The U.S. is waging war on Russia without a congressional declaration and in violation of treaty that requires the consent of the United Nations, writes Andrew Napolitano.
US. President Joe Biden at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, about to board Marine One en route to the White House in February 2023. (White House/ Adam Schultz)
The war in Ukraine is an American war for which the United States government should be ashamed and blamed.
It was initiated by President Joe Biden and then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, both of whom advised Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that if he rejected a peace treaty that his own government had freely negotiated and agreed to in 2022 with Russian negotiators, Ukraine could join NATO. The treaty was more than 100 pages in length, each page of which had been initialed by both sides, and its essence accepted by the Kremlin and by Kyiv — until Biden and Johnson advised against it.
[See: The Failed Ukrainian Peace Deal]
Their advice was essentially to trust their military support, as it would be strong enough to resist any Russian incursion into eastern Ukraine and relieve Kyiv of the need to make concessions to the Kremlin. They used Zelenskyy as a puppet, since their purpose was not motivated by peace or empathy or justice, rather by hatred for all things Russian.
So, the U.S. and the U.K. encouraged bloodshed instead of peace, confrontation instead of communication, and Congress began paying for a war without declaring one.
[See: A War Only America & Britain Seem to Want]
Motivated by years of anti-Russian jingoism, heedless of its duties under the Constitution, thumbing its nose at at least three treaties ratified by the Senate that permit war only when the U.S. or an ally is gravely threatened, Congress permitted Biden to start an undeclared war against a country that poses no threat whatsoever to the national security of the United States.
Here is the backstory.
The war began in 2014 when the U.S. State Department and the C.I.A. engineered a coup against the popularly elected and neutral-leaning government of Ukraine.
[See: Evidence of US-Backed Coup in Kiev]
Much of Russian-speaking and Russian culturally oriented Ukraine in the east was unhappy with the coup. The American and British plotters then installed a puppet regime that actually began attacking Russian Ukrainians in eastern Ukraine.
Helmeted protesters face off against police on Dynamivska Street during the Maidan uprising in Kiev, Jan 20, 2014. (Mstyslav Chernov, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0)
The area of eastern Ukraine in which this government-orchestrated violence was taking place has been Russian in culture, religion and language since before the American Revolution. The American and British plotters of the 2014 coup did not expect the resistance that their coup generated. Yet, they looked the other way when the Ukraine government attacked its own people for demonstrating a decided affinity for Moscow over Kyiv; so decided, that the province of Crimea actually voted overwhelmingly to return to Russia.
One person who did not look the other way was Russian President Vladimir Putin. Who could blame him? The U.S. has known since the early 1990s that Russia will not accept an eastward expansion of NATO.
The George H.W. Bush administration promised the late Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev as much in return for the peaceful liberation of eastern Europe and especially the reunification of Germany. Nevertheless, with Poland’s entry into NATO, the western perfidy became apparent, as NATO — and its heavy weaponry — moved toward Moscow.
Rebel armored fighting vehicles convoy near Donetsk, Eastern Ukraine, May 30, 2015. (Mstyslav Chernov/Wikimedia Commons)
Angry that his predecessor had permitted this, fearful of the same mentality that engineered the 2014 coup now managing NATO, Putin came to the rescue of Russian Ukrainians. When the U.S. and U.K. succeeded in busting the Russia/Ukraine treaty tentatively agreed to in Istanbul, and tempted Zelenskyy with Ukrainian membership in NATO, Putin’s only alternative was to resist NATO expansion and the Ukrainian military by the use of Russian force.
Who can blame Putin? How would American presidents react to the threat of Chinese offensive weaponry in Mexico?
I know this is not a popular history in the U.S., as mainstream media as well as popular culture and government schools have demonized Russia since the end of the Cold War. That demonization gave Biden cover to promise Zelenskyy “whatever he needs for as long as it takes.” In his nearly four years in the White House, Biden has declined to articulate as long as it takes to do what.
Zelenskyy with Biden on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan, May 21, 2023. (White House/ Cameron Smith)
Biden’s war has cost the American taxpayers nearly $240 billion and Ukraine 600,000 dead troops. It was not declared by Congress. It was facilitated by many Americans on the ground in Ukraine — military in uniform and out, intelligence personnel, and defense contractors.
Much of the military equipment that the U.S. has sent to Ukraine — most from America’s substance, not surplus — required U.S. troops and other personnel to train Ukrainian troops in the use of it.
But last weekend, Biden — whose presidency has been thoroughly repudiated by American voters — authorized the use of offensive weaponry that can reach 190 miles into Russia and which can only be manned by U.S. personnel. At this writing, the U.S. equipment has attacked and destroyed a warehouse holding artillery ammunition some 70 miles inside the Russian border.
Who is firing U.S. offensive weaponry?
There is no dispute but that the U.S. is waging war on Russia — without a congressional declaration, without the consent of the United Nations (as the U.S. is obliged to do under a treaty that the U.S. wrote) and solely on its own.
I say solely on its own because the weaponry that destroyed the Russian military warehouse requires secret U.S. satellite technology to operate, and U.S. personnel with top-secret security clearances to aim and trigger. It would be an act of espionage to permit Ukrainians to do this.
War is politics by other means. But it is the most deadly, destructive and irreversible means — and must always be a last resort. The Constitution intentionally separated the war-declaring power from the war-waging power. Its author, James Madison, poignantly argued that if presidents could both choose the enemy and fight it, such a person would be a prince and not a president.
Joe Biden’s presidency has been an abysmal failure, and he doesn’t know it. He must perversely hope that history will reward him if he keeps the killing coming to the last Ukrainian and even risks a wider war. Can a presidency of peace come soon enough?
Andrew P. Napolitano, a former judge of the Superior Court of New Jersey, was the senior judicial analyst at Fox News Channel and hosts the podcast Judging Freedom. Judge Napolitano has written seven books on the U.S. Constitution. The most recent isSuicide Pact: The Radical Expansion of Presidential Powers and the Lethal Threat to American Liberty. To learn more about Judge Andrew Napolitano, visit https://JudgeNap.com.
Published by permission of the author.
COPYRIGHT 2024 ANDREW P. NAPOLITANO
DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
If Trump hadn’t proven he was certifiably crazy before he was elected the first time I would have to wonder, judging from the performance of every president since Carter, the White House water supply had been laced with LSD. And lots of it.
So I am inclined to believe those who voted in this last election, especially those who believed either party had solutions to the problems we face are not understanding any vote for either candidate was in fact a vote for the duopoly. Such being the case, as I firmly believe, they need to work harder to actually understand voting in these presidential elections currently is nothing short of a display of the actions of the insane.
Obama, unless something drove him to run for the office we, or I do not know about, seems to have been a prefect example of a reasonably normal human being before he was elected to his first term, then it seems sometime during that first term the water got to him also.
You know what is said about doing the came thing over and over expecting a different (desirable) out come, for instance a reasonable solution to those problems.
I offer that LBJ and RMN were, putting rather mildly, both goofy as hell and Carter needed the money. The peanut farm was in or ready for bankruptcy.
I’m just saying.
Enjoy the rest of the weekend.
Thank you Judge for your clear and truthful account of the war in Ukraine. Your interviews on You tube are a beacon of light in what appears to be a new dark age of fear and ignorance.
Biden is and has always been a corrupt, war mongering pol. Unfortunately, relying on anyone, Trump or anybody else presently in government, to substantially change our warlike policies is questionable.
Yes a religious war gong back centuries between the Orthodoxies long before communism intervened briefly. The war between Romans and Greeks and Ottomans leading to flight to Kiev and then Moscow.
The Roman version of NATO seems to think the end of the USSR validated western rule of the world system including non-theistic Asia. This is the god-addled military whimsy of western civilization with addiction to permanent war profits.
I have great resapect for Judge Napolitano, whose interviews and political insights I have enjoyed for the past 18 months on Youtube. Again, his informative article concerning Biden’s anti-Russia posture calls attention to certain0 facts. President Biden was sold to Americans as a wise older statesman, a Catholic gentleman with kindness and empathy borne of personal tragedies in his own family. Now the mask is off: he is according to his own actions, a hateful, shameless zionist war-monger, without a moral compass. The fact that our nation is now leading a genocide against the Palestinian people, helped engineer the Ukraine War, and now attacks Russia, shames us all, and leaves us in a no-win position. That is his legacy. We now face the clown car administration being formed.
Spot on Mr. Napolitano. So many in this country still under the influence of the RussiaGate psyop and haven’t a clue as to the truth of the Ukraine civil war. Biden is deranged demented war monger and he’s trying hard to get us all killed. The next 2 months is going to be lived on pins & needles.
Thanks to Judge Napolitano for this bold account of the US war of aggression in Ukraine.
I run library discussion groups in which virtually none of the college-educated participants know any of these essentials, and nearly all tolerate only MSM narratives of Russian “aggression,” ignoring all provocations.
Most discussions have aggressive domineers who deny the facts, denounce dissent, or change the subject.
Unless the US reforms to eliminate money power in mass media and government, it defends only demoncracy.
America needs to end the notion of ‘lame duck.’ Lame ducks need to become extinct, at least in the terms of the political government.
This used to make sense back when a new President and new members of Congress had to make their way to the swamp on horseback. But, in this modern age of speed of light communications, and greenhouse-spewing plane travel, it makes no sense for people to stay in power after losing an election.
And, I’ve been thinking this since the WI Republicans tried pass a bunch of laws in a lame duck session to deny the Dem governor who’d just won the election. Both nasty parties manipulate this in these modern times. This needs to be bi-partisan. Make Lame Ducks Extinct.
So, perhaps this. A newly elected person can be sworn in and take office after one of two events occur. 1) The elections body officially certifies the result of the election. 2) When enough opponents concede that the projected winner can not lose. In America’s restricted ‘two-party’ system, this would be ‘the other party’.
Since the parties would thus be likely to be unpatriotic and not concede even in obvious defeats, America might want to consider that as long as the ‘projected winner’ has a decent lead, they take power either on election night or within a day or two, while any challenges to the election are being judged. But it would be wise to also put limits on what power can be wielded in such a session before the entire government is intact.
As American politics has become more partisan and corrupt, this notion of a lame duck official or a lame duck session of a legislature has become a vehicle for anti-democratic actions. Bills passed in ‘lame duck’ sessions always had a stink to them, as it was usually stuff that voters would highly object to, but passed on the way out the door by already defeated politicians. Now this has become much more dangerous, as the parties are so extreme that one party might believe it to their benefit to start a war before they pack and leave.
I am normally horrified by the news that another animal has become extinct, but America really needs to make Lame Ducks Extinct.
JB is a senile old crook who lost the plot some time ago. He is merely carrying out a long-term policy, that is even mentioned in the article. Recall the End of History with Fukuyama and the PNAC crowd?
It aint just JB, it is the entire foreign policy establishment. And don’t expect the Orange Savior-Conman to do any different except bloviate and BS as usual. Miriam Adelson wants to get her 100 million worth and the Genocide will continue. The Coming War On China (see documentary by John Pilger on YT) will be put on the front burner once the DT comes back into office.
The DT faithful will make pathetic excuses and the Ds will blame the Rs for the same things they do. The Bipartisan Consensus/Washington Consensus always prevails. No amount of hope, wishful thinking or excuses will change that.
And just wait for the economic warfare (sanctions and tariffs) to kick in. You want more inflation? You got it! The Musk/Adelson administration will see to it.
Months ago, 2.9.24, Hur’d around the world, POTUS, Joesph Robinette Biden, is NOT “functioning or operating at the most desirable or greatest possible level of efficiency, speed, or productivity.” In sum, Joey Robinette Biden CANNOT, literally &/or figuratively, Stand For Trial, for willfully hoarding classified documents. The classified documents are Biden’s book’s deal, receipts. Everybody, knows, the WH, the M.I.C., Congress & the MSMedia, TV & Print, “The Press,” pushed backed on Biden’s extreme mental & physical decline. They all pushed back about dysfunction in the malfunctioning 46th presidency.
Collectively, the WH, the M.I.C., Congress, the MSMedia defended POTUS, i.e., “Joe Biden’s the best he’s ever been!” Joe Biden runs circles around the WH Staff.” Joey Robinette Biden is “firing on all cylinders!!!” & “EFF YOU!!!” if, YOU don’t agree.”
……“But last weekend, Biden — whose presidency has been thoroughly repudiated by American voters — authorized the use of offensive weaponry that can reach 190 miles into Russia and which can only be manned by U.S. personnel.” Judge Napolitano.
“Who’s on first?” IMO, the M.I.C., is calling the balls & strikes, remotely. IMO, the key that unlocks the political corpse posing as POTUS masquerading as human, is the “Remote Control,” i.e., “we [M.I.C.] can control when they [Biden-Harris] would self-activate, self-detonate and that makes it, you know, far more, safer eventually than the things that they are creating on their own.” See below, “characterization,” copied & pasted here, to define, imo, the outgoing POTUS.
……… Everybody, knows, * “the players’ names can simultaneously serve as the basis for questions and responses, leading to reciprocal misunderstanding and growing frustration between the performers.” “Who’s On First,” A comedy routine made famous by American comedy duo Abbott and Costello*
One Thousand (1,000) 1K DAYS LATER, 11.19.24: “The war, reached its 1,000-day milestone on Tuesday. [The war] has taken on a growing international dimension with the arrival of North Korean troops to help Russia on the battlefield — a development which U.S. [OFFICIALS] said prompted [BIDEN’s policy $hift].”*
“With & Without, You!” Wednesday, 11.20.24: “U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Wednesday that the Biden administration will [ALLOW] Ukraine to use [AMERICAN-$UPPLIED] antipersonnel land mines to help fight off Russian forces, i.e., “The land mines that we would look to provide them would be land mines that are not persistent, you know, we can control when they would self-activate, self-detonate and that makes it, you know, far more, safer eventually than the things that they are creating on their own.” LLOYD AUSTIN.
……… “Where it goes from there, nobody knows.” Joe Lauria. hXXps://consortiumnews.com/2024/11/17/on-way-out-reckless-biden-allows-deep-russia-strikes/
Awh, Joe Lauria, today, EVERYBODY, knows, here’s ANOTHER of Biden-Harris’ MAJOR Policy $hift, i.e.,.”ANTI-PERSONNEL MINE: Form of LAND MINE Designed For Use Against HUMANS.”
…….. “An anti-personnel mine or anti-personnel landmine is a form of mine designed for use against humans, as opposed to an anti-tank mine, which target vehicles. APLs are classified into: blast mines and fragmentation mines; the latter may or may not be a bounding mine. APLs are often designed to injure and maim, not kill, their victims to overwhelm the logistical support system of enemy forces that encounter them.”
* hXXps://www.marketwatch.com/story/u-s-will-allow-ukraine-to-use-antipersonnel-land-mines-against-russian-forces-7123ce0e
And, simultaneously, 11.20.24: Robert A. Wood, US Envoy @ the UNSC, Vetoed/Voted against “GAZA Cease-Fire Resolution.” This is the Fourth (4th) Veto cast by the US @ the UNSC.
…. “This Is Not a Humanitarian Crisis… This Is Genocide.” Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan 10.13.24
A best practice, “Keep Your Head on a Swivel!” TY, Judge Napolitano, CN, et al. Ciao
Excellent article by Judge Napolitano! The American people need to learn the truth behind the Ukraine war.
I thoroughly agree. Add to that the implications of Article 7 of the NATO Treaty. Article 5 is always quoted, Article 7 gets forgotten.
The war in Ukraine was started in 2014 under the Obama administration when the U.S. helped overthrow a democratically elected President Yanukovich, as it did in Chile in 1973 establishing the Pinochet military dictatorship.
It should be noted that much of the animosity toward Russia stopped briefly at the end of the cold war and began again only after Putin took office and stopped the sellout of government owned assets to American and European capitalists at fire sale prices. Those same capitalists then looked to Ukraine for its natural wealth in oil, natural gas, lithium (think batteries for EVs) and other minerals. Also, Ukraine is the largest grain producer in Europe.
The prospects for wealth have always been the primary motive for war. Cultural differences have been used to inflame the passions of the people to support war, but were rarely the chief motive.
Thanks, Judge. Your YT channel has been essential to my remaining (arguably) sane. I’m staggered that a clearly unfit and unpredictable person (crook actually) is still in the White House, no doubt as the neocons’ puppet, though it’s hard to tell when he’s such a warmonger himself (and who knows how much money’s in it for him and fellow ghouls). Meanwhile “Democrats” are still “stunned” that they lost, and don’t seem to notice that we are seconds before midnight. They’re busy raging about Trump’s picks.
Treaties that are signed by the U.S. are only honored by the U.S. when it is to their advantage. When disadvantageous, treaties are worthless. Ask any indigenous American.
Thank you. A concise and accurate history of the conflict in Ukraine. We note that it was started under Obama in 2014 with the CIA and MI6 funding and training the Ukrainian Banderite fascists. The plan, obviously, was for it to accelerate under neocon HRC but Trump pushed her aside and things were quiet, on the surface. Meanwhile, Putin for about eight years accessed every possible venue from the Munich security conference to the UN security council to push for a diplomatic solution, including the Minsk agreements, to end the civil war that the US/CIA had armed, started, and funded in Ukraine.
During this time the UNSC officially agreed 100% to support the Minsk and Minsk2 accords. Germany and France agreed to act as legal guarantors but as Merkel and Holland later admitted, it was all a sham. There was no intention to enact the accords that had been agreed upon by the UNSC including the US. This is how the US and Western powers, rather than support the law, seek to undermine it at every turn.
Biden came in, I always said as a Trojan horse for HRC, and the war escalated as planned. It is the neocon, war mongering Democratic Party that has been pushing war against Russia in Ukraine since 2014 for no purpose other than their own self-centered egoism. They started and pushed for this war and they will not give up. In my opinion, the DP should be burned to the ground. The ME is only one of their war crimes.
Thank you for another lucid piece Judge Napolitano! I’m really not sure why Biden is still allowed to make decisions for our country when his backers made him step aside – why isn’t there any oversight? Where is Congress?. It is frightening when a man like Biden has his finger on the trigger and no one else around him seems to be paying attention!
He ain’t making the decisions. I’ve read that in fact it’s that pinhead Jake Sullivan making the decisions.
Thank you Judge Napolitano for a sobering view of Biden’s terrible legacy. Joe Biden has ensured history will look back very poorly on his tenure. The death and destruction resulting from his policies are horrendous and the world will never forget.
Judge Napolitano, all true and I despise Biden and his cast of smug incompetents. But alas the GOP and its incoming cast of smug yahoos are, I fear, equally smug and incompetent and equally warlike. Wait till they get their hands on Iran too.
Putin’s SMO came only in 2022, eight years after VP Biden’s/ Nuland’s Maidan Coup. Crimea was non-negotiable and Obama was smart enough not to challenge Russia holding onto their only warm water port of Sevastopol. But although there was support of the ethnic Russians in the East and South, who were being slaughtered in the civil war by Biden’s UkroNAZIs, including accepting many vulnerable ethnic Russians into Russia (much as all of Europe has accepted UkroNAZIs and their families fleeing from conscription), Putin wanted to keep ethnic Russian Ukrainians in Ukraine, as both a voting bloc (if the country ever allowed free elections again) and as a physical buffer. Historically East and coastal Ukraine has been dominated by ethnic Russians, and Western Ukraine and Galicia by Poles and Greater Lithuanians, who provided many (most?) of the guards for NAZI concentration camps. Churchill noted and said to ignore the Pygmy Wars of Eastern Europe, but Biden and his State Department, dominated by grandchildren and great grandchildren of Eastern Europeans, such as Blinken and Nuland, put “protecting” their “homelands” ahead of Americans, just as do Israeli Americans.
It’s easy for the US to get into War, but very difficult if not impossible to extract themselves from their misguided military adventures.
Very good article indeed.
The whole thing is so unbelievably cynical and dishonest.