Posted on 10/15/2009 11:57:16 AM PDT by Still Thinking
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States reversed policy on Wednesday and said it would back launching talks on a treaty to regulate arms sales as long as the talks operated by consensus, a stance critics said gave every nation a veto.
The decision, announced in a statement released by the U.S. State Department, overturns the position of former President George W. Bush's administration, which had opposed such a treaty on the grounds that national controls were better.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the United States would support the talks as long as the negotiating forum, the so-called Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty, "operates under the rules of consensus decision-making."
While praising the Obama administration's decision to overturn the Bush-era policy and to proceed with negotiations to regulate conventional arms sales, some groups criticized the U.S. insistence that decisions on the treaty be unanimous.
The proposed legally binding treaty would tighten regulation of, and set international standards for, the import, export and transfer of conventional weapons.
Nations would remain in charge of their arms export control arrangements but would be legally obliged to assess each export against criteria agreed under the treaty. Governments would have to authorize transfers in writing and in advance.
Arms exporters China, Russia and Israel abstained last year in a U.N. vote on the issue.
The proposed treaty is opposed by conservative U.S. think tanks like the Heritage Foundation, which said last month that it would not restrict the access of "dictators and terrorists" to arms but would be used to reduce the ability of democracies such as Israel to defend their people.
A resolution before the U.N. General Assembly is sponsored by seven nations including major arms exporter Britain
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
Molon Labe!
Do tell?
Read Post 17.
You must own shares in the plastic bottle recycling industry!
Hell, I could die any second anyway, let’s get it on!
Yes, do tell.
We as a country of formerly free men may be giving up our freedoms to DC, but that does not imply that we were given them by DC in the first place.
Our rights are intrinsic, we are born with them. It is up to us to hold on to them. Which we are not doing.
You know, I was trying to be gentle, but for as long as I've been on this forum, I have yet to meet someone so pompously lazy that you wouldn't check out the person to whom you are pontificating about something that was not asserted, much less read the post to which you were directed for what it says (and not what you mistakenly think I'm arguing). I've published more here about the history of unalienable rights, and particularly property rights, than just about anybody here. So my comments were directed toward you getting that I already understood and agreed with every "point" you think you were trying to make, but that your argument had NOTHING to do with what I was saying. Still, you missed it.
I was making a historical point about the conditions under which Texas acquired and regained its statehood, not ANYTHING about its intrinsic right to secede. I directed you to clarifying language in post 17, and still you apparently didn't bother reading it or didn't comprehend what was said.
If you didn't read Post 17, I don't know why should I even bother with a reply. "Child" is right. I suggest you grow up.
btt
I wasn’t arguing. I was adding.
Helping dictators, hurting our friends. In other words, another day at the office for the Obama faction.
Let me add something.
Obviously I jumped in incorrectly, interjecting comments that appeared to be arguments with you, which were not.
I compounded that by not expressing myself well.
Another Obama end run around the US Constitution.
The typical Obama.
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