Jeane Kirkpatrick Denounces U.N.'s Power Grab for Seas and Sky
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Reprinted from NewsMax.com
Wes Vernon, NewsMax.com
Thursday, April 8, 2004WASHINGTON – Former U.N. ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick told a Senate hearing today that the Law of the Sea Treaty threatened America’s sovereignty and interests not only on the high seas but in the air and outer space as well.
“Absolutely!” the Reagan administration official responded when the issue was raised by Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., who advanced the debate to new ground by noting that air travel involved motion above the seas that cover most of Earth’s surface.
State Department Counsel William Howard Taft IV confirmed Inhofe’s interpretation of the treaty’s reach “over and under the water.” Kirkpatrick went a step further and said space exploration could be affected as well.
Appearing Thursday before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Kirkpatrick testified she was “surprised” the widely hailed 1994 amendments to LOST “did not alter” the treaty’s threat to U.S. rights to make decisions in its own interests without foreign interference.
That runs counter to the claims of the treaty's advocates that the 1994 alterations took care of President Ronald Reagan’s objections in 1982. Twelve years later, President Bill Clinton was hoping for Senate ratification, but the voters altered that script when they put Republicans in control of Congress.
Those amendments during the Clinton administration and the tenure of his Secretary of State Madeleine Albright “have an uncertain legal status [separate] from the treaty itself,” according to Kirkpatrick. She noted other nations could put their own interpretations on them.
More Bad News at the Gas Pump
Moreover, she told the senators, and by extension an entire nation getting a nasty dose of sky-high gasoline prices, that one of President Reagan’s concerns about LOST back in the 1980s was that it “could encourage the proliferation of OPEC,” which just this year announced it was cutting oil production. That in turn threatens even higher gasoline prices for the summer vacation season and could slow the economic recovery.
Taft and Adm. Vernon Clark, chief of naval operations, told the hearing that U.S. sovereignty was not threatened because this nation could “opt out” of the treaty any time it chose to do so.
Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., dismissed that argument by noting “chances of doing that are very slim.” No doubt the lawmaker was thinking of President Bush’s decision that the U.S. would “opt out” of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. That rare action came only after an international uproar of unprecedented proportions, even though the only other signatory to the ABM Treaty, the Soviet Union, didn't even exist anymore.
Adm. Clark said he “fully supports" LOST because it would enable to U.S. to be in a position of leadership “to shape the future” in dealing with the treaty's signatories, would provide us with the necessary tools to protect the American people and their maritime interests, would enable him to “go where I need to go to operate the Navy,” and would make it possible to challenge nations so as to “keep us from needlessly putting them [sailors] in harm’s way.”
Kirkpatrick, Inhofe and others disputed these claims, which they said ignored the loopholes and the threats to U.S. security.
China's Role
One of the interested parties to the treaty, Liyu (Laurie) Wang, first secretary of the Chinese Embassy, attended the hearing as an observer. She told NewsMax.com her government was hoping the U.S. would “sign up” so that all nations could have a standard for settling disputes. Communist China has cited LOST to challenge the U.S. right to interdict a ship approaching its shores that it regards as “suspicious.”
Committee Chairman John Warner, R-Va., though favoring the Law of the Sea Treaty, was respectful of those with opposing views, unlike his tantrum two weeks ago at another hearing on LOST. That session was conducted by Sen. Inhofe’s Committee on Environment and Public Works.
Armed Services, in fact, is the third Senate panel to examine this highly controversial treaty. The Foreign Relations Committee, under the chairmanship of Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., rammed through approval of the document with no testimony from opponents.
And it might not be the last committee to consider the document either. Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., a member of Warner’s panel, said the Senate Select Intelligence Committee, of which he is chairman, might also hold its own hearing. “That very well may he in order,” he told his colleagues.
Editor's note:
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