Posted on 05/21/2007 11:09:52 AM PDT by CaptIsaacDavis
Deep-six the Law of the Sea by Phyllis Schlafly Posted: 05/21/2007
Borrowing the famous words of Gen. Douglas MacArthur, "Old soldiers never die, they just fade away," we can now see that old treaties never die, they can be resurrected years or even decades after taking what we thought was a knockout punch.
President George W. Bush is scheduled to announce any day that he will breathe new life into the old United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which President Ronald Reagan rejected in 1982. Bush's National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley has asked Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joe Biden, D-Del., to secure Senate ratification "as early as possible."
To defuse expected opposition, the Bush administration has been pursuing a most unusual lobbying campaign: inviting two or three prominent conservatives at a time to the White House without telling them in advance the purpose of the invitation or who will be present. After admission past executive office barricades, the conservatives are subjected to aggressive lobbying by administration heavy hitters: usually the chief counsel for the State Department and the judge advocate general of the U.S. Navy.
The 202-page Law of the Sea Treaty entered into force in 1994 and has been ratified by 153 countries. The treaty created the International Seabed Authority, giving it total jurisdiction over all the oceans and everything in them, including the ocean floor with "all" its riches ("solid, liquid or gaseous mineral resources"), along with the power to regulate 70 percent of the world's surface.
Headquartered in Jamaica, the International Seabed Authority has an assembly, a council, a bureaucracy and commissions, all drawing tax-free salaries. If the United States ratifies the treaty, Americans would have the same vote in the International Seabed Authority as Cuba, an unprecedented surrender of U.S. sovereignty, independence of action and wealth.
Even worse, the threat gives the International Seabed Authority the power to levy international taxes. No one should be fooled by the treaty's attempt to conceal this by labeling the taxes assessments, fees, permits, payments or contributions.
The purpose of the taxing power is to compel the United States to pay billions of private-enterprise dollars to International Seabed Authority bureaucrats, who can then transfer U.S. wealth to socialist, anti-American nations (euphemistically called "developing countries") ruled by corrupt dictators. The treaty asserts that this is for "the benefit of mankind as a whole." The treaty gives the International Seabed Authority the power to regulate "all" ocean research and exploration and to deny access to strategic ocean minerals, many of which the United States needs for national defense or industries. The treaty gives the International Seabed Authority power to impose production quotas for deep-sea mining and oil production.
The International Seabed Authority can require the United States to share intelligence, technology and even military information. The treaty puts restrictions on intelligence-gathering by U.S. submarines, activities that are essential to national defense. The treaty also created the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, headquartered in Hamburg, Germany, with the power to decide all disputes and enforce its judgments. Of course, there is no guarantee that the United States would have even one judge on this 21-member international court, and it's reasonable to assume inherent bias against the United States by the anti-American countries whose representatives will make all decisions.
There can be no appeal from this tribunal's decisions, even though they would affect the sovereignty, security and economic interests of the United States. There is no restriction on the Tribunal's jurisdiction. Administration lobbyists claim that the original problems with the treaty have been fixed. That is not believable because the text of the treaty can't be changed unilaterally.
Bush apparently expects conservatives to be mollified by the argument that the Navy supports the treaty. But conservatives are smart enough to know that it's impossible for the Navy to oppose the commander in chief's position.
The notion that the U.S. Navy needs approval from foreign bureaucrats in Jamaica in order to enjoy passage through international straits, or for permission to do what our Navy is already doing (such as moving our ships to the waters near Iran), is offensive and insulting to U.S. sovereignty. It's not only dangerous to national security for the administration to promote the Law of the Sea Treaty, it is a stupid political move that will diminish the shrinking percentage of conservatives who still support Bush. Now a lame duck, Bush is ignoring his supporters and instead pushing the agenda of globalists who are determined to erase sovereign borders and integrate the United States into various multinational structures and tribunals.
Anybody know why Bush wants the “treaty” revived?
Stop the world, I want to get off.
Carter may be an idiot, and may not be right, but he’s close. And don’t give me that bushbot crap.
Do we need any more evidence that Bush is a Globalist?
I suppose I can understand why Bush is pushing for immigration amnesty: Because a lot of contributor businesses, especially factory farmers, meat packers, and the like, want cheap labor, and they are paying him to push it through.
But why is he pushing the LOST treaty? Who benefits? Where’s the beef? American mining and oil companies who work the seabeds will actually lose from this. Are Cuba and Jamaica paying the bribes this time? I doubt it. It’s totally insane.
My guess is that he’s on crack. Between illegal immigration and stuff like this, not much other explanation. Or perhaps he’s always been a “new world order” globalist, elitist, country club Republican, much like his father. And I voted for him twice.
“Anybody know why Bush wants the “treaty” revived?”
He wants the USA under the control of the UN, and he knows this will do the job.
This is the type of crap that Bush should be impeached for, not the liberal idiocy spouted by the left’s bumper sticker mentality.
Bush is obviously hard at work cementing his legacy as Worst President Ever.
What has it been, 26 years of having a Bush or Clinton in the White House (include GHWB’s tenure as VP)?
That’s a whole lot of momentum.
Further proof that the biggest mistake Ronald Reagan made was selecting Bush I for his VP. It ultimately doomed everything that Reagan was able to accomplish in his two terms.
Good God! What is he DOING?!?
IBTBB
Is Bush from this planet? I think it’s time for Art Bell to interview him.
ping a ling...
Maybe the John Birch crazies were right all along. Between this and the “Invade America Now” bill, it’s Christmas in May for the globalists.
Because he truly is his father's son? His father having coined the term New World Order into the popular lexicon of the nation. There is other proof of this: The current immigration amnesty bill; the railroading of the three country merge within 5 years; and now this. You know, old Slewfoot (Satan) knows the Bible by heart. It would be so easy to claim Christianity to advance a political agenda and not be a real Christian in any sense of the term. That might be the case with that family. Unfortunate since I know Jeb personally. I don't think he's on board with these initiatives, but then I thought GW was a real conservative too. Wrong-O!
At any rate, if all three of these things happen - America, as we know it, is pretty much done for.
They noted that if we remained outside the treaty, we would forfeit our seat at the table of institutions that will make decisions about the use of the oceans, and we would increase the chance that such decisions would be contrary to our interests,” Lugar said. (So we are being blackmailed into it or threatened?)
Who is going to enforce these laws against 3rd world dictators or anyone else who would break them?
This stinks on many levels.
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