Wes Vernon, NewsMax.com
Monday, March 15, 2004

With little warning or opportunity for opponents to testify, Chairman Richard Lugar, R-Ind., on Feb. 25 rammed the Law of the Sea Treaty through the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

A spokesman for the senator told NewsMax the committee “looked around” and “couldn’t find” opponents of the treaty to testify at its hearings last October. Free Congress Foundation CEO Paul Weyrich, a veteran of Capitol Hill who, in a manner of speaking, knows where the political bodies are buried, compares the committee’s passage “without warning” to a “midnight-style raid.”

Now that the measure has been publicized, well-informed opposition is coming from many directions. Not every senator is about to roll over for this. For example, Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., is very concerned.

President Reagan deep-sixed the measure way back in 1982 because he saw it as a threat to our security and our sovereignty.

But these globalist schemes never die. Security experts are alarmed.

Frank Gaffney, CEO of the Center for Security Policy, in an interview with NewsMax.com, notes the Law of the Sea Treaty, or LOST, was drafted before and without regard to the War on Terror.

For starters, he says President Bush’s new Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) would be endangered. Already communist China has cited LOST to protest PSI maritime interdiction and boarding of suspect vessels.

Collecting intelligence in and submerged transit of territorial waters would be prohibited.

Aiding the Enemy

Nations committed to the treaty are required to share information that Gaffney says could be used by our enemies to facilitate attacks on this country. Detailed imagery of underwater access routes and off-shore hiding places are cited as possibilities.

Obligatory transfers of technology, he says, would equip adversaries or potential adversaries with sensitive and militarily useful equipment and know-how, including anti-submarine warfare technology.

Sen. Lugar’s spokesman told NewsMax that those who now oppose the Law of the Sea Treaty were using outdated 20-year-old information and that certain understandings or “side agreements” have met the serious concerns of the opposition.

If one looks carefully at some of the statements before Lugar’s committee in October, serious reservations are found among the midlevel officials who appeared.

The testimony of Adm. Michael G. Mullen, vice chief of naval operations, is shot through with concerns. While endorsing the document, he says the following:

“With respect to the dispute settlement provisions, the administration intends to exempt military activities from those provisions. Notwithstanding our exemption, it is conceivable that a tribunal could assert its jurisdiction over what we believe is a military activity, such as military surveys. If a tribunal did so, and if it issued an adverse ruling, then such a ruling could have an impact on operational and planning activities, and our security.”

He goes on to express intent to “retain sufficient flexibility to protect U.S. interests.”

Gaffney, a high Defense Department official in the Reagan administration, believes side agreements (drafted during the Clinton administration) or good intentions voiced by the admiral are little more than hope or wishful thinking.

A side agreement, he told NewsMax, “has no standing.” The treaty is what it is, regardless of side agreements, reservations or intentions.

As Henry Lamb, founding chairman of Sovereignty International, put it, “All the reasons the treaty was rejected by Ronald Reagan 22 years ago still exist.”

Government witnesses such as Adm. Mullen invoked the administration in backing the treaty.

NewsMax, however, has good reason to believe that President Bush has, at best, a minimum of enthusiasm for the treaty, or at least some of its provisions. That apparently was reflected in Adm. Mullen’s comments.

Thus far, we have dealt only with the national security problems in the Law of the Sea treaty. Other concerns about sovereignty deal with regulation, judicial interference, the U.N.’s never-ending quest for a worldwide tax, and more. We will discuss them later.

Editor's note: