And so we come to today, another day of war and war planning. Another day of designing even more destructive weapons. Another day of body counts and strategic pivots. Death today, death tomorrow. Another day for killing. The strategy? Annihilation. That’s the best that these irrational men and women that conspire and aspire to power can do. That’s the best future that we “rational” men and women and children can hope for.
 
Consider the presidential candidates. Have any of them stood opposed, really opposed, to the horrendous future that faces us all?  Have any of them even mentioned the horrendous wars launched by the Obama administration’s catastrophic foreign policy?  Trump, Clinton, Sanders, all the others…they speak about more of the same, more dollars for more deaths and, in the final analysis, more despair. That the disastrous likes of Hillary Clinton has become the leading democratic party candidate for president says it all. And the current administration has even talked the Japanese into violating their own constitution, a constitution that had rejected war forever. And the fascist Trump? And the other warmongers around the Republican throne? Words fail.
 
Except to say that none of this is good enough simply because it is so monstrously evil. And so obviously criminal. Another gross misuse of America’s military power looms not far off. And it might kill all of us. Obama has led by poor “example” further tarnishing the reputation and honor of the nation he swore to lead in conformance with its constitution. He has managed to even transgress the sordid Bush, moving beyond moral adolescence to constitutional felony. 
 
Thomas Jefferson said it best:
 
"A little rebellion now and then is a good thing,
and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical."
 
The danger is clear and present. The time is now to claim our right to life, our absolute right to live! To live in a world that includes the rest of the world, and not as targets either. To live free from devastation. To exercise our fundamental human right to live in peace. And for people everywhere to be free of devastation. True, it may take forever. There is no other way. We must begin now. And one way to begin is to exercise our right to elect people to office who long for these same human values. None of our self-appointed leaders speak of these things. It is time for new people and new political parties. It is time for new voices that speak the language of peace. It is time to begin the new, better world.
 
Are we, the people, mere commodities, so pathetically stupid and complacent that we accept the brutal electoral choice to vote for the least repugnant candidate?
 
If so, it is surely time to rebel.
 
 
James C Ryan
USMA, 1962
 
Founder:
West Point Graduates Against the War
Service Academy Graduates Against the War

 
Service Academy Graduates Against the War calls on all graduates of United States service academies to speak out against the continuation of the destruction of the honor of the United States and the dissipation of its military in illegal acts of aggression. Membership is open to all alumni of the United States service academies, their widows, widowers and parents. Children of deceased graduates are also warmly welcomed.
​Enrollment has grown steadily and now includes retired and active duty graduates.