Posted on 03/04/2004 8:04:55 AM PST by hedgetrimmer
When I first heard of the LOST (Law Of the Sea Treaty), it sounded like a bad plot for a science-fiction movie.
In the '60s and '70s, when the United Nations organized and led a series of conferences on the Law of the Sea, most considered the idea too weird to be taken seriously.
However, this maritime nightmare is about to become a reality.
The LOST was hatched by a group of internationalists who want to give the United Nations control of seven-tenths of the earth's surface area. It creates an International Seabed Authority to regulate the vast oceans and everything that happens beneath these waters, as well as everything that travels above or below their surfaces.
In addition, it would – for the very first time – create a revenue stream for the United Nations and give this onerous international bureaucracy true independence from its member nations.
Under the LOST, the United Nations would have the power to tax any and every type of sea-going vessel, as well as any type of ocean research and exploration. In fact, it would give the United Nations absolute control of these activities.
How would the United Nations exercise this control? It could persuade member nations to provide "seakeepers" to do its bidding. However, if that should fail, with its own revenue stream, the United Nations would be free to recruit and maintain its own standing army of paid international enforcers. Many believe that if you can control the great seas and oceans of the world, you control the world!
President Ronald Reagan was not about to give away the ability we now have to conduct activities in international waters. When Reagan refused to support the LOST, it slipped quietly beneath the waves until 1994, when President Bill Clinton dredged it up and signed it.
However, when the LOST went over to the Senate for ratification, Foreign Relations Chairman Jesse Helms told Clinton to get lost. Clinton was followed by George W. Bush, a president cut from the mold of Ronald Reagan, who was willing to work with the United Nations, but unwilling to be controlled by it. The LOST was gone forever, or so it seemed.
It has recently come to light that some members of the Bush administration have been working behind the scenes with a group of international businessmen who want to resurrect this many-tentacled ocean monster. It likely has something to do with the black gold hidden under the sea
It now appears that its ratification is being pushed by Vice President Dick Cheney, the man who ran Halliburton before being pressed back into public service by President Bush.
Mr. Cheney, say it isn't so!
Many of Cheney's buddies in the oil industry see the LOST as a way to recoup the millions they have been denied by our capitulation to the radical environmentalists, who keep us from drilling in our territorial waters. Understandably, they would like to see some protection for the millions they would like to sink into undersea oil exploration in international waters. They mistakenly see the United Nations as that protection.
Since when has the United Nations – largely is controlled by a pack of socialists or outright dictators and thugs – protected our interests?
Even more troubling, the U.S. Navy is quietly pushing for LOST ratification. The Center for Security Policy correctly states that the treaty effectively prohibits two functions vital to American security: intelligence collection in – and submerged transit of – territorial waters.
Why would the Navy sink under pressure for the LOST?
In the 1990s, following the Tailhook incident, the Navy allowed itself to be bullied by a bunch of finger-wagging, radical feminists. Should we be surprised that the Navy now has allowed itself to be torpedoed by a bunch of over-the-hill guys in business suits?
Unfortunately, the threat from the LOST is real and immediate!
Dick Lugar, the new chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, dutifully carried the water for the administration on the LOST, only allowing proponents to testify at a brief hearing. He is hoping to bring it to the floor for a surprise vote before any opposition can be organized.
Judicial Watch and the Sierra Club sued Mr. Cheney to get the records of what went on behind the closed doors of his Energy Task Force. It must be pretty embarrassing, because Mr. Cheney refused to comply with two lower-court rulings and appealed all the way to the Supreme Court in order to keep those records away from the American people.
Perhaps, just perhaps, it was this battle plan for the LOST.
You could bother to take some of the links heretofore provided and find out where she got her information.
John Kerry’s Treaty - Outsourcing sovereignty
Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. President & CEO, The Center for Security Policy
W's administration has gone out of its way to make fools of the UN, ...
He sure made a monkey out of them with this:
Bush Close to Backing $1 Billion Loan to U.N.
$1.2 billion dollars. Nice bone.
Mr. Gaffney might have good credentials with President Reagan ...
Really good credentials:
In April 1987, Mr. Gaffney was nominated by President Reagan to become the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy, the senior position in the Defense Department with responsibility for policies involving nuclear forces, arms control and U.S.-European defense relations. He acted in that capacity for seven months during which time, he was the Chairman of the prestigious High Level Group, NATO's senior politico-military committee. He also represented the Secretary of Defense in key U.S.-Soviet negotiations and ministerial meetings.From August 1983 until November 1987, Mr. Gaffney was the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Forces and Arms Control Policy under Assistant Secretary Richard Perle. From February 1981 to August 1983, Mr. Gaffney was a Professional Staff Member on the Senate Armed Services Committee, chaired by Senator John Tower (R-Texas). In the latter 1970's, Mr. Gaffney served as an aide to the late Senator Henry M. "Scoop" Jackson (D-Washington) in the areas of defense and foreign policy.
He's a pretty staunch defender of Pres. Bush as well:
Mr. Bush Goes to Baghdad
I guess he just couldn't stand being so credible and knowledgable anymore and decided to start some "black helicopter" stories for kicks and giggles.
To claim without any sort of proof that the VP and the Navy are involved along with the eeeeevil business men and oil companies tends to really turn me off.
Alas, in addition to the wealth redistributors, one-worlders, environmentalists, international lawyers, and the other usual suspects on the Left, the U.S. Navy, the American oil industry and Vice President Cheney currently support LOST.
That is a pretty straight forward statement. If this committee weren't being kept so low-profile it would be easy enough to verify from testimony in their hearings. And if he lied about it just as easy to deny.
Such support appears to be motivated by narrow, parochial, and shortsighted reasons (e.g., the belief that having internationally agreed "rules of the road" for the world's oceans will be good for the respective businesses of the Navy and the deep-sea "oil patch.")Such myopic support is even more grievously misplaced and foolish than that given in 1997 by a powerful trade association — the Chemical Manufacturers Association — to another defective treaty, the Chemical Weapons Convention.
There is the not-at-all sinister motivation that he gives for their support and an example of a previous, similar, situation where self-interest led a corporation to shoot itself in the foot by endorsing a treaty.
You are the one suggesting duplicity not Frank Gaffney.
Law Of The Sea By Dark Of Night By Paul M. Weyrich March 3, 2004
Posted here: Law of The Sea By Dark of Night Posted by kattracks
You should see what I write when I actually am mad. ; )
I'm just challenging your assertions just as you are challenging mine and those of these authors. That's the best a forum can be. Read my postings with the most dispassionate imagined voice you can think of, short of an android, and they will read truer. Really.
These charges are totally out of character of the accused, and outside of some shadowy suggestions, niether Chastain nor Gaffney have anything to back it up.
You see, you are reading these articles as making charges and accusations, I don't see that. I don't see 'shadowy suggestions' I see questions of concern and puzzlement. If this had been written by Maureen Dowd or Bill O'Reilly, verbatim, I would have sh#t canned it as just so much hog slop.
You are right that it needs clarification; somewhere Gaffney has learned that Lugar has rejected opposition testimony so it follows that he learned who testified for this treaty. It would really be nice to know who testified to what and why.
He didn't claim or even hint that he knew what they said. We have a FReeper right here who called Lugar's office and was told "we aren't allowed to comment on that." They could have as easily said "we don't know about that" or "we have no comment on that" but it was the much more intriguing "we aren't allowed ..."
The treaty has passed Senate approval in secret, that is a fact, and no one here, as yet, can find out boo about it. Does that sit well with you? I agree about impeller blades and flying dung, in fact my best guess is that that is inevitable, but I'd sure like to try and stop it.
Yep. I've been saying that for years. The republicans and democrats have merged into one party which I call the Republicrats.
"They don't even try to hide it."
At least not any more. 25-? years or so ago many brave, knowledgeable patriotic Americans did research and found these international "treaties" and tried to bring it forth to the American people, only to be laughed at and called kooks, wacko's, etc.
The CFR (Counsel of Foreign Relations) has been around for many years and the government denied it existed. Now they're in your face on the TV and people still shut their eyes.
When many of these patriotic Americans were talking about CFR,FEMA and its rolls, they were again laughed at. Now the CFR and FEMA is in your face on TV and in the movies. etc.
When I hear people say things like, well I'll vote for the "lesser of two evils" and I point out to them that the "lesser of two evils" is still EVIL , I get this blank stare and comments like, well what are we supposed to do? I tell 'em simple, don't vote for evil in any form.
Instead vote Constitution Party
A vote for "lesser of two evils" is like saying, do I vote for Stalin or Hitler? either one is UNacceptable.
Naturally I hear stuff like, 'well if I don't vote for a rep or dem I'll be wasting my vote'. I say if you do vote repub or dem its definitely a wasted vote. Its a wasted vote for America.
Do you really want to see a change in the government to where it once again becomes OUR government, then don't waste your vote on any Republicrat and vote Constitution Party
FReegards!
Taxation is not possible without the threat of force. The mighty U.N. Navy, I take it, will be the enforcement arm?
If they are fool enough to pass it, we can laugh mockingly at them.
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