President Bill Clinton signs Presidential Decision Directive 25, and then declares it classified so the American people can’t see what it says. (The summary of PDD-25 issued to members of Congress tells us that it authorizes the President to turn over control of U.S. military units to U.N. command.)
U.S. Army Specialist E-4 Michael G. New, a medic in the Third Infantry Division who was drummed out of the military because he refused to wear the uniform of the United Nations writes the following piece on this directive:
In 1994, President William Clinton authorized himself to place American soldiers under United Nations control by a completely new set of rules. Because he knew that this radical and unconstitutional policy would bring about demands for his impeachment, he then classified the document, so that not even your Senator or Representative in Congress can read it! Indeed, Madeleine Albright argued before a Congressional hearing that it was an “Executive Branch document” and, “…in order to preserve the Constitutional balance of powers between the branches of government,” it would not be made available to them. And they accepted that answer!!!!
The difficulty in situations like this is in knowing where to start with the impeachments.
The government did release a “public version” (available HERE), which is a fluff piece. Alleging to be a condensation, it is actually several pages longer than the original. Here is the government’s own summary of Presidential Decision Directive #25.
When Army Specialist Michael New requested to see the legal basis for the order for him to wear a United Nations uniform, his officers informed him that it was based upon PDD 25. When he asked to see it, they informed him, “No, you cannot see it. It is classified. You will just have to trust us.” Michael New laughed out loud, and said, “What is this? The Soviet Union? You can’t just make up secret laws, then put people in jail for not obeying them!” Ah, but they can.
- ====================================
- EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The Clinton Administration’s Policy on Reforming
- Multilateral Peace Operations
- Last year, President Clinton ordered an inter-agency review of our nation’s peacekeeping policies and programs in order to develop a comprehensive policy framework suited to the realities of the post-Cold War period. This policy review has resulted in a Presidential Decision Directive (PDD). The President signed this directive, following the completion of extensive consultations with Members of Congress. This paper summarizes the key elements of that directive.
- As specified in the “Bottom-Up Review,” the primary mission of the U.S. Armed Forces remains to be prepared to fight and win nearly two simultaneous regional conflicts. In this context, peacekeeping can be one useful tool to help prevent and resolve such conflicts before they pose direct threats to our national security. Peacekeeping can also serve U.S. interests by promoting democracy, regional security, and economic growth.
- The policy directive (PDD) addresses six major issues of reform and improvement:
- 1. Making disciplined and coherent choices about which peace operations to support — both when we vote in the Security Council for UN peace operations and when we participate in such operations with U.S. troops.
- — To achieve this goal, the policy directive sets forth three increasingly rigorous standards of review for U.S. support for or participation in peace operations, with the most stringent applying to U.S. participation in missions that may involve combat. The policy directive affirms that peacekeeping can be a useful tool for advancing U.S. national security interests in some circumstances, but both U.S. and UN involvement in peacekeeping must be selective and more effective.
- 2. Reducing U.S. costs for UN peace operations, both the percentage our nation pays for each operation and the cost of the operations themselves.
- — To achieve this goal, the policy directive orders that we work to reduce our peacekeeping assessment percentage from the current 31.7% to 25% by January 1, 1996, and proposes a number of specific steps to reduce the cost of UN peace operations.
- 3. Defining clearly our policy regarding the command and control of American military forces in UN peace operations.
- — The policy directive underscores the fact that the President will never relinquish command of U.S. forces. However, as Commander-in- Chief, the President has the authority to place U.S. forces under the operational control of a foreign commander when doing so serves American security interests, just as American leaders have done numerous times since the Revolutionary War, including in Operation Desert Storm.
- — The greater the anticipated U.S. military role, the less likely it will be that the U.S. will agree to have a UN commander exercise overall operational control over U.S. forces. Any large scale participation of U.S. forces in a major peace enforcement operation that is likely to involve combat should ordinarily be conducted under U.S. command and operational control or through competent regional organizations such as NATO or ad hoc coalitions.
- 4. Reforming and improving the UN’s capability to manage peace operations.
- — The policy recommends 11 steps to strengthen UN management of peace operations and directs U.S. support for strengthening the UN’s planning, logistics, information and command and control capabilities.
- 5. Improving the way the U.S. government manages and funds peace operations.
- — The policy directive creates a new “shared responsibility” approach to managing and funding UN peace operations within the U.S. Government. Under this approach, the Department of Defense will take lead management and funding responsibility for those UN operations that involve U.S. combat units and those that are likely to involve combat, whether or not U.S. troops are involved. This approach will ensure that military expertise is brought to bear on those operations that have a significant military component.
- — The State Department will retain lead management and funding responsibility for traditional peacekeeping operations that do not involve U.S. combat units. In all cases, the State Department remains responsible for the conduct of diplomacy and instructions to embassies and our UN Mission in New York.
- 6. Creating better forms of cooperation between the Executive, the Congress and the American public on peace operations.
- — The policy directive sets out seven proposals for increasing and regularizing the flow of information and consultation between the executive branch and Congress; the President believes U.S. support for and participation in UN peace operations can only succeed over the long term with the bipartisan support of Congress and the American people.
When the president of the United States takes it upon himself to authorize himself to do anything, outside the authority of the Constitution (the document he took an oath to support and defend), it can only be regarded as an act of rebellion to the rule of Law, an act of Tyranny, and an act of dictatorship.
Then Chairman of the Armed Forces Committee of the House, Bob Dornan, was shocked when I told him about PDD 25, in 1996. We were sitting in a restaurant at Tyson’s Corner, near Alexandria, Virginia. He almost choked. The he said, “By God, I can get that document!” Then he turned to his aide and said, “You get that document on my desk, by tomorrow, if at all possible.” His aide made a note. And not another sputter came from Bob Dornan or his office on the subject. Upon inquiry, all we could learn was that, “The document is not available.”
The White House may make all the noise it likes about the difference in “operational control” and “command control”, but when all is said and done, it is an act of sophistry. The terms are not recognized by the Constitution, and a sad day it is that we have to remind the president that we are a nation under that Constitution, not merely under the whims of a political hack. When our government leaders decide that the Constitution is out of date, (as did Speaker Dennis Hastert, when he gavelled down Rep. Ron Paul on the question of a declaration of war in Iraq), then we have government that has run amok, and will always find ourselves in untenable foreign policy situations that may please the crowds back home, for a while, but are outside the legal bounds of what we can do. Contrary to the popular mindset today, it is not true that “rules were made to be broken.”
If the Guardians of the Gate do not do their duty, what happens? Two things are predictable. First, those in authority will begin to assume more and more power to themselves, ignoring those who object, because they have leaders above them who are doing the same thing. This results in tyranny. The other is that the People acquire a disrespect for law and order, because those who are supposed to enforce it are actually running roughshod over it. Historically, this creates a breakdown in law and order, and tends to lead toward the most unpleasant and dangerous mentality of revolution.
For these reasons, it is imperative that we expose the abuse of power that occurs, no matter how high the office where it is found, and reprimand or discipline those who commit such acts.
The first step in this process is for Congress to demand to see the original document, Presidential Decision Directive #25, and all other classified Executive Orders, and if necessary, for either Congress or the courts to revoke them. If a court needs to decide if national security might be threatened, that would be understandable, but if the court decides to provide legal cover to support a political agenda, then it is all over for this nation as a Republic. We may well survive for centuries as an Empire, but it won’t be the same. What am I saying?! It’s already not the same!!
When President Bill Clinton invoked PDD 25 with the stroke of a pen, he pulled off a coup d’etat and Congress snored. President George W. Bush, who could revoke PDD 25 with the stroke of a pen, has ignored the subject, and leaves PDD 25 in place for future presidents to use as precedent for further eroding the foundations of our constitutional republic.
The same can be said for a People who continue to elect senators and representatives who care nothing about the Constitution that they take an oath to support and defend, and who know so little about it that they could not protect it if they wanted to. They have no clue what it says, much less what it means.
Conservative icon Phyllis Schlafly wrote about New’s battle against the unconstitutional PDD-25: “When American soldiers were killed over Iraq, Vice President Al Gore told the widows and orphans of those men that ‘they died in the service of the United Nations.’ That wasn’t a slip of the tongue; his words reveal the Clinton administration’s plan to use our armed forces as U.N. mercenaries all over the world at the whim of U.N. bureaucrats.”
Schlafly said New had “raised the flag of patriotism against the Clinton-Gore goal.”
“Michael New’s trial is our battle, if we care about America,” she wrote.
What if New was right all along, and the order to don the U.N. emblems was unlawful, as he argued throughout his dispute with his commanding officers at his court-martial and throughout the appeals process?
It would mean that prosecutors in the Clinton administration withheld exculpatory evidence, deceived a judge in the case and misled defense counsel to stamp out what could have been a rebellion against illegal orders to serve under the banner of the international political group.
That’s the very assertion in a new and unprecedented appeal to the U.S. Army Court of Criminal Appeals in a “Petition for Extraordinary Relief in the Nature of a Writ of Error.”
It is being filed by Herbert W. Titus, of counsel with the law firm of William J. Olson, P.C.
This is the scenario that had been released to the public to this point. New was a soldier who objected to changing his allegiance from the U.S. Constitution, which he promised in an oath to defend, to the United Nations. Clinton was ramping up his involvement in various ethic conflicts around the globe. New was to be dispatched, under the command of the U.N., to Macedonia.
It was through Presidential Decision Directive 25 that Clinton ordered American troops to submit to the command of multilateral “peace” operations around the world.
But New refused to wear the arm patch and hat designating him a soldier of the United Nations. He eventually was charged and given a Bad Conduct Discharge, a slam on his personal integrity that has followed him since.
In one of the stops in his battle, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia warned that it would not overturn his conviction, which he argued was reached incorrectly because the deployment to which he was assigned violated the United Nations Participation Act.
He has argued that the UNPA requires that specific congressional approval be given for certain deployments under the United Nations and that permission had not been obtained by the military.
That law, dating from the 1940s, does require such approval. It also forbids the placement of more than 1,000 soldiers under such command at any one time.
But under Clinton’s orders, such deployments were to be made by him “on a case-by-case basis.” He said he would allow U.S. forces to be placed under a “competent U.N. commander” based on factors such as U.S. interests, the size of the proposed force and the risk.
“Such action will be undertaken consistent with the U.S. Constitution, U.S. federal law and the Uniform Code of Military Justice,” he wrote.
But what fell out of the process was the effort to obtain permission from Congress.
Instead, Clinton said, “The United States will take a leadership role in obtaining international agreement to enhance the headquarters capabilities of the U.N. to conduct peace operations effectively, to achieve economies of scale and reap the benefits of past experience. The United States will contribute personnel, technical assistance, equipment, facilities and funding for that enhancement.”
Defense attorneys had asked the government about such documentation during New’s court martial and were refused access, Titus explained. In fact, the prosecutors represented an abbreviated set of some 8-10 pages as the full order, and did not let the judge and defense counsel know the full extent of the order.
“When Mr. New’s attorneys requested that the classified document, which would have revealed that Clinton’s operational policy was not in compliance with the law, [the prosecutor] represented to the court, to New’s lawyers that the document he had in his hand, of 8-10 pages, was the document,” according to the appeal.
Actually, it contained closer to 30 pages.
Titus told WND that an appropriate resolution to the apparent misbehavior by prosecutors probably would include vacating the conviction and removing it from New’s record.
His pleading explains further: “Mr. New’s civilian defense counsel [in 1995] requested that pre-trial motions be deferred until defense counsel gained access to certain ‘classified’ documents in the custody of the government.”
Primary among those was the Presidential Decision Directive 25.
“We would like to see that document that forms the basis of what the government has asserted in that briefing is the legality of the order pertaining to Specialist New,” counsel argued.
Government officials refused, announcing “PDD 25 to be irrelevant to this trial” even though commanding officers specifically cited “PDD 25” as a basis for the Macedonia deployment.
It was not until 2009, after the document was declassified, that New became aware of Clinton’s statements. And, according to the brief, it was at that time New also obtained access to Presidential Review Directive 13, which coordinated with PDD 25.
“As a direct result from having been denied access to material and exculpatory information in the classified versions of PDD 25 and PDD/PRD13, demonstrating noncompliance with UNPA, the military judge ruled that Mr. New failed to carry his ‘heavy burden of demonstrating [the order’s] unlawfulness,’” the filing states.
In the case, the military “denied petitioner his liberty and property without due process of law by unlawfully suppressing material and exculpatory information respecting the illegality of the order of which petitioner was charged to have disobeyed.”
“Both classified document PDD 25 and PRD 13 contained information that would have provided ample support for Mr. New’s claim that the order to wear the U.N. uniform violated the UNPA,” the pleading explains.
“Specifically, the classified version of PDD 25 adopted a policy of American armed force participation, both combatant and noncombatant, in disregard of whether the deployment of those armed forces complied either with Section 6 or Section 7 of the UNPA,” the case alleges.
How was Clinton ultimately going to get around such violations?
“The classified version of PDD 25 revealed the existence of a classified plan by the Clinton Administration to seek legislative change at an appropriate future time to remove the limitations placed by the UNPA on presidential discretion to commit American armed forces to multilateral U.N. peace operations.”
Both documents support “the validity of Mr. New’s contention that the Macedonian deployment violated the UNPA.”
Without relief, New will continue to suffer unjustly from the “ineradicable stigma” of a punitive discharge from the military, the argument contends.
Further, it would allow to remain unchallenged and unrecognized the usurpation of federal law by Clinton, the brief explains.
“We now know that PDD [25] sanctioned American armed force participation in U.N. multilateral peacekeeping operations without any regard to whether the Clinton administration’s new policy complied with UNPA requirements limiting U.S. participation in either U.N. peace enforcement or peace keeping operations,” a support brief said.
“Indeed, there is strong evidence in the classified versions of PDD 25 and PRD 13 to support a claim that the Clinton administration viewed UNPA as an obstacle to be avoided, rather than a law to be obeyed.”
The brief continued, “Now that PDD 25 has been declassified, obtained, and reviewed, the executive order can be seen as little more than camouflage for a presidential administration to do what it wanted to do, irrespective of the law.”
Schlafly’s article quoted New himself to get the message across: “I took an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic. My Army enlistment oath is to the Constitution. I cannot find any reference to the United Nations in that oath.”
Sources:
- http://www.danielnew.com/dn04.27.07.shtml
- http://www.wnd.com/2012/05/u-s-soliders-forced-to-wear-u-n-logo/
