The Connecticut Declaration

Preamble

The bourgeoning American military budgets coupled with the growing global military-industrial complexes is a problem for all Americans. While America's diverse political landscape -- both left and right -- disagree on many facets of American culture and governance, many on both sides agree in near unison that the growth of a bellicose American military global machine has destroyed the worldwide credibility of the United States, bankrupted future generations, and exacerbated -- and not mitigated -- the global issues of security and understanding. American exceptionalism, however that term is defined and understood, should not be imposed by force.

We start with the premise that the United States is a nation bound by the rule of law. No one is above it -- including the President of the United States. Both Democratic or Republican presidents have engaged, for a nearly unbroken sixty year period, in undeclared military action after undeclared military action. We have witnessed an explosion of military spending and base-building while American infrastructure, i.e., transportation, technological and educational, has crumbled. While crippling national debt has become a political buzzword for both major political parties, the reality is neither is willing to address out-of-control military spending, which accounts for one of the largest, if not largest, components of the federal budget. The economic reality is that the United States government can no longer finance a worldwide military presence. The political reality is that a rampant military-industrial complex of war profiteers and defense-based industries and accompanying lobbyists are caustic ingredients to a small "d" democratic body politic.

We, the signers of this Declaration, desire peacefully to make common cause to see an end to the era of endless undeclared American military engagements and destructive effect of the military-industrial complex. While the signers hereto may disagree on how the United States government should address issues of chronic American poverty, we believe that it is the responsibility of the American people to address it with their collective resources and ideas prior to funding foreign governments and causes, many of which are openly corrupt. This latter point applies especially in the context of the American exportation of the implements of war, which is often subsidized.

We, the signers of this Declaration, do hereby declare the following five principles that should guide American military policy:

1. No military engagements, including but not limited to, the use of drones or air power, against a sovereign nation, without a declaration of war by Congress with the only exception being the Presidential engagement of military forces to repulse an attack by an enemy.

Comment: We are a nation under the rule of law. The Congress has an affirmative duty to oversee the war-making powers of the Executive Branch by, among other things, the constitutional power to declare war on another sovereign nation. For the period ending the Second World War until present, there have been a series of military engagements, some of which have persisted years, that may only be described as "wars." Yet there has not been a single declaration of war by any Congress since 1941. American presidents have deployed ground/invasion troops into Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, Iraq (twice), and Afghanistan. Numerous other bombing campaigns have been waged against other nations as well. To say we live in an age of virtually unchecked Executive war-making is not hyperbolic: it is merely descriptive of the constant military engagements.

This unilateral war-making must stop and Congress should again reassert its proper and constitutional role as guardian of American peace. Moreover, American military might should not be employed against countries that do not attack the United States. The use of American force as "diplomacy by other means" has undoubtedly led to the worldwide collapse of American prestige around the world.

2. The closure of all military installations or bases in any foreign jurisdiction in times of peace (i.e., in the absence of an undeclared war), including Iraq and Afghanistan.

3. No foreign aid, military or otherwise, to any nation or cause while the poverty rate remains above 5% in the United States.

4. An immediate fifty percent reduction in the Department of Defense budget with commensurate cuts to military personnel, bases and hardware.

5. An immediate cancellation of the membership in NATO by the United States.