© Kevin Lamarque / Reuters
Fact: Security Council members alone may authorize one nation attacking others - only in self-defense, never preemptively.
The September 14, 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) flagrantly breached international law. Neither Congress or presidents can legally wage war without SC authorization.
Throughout its post-WW II history, America raped and destroyed one nation after another preemptively and illegally without just cause.
It remains unaccountable for high crimes of war, against humanity and genocide. The Trump administration is conspiring with Congress to continue waging naked US aggression against any designated adversary - extrajudicially.
Tillerson lied saying the AUMF authorizes US force against the Taliban, al-Qaeda, ISIS and "associated forces," citing their so-called terrorist threat when none exists.
In the 1980s, America created Afghanistan's mujahideen fighters, today's Taliban. It created and supports al-Qaeda, ISIS and other terrorist groups, using them as imperial foot soldiers, mostly as pretexts to wage endless wars of aggression against sovereign nations threatening no one.
Comment: Precisely. Historically, this is one of the 'greatest' innovations of imperial warriors: The covert use of third parties - opposition groups, rebels, criminals or terrorists - to fight their enemies, with the option of later using them as a pretext to intervene directly. Among the benefits for the empire there is the plausible deniability, so there is no need to be accountable to Congress or the public!
We have collected several articles on SOTT.net about the links of US forces to terrorist groups. Here's a small sample:
- Iraqi soldiers: U.S. refused to bomb ISIS convoy because it contained CIA advisers
- Ron Paul: Why are we attacking the Syrians who are fighting ISIS?
- ISIS in Iraq stinks of CIA/NATO 'dirty war' op
- U.S.: "Yeah, we support al-Qaeda, but don't worry cuz it's okay"
- U.S. willing to risk war with Russia to protect Al Qaeda in Syria
Tillerson: the Trump administration "should not be time constrained" and "must not be geographically restricted." Any congressional limitations on warmaking "embolden(s) our enemies" - invented ones because real ones don't exist, he failed to explain.
No new AUMF is needed, he said, unjustifiably claiming "the President has the power under Article II of the Constitution to use military force in certain circumstances to advance important US national interests, including to defend the United States against terrorist attacks."
Mattis expressed support for the same endless aggression policy, saying "we must recognize that we are in an era of frequent skirmishing, and we are more likely to end this fight sooner if we don't tell our adversary the day we intend to stop fighting."
"Any new congressional expression of unity, whether or not an AUMF, would present a strong statement to the world of America's determination" - to wage endless wars of aggression, he failed to explain.
The so-called global war on terror is the greatest hoax in modern times - created by Washington to wage endless wars of aggression against sovereign independent nations, wanting pro-Western governance ruling them, their resources looted, their people exploited as serfs.
That's what America's geopolitical agenda is all about, the 9/11 mother of all state-sponsored false flags launching war on humanity, enlisting other rogue states as partners to wage it, using ISIS and other terrorist groups to do its fighting and dying.
America's phony war on terror is being waged covertly worldwide, US special forces infesting most countries, nearly all African ones, Niger the tip of the continent's iceberg.
Nothing is reported except when incidents like the killing of four US special forces in Niger are revealed. Even then, covert missions abroad aren't explained, Congress and likely Trump kept uninformed.
Straightaway in office, he was co-opted by America's military/industrial complex, becoming the latest in a long line of US warrior presidents.
He's continuing Bush/Cheney/Obama wars, escalating them, threatening new conflicts.
North Korea and Iran are prime targets, perhaps Russia and China later on, eliminating their sovereign independence key to unchallenged US global dominance.
It's the end goal Washington seeks, no matter the human toll or threat to humanity's survival.
Despite credible information easily accessed online from reliable sources, the vast majority of Americans are ignorant and/or dismissive about what's going on - unaware of the grave danger posed by Washington's permanent war agenda.
If not curbed, the chickens will surely come home to roost, perhaps when one or more US cities are immolated by thermonuclear detonations - when it's too late to matter.
Comment: Sadly, it's easy to sell wars to a public that uncritically consumes whatever the mainstream media feeds it. See: Americans Love Perpetual Wars.