During the hearing March 8th of this year Panetta and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey brazenly admitted that their authority comes not from the U.S. Constitution, but that the United States is subservient to and takes its marching orders from the United Nations and NATO, international bodies over which the American people have no democratic influence.
Panetta was asked by Senator Jeff Sessions, “We spend our time worrying about the U.N., the Arab League, NATO and too little time, in my opinion, worrying about the elected representatives of the United States. As you go forward, will you consult with the United States Congress?”
The Defense Secretary responded “You know, our goal would be to seek international permission. And we would come to the Congress and inform you and determine how best to approach this, whether or not we would want to get permission from the Congress.”
Despite Sessions’ repeated efforts to get Panetta to acknowledge that the United States Congress is supreme to the likes of NATO and the UN, Panetta exalted the power of international bodies over the US legislative branch.
“I’m really baffled by the idea that somehow an international assembly provides a legal basis for the United States military to be deployed in combat,” Sessions said. “I don’t believe it’s close to being correct. They provide no legal authority. The only legal authority that’s required to deploy the United States military is of the Congress and the president and the law and the Constitution.”
Panetta’s assertion that he would seek “international permission” before ‘informing’ Congress about the actions of the US military provoked a firestorm of controversy, prompting the Pentagon to engage in damage control by claiming Panetta’s comments were misinterpreted.
“He was re-emphasizing the need for an international mandate. We are not ceding U.S. decision-making authority to some foreign body,” a defense official told CNN.
However, this is not the first time that the authority of international bodies has been framed as being superior to the US Congress and the Constitution.
In June last year, President Obama arrogantly expressed his hostility to the rule of law when he dismissed the need to get congressional authorization to commit the United States to a military intervention in Libya, churlishly dismissing criticism and remarking, “I don’t even have to get to the Constitutional question.”
Obama tried to legitimize his failure to obtain Congressional approval for military involvement by sending a letter to Speaker of the House John Boehner in which he said the military assault was “authorized by the United Nations (U.N.) Security Council.”
Panetta’s testimony that the US looks to obtain “international permission” before it acts, allied with Obama citing the UN as the supreme authority while trashing the power of Congress, prove that the United States has ceded control over its own affairs to unelected international bureaucrats, just as the countries of the European Union have done likewise.
Chairman Hillary Clinton at United Nations on Gun Control
Coming to America:
A United Nations Mandated
Gun Control
No Compromise:
NRA Takes On United Nations
NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre and NRA-ILA Executive Director Chris W. Cox attended a meeting at United Nations headquarters in July to send a simple, unequivocal message to the international bureaucrats who want to eliminate your Right to Keep and Bear Arms: An international Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) that in any way, shape or form affects the constitutional rights of American gun owners is completely unacceptable.
In his address to conference participants from around the world, LaPierre made it clear that NRA will accept no compromise on this critical issue.
“The Right to Keep and Bear Arms in defense of self, family and country is ultimately self-evident and is part of the Bill of Rights to the United States Constitution,” he said. “Reduced to its core, it is about fundamental individual freedom, human worth and self-destiny. We reject the notion that American gun owners must accept any lesser amount of freedom in order to be accepted among the international community.”
In 2009, at the behest of the Obama administration, the United States joined 152 other countries in endorsing a U.N. Arms Trade Treaty Resolution. The resolution establishes an international conference to be held next year, at which leaders from countries around the world—many of which have deplorable human rights records—will draw up an international treaty designed to severely restrict or even outright ban your right to sell, purchase, carry or own a firearm.
In reversing President George W. Bush’s opposition to U.N. mandated global gun control, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared, “The United States is committed to actively pursuing a strong and robust treaty that contains the highest possible, legally binding standard. …”
NRA has alerted American gun owners to be on guard against this ticking time bomb for years. NRA-ILA was the first group to be officially recognized by the U.N. as a “non-governmental organization” determined to protect the freedoms of American gun owners, hunters and shooters. The threat to those freedoms posed by an international Arms Trade Treaty has gained steam under the current administration.
President Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and the U.N. claim that the only purpose of the ATT is to fight terrorism and international crime syndicates. Americans should not be fooled.
In speaking out for the nation’s gun owners, LaPierre warned that, “Those working on this treaty have asked us to trust them. … but they’ve proven to be unworthy of that trust.”
Dissecting the U.N. blueprint, LaPierre concluded that:
• “We are told, ‘Trust us, an ATT will only affect the illegal trade in firearms. ’But then we’re told that in order to control the illegal trade, all states must control the legal firearms trade;
• “We are told, ‘Trust us, an ATT will not require registration of civilian firearms.’ Yet, there are numerous calls for record-keeping and firearm tracking from production to eventual destruction. That’s nothing more than gun registration by a different name;
• “We are told, ‘Trust us, an ATT will not interfere with the lawful international commerce in civilian firearms.’ But a manufacturer of civilian shotguns would have to comply with the same regulatory process as a manufacturer of military attack helicopters.”
LaPierre demanded that proposals affecting civilian firearm ownership that are woven throughout the ATT must be completely removed from the scope of any international agreement, saying, “On this there can be no compromise, as American gun owners will never surrender their Second Amendment freedoms.”
There can be no question that what is taking shape at the U.N. is an all-out attack on the constitutional freedom of American gun owners. U.N. bureaucrats have focused intensely on record-keeping, oversight, inspections, supervision, tracking, tracing, surveillance, marking, documentation, verification, paper trails and data banks, new global agencies and data centers regarding firearms and ammunition. Nowhere are there provisions about respecting citizens’ rights of self-defense, privacy, property, due process or observing personal freedoms of any kind.
International gun-ban activists have demanded ATT provisions that would force America to license firearm owners, severely restrict all firearm purchases, destroy firearms deemed “unauthorized,” ban commonly owned semi-automatic rifles and join an international gun registry.
While a treaty can’t override the Second Amendment, it can become the law of the land either directly—equal to any law passed by Congress—or through implementing legislation. Even if a treaty isn’t ratified by a two-thirds majority of the U.S. Senate, it never dies, and can still affect your rights. The U.S. Senate could take a signed treaty off the shelf and vote to ratify it 10, 20 or 50 years from now—as we know from experience. Just two years ago, NRA fought a push to consider a 1997 Organization of American States (OAS) gun control treaty in the Senate. Although the U.S. never ratified that treaty, the Clinton administration used it as an excuse to restrict exports of gun parts and accessories to Canada.
In a 2010 speech to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Hillary Clinton’s Under Secretary for Arms Control told the audience: “We will work between now and the U.N. Conference in 2012 to negotiate a legally binding Arms Trade Treaty, and we’ll need your help in achieving it. We have made that a fundamental policy commitment.”
So you can bet that if President Obama wins a second term he’ll move full-speed ahead for Senate ratification and implementation of the ATT’s mandates.
Obama and Clinton have spent their entire careers demonizing American gun owners and doing everything in their power to make firearm ownership more expensive, more difficult and, in many cases, illegal. Now they want to unleash the U.N. gun-ban axis on our Right to Keep and Bear Arms.
It’s time for all Americans to sound the alarm on this treacherous assault on U.S. sovereignty and join the NRA in this all-out fight to oppose any ATT that includes civilian firearms within its scope.
The cornerstone of our freedom is the Second Amendment. Neither the United Nations, nor any other foreign influence, has the authority to meddle with the freedoms guaranteed by our Bill of Rights, endowed by our Creator and due to all humankind.
In all of this, as the full measure of the Obama administration’s sell-out of our nation unfolds, NRA members must stand united to prevent and reverse the damage the administration’s “change” is inflicting on American freedom and our sovereignty.
To read the full text of Wayne’s speech before the U.N. and get the latest news on the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty, go to: www.nraila.org/unArmsTradeTreaty.
http://www.nrapublications.org/index.php/11466/no-compromise-nra-takes-on-united-nations/
What Will You Do America?
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