Senators hear how UN Law of the Sea Treaty will cripple national security

Advocates of a United Nations treaty that would severely erode US sovereignty and national security were stealthily trying to push the measure through the Senate - until Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma invited Center for Security Policy President Frank Gaffney and former treaty negotiator Peter Leitner to tear the treaty apart.

With the Bush Administration focused on fighting terrorism, arms-controllers within the bureaucracy have been working quietly with their allies in the Senate to ratify the UN Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST) without the proper vetting from senior officials appointed by the president. In a recent meeting with conservative leaders, President Bush, when asked, said he new nothing about the treaty.

(1) the treaty will hand control of seven-tenths of the Earth's surface to an unelected supranational buracracy, (2) that supranational bureaucracy would have the power to levy taxes on US interests, (3) those taxes would finance the supranational organization, removing any leverage the US would have against it, (4) the new organization would control the world's ocean research and exploration, (5) it would create a multinational court to render and enforce its judgments, (6) it would force the US to share billions of dollars' worth of underwater mapping and other exploration crucial for the US Navy to dominate and control the seas, (7) it would gravely harm US intelligence collection at sea, and (8) it would establish precedents for weakening US control of space, where such control is vital to the nation's economic and military well-being.

Gaffney joined Peter Leitner, a Pentagon official who was part of the LOST negotiating delegation, who told the Senate that the treaty appears to prohibit US at-sea interdiction efforts necessary to stopping seaborne terrorists.

Senator Inhofe, Chairman of the Committee on Environment and Public Works, held the hearing in response to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's exclusion of treaty critics from testifying.

He asked two senior administration officials about what would happen under the treaty if the US Navy needed to board a ship on the high seas. The officials, Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and Environment John Turner and State Department Legal Counsel William Taft IV, didn't know what to say.

"Blue Hulls

Asked about the possible development of a squad of "Blue Hulls" to police the world's oceans as a marine equivalent of U.N. "blue helmets," Leitner said while not specifically spelled out in the LOST, it's very likely.

The problem is "there's nothing limiting the International Seabed Authority from going out and attempting to raise a navy or have contributing member states contribute vessels or act on behalf of the Authority to enforce its rules," he explained.

Leitner said the "blue hull" concept came from a report written by the Center for Naval Analysis in 1993, at the time of the earlier negotiations. The Center is a "gold-plated think-tank," funded by tax dollars, but is not a government agency.

"One of the things the Center recommended was that in the post-Cold War era – when we had a relatively large Navy before Clinton dismantled most of it – was an operational mission for the Navy." The idea was for the Navy to donate vessels and crew to the Seabed Authority "to assist them in enforcing their judgments and rules."

"So there were these two things. The think-tank for the Center for Naval Analysis writes a report suggesting this, and you look in the treaty and there's absolutely nothing prohibiting that from happening. And in fact if they ever got the U.S. into the treaty, I think there's a very good chance that they would actually do something like this. So it's not required or specifically spelled out, but it's possible and people have been thinking about it and actually suggesting it."

Taxing matters

While not having specific authority to send American citizens a tax bill, a very large revenue stream will be generated by American companies for the International Seabed Authority.

The Enterprise is the operating arm of the Authority and would be the part "that will actually go out and do something active to generate additional capital," Leitner explained. The revenue flow would come from the fees "just for a simple permit," for activities on the continental shelf beyond national jurisdiction, beyond the 200-mile limit. A company would also have to pay royalties on the sale of extracted resources, and the royalties and all payments would go to the International Seabed Authority.

As a by-the-way, Leitner added that the annual capitalization of the International Seabed Authority is required from all signatories of the treaty, and it's based on the U.N. formula of 25 percent for the U.S.

"So basically the United States will pay at least 25 percent of the cost of the Seabed Authority – that's required as part of the price of admission to the treaty," he observed. "

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In a recent meeting with conservative leaders, President Bush, when asked, said he new nothing about the treaty.

hmmmm....somehow, I don't believe that.

Seems to me that the professed ignorance of this NAFTA, FTAA, WTO, GATT, amnesty-loving White House about this latest U.N./globalist/anti-freedom outrage is right in character based on their performance to date.

I'm to believe that a major piece of legislation is moving on the Hill and the WH knows nothing of it? No way that's possible.

Interesting that the most significant issue regarding LOST is lost in the article. If the source hadn't been dedicated to defense policy, I would have said that such a glaring oversight could be deliberate misdirection.

The land use control gained by this global bureaucracy will gain via LOST will be justified to "protect" the marine environment. It isn't hard to see. Many oceanic species breed in estuaries within the United States. Estuarine health isn't doing very well for a number of reasons (many of which politicized science will conveniently miss). The estuaries are fed by rivers. The rivers are lined with cities.

Marine sanctuaries and global biospheres are model for what is planned for LOST. If all we accomplish is to alter the treaty to gain protection for our military, we will have missed the point.

LOST is a straitjacket fully capable of crippling this nation (which certainly affects its ability to defend itself). That the White House says it knows nothing about it belies the fact that, according to the email I get from ALRA, the White House and Chuck Hagel are the instigators in pushing this treaty through in the dark of night after the Reagan Administration had rejected it out of hand.

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