GOP in sneak move to pass U.N. treaty Critics say 'Law of the Sea' would cripple defense

http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=38106 ^ | April 20, 2004 | J. Michael Waller

[truth4]

GOP in sneak move to pass U.N. treaty Critics say 'Law of the Sea' would cripple defense, help terrorists

A United Nations treaty awaiting confirmation before the Senate, national security experts warn, would, if approved, cripple the U.S. Navy, empower potential enemies including China, make the nation vulnerable to submarine cruise-missile attack, and help terrorists.

Nonetheless, momentum has been building stealthily in the Senate to ratify the treaty. And this time Republicans can't point fingers at their liberal Democratic colleagues or even at the former Clinton administration.

The culprits behind the sneak move, Capitol Hill sources say, are senior Republican senators and key figures in the administration of President Bush.

At issue is the U.N. Law of the Sea Treaty, or LOST, which has been in the works since the 1970s, when the Soviet Union and the so-called Non-Aligned Movement tried to use the United Nations to wrest control of the seas from the United States and its allies.

Under LOST, a global U.N. agency called the International Seabed Authority, or ISA, would take control of the world's oceans, seven-tenths of the earth's surface. The ISA would not be accountable to dues-paying members but would be a self-financing entity imposing a tax on countries that exploit natural resources on the ocean floor.

In 1982, President Ronald Reagan refused to sign the treaty, officially called the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Seas, UNCLOS. But President Bill Clinton signed it in 1994, claiming that provisions that attack U.S. interests had been changed, and asked the Senate to ratify it.

The Republican-controlled Senate sat on it. Today, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard Lugar, R-Ind., has been quietly but forcefully pushing LOST through the ratification process under a sense of priorities that mystifies some of his colleagues.

Lugar's committee has given LOST precedence over consideration of other pending international agreements to fight weapons proliferation and terrorism. In October 2003 the liberal Republican held two days of hearings and permitted only treaty supporters to testify.

After a State Department official working on the Senate staff drafted the resolution of ratification, Senate sources tell Insight, the committee "refused" to provide other Senate armed services and intelligence committees with the text and opposed a State Department briefing sought by an Intelligence Committee staffer.

Without listing names of those present, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, by unanimous consent, advised passage of the treaty. Senate sources say proponents planned to bring LOST before the full Senate without debate for a voice vote that would have shielded lawmakers from certain public wrath.

State Department officials and Vice President Dick Cheney say they support the treaty because it provides an international legal framework for competition for the oceans' resources.

A U.S. ambassador stated in 2002 that Washington supported ratification, saying, "We intend to work with the U.S. Senate to move forward on becoming a party."

Apparently President Bush, preoccupied with waging the war on terrorism and winning a second term in office, had never even heard of the treaty until earlier this year, when conservative friends brought it to his attention, sources close to the president say. By that time the Senate Foreign Relations Committee "unanimously" had recommended that the treaty be ratified even though its chairman never allowed a single critic to explain why the U.N. convention was a bad idea.

The treaty appeared ready to sail through the Senate without the customary discussion and troubleshooting until a handful of conservatives ran a sword through it in March. Some met with President Bush and alerted him about their concerns.

"There is an element within the Bush administration that wants this treaty ratified," said Free Congress Foundation president Paul Weyrich, who is appealing to grass-roots activists to show their opposition.

The pro-LOST element, according to Weyrich, gained "the upper hand."

Not for long. Frank Gaffney, president of the Center for Security Policy, blew the whistle loud and long, and with a handful of others, magnified by talk-radio hosts including Rush Limbaugh and online news services such as WorldNetDaily.com, alerted grass-roots conservatives.

Sen. James Inhofe heard the call. Chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, the Oklahoma Republican jumped into action, claiming jurisdiction over LOST because the convention governed environmental issues and his committee had not been alerted.

He invited two informed witnesses: Peter Leitner, a senior strategic trade adviser in the Office of the Secretary of Defense who had been following the development of the treaty for more than 30 years; and Gaffney, a former senior Reagan Pentagon official who has dissected other flawed treaties, including the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention, and was a major force behind the discrediting and ultimate abrogation of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missil Treaty. Unlike Lugar, Inhofe invited both sides to testify.

That hearing, held March 24, blew a shotgun blast into the treaty's chest and all but ensured that it would not reach the Senate floor in the near future. Leitner, who had been part of the U.S. LOST negotiating team, testified as a private citizen who had written a book about the treaty:

"This seriously flawed document was rightly rejected by President Reagan, as it embodies a wide range of precedents, obligations and restrictions that are deleterious to American national- and economic-security interests. Indeed, the treaty and its many precedent-setting provisions is a direct assault on the sovereignty of the United States and the supremacy of the nation-state as the primary actor in world affairs."

As worded, LOST would deny the United States the right to intercept terrorist vessels or proliferators, according to Leitner. The President's Proliferation Security Initiative, designed to battle proliferation of weapons of mass destruction with as little effect on commerce as possible, would be illegal under the treaty.

"This U.S.-led, multinational program of high-seas interdiction and vessel boarding is barred by the Law of the Sea Treaty yet it is our overriding national-security interest to execute," Leitner said.

"Ratification of the treaty would effectively gut our ability to intercept the vessels of terrorists or hostile foreign governments even if they were transporting nuclear weapons. We must ensure that we are not binding the government of the United States to a legal regime that makes us more vulnerable and trades the lives of our innocent civilians for the sake of participating in yet another unnecessary treaty."

Even worse, according to Leitner, is what he calls "the creation of yet another international court where the United States or our citizens can be dragged before politically motivated jurists to adjudicate and set penalties."

The treaty imposes limitations "on measures we might take to ensure our national security and homeland defense. If, for instance, foreign vessels operating on the high seas do not fit into one of three categories (i.e., they are engaged in piracy, flying no flag or transmitting radio broadcasts), LOST would prohibit U.S. Navy or Coast Guard vessels from intercepting, searching or seizing them," Gaffney testified.

So who could be behind such a scheme?

"The most vigorous supporters of the treaty are largely a constellation of narrow single-interest groups that are willing to overlook treaty shortcomings as long as their pet rock is included," Leitner says.

And the supporters are not just left-wing activists and bureaucrats. Many in the oil industry favor the treaty as a way of providing an internationally accepted regime for underseas drilling. The Navy, still dominated by admirals who received stars for political correctness under the Clinton administration, supports the evenhandedness of a multilateral approach to governing the seas.

According to a report by the Congressional Research Service, CRS, of the Library of Congress, "The increasing number of claims made by other states over offshore high-seas areas -- such as territorial sea, fishing zones, economic zones -- were expected to limit freedom of navigation to an unacceptable extent and increase the likelihood of international disputes over access to the world's oceans."

LOST limits areas "over which states may claim jurisdiction" and "protects high-seas freedoms" throughout states' 200-mile exclusive economic zones and "innocent passage" through territorial seas, as long as those activities (in the words of the treaty) are not "prejudicial to the peace, good order or security of the coastal state."

That's all well and good, military analysts say, but the United States "already benefits" from these provisions "on the basis of customary international law," according to the CRS report.

The State Department disagrees with treaty critics.

"As the world's leading maritime power, with the longest coastline and the largest exclusive economic zone in the world, the United States will benefit more than any other nation from the provisions of the convention," John F. Turner, assistant secretary of State for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, told Inhofe's committee.

His specific testimony, with point-by-point rebuttals of critics, was one of the most comprehensive and specific pieces of political action yet produced under the Bush administration.

A professional environmental activist before his State Department appointment, Turner said that while LOST "addresses seven-tenths of the earth's surface," the ISA "does not."

He denied that LOST gives the United Nations the authority to levy taxes but acknowledged what he called "revenue-sharing provisions" and "administrative fees" for oil, gas and deep-seabed mining operations.

The ISA, he claimed, "has no authority or ability to levy taxes."

He urged senators not to worry about LOST's International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, saying that in a dispute "the United States would elect two forms of arbitration rather than the tribunal." And he stated that, under the 1994 Clinton amendments, "there is no transfer of wealth and no surrender of sovereignty."

Turner testified, "The mandatory technology-transfer provisions of the original convention were eliminated in the 1994 agreement" by President Clinton.

Even the navigational language in LOST is dangerous to U.S. interests. The CRS report, titled "The Law of the Sea Convention and U.S. Policy," says LOST compels submarines in territorial seas to "navigate on the surface and show their flags."

That requirement presents major problems for the United States. Among them, it would make American submarines vulnerable to attack by forcing them to reveal their locations by surfacing. It also effectively would prevent the growing fleet of U.S. and allied special-operations submarines from being used to infiltrate commandos into hostile areas. The current pre-9/11 language of LOST would handicap the United States in the global war on terrorism.

As for worries that the treaty might allow Beijing to exert control in the South China Sea, Turner was soothing: "China has consistently maintained that it respects the high-seas freedoms of navigation through the waters of the South China Sea."

Treaty proponents, including Turner, claim that the flawed parts of LOST were "fixed" in 1994.

In fact, the CRS report offers three pages of unresolved issues. Among them is a compulsory dispute-settlement requirement that the report says the Senate "has historically been reluctant to accept," a "still to be examined ... relationship between the various parts of the Convention and the body of current U.S. law" and unclear definitions of how the convention "defines and interprets" its principle that ocean resources "are the common heritage of mankind."

Meanwhile, administration officials have been unable to answer simple questions about all of this.

As Weyrich comments, "It is disturbing when the answer provided by the General Counsel to the question, 'Will Americans be stopped from searching suspicious foreign ships in our waters?' is, 'I don't know.'"

[Diogenesis]

"Our leader Abu Annan says this will help our al Qaeda-at-sea.
SO why don't you accept it and be good little dhimmis
and just give up and surrender,
like the spineless and cowardly French and Spanish already have."

[tkathy]

I am a total Bush fan, but the top politicians from the Reps as well as the Dims need serious term limits. This is appalling.

[mewzilla]

Wonder what the pols voting to ratify know about Oil For Food? And/or what the UN knows about them?

[guitfiddlist]

What is it about so many GOP congressmen, that scramble to crossdress in 'Rat fashions when we're not looking?

[guitfiddlist]

Buncha closet 'Rats.

[dalebert]

Its time for the UN to go. Its nothing but a huge mafia.

[Truth29]

Bump for later read.

[Diogenesis]

[uglybiker]

Wrong end.

[PGalt]

UN...United on What?...Produces What?

Lugar needs to get LOST

[Sun]

Let's all contact Lugar and Vice-President Cheney about this. The Vice-President is also a proponent of this, and I'm especially surprised at him.

[Publius6961]

The U.N. Has been such a rousing success we are about to build a bigger badder one.

Makes sense to me!
Martians. It's got to be Martians. We can only see them if we have special glasses, and they manipulate our minds to force us to do really really stupid things to ourselves.

[TrueBeliever9]

GOP in sneak move to pass U.N. treaty Critics say 'Law of the Sea' would cripple defense, help terrorists

[TigersEye]

ping

pong Big Trouble for Law of the Sea

[jmc813]

ping

[Mikey]

"What is it about so many GOP congressmen, that scramble to crossdress in 'Rat fashions when we're not looking?"

Simple, the republicans and democrats have merged into one party. The people who vote straight republican ticket (like those who vote strictly democrat) haven't been watching what their so-called representative are actually doing. Instead they hear what they say, wave their American flag (made in China)and continue along in their blissful ignorance.

The hell with the republicrats.

Vote Constitution Party

[joesnuffy]

Two party NWO cabal rules...
Why are our pilots still not armed years after 09-11
Why our borders wide open to incursions by the narco terrorist Mexican government and other assorted terrorists including al-Qaida?

[no more apples]

Thanks for the pong.

[hedgetrimmer]

It wouldn't hurt to complain to the Republican national committee about the candidates they support.

Remind them that Americans do not want to fund the election of individuals who sell out our sovereignty.

Remind them of the unpopularity of the UN, given that their cops kill Americans on peacekeeping missions, that their corrupt members skim billions off of relief programs, that they caused the genocide in rwanda, that they consistently vote against US interests in nearly everything and on and on and on....

Tell them any politician who supports the United Nations is tainted and should be treated as radioactive.

[TigersEye]

My pleasure.

[Libertarianize the GOP]

ping

[truth4]

bump

[Itzlzha]

"Without listing names of those present, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, by unanimous consent, advised passage of the treaty. Senate sources say proponents planned to bring LOST before the full Senate without debate for a voice vote that would have shielded lawmakers from certain public wrath."

Hmmm...the Senate Foreign relations Committee. Let's see who's responsible for this crap!

(R)
Chairman Richard G. Lugar

Chuck Hagel
Nebraska

Lincoln Chafee (Really a (D))
Rhode Island

George Allen
Virginia

Sam Brownback
Kansas

Michael Enzi
Wyoming

George V. Voinovich
Ohio

Lamar Alexander
Tennessee

Norm Coleman
Minnesota

John E. Sununu
New Hampshire
_______________

(D)
Ranking Member
Joseph R. Biden

Paul S. Sarbanes
Maryland

Christopher J. Dodd
Connecticut

John F. Kerry
Massachusetts

Russell D. Feingold
Wisconsin

Barbara Boxer
California

Bill Nelson
Florida

John D. Rockefeller IV
West Virginia

Jon S. Corzine
New Jersey

Well...now ain't THAT special! So G.I Gigolo is all in favor of secret votes and deals when HE'S in on the secret!

[hedgetrimmer]

Here is what the UN is reporting. They say the oceans commission will release apreliminary report on April 20, 2004. For further information, see www.oceancommission.gov. :

March 22, 2004

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has reported the United Nations Law of the Sea Treaty (UNCLOS) for a Senate vote on advice and consent to ratification by the United States, but floor action will be delayed as two other committees conduct hearings exploring the potential impact the treaty will have on the United States. The Committee on Environment and Public Works and the Committee on Armed Services will hold hearings over the next two weeks in order to ascertain the extent to which U.S. ratification of the treaty will affect issues within their respective jurisdictions. Upon completion of these hearings, Sen. Bill Frist (R-TN) is expected to schedule the treaty for a vote. A two-thirds majority is required to gain advice and consent.

Lugar Plays Leadership Role

In a press release issued on February 24, 2004, Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, stated that the treaty enjoys widespread support within the U.S. Government. Representatives from the Department of State, Defense, and the U.S. Coast Guard expressed the Administration’s strong support for U.S. ratification of the Convention, he remarked. They testified that the Convention advances U.S. national security by providing enhanced protections for the rights of navigation and overflight across the world’s oceans that our military relies on to protect U.S. interests abroad. At the same time, noted Lugar, U.S. accession needs to be completed swiftly, since the Convention will be open for amendment later this year. If the United States is not party to the Convention at that time, our ability to protect Convention rights that we fought hard to achieve will be significantly diminished, he concluded.

Recalls United States Leadership Role in Negotiations

During Foreign Relations Committee hearings held on October 14, 2003, Lugar recalled the history of U.S. leadership in drafting the Convention during the Carter and Reagan Administrations. Ultimately, U.S. concerns over provisions related to the mining of deep seabed resources prompted the United States to withhold signature of the treaty in 1982. Nonetheless, successive administrations continued to press for changes to the mining regime, resulting in the adoption of an agreement in 1994 that addressed U.S. objections. The United States signed the treaty in 1994, and it was sent to the Senate that same year. The hearings last fall marked the first time that the Foreign Relations Committee discussed the treaty formally since the U.S. had signed it. At present, 145 nations are party to the Convention, including all other permanent members of the Security Council and all but two other NATO members.

Administration Officials Cite U.S. Stake in Convention

The Foreign Relations Committee’s hearings last fall offered Bush Administration officials the opportunity to make the case for U.S. ratification. John F. Turner, Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Oceans and International Environment and Scientific Affairs, provided the overall rationale: The Convention, as amended by the 1994 Agreement, offers an accepted and acceptable international framework within which to pursue and secure our oceans interests with greater certainty and with fewer political and economic disadvantages than we could otherwise achieve, he said. As the world’s leading maritime power, with the longest coastline and largest exclusive economic zone in the world, the United States will benefit more than many other nations from the provisions of the Convention. U.S. interests in the oceans, he observed, include projecting military power to react to emerging threats; ensuring free and secure flow of commercial navigation; developing fisheries and offshore mineral deposits; building port and transportation facilities; and conducting marine scientific research.

Appearing before the Committee with Turner, Department of State legal adviser William H. Taft stated that the Convention carefully balances the interests of States in controlling activities off their own coasts with those of all States in protecting the freedom to use ocean spaces without undue interference. He noted that recognition by the treaty of an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) extending 200 nautical miles from the coast accords the United States the right to regulate fisheries in the largest EEZ in the world, an area significantly greater than U.S. land territory, which contains some of the most resource-rich waters on the planet.Commenting on the 1994 agreement that made legally binding changes to the Convention dealing with deep seabed mining, Taft said that it overcome(s) each one of the objections of the United States and meet(s) our goal of guaranteed access by the U.S. industry to deep seabed minerals on the basis of reasonable terms and conditions.

Addressing national security issues specifically, Admiral Michael G. Mullen, Vice Chief of Naval Operations for the Department of the Navy, testified that U.S. accession to the Convention will enhance the worldwide mobility our forces require and our traditional leadership role in maritime matters, as well as position us better to initiate and influence future developments in the law of the sea. He emphasized that U.S. naval and air forces must take maximum advantage of the customary, established navigational rights that the Law of the Sea Convention codifies.Mullen also observed, Sustaining our overseas presence, responding to complex emergencies, prosecuting the global war on terrorism, and conducting operations far from our shores are only possible if military forces and military and civilian logistic supply ships and aircraft are able to make unencumbered use of the sea and air lines of communication.

U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy Supports U.S. Ratification

The United States Commission on Ocean Policy, a congressionally authorized commission whose members were appointed by President Bush in mid-2001, has adopted a unanimous resolution supporting U.S. ratification of the Law of the Sea Convention. The resolution recommends that the United States immediately accede to the United Nations Law of the Sea Convention. Time is of the essence if the United States is to maintain its leadership role in ocean and coastal activities. Critical national interests are at stake and the United States can only be a full participant in upcoming Convention activities if the country proceeds with accession expeditiously. The 16-member panel is charged with making recommendations for a comprehensive national ocean policy. The Commission began its work in September 2001, conducting 15 public meetings and 17 site visits around the United States. A preliminary report will be released on April 20, 2004. For further information, see www.oceancommission.gov.

http://listserv.unausa.org/index.asp

[shield]

BMP...Time to call or fax our senators, again!!!!

[farmfriend]

Rights, farms, environment ping.
Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from this list.
I don't get offended if you want to be removed.

[Iscool]

I am a total Bush fan, but the top politicians from the Reps as well as the Dims need serious term limits. This is appalling.

Do you mean from Cheney on down???

State Department officials and Vice President Dick Cheney say they support the treaty because it provides an international legal framework for competition for the oceans' resources.

Term limits??? Why not impeachment, or charges of treason???

[hedgetrimmer]

OK everybody, this is a fight to the finish! The UNA has created a form letter to send to senators. What say we all join their "action network", and change the letter to VOTE NO! It might also be a way to get information about the legislation the UN is pushing. What say you?

http://usa.unaaction.org/z_unausa.asp?aaid=584

RE: Law of the Sea Treaty

Dear Senator,

I am writing to express my support for the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea. The Law of the Sea Treaty promotes and protects U.S. maritime interests by providing a comprehensive and widely accepted international framework regulating all uses of the world's oceans. Adopted in 1982 after many years of negotiations, in which the United States played a lead role, U.S. ratification of this important treaty is long overdue.

The treaty has already been ratified by 145 countries, including nearly every NATO member and all other permanent members of the U.N. Security Council. The treaty also enjoys strong support within the U.S. Government, having recently been endorsed by the Departments of Defense, State, and Homeland Security, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the military departments, the President, and the chairmen of the Senate Committees on Foreign Relations, Appropriations, and Commerce. Moreover, provisions of the treaty concerning deep-sea mining that had prevented us from joining the treaty were fully addressed in a 1994 agreement, according to administration testimony.

In testifying before the Foreign Relations Committee last October, Administration officials outlined the most important reason for ratifying the treaty - the significant economic, national security, and environmental benefits to the United States.

The treaty strengthens critical navigational rights on, under, and over the oceans for our military and commercial vessels. Observing that the global mobility requirements of our armed forces in the war on terrorism are greater than ever, Vice Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Mullen testified that countries would be less likely to restrict U.S. overflight and navigational rights if we were a party to the treaty. He emphasized that, by joining the treaty, "we further assure the freedom to get to the fight, twenty-four hours a day and seven days a week, as necessary in the national secuirty interests of the United States."

Adm. Mullen also noted that the treaty guarantees the "particularly important" right of "normal modes" of travel through international straits, meaning that submarines can stay submerged and air-capable ships may operate aircraft. In addition, Administration officials said the treaty would advance efforts to stop narcotics trafficking and would aid initiatives to prevent the transit of weapons of mass destruction between "states of concern" and terrorists, such as the President's new Proliferation Security Initiative.

Ratification would promote U.S. economic interests by guaranteeing our exclusive right to all resources within 200 miles from U.S. shores, as well as jurisdiction over the continental shelf beyond 200 miles. These established rights are especially important for the investment in and exploration of oil and gas reserves and in the protection of access to fish stocks. The treaty also requires countries to cooperate in the conservation of marine life and resources, comprehensivley addresses the problem of pollution (including oil spills), and promotes scientific research. Finally, ratification would enhance our ability to promote and protect U.S. interests in institutions such as the International Maritime Organization and would enable us to participate in treaty bodies such as the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea.

As you know, the Foreign Relations Committee unanimously approved the treaty and reported it favorably to the full Senate on March 11th. Immediate ratification is crucial because the treaty will be open for amendment for the first time later this year and our efforts to protect key protections secured by U.S. negotiators will be weakened unless we are a party to the treaty.

As the world's leading maritime power, with political and commercial interests traversing the globe, the longest coastline, and some of the richest waters, the United States has innumerable reasons to ratify this treaty. I urge you to call for a vote without delay. Thank you for your consideration.

Your name and address here

[hedgetrimmer]

More info about the UNaction network.

"As part of our continuing effort to strengthen advocacy activities, UNA-USA has launched a new online Action Alert system called the E-Action Network. The E-Action Network enhances UNA-USA's advocacy efforts by enabling members to register their views on vital issues in U.S.-U.N. relations with their elected representatives and national leaders.

The E-Action Network has two main components: a web page and a listserve. When you register with the system, you will automatically be matched with your members of Congress. All registration information, including e-mail addresses, will be kept confidential.

After joining the E-Action Network listserve you will receive Action Alerts via e-mail from UNA-USA's Washington Office. Whether you view the alert via email or on the web at the E-Action Network page, you will be able to view, personalize, and respond to them, using your own or our sample letters, either by e-mail, fax, or hard copy.

The E-Action Network provides users with a history of their own responses to Action Alerts. It also allows the Washington Office to track responses to its alerts so it can more easily determine which issues are most engaging for UNA-USA members.

Take Action now! Go to the UNA-USA E-Action Network

For further information contact UNA-USA's Washington Office at (202) 462-3446. "

http://usa.unaaction.org/z_unausa.asp?aaid=584

[hedgetrimmer]

Don’t Get LOST
The White House toys with signing a very Kerry treaty.
In the wake of international terrorism's most-successful strategic attack since September 11, 2001, the differences between Sen. John Kerry and President Bush about how the war on terror should be waged have become as clear as, well, the differences between the outgoing Spanish premier and his successor.

To be sure, even before last Thursday's murderous explosions in Madrid, Senator Kerry and his surrogates were denouncing the war in Iraq on the grounds that President Bush failed to get the U.N.'s permission for it — and then was unable to turn the governance of the country post-Saddam over to the so-called "international community." This theme has, however, received mantra-like repetition by the Democratic candidate and his echo chamber ever since the terrorists took down Spain's government.

The good news is that the Bush administration has finally launched a powerful counterattack. Just about every senior national-security official from President Bush on down has suddenly been made available to explain the logic of removing Saddam Hussein from power as an indispensable part of the war on terror. They and key legislators (like Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, chairman of the Senate Republican Policy Committee) have at last gone on offense in response to the ceaseless, direct, and indirect attacks on the Bush team's integrity as it made the case for draining the "swamp" that was Saddam's terrorist-sponsoring, WMD-wielding Iraq.

Perhaps most importantly, President Bush and his advocates have directly challenged Senator Kerry, et.al., with respect to what may prove to be the most important foreign-policy issue of the 2004 campaign: John Kerry's worldview that U.S. freedom of action around the world can safely — and, indeed, as a practical matter must — be subordinated to the U.N.'s superior judgment. In a powerful example of the assault now being inflicted on the Kerry record and candidacy, Vice President Cheney declared yesterday at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library: "The United States will never seek a permission slip to defend the security of our country."

The bad news is that the Bush administration risks grievously blurring where it stands on the appropriate, limited role of the United Nations in determining our security and other interests with its advocacy of a treaty that President Reagan properly rejected 22 years ago. As was noted in this space on February 26, the administration's declared support for the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST) caused it to be approved unanimously by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee — even though this accord would constitute the most egregious transfer of American sovereignty, wealth, and power to the U.N. since the founding of that "world body." In fact, never before in the history of the world has any nation voluntarily engaged in such a sweeping transfer to anyone.

This is the case because LOST creates a new supranational agency, the International Seabed Authority (ISA), which will have control of seven-tenths of the world surface area, i.e., the planet's international waters. That control will enable the ISA and a court created to adjudicate and enforce its edicts the right to determine who does what, where, when, and how in the oceans under its purview. This applies first and foremost to exploration and exploitation of the mineral and oil and gas deposits on or under the seabeds — an authority that will enable the U.N. for the first time to impose what amount to taxes on commercial activities.

LOST, however, will also interfere with America's sovereign exercise of freedom of the seas in ways that will have an adverse effect on national security, especially in the post-9/11 world. Incredibly, it will preclude, for example, the president's important new Proliferation Security Initiative. PSI is a multinational arrangement whereby ships on the high seas that are suspected of engaging in the transfer of WMD-related equipment can be intercepted, searched, and, where appropriate, seized. Its value was demonstrated in the recent interception of nuclear equipment headed to Libya.

Similarly, LOST will define intelligence collection in and submerged transit of territorial waters to be incompatible with the treaty's requirements that foreign powers conduct themselves in such seas only with "peaceful intent." The last thing we need is for some U.N. court — or U.S. lawyers in its thrall — to make it more difficult for us to conduct sensitive counterterrorism operations in the world's littorals.

Since my last column on this subject, there have been several notable developments with respect to the Law of the Sea Treaty:



It has become clear that one of the prime movers behind the Bush administration's support for this U.N.-on-steroids treaty is none other than John Turner, a man property-rights activists kept from assuming a senior position in the Interior Department. Correctly seen by that community as a wild-eyed proponent of conservation at the expense of landowners' equities, he was given a consolation prize: a seemingly innocuous post as the State Department's assistant secretary for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs. It turns out that in that position — and thanks to his longtime friendship with Vice President Cheney — Turner has greatly advanced what is arguably the most egregious assault on property rights in history.


The United States Navy has trotted out arguments for this treaty that reflect what might be called the River Kwai Syndrome. Like the British senior POW in World War II who couldn't bring himself to blow up a bridge his captors would use to their military advantage, Navy lawyers seem convinced that a bad deal is better than none.

Even though this accord will manifestly interfere with important peacetime naval operations, JAG types tell us they think it will be good for their business if freedom of the seas is guaranteed by a new, U.N.-administered international legal system rather than by U.S. naval power. They speciously assert that a 1994 agreement negotiated by President Clinton fixes the problems that caused President Reagan to reject LOST — never mind that the Clinton accord does not amend or otherwise formally modify one jot of the treaty.



Fortunately, this nonsense will be exposed to critical examination in coming weeks as two Senate committees, Environment and Public Works and Armed Services, hold hearings on LOST. Their chairmen, Sen. Jim Inhofe (R., Okla.) and John Warner (R., Va.), respectively, deserve credit for inviting critics of the treaty (including this author) to provide testimony Indiana Republican senator Richard Lugar refused to permit the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to hear before it approved the resolution of ratification. (Other committees that have equities in this fight — like Governmental Affairs, Commerce, Energy, Intelligence and Finance — have yet to be heard from.)

The prospect these hearings and the attendant public scrutiny of the Law of the Sea Treaty will precipitate a time-consuming and politically costly debate has prompted Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R., Tenn.) to say that he sees no opportunity for the foreseeable future to bring this accord to the floor. Assuming he is good to his word, still more time will be available to awaken the American people to what is afoot.


Most importantly, one of those people, President George W. Bush, may recently have been awakened to the dangers — political, as well as strategic and economic — inherent in this treaty. In response to a question recently put to him by Paul Weyrich, the legendary conservative activist and president of the Free Congress Foundation, President Bush indicated that he was unaware of the Law of the Sea Treaty and his administration's support for it. It can only be hoped that, as he conducts the promised review of LOST, he will make clear he does not want it ratified, now or ever.

Better yet, President Bush should assign his trusted undersecretary of Arms Control and International Security, John Bolton, the job of arranging for LOST to be "unsigned" — just as he did with respect to the fatally flawed treaty that created the International Criminal Court. Secretary Bolton would be particularly appropriate for this job, since he was also the prime architect of the Proliferation Security Initiative that the Law of the Sea Treaty would eviscerate.

While such developments are generally welcome, one thing curiously has not happened. The alarm about the defective Law of the Sea Treaty has still not been sounded by the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Fox News. It can only be hoped that, as the Senate hearings on LOST start next week, this oversight will be corrected, ensuring that the treaty is deep-sixed, once and for all.

— Frank J. Gaffney Jr. is president of the Center for Security Policy and a contributing editor to NRO.

http://www.mega.nu:8080/ampp/sovereignty.html

[philetus]

"While such developments are generally welcome, one thing curiously has not happened. The alarm about the defective Law of the Sea Treaty has still not been sounded by the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Fox News."


I think in the final analyses, Rush and Fox news will shown to have gone along with the really important elements of the fleecing of the sheep.

[hedgetrimmer]

Fox news is slipping ever leftward. You may not realize this but there are only two things for you to be concerned about; whether Scott Peterson will get a change of venue and where you can buy the latest books from their talk show hosts.

[Robert Drobot]

President Bush indicated that he was unaware of the Law of the Sea Treaty and his administration's support for it. It can only be hoped that, as he conducts the promised review of LOST, he will make clear he does not want it ratified, now or ever.

Hey, Mr. President....LOST is a
LOOSER!!!

[XBob]

20 - Another xlinton 'gift'. Reagan rejected it, xlinton signed it, which this RAT writer conveniently forgot to mention:

http://www.cato.org/pubs/fpbriefs/fpb-032es.html


Cato Foreign Policy Briefing No. 32 September 12, 1994
Faulty Repairs: The Law of the Sea Treaty
is Still Unacceptable
by Doug Bandow

Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. He served as a special assistant to President Reagan and a deputy representative to the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea. He is the author of The Politics of Envy: Statism as Theology (Transaction Publications, 1994).

---

Executive Summary

The Clinton administration has signed a renegotiated version of the United Nations Law of the Sea Treaty, which has been submitted to the U.S. Senate for ratification. State Department officials claim that the revised treaty eliminates objectionable provisions pertaining to deep seabed mining, builds on a market-oriented approach to exploiting ocean resources, and supports American interests.

[XBob]

xlinton/gore signed another one, which required real-time posting current thermo-clines and US submarine positions (they hide under thermoclines), so the greenies could 'follow the whales'. I forget the name and the date though. But it was another that they one slipped through. A major strategic security blunder/giveaway by our elected traitors.

[E.G.C.]

BTTT!!!!!!!

[looscnnn]

Well, look how Congress is handling the successful education system. How better to fix things than to keep giving them more power and money. Time for the jackass approach to problem correction, a 2x4 upside the head.

[Prince Charles]

Bttt.