With strong support from the Obama administration and over $100 million in U.S. taxpayer funds, the United Nations, the Socialist French government, and a coalition of African governments and despots sent thousands of foreign troops into the Central African Republic. Under the guise of restoring order and preventing more atrocities, the usual chorus of self-styled “human rights” activists, bureaucrats, and politicians are calling on “international authorities” to take over the country, as if that was not only normal, but the obvious course of action. The self-styled “International Criminal Court,” again with support from Obama, is also seizing the opportunity to expand its machinations.
The purported goal of the international intervention is to stop the escalating violence. While turmoil in the Central African Republic has been boiling for decades, the latest round of bloodshed erupted as rebel Islamic “Seleka” militants tried to seize control over the predominantly Christian country. The previous despot, Francois Bozize, was ousted by the Islamist warlords in March and replaced by Muslim rebel boss Michel Djotodia. Despite his seizing power, Djotodia’s armed backers reportedly continued to perpetrate atrocities amid an ongoing murderous rampage.
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Along the way, at least many hundreds of Christians, including several pastors, have been massacred, according to multiple reports. Terror, rape, and brutality have exploded. Some Christian groups reportedly organized “self-defense” militias as well, and have allegedly retaliated, in some cases brutally. Islamist militias, though, are still wreaking havoc, with news agencies reporting that almost 1,000 people in the capital city of Bangui were slaughtered by Islamist rebels so far this month.
Despite the U.S. government’s unprecedented $17 trillion debt, the Obama administration publicly pledged over $100 million to the international intervention in the African country. Among other elements, the administration said the promised taxpayer-funded aid would help pay for airlifts provided by the Department of Defense, so-called “defense services,” and hardware for foreign troops in CAR, and more. On top of that, tens of millions more will go to the UN for various programs in the area.
“We are grateful for the important contributions made by the African Union, regional states, and France in support of the international community’s response,” the White House said in a statement posted on its website. “We are actively working to help end the violence, protect civilians, prevent atrocities, provide humanitarian assistance, and help create an environment that allows constitutional and democratic governance to be restored.”
In public statements, citing international requests and decisions made by the administration, U.S. officials essentially admitted that they had no legitimate constitutional or congressional authority to intervene in the latest African conflict. A statement released by the Pentagon, for example, claimed that its decision to send troops to the area was made after Obama defense chief Chuck Hagel received a “request” from the socialist French government’s military boss, Yves Le Drian.
“In response to this request, Secretary Hagel has directed U.S. AFRICOM to begin transporting forces from Burundi to the Central African Republic, in coordination with France,” said DoD Assistant Press Secretary Carl Woog. “The United States is joining the international community in this effort because of our belief that immediate action is required to avert a humanitarian and human rights catastrophe in the Central African Republic, and because of our interest in peace and security in the region.”
A supposed “belief” by the administration, of course, is nowhere cited in the Constitution as a legitimate justification or authority to engage U.S. troops and American taxpayer money in foreign conflicts. Neither do UN “resolutions” qualify. As with other lawless activities by the Obama administration in the United States and abroad, however, the Constitution and Congress were never mentioned as part of the lawless decision-making equation.
Incredibly, the Defense Department even promised to keep looking for more ways to intervene in the African conflict without lawful or constitutional authority — despite the fact that nobody has even claimed that the outbreak of violence has any bearing on the United States. “We continue to work to identify additional resources that might be available to help address further requests for assistance to support the international community’s efforts in CAR,” Woog said.
In keeping with years of similar machinations, the Obama administration is also quietly working to exploit the CAR crisis as yet another opportunity to empower the self-styled “International Criminal Court.” The U.S. government, of course, is not a party to the deeply controversial and largely discredited outfit, as it has never been ratified by the Senate. Last week, though, Obama’s envoy to the UN, Samantha Power, a fervent globalist who advocates surrendering national sovereignty to the UN “dictators’ club,” met with the new Islamic strongman ruling CAR, Djotodia, to reiterate the point during “talks” in Bangui.
“Those responsible for atrocities must be held accountable,” Power claimed after the quick trip to CAR’s capital city, suggesting that further empowerment of the UN’s widely ridiculed court would somehow help the cause of peace and justice. “That is a very important element of preventing future violence and cycles of violence.” Other than vaguely defined alleged perpetrators of atrocities, it was not immediately clear who Power and the UN thought should face international “justice.”
As has increasingly become the norm, the UN “Security Council” — not the U.S. Congress — purportedly “authorized” all of the foreign intervention, presumably including the Obama administration’s involvement. The U.S. Constitution, of course, makes no mention of dictator-dominated international outfits being able to commandeer U.S. taxpayer resources or troops for any purpose, much less meddling in the internal affairs of foreign nations.
With the current administration picking up where its predecessors left off, however, the U.S. government continues to provide brazen support for the UN and its largely autocratic membership as the disgraced organization increasingly behaves as some sort of would-be global government. In the CAR resolution adopted by the Security Council earlier this month, as in similar measures in recent decades, the UN even purported to “authorize” an international “Commission of Inquiry” to investigate what it calls “violations of international law.”
Amid the conflict, the UN’s self-styled “court” — which operates in a way that is entirely at odds with American traditions of unalienable rights, jury trials, and justice — has also become increasingly brazen in painting itself as some sort of legitimate body with jurisdiction over everyone on Earth. The ICC “prosecutor,” for example, threatened earlier this month to start “prosecuting” people from CAR in The Hague, claiming to have jurisdiction over the various warring parties in the conflict.
“I hereby call upon all parties involved in the conflict, including former Séléka elements and other militia groups, such as the anti-Balaka, to stop attacking civilians and committing crimes, or risk being investigated and prosecuted by my Office,” declared ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda as the UN court increasingly hauls in Africans on the losing end of conflicts for what passes as a trial in The Hague. “The victims of such crimes cannot be left unheard.”
As The New American has documented, and globalist powerbrokers have celebrated, the Obama administration is working to empower and legitimize the UN’s “judiciary branch.” Ironically, however, Obama himself is reportedly being accused of “crimes against humanity” by a coalition of Egyptian attorneys at the ICC for his lawless support of Islamic terrorism in Egypt via backing for the Muslim Brotherhood.
In recent years, self-styled prosecutors for the international outfit have also claimed to be investigating U.S. troops for “war crimes” perpetrated in Libya — despite the fact that the ICC does not have even a semblance of jurisdiction over Americans, especially as the U.S. government is not a party to the treaty creating the outfit. Still, the UN entity increasingly acts as if it were a legitimate body with authority to prosecute anyone and everyone for vaguely defined crimes such as “aggression” and supposed violations of what it calls “international law.”
Separately, Obama’s track record on interventionism in Africa so far has been atrocious by any standard. In the Ivory Coast, for example, the Obama administration, French authorities, and the UN helped put an Islamic central banker in power after ousting the Christian president amid a disputed election. Thousands of innocent Christians were massacred, and the current internationally installed regime continues to come under fire for totalitarianism, killings, death squads, censorship, and more.
In Libya, Obama helped lead the lawless military campaign to depose former U.S. terror-war ally Gadhafi, who was replaced by Islamist rulers and an assortment of warlords — many with links to al-Qaeda. More recently, in Mali, the UN, authorities from France, and the Obama administration helped to brutally prop up an illegitimate regime against an uprising by marginalized nomads seeking an independent homeland. The UN’s history of intervention, meanwhile, has been dominated by human rights abuses, massacres, sex crimes targeting civilians, support for dictators, and more.
Numerous other examples of Obama and UN intervention-linked disasters across the continent could also be cited. Beyond Africa, U.S. government military adventurism — none of it authorized by the Constitution or a constitutionally required congressional declaration of war — has wreaked havoc around the world. Christian communities, especially in the Middle East and Africa, have been among the primary victims of the forces unleashed by U.S. administrations’ decades of warmongering machinations. While the establishment seeks to bring its own vision of “order” out of the chaos it often foments, so far, the chaos shows no signs of letting up.
Alex Newman, a foreign correspondent for The New American, is normally based in Europe. He can be reached at [email protected].
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