'Will Rudy Help Sink the U.N. Sea Treaty?'
By Cliff Kincaid (11/01/07)
As someone who covered the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s consideration of the U.N.'s Law of the Sea Treaty, I have to report that the experience has been an ugly one. Our major media have been intentionally AWOL from the debate, aiding and abetting the liberal scheme to quickly ratify the dangerous measure. If they had attended and covered the hearings, they would have reported that committee chairman Senator Joseph Biden and his Republican sidekick, the hapless Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana, have done their best to keep information about the major flaws in this treaty away from public view. The treaty gives the U.N. unprecedented power over our domestic and economic policies and relations with foreign countries. It creates tribunals and courts to dictate our conduct on the high seas and an International Seabed Authority to govern access to oil, gas and minerals.
On a matter as momentous as a treaty, which becomes the Supreme Law of the Land when ratified, Biden, Lugar & Company and the major media have collaborated to conceal vital information from the American people. But there is still time to avert a major catastrophe for the nation.
Despite the 17-4 vote in favor of the treaty in the committee, Senate Republican leaders have vowed to stop it on the Senate floor.
In a major surprise, Biden actually showed up for Wednesday’s committee vote and didn’t submit a proxy ballot; he had skipped the only two hearings on the treaty which had been held, asking other Democrats to fill in as chairman. The witnesses in those hearings had been stacked 9-2 in favor. A day before the committee vote, Biden pulled off what he thought was a zinger during the Democratic presidential debate when he said about Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani that “there’s only three things he mentions in a sentence: a noun and a verb and 9/11.”
Giuliani showed his fighting spirit by issuing a statement in response about Biden’s history of plagiarism. Giuliani Communications Director Katie Levinson declared, “Senator Biden’s comments were of particular interest. The good Senator is quite correct that there are many differences between Rudy and him. For starters, Rudy rarely reads prepared speeches and when he does he isn’t prone to ripping off the text from others. And, Senator Biden certainly falls into the bucket of those on the stage tonight who have never had executive experience and have never run anything. Wait, I take that back, Senator Biden has never run anything but his mouth.”
Whatever you may think of Giuliani’s positions on social or economic issues, one has to admire his willingness to take on the snake-like Biden. Giuliani understands the bankruptcy of the Democratic Party on foreign policy issues. He knows that it is a party that doesn’t seem willing anymore to put America first.
Yet Biden is one of the Democrats’ premier spokesmen on foreign policy issues. Of course, he has enablers in the Republican Party such as Lugar and Senator Chuck Hagel, both members of the Foreign Relations Committee.
Drummed out of the 1988 Democratic race for president for ripping off a political speech from a British politician, Biden obviously didn’t come up with his quip about Giuliani on his own. He probably didn’t read the treaty he voted for. His bill on violence against women, as Accuracy in Media has demonstrated, was largely written by a staffer but the Senator usually took sole credit for it.
It is an embarrassment for the Democrats that he is even in the presidential race (again) and an embarrassment for our country that he runs a Senate committee that passes judgment on treaties. Giuliani deserves plaudits for alluding to this fact.
But here’s where Giuliani can do some more good. He was the last major Republican presidential candidate to come out against the Law of the Sea Treaty. This move was not without controversy because at least one of his foreign policy advisers—former State Department Legal Adviser Abraham Sofaer—is a backer of the measure. Now we need Giuliani and his campaign to show the same fire they directed at Biden against the treaty itself. Considering his impressive showing among Republicans in national opinion polls, Giuliani has the clout necessary to play a significant role in sinking this treaty. There is no issue more important to the nation. He must be made to understand this. If he does not move on the national level to attack the Law of the Sea Treaty, just as vociferously as his campaign has taken on Biden, people will conclude that his statement against the treaty was just red meat to conservatives.
In order to defeat the treaty on the Senate floor, the Republicans need 34 votes. Six Republicans on the committee voted for it. They were Senators Lugar, George Voinovich, Chuck Hagel, Bob Corker, John Sununu, and Lisa Murkowski. Four Republicans voted against it. They were Senators David Vitter, Jim DeMint, Norm Coleman, and Johnny Isakson. So that means the Senate Republicans have to find another 30 votes from Senate Republican ranks. It would be easier to do so if the Republican presidential candidates, especially Giuliani, made a big issue out of it.
On the positive side, sensing the growing concern about sovereignty issues among Republican voters and the public generally, all of the Senate’s top Republicans, including Leader Mitch McConnell, are against it. Senator Jon Kyl has stated flat-out that there are not enough votes to pass it. That must mean he believes they have—or can get—the votes to kill it. This is a big test for the Republican Party as it enters a critical election year. But what role will Giuliani play in the most historic vote of our lifetimes?
Will Giuliani fight the Law of the Sea Treaty in the same way that his campaign has aggressively highlighted the flaws of Joe Biden? This is the critical issue that confronts his campaign and time is running out. The treaty could come up for a Senate vote at any time.
Biden is not the real problem or target. He is just a bit player in the unfolding drama that threatens to envelop our national sovereignty. He is a tool of global special interests that want to submerge U.S. sovereignty in what some call a New World Order.
Conservatives will be waiting to see if Giuliani is willing to highlight the big picture—and rally the American people in a campaign to protect our survival as a free and sovereign nation.
Cliff Kincaid
http://www.aim.org/aim_column/5870_0_3_0_C/
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