Posted on 05/13/2007 5:15:39 AM PDT by driftdiver
WASHINGTON In a move that has already angered some of his most ardent supporters, President Bush has asked the Democratic leadership in the U.S. Senate to revive a proposal for ratification of the United Nation's Law of the Sea Treaty, an international agreement defeated two years ago by Republican leadership in the upper house.
Critics say ratification would compromise U.S. sovereignty and place 70 percent of the Earth's surface under the control of the U.N. even providing for a "tax" that would be paid directly to the international body by companies mining in the world's oceans.
The battle over the Law of the Sea Treaty first began 25 years ago, eventually being vetoed by President Reagan. It resurfaced in 2004 under the sponsorship of Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., and was successfully defeated by then Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn.
President Bush announced his intention to seek reintroduction of LOST for ratification to a small group of trusted Republican grass-roots organizers last week an announcement that was met with horror and scorn.
Eagle Forum leader Phyllis Schlafly, Center for Security Policy President Frank Gaffney, Leadership Institute President Morton Blackwell, Free Congress Foundation founder Paul Weyrich and leaders of the Heritage Foundation were quick to denounce the idea in forceful terms, calling on their members to begin lobbying the White House immediately.
LOST has long had the support of environmental groups such as the Natural Resources Defense Council.
It would establish rules governing the uses of the of the world's oceans treating waters more than 200 nautical miles off coasts as the purview of a new international U.N. bureaucracy, the International Seabed Authority
The ISA would have the authority to set production controls for ocean mining, drilling and fishing, regulate ocean exploration, issue permits and settle disputes in its own new "court."
Companies seeking to mine or fish would be required to apply for a permit, paying a royalty fee
Critics also point out the new U.N. agency would have the right to compete directly with private companies in those profit-making activities.
The U.S. would have only one vote of 140 and no veto power as it has on the U.N. Security Council.
The Bush administration claims the initiative for reintroduction of the treaty comes from the military, which likes the 12-mile territorial limits it places on national claims to waters. Yet, critics point out international law already protects non-aggressive passage, including non-wartime activities of military ships.
One of the main authors of LOST not only admired Karl Marx but was an ardent advocate of the Marxist-oriented New International Economic Order. Elisabeth Mann Borgese, a socialist who ran the World Federalists of Canada, played a critical role in crafting and promoting LOST, as WND reported in 2005.
Borgese was hailed by her U.N. supporters as the "Mother of the Oceans" or "First Lady of the Oceans." She died in 2002.
The youngest daughter of the German novelist Thomas Mann, Borgese openly favored world government, wrote for the left-wing The Nation magazine and was a member of a "Committee to Frame a World Constitution." She served as director of the International Center for Ocean Development and chairman of the International Oceans Institute at Dalhousie University in Canada.
The U.N. Environment Program, UNEP, has said that Borgese recognized the oceans as "a possible test-bed for ideas she had developed concerning a common global constitution."
Borgese received UNEP's "Environment Prize" in 1987 and was credited with organizing the conferences that "served to lay the foundation" for the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea, according to Dalhousie University, which houses her archives.
In a 1995 speech, pro-U.N. Democratic Sen. Claiborne Pell said Borgese's ideas were "embodied in the negotiated texts of the Law of the Sea Convention."
Her ideas included recognizing the oceans as the "common heritage of mankind" and creating an International Seabed Authority to charge U.S. and foreign companies for the right to mine the ocean floor.
In a January 1999 speech, Borgese declared, "The world ocean has been, and is, so to speak, our great laboratory for the making of a new world order."
In an article titled, "The New International Economic Order and the Law of the Sea," she argued that the pact could "reinforce" the goals of the NIEO by giving Third World countries a role in managing access to the oceans.
In a 1997 interview, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation broadcaster Philip Coulter asked Borgese about the collapse of Soviet-style communism and the triumph of the "elites."
Borgese replied "there is a strong counter-trend. It's not called socialism, but it's called sustainable development, which calls ... for the eradication of poverty. There is that trend and that is the trend that I am working on."
The concept of "sustainable development," considered a euphemism for socialism or communism, has been embraced in various pronouncements by the U.N. and even the U.S. government.
In her book, "The Oceanic Circle: Governing the Seas as a Global Resource," she approvingly cites Karl Marx, the father of communism, as someone with "amazing foresight" about the problems faced by urban and rural societies. The book is available from the liberal Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.
In an article co-authored with an international lawyer, Borgese noted how LOST stipulates that the oceans "shall be reserved for peaceful purposes" and that "any threat or use of force, inconsistent with the United Nations Charter, is prohibited."
She argued LOST prohibits the ability of nuclear submarines from the U.S. and other nations to rove freely through the world's oceans.
Aside from his judges, W has been a dismal president. People will remember him for the Iraq war, high gas prices, and spending his last years on abominations like this.
Tar and feathers are too good for those sellouts.
Excellent. I cringe everytime I hear this homeland security crap that translates to shaking me and my family down in airports. They never miss a beat on harassing American citizens, but boy, the Fort Dix conspiracy got dropped in a hurry, and was barely mentioned by the media megaphone.
Bush is a PC robot like the rest of the NWO thugs. I drew some gasps here a few months ago when I said “I despise the man. I loathe the man.” He has been the biggest disappointment of my life as a Republican president. I don’t like betrayers and I don’t suffer them easily.
Bush can’t be trusted. When he goes, good riddance.
CONDI IS LOST AT SEA
http://www.conservativeusa.org/bushwatch.htm
During her confirmation hearings, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was asked a question that got lost in the Barbara Boxer brouhaha: Did the administration favor the ratification of the Law of the Sea Treaty, or LOST?
Rice said the administration would certainly like to see it pass as soon as possible. Assuming she was authorized to say that by President Bush the question is why?
REAGAN SAID NO TO UNLOST, BUT GWB IS PUSHING IT
LOST was a bad idea when President Reagan refused to sign it in 1982 and actually fired the State Department staff members who helped negotiate it. It was drafted at the behest of Soviet bloc and Third World dictators interested in a scheme to weaken U.S. power while transferring wealth to the developing world.
“Because WND have lied so many times before regarding all these issues about Bush”
Yes, however there is no doubt he did support this. The question is regarding he is trying to bring it back up.
Really? Enlighten us, jv, show us where they lied.
The article is talking about the older version of the UN sea law treaty that was refused by President Reagan. The treaty was changed in the 1990's to address US concern so there is no "selling of US sovereignty" and President Bush will never sell US sovereignty to any nation or nations. Enough with the kooky conspiracy theories that harm the reputation of this very respected forum.
The man in congress leading the battle to stop this is Sen. Jim Inhofe (HE is SUCH a good man!)
Law of the Sea Treaty Battle Surfaces in the Senate
WASHINGTON, DC, March 24, 2004 (ENS) - President George W. Bush and his administration are in support of Senate ratification for the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, a top State Department official told a Congressional hearing on Tuesday.
Turner
John Turner is U.S. assistant secretary of state for oceans policy. (Photo courtesy State Department)
John Turner, assistant secretary of state for oceans policy, reaffirmed the administration’s support for the treaty in testimony Tuesday before the Senate Environment Committee.
Senator James Inhofe, Republican chairman of the Senate Environment Committee and a critic of the treaty, cited published newspaper accounts reporting that the Bush administration was retreating from its effort to win Senate endorsement for the treaty under pressure from conservatives who believe it gives the United Nations too much power.
Turner rebutted those reports. “I wouldn’t be here testifying before you if there was any retreat or change of position of the administration,” Turner said. He expressed the “full support” of President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell and key national security agencies, he said.
I don't trust him.
blah, blah, show us where WND lied. You need to have some back up around here when you call someone a liar.
More of LOST
Elisabeth Mann Borgese, a world government activist, was described as the “Mother of the Oceans” or “First Lady of the Oceans” for her role in crafting and promoting LOST.5 She not only stated her admiration for Karl Marx, the father of communism, but was an ardent advocate of the New International Economic Order.
Ironically, Borgese agreed with Kirkpatrick about LOST being critical to the NIEO. In The Oceanic Circle, still available from the liberal Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., Borgese wrote about how she and Arvid Pardo wrote a chapter for Reshaping the International Order: A Report to the Club of Rome,
Socialist Elisabeth Mann Borgese: Mother of the Law of the Sea Treaty
compiled under the direction of Jan Tinbergen. The Borgese-Pardo chapter was entitled, “The New International Economic Order and the Law of the Sea,” and “tried to indicate how the emerging law of the Sea Convention could reinforce the goals of the developing countries in a new international economic order.”7
Borgese identified several “major issues” on which LOST and the NIEO “could reinforce each other.” These included:
o Probably the “most important [concept] of all” - LOST’s recognition of the oceans being the “Common Heritage of Mankind,” thereby placing poor countries on an “equal” relationship with advanced countries and “a right to share in the resources that had been declared to be the Common Heritage of Mankind.”
o Creation of Exclusive Economic Zones, giving coastal states control “over all resources and economic uses in a 200-mile zone.”
o Establishment of the International Seabed Authority, giving developing countries a role in “financial decision-making” on a global level.
Yet many Senate Republicans, led by Richard Lugar (Ind.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, support LOST.
Senate Democrats, including all Democratic members of the Foreign Relations Committee, support it as well. George Soros, who spent $23 million in an effort to defeat President Bush’s re-election, has made financial contributions to six of eight Democratic members of the Foreign Relations Committee - Barak Obama, Barbara Boxer, Bill Nelson, Joe Biden, Paul Sarbanes, and John Kerry. A political action committee associated with the pro-world government Citizens for Global Solutions, formerly known as the World Federalist Association, contributed financially to Foreign Relations Committee members Senators Richard Lugar and Democrats Barbara Boxer, Christopher Dodd, Russell Feingold and Barack Obama.
Soros recently participated in a meeting of “70 likeminded millionaires and billionaires” to plan a return to power in the White House and Congress of the liberal-left and the Democratic Party.8
Symbol of International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea
Academic and legal supporters of LOST, such as John Norton Moore of the University of Virginia School of Law, frequently cite U.S. corporate support for the treaty but don’t try to refute the fact that members of the World Federalist Movement are strongly behind it because they had a major role in writing it.11
For example, Louis Sohn, professor Emeritus of International Law at Harvard University, was a U.S. delegate to the Law of the Sea Conference and helped write the draft of the treaty. Sohn’s material has been published in Uniting the Peoples and Nations. Readings in World Federalism. He and Grenville Clark wrote World Peace Through World Law, which called for the elimination of “all national armaments,” creation of a World Police Force, and a United Nations Revenue System.12
For her part, Borgese didn’t buy U.S. military arguments that LOST guarantees freedom of navigation on the high seas. In fact, her position was that “the doctrine of the freedom of the seas has been replaced by that of the common heritage of mankind” in the treaty.13 Stated another way, the concept of “High Seas Freedom,”14 she said, has been superseded by LOST, which regulates access to the oceans in “the area beyond national jurisdiction.”
In a January 1999 speech, Borgese declared, “The world ocean has been, and is, so to speak, our great laboratory for the making of a new world order. For a combination of reasons it was in the oceans, and only there, that we could introduce a series of new concepts, principles and norms which eventually will have to be applied to the world as a whole.” (emphasis added).15
http://www.usasurvival.org/ck42705.shtml
Hey, I gave him the benefit of the doubt until I couldn't! And BS, every time I vote I sit in judgement. So do you.
President Bush will not sign any treaty that in any shape or form will infringe on US sovereignty, anyone who says otherwise is lying, period.
You give me way too much credit, GWB is the only one that has the power to do that. And not that it's any of your business, but yeah, last time I vote AGAINST Kerry, not for Bush. We're all pretty sick of the 'lesser' of 2 evils. Let me guess...Rudy supporter?
We'll see, won't we? I remember some people swearing he'd never promote amnesty either.........don't waste your time telling me it isn't amnesty.
We read about this in the 80s. At the time I thought it was just conspiracy stuff. How wrong was I?
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