I attended a Conservative 9/11 event with “US wars are unlawful” flyers. 6 of 6

hyperlinks and video live at source: http://www.examiner.com/la-county-nonpartisan-in-los-angeles/i-attended-a-conservative-9-11-event-with-us-wars-are-unlawfu...

This article series explains what happened when I interacted with participants of a 9/11 event to welcome home US soldiers and honor the victims of 9/11, then provides the e-mail exchange with the sponsoring group’s leadership.

Consistent with my last two years of writing articles to explain, document, and prove current US wars aren’t even close to lawful and all based on lies, nobody at this event of mostly current and former US military could defend current US wars as lawful, even in subsequent e-mails and in their consultation with the group’s “Constitutionalist.” I challenge anyone to explain, document, and prove in the comments section below that US war in Afghanistan, Iraq, and/or Iran is legal (you can put what you say in more than one comment). I will likely demand anyone making such argument to refute my longer explanation of US war law that I will reference in my comment responses from my article, “Open proposal to US higher education.”

I encourage anyone with passion to end unlawful US wars to take my article’s “emperor has no clothes” obvious explanation and documentation of US war law to act with confidence to end US wars. Our soldiers’ response to their Oath of Enlistment to support and defend the US Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, is to refuse all orders of unlawful wars.

This article series’ sections:

Part 1: Introduction, what happened at the event, and my first e-mail to the event sponsors.

Part 2: E-mails from group leaders, who I’ll name, “Tom,” “Dick,” and “Harry” (I’ll forward them the article; they can identify themselves if they choose). Tom and Dick go on the offensive.

Part 3: E-mail continuation: My response to Dick, their “Constitutionalist” says this issue is a waste of time. Tom responds.

Part 4: E-mail continuation: attempting to reach Tom with reason

Part 5: E-mail conclusion with Tom.

Part 6: Invitation to event organizers to respond with Tom’s response.

* * * * *

This is Part 6: Invitation to event organizers to respond with Tom’s response

On October 2nd, I sent the following e-mail to the largest group of respondents from Parts 2 and 3:

Dear Fellow Patriots,

I wanted you to know that I’ve used anonymous names to have our conversation translated into an educational article on how challenging it is to ask otherwise hard-working, good-intentioned, and honest Americans to consider that current US wars are unlawful.

As I stated at the event in my first conversation with Bryan and repeated in my first e-mail of thanks for your organization of the 9/11 event, I share your interest to honor the victims of 9/11 and honor US soldiers and their families for their good-faith service.

We do seem to disagree about the lawful status of US wars; although part of my argument is that only one of you seemed to be willing to look at a professional teacher’s explanation and documentation of war law.

You are not alone in apparent discomfort to invest attention to understand difficult facts. Before researching and writing on US wars, I had a “hobby” as a lobbyist for 18 years as a leader of the citizens’ lobby, RESULTS, for US foreign and domestic policy to end poverty. I helped craft somewhere between 200 and 300 background papers for members of Congress, the media, and interested others that only helped our work when it was unassailably factual and documented. These papers had to withstand scrutiny and even attack from political, academic, and professional sources. Our work was recognized by UNICEF’s Executive Director as saving the lives of a million children every year from the increased funding we won, the UN and heads of state of the 1997 Microcredit Summit were so pleased with our work that they asked RESULTS to manage countries’ progress toward the Microcredit Summit goals, and that Microcredit was the topic of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Economics.

With respect to US war law, if this background motivates you, please give the guy who helps save a million children’s lives every year the benefit of the doubt and read my claim of unlawful war rather than resorting to your own belief system and a priori reasoning; neither of which qualify in professional nor academic association as valid evidence. I’ve spent years on these issues with leading national and international figures, I’ve done my homework, and with over a million readers and several years of inspection, not one factual error has been brought to my attention. This group includes a few thousand teaching colleagues around the world of college-level US Government and Comparative Government courses on the Advanced Placement listserve.

What I actually do in teaching is to accurately communicate to students just how difficult it is to get to the objective data in a world of political spin, and that the purpose of an education in history, government and economics is a lifetime of civic participation whereby we help each other get our hands on the data, welcome diverse interpretation and analysis, consider multiple policy positions, and then go with the policy that has the votes in the spirit that we always repeat this process to tweak, change, or abandon policy as we consciously live in the real world.

I write as a “hobby” but made perhaps $40 from the articles on the “pro/am” site Examiner.com that I’d like to offer in donation to the Lafayette Flag Brigade. May I?

If any of you would like to write anything in response to my articles, you’re welcome to enter it in the comment sections of the articles and/or I’m happy to put your statements into a separate article. I plan to use this exact text in this e-mail as the introduction and then give you the floor to say what you want.

If even the anonymous reporting of our conversations bothers you, I can go back and “report on” our conversation rather than stating it directly as a "Fair Use" educational article on perhaps our most important public policy. I changed your names for the article; I can also change this to your real names if that’s preferable. The article series begins here: http://www.examiner.com/la-county-nonpartisan-in-los-angeles/i-attended-a-conservative-9-11-event-with-us-wars-are-unlawfu...

And please know that because you expressed discomfort at my presence at this year’s 9/11 event, I won’t come to the next one unless expressly invited. I was genuinely curious if an accurate understanding of war law would be a welcome expression of support for our men and women in service, but your responses were clear it was not.

I apologize for causing that discomfort; it is not my intention as a teacher of history and government in strong support of the US Constitution.

A fellow American and community member,

Carl

Carl_Herman@post.harvard.edu

I received the following reply from Tom later that day:

I have not responded sooner, because I have been so busy with things, I have not had a chance to read my e-mails.

I began reading your article, but I stopped. I finally realized that you really are not worth my time. You are convinced that you are the only person who has a legitimate view of anything. I have dealt with thousands of people, and I am convinced you are perhaps one of the most narcissistic people with whom I have ever conversed.

I already know you will dispute all of this while insisting everybody who has ever disagreed with you has done so out of their own ignorance...see a theme here yet? Of course you don't--your own issues will not allow you to. Yeah, I know, I'm stupid again, and you just can't even imagine why people do not wish to engage in this circle with you.

Anyway, I appreciate the fact that you will not return to our event.

As far as I am concerned, you can keep your $40 bucks.

By the way, I did not read enough to determine if I am Tom, Dick, Harry, or some other character. But so you know, I am not one of the organizers--Just somebody who thought I would stand up to an intellectual bully. Yeah, that is my belief. If you were more courageous, you would challenge us inferior types to fight in the streets. Given your issues, I believe you feel much more comfortable casting your prejudiced stereotypes on others from your pulpit.

Of course you disagree with everything I say. Of course you know you are smarter than me. Of course you will try to prove me wrong....and yet, I'll bet you still don't get it. Makes sense though. It is the nature of the "issue". Let me guess, you probably are finding errors in my spelling, grammar, whatever...get over yourself.

In any case. If it makes you feel any better, I recognize your intellectual superiority to all other life forms on earth. Hopefully, your One View will prevail and you can rule the rest of us idiots.

So, hopefully you are happy now.

I would appreciate it if you would please leave me alone. I know, this upsets you too. Go ahead and call me a coward again...yeah, I bet you still don't see it.

Thank you and good luck.

Nobody else from the Lafayette Flag Brigade responded.