Should the United Nations Be Lord of the Oceans?

"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 The Proliferation Security Initiative, under which U.S. warships intercepted WMD materiel headed for Libya, would be superseded.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 seem 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.