At issue is the U.N. Law of the Sea Treaty or LOST

At issue is the U.N. Law of the Sea Treaty or LOST

http://www.planetnetopia.com/forum/topics/id_3/

GOP in sneak move to Pass UN treaty
Critics say ‘Law of the Sea’ would cripple defense, help terrorists

A United Nations treaty awaiting confirmation before the Senate,
national security experts warn, would, if approved, cripple the U.S.
Navy, empower potential enemies including China, make the nation
vulnerable to submarine cruise-missile attack, and help terrorists.

Nonetheless, momentum has been building stealthily in the Senate to
ratify the treaty. And this time Republicans can’t point fingers at
their liberal Democratic colleagues or even at the former Clinton
administration.

The culprits behind the sneak move, Capitol Hill sources say, are
senior Republican senators and key figures in the administration of
President Bush.

At issue is the U.N. Law of the Sea Treaty, or LOST, which has been
in the works since the 1970s, when the Soviet Union and the so-
called Non-Aligned Movement tried to use the United Nations to wrest
control of the seas from the United States and its allies.

Under LOST, a global U.N. agency called the International Seabed
Authority, or ISA, would take control of the world’s oceans, seven-
tenths of the earth’s surface. The ISA would not be accountable to
dues-paying members but would be a self-financing entity imposing a
tax on countries that exploit natural resources on the ocean floor.

In 1982, President Ronald Reagan refused to sign the treaty,
officially called the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Seas,
UNCLOS. But President Bill Clinton signed it in 1994, claiming that
provisions that attack U.S. interests had been changed, and asked
the Senate to ratify it.

The Republican-controlled Senate sat on it. Today, Senate Foreign
Relations Committee Chairman Richard Lugar, R-Ind., has been quietly
but forcefully pushing LOST through the ratification process under a
sense of priorities that mystifies some of his colleagues.

Lugar’s committee has given LOST precedence over consideration of
other pending international agreements to fight weapons
proliferation and terrorism. In October 2003 the liberal Republican
held two days of hearings and permitted only treaty supporters to
testify.

After a State Department official working on the Senate staff
drafted the resolution of ratification, Senate sources tell Insight,
the committee “refused” to provide other Senate armed services and
intelligence committees with the text and opposed a State Department
briefing sought by an Intelligence Committee staffer.

Without listing names of those present, the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, by unanimous consent, advised passage of the treaty.
Senate sources say proponents planned to bring LOST before the full
Senate without debate for a voice vote that would have shielded
lawmakers from certain public wrath.

State Department officials and Vice President Dick Cheney say they
support the treaty because it provides an international legal,

More?

http://www.planetnetopia.com/forum/topics/id_3/

__________________
“All great truths begin as blasphemies.”

You know your worth when your enemies praise your architecture of
aggression.

Take Action, Make a Call.
Ask for any rep you want too.
202/224-3121