February
28, 2005
Should the UN Be Lord of the Oceans?
By
Patrick Buchanan
"Sovereignty.
The issue is huge. The mere mention of Kofi Annan in the
U.N. caused the crowd to go into a veritable fit. The coalition
wants America strong and wants the American flag flying
overseas, not the pale blue of the U.N."
So
George W. Bush confided to friend Doug Wead before he declared
his candidacy. And, twice, President Bush has acted to defend
U.S. sovereignty against the encroachments of global government.
He
rejected both the International Criminal Court, which would
have ceded power to prosecute U.S. soldiers, and a Kyoto
Treaty that would have subjected our economy to the dictates
of a global EPA.
Which
makes astonishing Bush's apparent support for a Law of the
Sea Treaty that Ronald Reagan rejected as a great leap forward
into global socialism. By 19 to 0, the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee has approved LOST. Unless 34 senators can be rallied
to reject this historic power grab, it will go into effect.
What
would LOST do? A new transnational tribunal, the International
Seabed Authority, would take jurisdiction over 70 percent
of the planet -- all of the oceans' resources, living and
non-living -- as "the common heritage of all mankind."
Companies
seeking to mine or drill the ocean floor would have to pay
a fee and be licensed by ISA, which would set production
quotas and rake off part of the profits for redistribution.
Thus would ISA be given what U.N. bureaucrats have ever
sought, the power to tax. And, unlike the Security Council,
where we have a veto, in ISA, the U.S. veto vanishes.
As
Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy writes,
LOST will dictate the rules for undersea intelligence-gathering
and submerged transit of international waters. The Proliferation
Security Initiative, under which U.S. warships intercepted
WMD materiel headed for Libya, would be superseded.
This
treaty, writes Gaffney, "would constitute the most
egregious transfer of American sovereignty, wealth and power
to the U.N. since the founding of that world body. ... Never
before in the history of the world has any nation voluntarily
engaged in such a sweeping transfer to anyone." Why
would we sign on to this?
Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., says the treaty would give us
a legal right in peace and war to transit all the world's
critical waterways, such as the strategic straits of Malacca
and Hormuz. But if Indonesia or Iran closed either to U.S.
shipping, should global bureaucrats or the U.S. Navy be
more relied upon to secure U.S. rights?
Why
should America pay tribute or taxes for freedom of the seas?
With
its sex scandals and oil-for-food thievery having exposed
the United Nations as a corrupt institution, permeated by
a socialist bias and an anti-American prejudice, why would
any patriot agree to cede authority over the oceans to such
a body?
Has our experience with the World Trade Organization taught
us nothing? There, too, we have no veto. And, again and
again, the WTO has declared U.S. laws in violation of trade
treaties and ordered Congress to rewrite them. Have we not
seen the folly of surrenders of sovereignty to global bureaucrats?
In
her confirmation hearings, Condi Rice was asked by Lugar
if the administration supported LOST. The president "certainly
would like to see it passed as soon as possible," said
Rice. If George W. Bush authorized that statement, writes
Phyllis Schlafly, he "can no longer claim the mantle
of Ronald Reagan's conservative legacy."
Twenty
years ago, Reagan saw this Law of the Sea Treaty for what
it was: a joint scheme of the Soviet Bloc, the Third World
and the United Nations to seize sovereignty over the oceans,
mandate transfers of American technology and get kickbacks
from profits U.S. companies might earn from mining and drilling.
Reagan ordered it deep-sixed.
To
see it dredged up by Republicans is to wonder whether we
care any more about what is happening to American sovereignty.
Since 1944, the institutions of a world government, to which
all nations are to one day be subordinate, have been put
into place. First came the IMF and World Bank, then the
United Nations, WTO, ICC, Kyoto. Globalists in the scores
of thousands, who have no allegiance to any country or cause
other than their own power and self-interest, run these
parasitic agencies that feed off the West and, principally,
the American taxpayer.
For
60 years, power in our own country has been leeched away
from elected legislators by bureaucrats and judges of the
managerial state. So, too, in the world, power is being
leeched away from nations by international civil servants
working with NGOs, "non-governmental organizations,"
that represent special interests.
Together,
they seek to displace nations and one day rule the world.
Yet,
Americans seems indifferent to what is happening. Let it
be said. This Law of the Sea Treaty represents a permanent
loss of national sovereignty. Hence, it is inherently un-American.
Sink it.
Copyright
2005 Creators Syndicate
Send
Today's Article to a Friend
