Washington’s Farewell Address first appeared publicly on September 19, 1796. Washington characterized his address as “the disinterested warnings of a parting friend, who can possibly have no personal motive to bias his counsel.” He warned his countrymen to expect “the batteries of internal and external enemies” to be directed against the country. He exhorted his fellow citizens to preserve their union to gain “greater security from external danger, a less frequent interruption of their peace by foreign nations,” and to avoid civil wars. Anticipating Eisenhower’s warning issued more than a century and a half later, Washington noted the danger of “those overgrown military establishments, which under any form of government are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty.” Washington also warned that “love of power and proneness to abuse it . . . predominates in the human heart.” His view of human nature informed his counsel on foreign policy.
You can read the entire speech here:
https://www.loc.gov/resource/mgw2.024/?sp=229&st=text
They cannot do what they want in the nation or to the nations of the world. They are limited by written Constitutional restrictions.
“Absolute monarchs will often make war when their nations are to get nothing by it, but for the purposes and objects merely personal, such as thirst for military glory, revenge for personal affronts, ambition, or private compacts to aggrandize or support their particular families or partisans. These and a variety of other motives, which affect only the mind of the sovereign, often lead him to engage in wars not sanctified by justice or the voice and interests of his people.”
-- John Jay, The Federalist No. 4
He was Director of the Counterterrorism Center.
In his resignation letter to the President, he explains why he cannot be a party to an illegal war.
"Early in this administration, high-ranking Israeli officials and influential members of the American media deployed a misinformation campaign that wholly undermined your America First platform and sowed pro-war sentiments to encourage a war with Iran. This echo chamber was used to deceive you into believing that Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States, and that should you strike now, there was a clear path to a swift victory. This was a lie and is the same tactic the Israelis used to draw us into the disastrous Iraq war that cost our nation the lives of thousands of our best men and women. We cannot make this mistake again.
"As a veteran who deployed to combat 11 times and as a Gold Star husband who lost my beloved wife Shannon in a war manufactured by Israel, I cannot support sending the next generation off to fight and die in...
"The erosion of fatherhood and their role as spiritual leaders disrupts the transmission of faith. Western [Christian] civilization is sustained not by markets or constitutions, but by moral and spiritual inheritance handed down within families.
"The path forward is clear: we must stop neutralizing male vocation and once again preach sacrifice, duty, and spiritual headship without embarrassment. That requires rejecting the narrative that fathers are incidental to this journey and that their natural authority is a threat rather than a gift. If we internalize that story, we should not be surprised when faith, family, and inheritance continue to fracture."
-- Daisy Inglese