Somewhere between the events of 911 and the President’s Afghanistan “surge speech” we seem to have forgotten that what distinguishes us from the terrorists trying to kill us is our commitment to the rule of law. Terrorists and pirates care nothing about safeguarding individual liberty or fundamental human rights, but we do. Our commitment to these principles is what makes us human and free and makes the terrorists and pirates the enemies of humanity. This commitment requires us to provide due process and equal protection to all persons, not only citizens, within our Republic’s jurisdiction regardless of where they were captured or where they are currently held. (14th Amendment) To meet this due process requirement, and to classify enemy combatants, terrorist or pirates as prisoners of war, requires; 1. notice; 2. an opportunity to be heard. For soldiers of a foreign sovereign to have the required notice requires a formal declaration of war issued by our Congress. Article I section 8 of the Constitution limits this power to only the Congress. This power cannot be delegated to the President by way of Authorization for the Use of Force Resolutions, as was done in Iraq and Afghanistan, because the President would then be able to commit acts of war without a war being first properly declared. The President may defend the lives, liberty and property of U.S. Citizens while eminent threats remain but to go on offense requires a proper congressional war declaration.
For suspected international terrorists or pirates to have the notice required under due process requires that Letters of Reprisals (declarations of war upon stateless actors and activities) be issued against them by Congress and for Congress to have defined and set the punishments for piracies and offences against the law of Nations. (Article I Section To date, no Letters of Reprisal have been issued against ANY terrorist organization or activity. For all of the persons herein mentioned, an opportunity to be heard is provided when the above formalities have taken place, before or during the outbreak of hostilities, thereby allowing these persons to be classified as prisoners of war, held under military authority and tried in accordance with the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
Considering then our commitment to the rule of law, the way forward in the War on Terror is clear. First, we must withdraw conventional occupation forces from any sovereign that has not had a congressional declaration of War issued against it or Letters of Reprisal issued against terrorist groups harbored therein. Second, those foreign groups and individuals that have in the past and continue to this day to use violence to infringe upon the lives, liberty or property of Americans must have Letters of Reprisal issued against them so that they can be killed or captured legally. Third, those that are then captured must be treated as prisoners of war and be housed in military prisons until they can receive fair trials and just punishments in accordance with the Uniform Code of Military Justice. And finally, we must use our superior force projection capabilities, Letters of Marque (bounties) and diplomatic contacts to interdict those with Letters of Reprisal levied against them as they attempt to travel and or congregate.
Given the government’s current commitment to expanding our military presence in Afghanistan as outlined by the President’s speech last December, I am calling upon my future colleagues in the Congress to remember our commitment to the rule of law by immediately voting on resolutions to secure Letters of Reprisal against Al Qaida in Afghanistan and Pakistan and to define and set the punishments for international terrorism and piracy. To do otherwise is to turn the courage, honor and valor of our veterans into instruments of lawlessness and unconstitutionality. Such is the size and scope of our legal errors prosecuting the War on Terror up till now that they are nearly insurmountable. But if we will return to our founding principles, codified in the Constitution, the Spirit of the Founders will light our way.
Given the high priority of providing for the common Defense, I would like to make you aware of some of the living and training conditions at Camp Gruber, OK. It is clear that what remains of the meager budget is being spent on the weapons ranges and training lanes. However, it is also clear that these things are deteriorating. We are often told that equipment is not available or is broken and that there is no money to fix or replace them. Classes are often conducted using Power Point slides only rather than video/cgi. I believe that if we had videos demonstrating the combat tactics being instructed, these young motivated soldiers would respond quickly and efficiently. There are no computer libraries for soldiers to access important online courses needed for mobilization training. Those soldiers that have their own laptops are willing to share them, but the Gruber WiFi was down for more than a week and when it came back up there was not enough band width for video; either for training or for video-calling to families back home. Given the extremely high operations tempo which leads to multiple deployments, it is critical that Soldiers have reliable internet access to reach their families. This one comfort alone is enough to make the separations almost bearable. Thus, it should NEVER be treated as a low priority. Commanders in theater know this and ensure internet access is available as much as possible. One would like the think that the barracks buildings were better than tents except that it was often cooler outside at night than in the un-air-conditioned barracks. Soldiers were spending their own money to buy the PX out of fans because those were in short supply. Sixteen hours on the range in 105+ degree weather and high humidity and then we come back to sleep and its hotter inside than out. Only three shower stalls were provided to service 80 Soldiers. Toilets are “open bay” with no stall doors and no privacy for even a few moments to do ones “business.” The Moral Welfare and Recreation facilities were sparse but appreciated. There are a couple of pool tables, a TV and some old computers. Unfortunately, half the computers were inop and the ones that did work were seriously dated. I understand that at least half of us bring our own laptops, but then the wifi went down and there were three battalions attempting to use these handful of MWR computers. There are no phones to call home so Soldiers with no personal cel phones had no way to contact family given limited wifi and not enough MWR computers. There was one bright spot in all this, the mess, provided by Redfeather Catering was excellent. It’s easy to overlook much when the food is good, but still these things need to be fixed. It is a shame that the soldiers going through Camp Gruber, about to leave to regular army mob sites, will have Gruber to remember Oklahoma by. There are prisons in this state with better creature comforts than are provided here to our fighting men and women. True, Gruber may not be in your district, but your constituents in the Guard/Reserves, and their families, are forced to endure Gruber’s failures and they will be watching closely to see that you live up to your reputation for being a supporter of our Soldiers, Marines and Airmen that train here. Under the authority provided to you in article I section 8, Please caucus with the other members of the OK Congressional Delegation to see what you can do, as a bi-partisan collective, to fix these issues quickly.
When I deployed out of Ft. Hood TX in 03 for OIF 1, the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders came to give us a show and send us off to fight with a clear and vivid reminder of what we were about to be fighting for. Oklahoma; what are we doing to say goodbye and god-speed to our soldiers carrying our state’s banner and honor into battle?
CW2 RJ Harris
OKANG Camp Gruber, OK
Training for Afghanistan Surge
We the People of the great state of OKLAHOMA hold these truths to be evident from our constitutional contract with the United States of America that the states of that union are as sovereign as foreign states and that they give up only so much of their sovereignty so as to allow for the execution of those powers enumerated and assigned to the federal government in the Constitution. Further, we hold that the United States Constitution represents our people’s consent to be governed in any measure beyond that which is contained in our own constitution and the consent of the several states to allow the United States to act for them on the issues of national defense, foreign policy, foreign trade and interstate commerce. Moreover, we hold that when these consents are breached, as they have been by all three branches of the federal government, that each breach is an act of tyranny upon We the People and breach of contract upon the several states. These abuses stretch back to the beginning of the previous century and are evidence of the federal government’s long-standing design to reduce the federalist system, consented to in the Constitution, to one of despotic central government rule. Such a government was not envisioned by the founders or by the states that ratified the Constitution or by the states that joined the union since, and such a government is wholly detrimental to the people’s liberty and to the sovereignty of states.
To prove these assertions of the federal government’s intent towards despotism, let the following facts be submitted to a candid world.
It has often refused to allow the states to govern themselves as necessary for the local public good.
It has passed legislation designed specifically to bribe, blackmail, and coerce the states into compliance with its unfunded mandates.
It has refused to pass legislation to provide for the common defense along the borders of the Republic while forbidding the border state governors from defending their states from a flood of illegal immigration, and it has required those states to bear a disproportionate burden of the financial expenses which inevitably accompany the migration of an entire population.
It has refused to pass reasonable and proportionate immigration legislation to accommodate both those wishing to migrate to the United States and the states that need that productive immigration to sustain their population.
It has called for legislation to be debated and voted upon during inconvenient times so as to require the perpetual stationing of the states representatives to the national capital and to limit the public’s awareness of its activities.
It has obstructed the administration of justice by allowing its judiciary to grant itself the extra-constitutional power to judicially construct that which was clearly and unequivocally left to the states under the 10th Amendment to the Constitution.
It has erected a multitude of new offices and bureaucracies to which legislative authority has been delegated, in direct violation of Article I Section 1 of the Constitution, the effect of which has been the harassment of the people, the depletion of the public monies and the wholesale infringement upon individual liberty and state sovereignty as the people and the states attempt to comply with more rules and regulations than can be known by the common person.
It has given monies from the treasury, intended for the general Welfare of the Federal Government, not for the individual welfare of its citizens or foreign states, both to foreign governments–to curry favor and engage in entangling alliances–and to individual citizens and special interests groups to buy votes as well as ill-gotten political influence.
It has kept at our expense, and to the detriment of full provision of our own National Guard, in times when war was not declared, standing armies, and delegated to the executive the power to declare war through aggressive foreign policy actions committed in direct violation of Article I Section 8.
It has combined with foreign states to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving its assent to their acts of pretended legislation:
For placing our armed forces under the command of foreign officers; subject to foreign military jurisdictions not in accordance with the Constitution or the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
For quartering and training large bodies of foreign troops in our states and territories at the expense of our treasury under the guise of foreign aid.
For granting law enforcement jurisdiction to foreign police authorities for the purpose of arrest and detention of our citizens, thereby making the people subject to the judicial powers of foreign states and entities rather than of their own states and of their own constitutions and the Constitution of the United States.
For cutting off our trade, under its sole discretion, to all parts of the world.
For preventing the free market growth of commerce, trade or industry, to the detriment of our state’s economy under the guise of radical environmentalism, and for the purpose of controlling our prosperity and production rather than merely making it regular among the several states.
For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments.
For declaring in themselves the power to legislate for us in direct contrivance to the 10th Amendment.
It has waged a de facto war upon our prosperity and that of our posterity by levying direct taxation upon the labor of our citizens and empowering its bureaucracies to harass and imprison those unwilling to comply with the legalized theft levied against them or to incriminate themselves in direct violation of the 5th Amendment.
It has stolen the wealth of the entire population by seizing our gold and silver and replacing the same with a worthless paper currency that is manipulated at the whim of private bankers not accountable to the people in the manner that Congress alone is accountable under Article I Section 8.
In so doing, It has turned our states into criminal enterprises by making them unable to comply with the directives of Article I Section 10, which require that all state transactions be conducted in only gold or silver currency and that states make only gold and silver a legal tender in payment of debts.
In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress through the political process, only to have those petitions answered by the repeated injury of the tyranny of the majority inconsistent with the republican government promised to all states in Article IV section 4 of the Constitution. A central government, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define tyranny, is unfit to govern a free republic.
We, therefore, the duly elected legislators of the State of Oklahoma, sitting in general assembly and on behalf of the people of Oklahoma under the eyes of God, declare our sovereign right to nullify any and all federal legislation which breaches our contract with the United States. This authority to act in defense of our citizens and our sovereignty extends to the Governor of Oklahoma and to the Sheriffs of each county to use any and all appropriate means to protect our citizens from the legislative enforcement efforts of the federal government henceforth deemed by this body to be in contradiction to the Constitution of the United States.
“The above is provided for your use to debate and discuss the issue of nullification and hopefully institute some form thereof in our/your state. This declaration was modeled on the Declaration of Independence and the author of this declaration, RJ Harris, acknowledges credit to the authors of the Declaration of Independence and that so much of what they had to say permeates this declaration that individual citations would be tiresome and redundant to the readers. The preceding titled Declaration of Nullification is a sample Declaration of Nullification. This is not an actual piece of legislation from ANY state…yet. The point of this declaration is to spark discussion on this issue in all of the state legislatures around the country. The idea is also to issue declarations like these directly to the federal government and not merely be offered as state wide legislation that never leaves the state. Due process requires notice and this declaration provides exactly the due process necessary to move forward on more aggressive statewide legislation. If all this article does is inspire those in position to act then it has achieved its purpose.”
To date, no Letters of Reprisal have been issued against ANY terrorist organization or activity. For all of the persons herein mentioned, an opportunity to be heard is provided when the above formalities have taken place, before or during the outbreak of hostilities, thereby allowing these persons to be classified as prisoners of war, held under military authority and tried in accordance with the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
