Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Should U.N. Broker Return of Alaska to Russia? (Here goes Bush again!)
AIM ^ | June 29, 2007 | Cliff Kincaid

Posted on 07/01/2007 8:37:45 AM PDT by Founding Father

Should U.N. Broker Return of Alaska to Russia?

By Cliff Kincaid | June 29, 2007

At a recent Heritage Foundation symposium on the Law of the Sea Treaty....Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy calmly and methodologically delineated the problems with the treaty, and how U.S. national security could be adversely affected...

Gaffney had complained about the treaty, formally known as the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), creating a global tax mechanism. Under UNCLOS, now before the Senate, U.S. corporations would be required to pay taxes to an International Seabed Authority for the right to exploit ocean resources, including developing sources of energy for the American people.

In a release,(House Republican Whip) Blunt declared, "More than 25 years ago, President Reagan refused to commit this country to a treaty that would've weakened our sovereignty at home, and rendered American companies less competitive abroad…We need all the energy we can get, whenever and wherever we can get it. Submitting ourselves to an unelected, unaccountable international ocean bureaucracy when it comes to distributing what American companies rightfully mine doesn't strike me as a good thing to do 25 years ago, today, tomorrow, or in the future."

Yet the Bush Administration is vigorously pushing the Senate to ratify the treaty creating this global socialist entity.

Not surprisingly, the major media are backing ratification. The bias is evident in stories in the New York Times,... "the United States is on the sidelines for the moment, as conservatives in Congress delay ratification of the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, which governs all claims."

UNCLOS "governs all claims?" Since when did a U.N. bureaucracy acquire such power? And why should the U.S. acquiesce in this power grab?

(Excerpt) Read more at aim.org ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; Russia; US: Alaska
KEYWORDS: bush; energy; environment; frankgaffney; geopolitics; heritagefoundation; lawofseatreaty; lost; un
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-8081-89 next last
To: Elyse

—I’d like to see a more legitimate source that confirms that Bush is actually pushing for this before I get all upset about it.-—

Here ya go (all you needed to do was google Bush law of sea treaty and you would have found over one million references).

http://ipsnorthamerica.net/news.php?idnews=839

POLITICS-US:
Bush Endorses Law of the Sea Treaty
Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, 16 May (IPS) - After maintaining a six-and-a-half year silence, President George W. Bush is urging the U.S. Senate to ratify the U.N.’s Law of the Sea Convention (UNCLOS) before the end of his term in office.

In a statement released by the White House Tuesday, Bush said that “joining the 25-year-old treaty will serve the national security interests of the United States, including the maritime mobility of our armed services (and) secure U.S. sovereign rights over extensive marine areas, including the valuable natural resources they contain.”

The statement, which was issued after a protracted internal review, opens the way for swift action by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to recommend ratification by the entire Senate.

The Committee’s chairman, Sen. Joseph Biden, who called just last week for Bush to publicly endorse the treaty, pledged Wednesday to work closely with Bush and the Committee’s ranking Republican, Sen. Richard Lugar, to take up the treaty “in the coming months”.

Lugar, a long-time UNCLOS champion, said approval was “overdue... We’ve been a free rider on this treaty for too long,” he noted in a lengthy statement released shortly after Bush’s announcement. “At a time when the United States is being criticised by friends and foes alike as either a Lone Ranger or worse, an arrogant bully, we can demonstrate that we believe international cooperation, done right, can serve America’s interests.

“By embracing a treaty that we championed and that improves our national security, we can help counter the prejudices that America is an unreliable partner or a threat to world order,” he wrote.

The treaty, which establishes a legal regime for virtually all human uses of the high seas, including the delineation of territorial waters, navigation rights, research, environmental protection, fisheries, and mining of the seabed, took effect in 1994 after it was ratified by the requisite 60 countries, including all of Washington’s western allies.

Initiated by the United States in the late 1960s, the treaty took nearly 15 years to negotiate; yet, when it was concluded in 1982, the administration of President Ronald Reagan declined to sign it, objecting to the seabed-mining provisions in Section 11 that declared the deep seabed part of the “common heritage of mankind” and empowering a global body to oversee the mining regime.

In particular, the new International Seabed Authority (ISA), which was to be financed in part from royalties paid by deep-sea miners, could require companies engaged in deep-sea mining to share their technology with developing countries. The administration also objected that ISA’s governing mechanisms would not give the U.S. the voting power that it felt was necessary to defend its interests.

The Reagan administration’s right-wing supporters denounced the treaty as socialistic, an effort to build “world government” that threatened U.S. sovereignty and private enterprise, and a “third-world giveaway”.

In the late 1980s, however, negotiations to address Washington’s concerns got underway. They culminated in 1994 with an amended Section 11 that eliminated the technology-transfer provisions and gave Washington effective veto power over the ISA’s major policy decisions. Then-President Bill Clinton signed the treaty shortly afterward.

In the wake of the Republican landslide in Congressional elections that year, however, arch-unilateralist Jesse Helms took over the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Despite repeated urgings over the following years not only by Clinton, but also by some fellow-Republicans, such as Lugar, and the Navy, which has been an UNCLOS supporter from the very beginning, Helms refused to take up the treaty for ratification, arguing that it threatened U.S. national sovereignty and freedom of action.

During his 2000 presidential campaign, George W. Bush had indicated support for the treaty. Faced with persistent right-wing opposition after his election, however, Bush referred the issue to an inter-agency review that was deliberately delayed by opponents, reportedly including Vice President Dick Cheney, former Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld, and some White House political advisers who, among other things, argued that the issue was not sufficiently important to warrant a presidential statement.

“Bush has been supportive pretty much since he took office,” according to Scott Paul, an analyst at Citizens for Global Solutions (CGS), a pro-U.N. lobby group. “The challenge has been to get the words coming out of his mouth.”

In 2004, the Foreign Relations Committee, under Lugar’s chairmanship, voted unanimously to recommend UNCLOS’ ratification to the full Senate. But, with Bush unwilling to speak out, Republican Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist refused to bring it to the floor.

Despite Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s explicit endorsement during her 2005 Senate confirmation hearings, as well as appeals by her predecessor, Colin Powell, and many other former senior Republican cabinet officials, the Senate leadership refused to budge.

“It’s like the Loch Ness monster rising up out of the mist,” complained one far-right senator, Jeff Sessions of Alabama, when the issue was raised that year. “(UNCLOS) is breathtaking in scope. It’s reckless for a great nation like the United States to politely sign on to this.”

That reaction was echoed by Sessions’ ideological soul-mates again this week in anticipation of Bush’s statement.

“Our one million members and supporters across the America will be happy to remind this president and this treaty’s advocates on Capitol Hill that conservatives will not stand for this or any concession of American sovereignty,” said David Keene, president of the American Conservative Union, who called Bush’s position “perplexing (and) dangerous.”

Frank Gaffney, president of the neo-conservative Centre for Security Policy, also warned of serious political consequences if Bush’s endorsement resulted in ratification.

“(It) will win him few friends among his enemies... (and) will, however, cost him dearly among those who have steadfastly supported him, but are dead-set against the Transnational Progressives and their agenda,” he wrote in the Washington Times. “One would think that a man with an approval rating below 30 percent would not be so cavalier with what remains of his base, especially on behalf of so dubious an enterprise...”

But, with a Democratic Congress, a more-realist leadership at the Pentagon, and an energised environmental movement, as well as a more pragmatic Senate Republican leadership, Bush’s endorsement virtually ensures Senate ratification once Biden launches the process.

“President Bush has teed it up,” according to Paul. “All Senator Biden has to do now is swing for the fences. If he does, U.S. ocean and foreign policy will be considerably stronger, and a handful of out-of-touch, ultra-conservative senators will look much, much weaker.”


41 posted on 07/01/2007 9:47:02 AM PDT by Founding Father (The Pedophile moHAMmudd (PBUH---Pigblood be upon him))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 37 | View Replies]

To: Dead Corpse
Yes it will. We’re a Nation of sheep and cheerleaders. The minority of us who aren’t are pretty much screwed.

I agree, I was referring to myself not being fooled again

The next national congressional election, I will be writing in my candidate of choice: "The empty suit"

42 posted on 07/01/2007 9:47:24 AM PDT by Popman (I removed my Bushbot brain chip after he didn't veto the McCain Feingold election anti freedom bill)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 39 | View Replies]

To: Founding Father
I seriously believe it's time to impeach the S.O.B.

My bet is that, since the base turned on him on illegal amnesty, he's going to do some things to get even with us.

He'd have a hard time doing anything if he spent the rest of his time in office in the middle of impeachment hearings.

43 posted on 07/01/2007 9:49:42 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum (Islam is a religion of peace, and Muslims reserve the right to kill anyone who says otherwise.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Founding Father
You’re correct about the Russian claims. I had to excerpt the article and that part was cut out, which was why I asked everyone to read the article. Frankly, Putin is more of a threat than Iran’s Imanutjob.

This claim is older than Putin's time in office. It is just being brought up again (and again and again...)

44 posted on 07/01/2007 9:51:40 AM PDT by thackney (life is fragile, handle with prayer)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 36 | View Replies]

To: Founding Father

It seems to me that W is acting more and more like his father.


45 posted on 07/01/2007 9:53:22 AM PDT by Keflavik76
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: E. Pluribus Unum

Agreed. As I’ve said for months, even though the dhimmicrats would impeach Bush for all the wrong reasons, nevertheless I’d support them because he deserves it for all the right reasons.

Earlier this week I spent considrable time in various airports and over and over again I watched spouses and children crying as their spouse/parent left to go to Iraq. I firmly believe a person who would send moms,dads, brothers, sisters, etc off to be possibly killed or maimed, fighting a so-called war on terror, WHILE AT THE SAME TIME allowing any terrorist that wants to come across the border to bomb us deserves to be impeached, convicted and removed from office.


46 posted on 07/01/2007 9:56:16 AM PDT by Founding Father (The Pedophile moHAMmudd (PBUH---Pigblood be upon him))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 43 | View Replies]

To: Cobra64; WhatIsTruth

i was listening to michael savage a week or two ago and he had on a listener caller who said something like Bush is using reverse pyschology against his enemies as a bluff... and that he is sooooo good at it , that even his supporters can’t tell.

Savage laughed him off his show , saying, “I wish I had you as a friend, i could do no wrong”


47 posted on 07/01/2007 9:56:18 AM PDT by pacelvi
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 38 | View Replies]

To: Founding Father

I’ve written both my senators (Jess Sessions and Richard Shelby) asking that they vote “Nay” on this. Please ask your senators to do the same.


48 posted on 07/01/2007 9:59:57 AM PDT by DesScorp
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Founding Father

That sound that you continue to hear is the scraping of W’s off the back windows of SUVs.


49 posted on 07/01/2007 10:00:04 AM PDT by incredulous joe (Vote for Christian Bagge - www.energizerkeepgoinghalloffame.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Founding Father
Under UNCLOS, now before the Senate, U.S. corporations would be required to pay taxes to an International Seabed Authority for the right to exploit ocean resources, including developing sources of energy for the American people.

The UN being able to tax American corporations, just talking about it will have the bureaucrats at the UN sporting wood.

For anyone that is unaware, the UN has said it would like to get the authority to tax all Americans (individually). How would you like to see that line added to the deducutions on your pay stub? This sea treaty tax is the first (deliberate) step to do just that.

Wanna have some fun? google: UN tax americans. A lot of tin foil hat stuff, but a lot that isn't.

As far as Bush is concerned, he wants to severely erode US sovereignty. There may be a question as to his reasoning. But not the fact that it is his goal.

50 posted on 07/01/2007 10:03:54 AM PDT by ChildOfThe60s (If you can remember the 60s........you weren't really there)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: utherdoul

UN needs to go to Europe where it belongs. Germany would be the perfect place.


51 posted on 07/01/2007 10:04:50 AM PDT by huldah1776 (Worthy is the Lamb.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: himno hero

OK, I’ll bite.

What’s with the double periods between each word?

Is that supposed to mean you are talking like Algore?

Just curious.


52 posted on 07/01/2007 10:05:49 AM PDT by Zman516 (socialists & muslims -- satan's useful idiots.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 18 | View Replies]

To: Founding Father
Yet the Bush Administration is vigorously pushing the Senate to ratify the treaty creating this global socialist entity.




Maybe W ate something he shouldn't have and he has gone mad?

53 posted on 07/01/2007 10:08:06 AM PDT by do the dhue (May God have mercy upon my enemies, because I wont - George S. Patton Jr)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Founding Father
The Tzar signed the treaty, cashed the check, he withdrew his troops and let American troops move in. Didn’t complain about any unpaid interest either.

Sounds like a done deal to me.

The Russians want it, they have to beat us in a war.

54 posted on 07/01/2007 10:09:44 AM PDT by Cheburashka (Occam's razor. It doesn't work 100% of the time, but 99%+ is not too shabby.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Founding Father

Can they get 60 votes to ratify the LOST treaty, I’m not sure they can!


55 posted on 07/01/2007 10:10:45 AM PDT by mdmathis6
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Jimmy Valentine

Israel better stop giving up her land, too.


56 posted on 07/01/2007 10:16:25 AM PDT by huldah1776 (Worthy is the Lamb.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 22 | View Replies]

To: utherdoul

I’m giving serious thought to entering the race for POTUS. My platform would be simple: Get out of the U.N. immediately, and give that band of criminals 30 days to relocate out of our country, seal ALL our borders, stop ALL Muslim immigration, end farm subsidies, bar ALL congressional earmarks, establish a line-item veto for the executive, do whatever it takes to establish the “fair tax”, and pull the broadcasting license of any TV entity that knowingly increases the level of audio volume during commercial breaks. Of course, I would never speak of anything vaguely similar to “new tone”, compassionate conversativism” or “reaching across the aisle”.What say y’all?


57 posted on 07/01/2007 10:17:19 AM PDT by thelastvirgil (Lest ye put all your faith in the government to provide for you, check their track record.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: AliVeritas

Is W a pod person? Paging Kevin McCarthy ...


58 posted on 07/01/2007 10:18:53 AM PDT by sono ("Let's start the Fairness Doctrine with NPR." Dennis Miller)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: o_zarkman44
Other than the WOT, my vote makes me look like a complete idiot!

Sorry, but the Iraq invasion may be the biggest blot on Bush's record, in the history books. Iraq - Saddam - was a bulwark against Iran. Now it's a chaotic hellhole, and 4 million of the people we claimed we were "liberating" have fled the place in terror for their lives because we actually "liberated" the muslim fundamentalists who love sharia law and hate infidels, including sunnis and more moderate muslims. A fine mess Bush set in motion.

59 posted on 07/01/2007 10:23:50 AM PDT by freedomdefender
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: incredulous joe
That sound that you continue to hear is the scraping of W’s off the back windows of SUVs.

At this rate, with his 'decider' moments called into question [Dubai, Miers, Amnesty 2006, Amnesty 2007, Resurrected Amnesty 2007], fewer people will admit voting for him that would admit voting for Nixon in his final days. Maybe Kerry did win after all.
60 posted on 07/01/2007 10:24:01 AM PDT by TomGuy
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 49 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-8081-89 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson