President Bush tells base to "get LOST"

Center for Security Policy ^ | May 10, 2007 | CSP Decision Brief

[upchuck]

The Law of the Sea Treaty will impede the U.S.'s ability to defend its interests in time of war.

President Bush is expected shortly to announce his determination to secure the early ratification of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, better known as the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST).  This treaty, which was rejected by President Ronald Reagan and bottled up by the Republican Senate in the last Congress, promises further to weaken the President's already plummeting support among his political base, on and off of Capitol Hill.

LOST has long been the crown-jewel of a community known as the transnational progressives ("transies") found in various quarters of this and foreign governments, international bureaucrats and non-governmental organizations.   The transies seek to have supranational institutions govern world affairs, circumscribing the freedom of action and undermining the sovereignty of the American people and those of other freedom-loving nations.  

The Bush Administration's strong enthusiasm for subjecting this country to such an accord compounds concerns about its penchant for other Transie initiatives, including the North American Union/Security and Prosperity Partnership (NAU/SPP) now being stealthily negotiated between U.S., Canadian and Mexican officials and interest groups.

A Bill of Particulars

Among the problems inherent with the Law of the Sea Treaty are the following:

• U.S. ratification of LOST would give real substance to the supranational organization it established, the International Seabed Authority, an entity charged with governing activity on 2/3 of the earth's surface. The Authority (as it is ominously known) has powers unprecedented in the history of multilateral institutions – for example, the power to levy what amount to international taxes, with the intention of transferring wealth from developed nations, like the United States, to the developing ones.
  
  
• LOST has its own court – called the Law of the Sea Tribunal – that will be able to dictate to this country on a host of matters bearing on our security, our sovereignty and our economic well-being.  The United States may not even be represented on this politicized, multinational court, let alone be able to prevent its adverse rulings.   For similar reasons, the Bush Administration has wisely worked to keep its interests and officials out of the clutches of another such panel, the International Criminal Court.
  
  
• The Law of the Sea Tribunal determines its own jurisdiction.  It is reasonable to expect that it will feel free to assert authority over U.S. naval activities that: allegedly affect whales; involve intelligence and submerged operations in territorial waters; and attempt to prevent terrorist attacks and proliferation by stopping and searching ships on the high seas.  The Tribunal has already claimed jurisdiction over a nuclear power plant ashore in Great Britain!
  
  
• LOST would oblige the United States to transfer possibly militarily significant technology and information to the UN's International Seabed Authority and its member states, including possibly America's adversaries.   This could result in the compromise of technologies that could be used, for example, in anti-submarine warfare and will afford them data (detailed imagery of underwater access routes, off-shore hiding places, etc.) that could be used to facilitate attacks on this country.  It is not consistent with either American principles or interests to provide enemies with tools to use against us.
  
  

• LOST is emboldening Communist China to become ever more aggressive , threatening regional and global security and economic interests.  China has used its own interpretation of LOST to assert control over much of the South China Sea in its quest for access to vast quantities of natural resources, potentially sparking conflict with its neighbors.  In addition, China has expressed its willingness to use LOST as a legal mechanism to prohibit other countries from coming to Taiwan's defense in the event that the mainland decides to attack the island.
  
  
• LOST sets a dangerous precedent that could be used to deny the U.S. "freedom of space."  Just as American naval power has assured and safeguarded "freedom of the seas" for many decades, this country's ability to have assured access to and use of space is vital for both our own national security and commercial interests and those of the Free World.  Adversaries recognize this reality, and as with the Law of the Sea Treaty and our planet's oceans, they are attempting to inhibit our dominant position in and control of space through the imposition of international laws and regulations.   LOST will be a model for a new multilateral regime to govern the last so-called "global commons": outer space.

The Bottom Line

One would think that the last thing President Bush needs at the moment is to alienate those who have stood beside him – through thick and thin – as he has striven to do the hard things needed to protect the security and (to a lesser extent) the sovereignty of the United States.  He is unlikely to get much credit from the transnational progressives, who detest him, for this concession to their agenda.  His embrace of that agenda, however, puts at grave risk the support the Administration could otherwise expect, and will certainly need, from those who have admired him and oppose what the transies have in mind for America.

[B4Ranch]

>The notion that any kind of international court or tribunal would have the ability to enforce anything at all against the U.S. is rather silly<

Are we not listening to the World Court these days? Yes, we are and the World Court will rule that we signed the treaty so we must obey it.

Get away from thinking that just because we are powerful today we will be powerful and independent tomorrow.

[Regulator]

Just for grins, maybe you could learn the origin of the political use of the word "Isolationism" in the United States.

It referred to the reluctance of the U.S. to engage in European wars, and was only peripherally about "free trade".

Mr. Bush likes to sling the word around in that context, but in so doing, he is banking on the history challenged like yourself to swallow the line, and not worrying about the rest of us who do remember it in the original context.

BTW, if you're enamored of the politics and social nature of foreign countries, and not this one, no one's stopping you from moving.

[.30Carbine]

BTW, if you're enamored of the politics and social nature of foreign countries, and not this one, no one's stopping you from moving.

Preach it.

[PghBaldy]

Someone once said that the power to tax was the power to destroy.

[Cacique]

btt

[.30Carbine]

Taxation without representation is pure evil.