Signing away sovereignty

Ed Lasky
Americans concerned about the decline of American power under the presidency of Barack Obama should turn their radar on and keep it on. We should be aware that Obama intends to roll out for Senate approval a series of international treaties that will further bind America to the will of the international community if they are ratified. Bit by bit, America's autonomous power is being taken away. The Boston Globe provides a public relations gloss by calling these treaties a means of fulfilling "Obama's vision of global cooperation." This is one view, I suppose. Another view would be that our policies will be tied down by these treaties -- and we will be judged by international bureaucrats and held to their interpretation of what our obligations are under the treaties.

Bryan Bender in the Boston Globe:

President Obama's vision of global cooperation - symbolized by his surprise Nobel Peace Prize - is in for a crucial test in the months ahead when he begins sending a series of treaties to the U.S. Senate, where skepticism among Republicans and some Democrats will make approval exceedingly difficult, according to government officials and specialists. [...]

... the Obama administration says it will seek ratification of three major pacts aimed at reducing nuclear weapons. It also will seek approval of a set of regulations to manage use of the oceans and, by the end of the president's first term, a new treaty to combat global climate change. [...]

"I think he is going to have a real fight on his hands,'' said Steven Groves, a specialist in international law at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington think tank.


International treaties require only Senate approval. The "People's House" has no say and no sway. While Obama's treaty agenda may be challenging, it is not insurmountable, especially when the full court press begins with the media, activist groups, and others in the Obama "we are the world" perspective; they never come up for approval in the House of Representatives.

Obama will begin with treaties designed to achieve his vision of a world without nuclear weapons. But that is just the beginning. Efforts will begin to bind America to the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (setting guidelines for countries' use of the world's oceans, including economic activities and the protection of maritime resources). This will hurt our nation's ability to mine the world's seas for oil and gas, and other resources.

Instead of capitalizing on America's technological strength in these areas (some of it created with our dollars) to tap these resources for our benefit, America will be subject to the dictates of U.N. bureaucrats regarding how these resources can be developed.

Our national security and economic security depends on our access to strategic raw materials, and we will face overseers in the form of U.N.-style bureaucrats. We know how friendly they are to America.

But wait, there's more: treaties subjecting us to the desires of climate change advocates will follow. There was a reason Bill Clinton signed the Kyoto Protocol but never dared to submit it to the Senate for approval. He knew it would fail. But that was then; this is now.

Gun control treaties, perhaps under the guise of small arms trade treaties, will certainly be in Obama's queue.

Once in place, treaties will lock America in. They are rarely broken, and countries, including America, rarely withdraw from them. Even if America later were able to withdraw from treaties, permanent harm already will have occurred.

Expect Obama and his minions to attempt to Rahm through these types of treaties in the Senate.

These international treaties will have domestic consequences that could be massive. But we should know by now that radical change in America is what Barack Obama desires the most. If he can get the world community on his side, he will be that much closer to his, and their own, goals.

Abdullah Baali, the Ambassador to the United States from Algeria and a former U.N. official, is of the opinion that "it is absolutely essential that the U.S. ratify these treaties." That should be a warning flag for Americans. President Obama wants to outsource our policy to the international community, refuses to use our strength and talent to protect the American interest, and is determined to weaken America in the years ahead.

Obama clearly sees American power, in and of itself, as evil. We have seen this attitude displayed in his countless apologies for so called American transgressions over the years before the Obama Presidency. Obama is trying to force America into an unprecedented, massive makeover to please the international bureaucrats whose approval and acclaim he so desperately craves.

Obama does not view Uncle Sam as symbolizing America (especially the Uncle Sam that is accompanied by exhortations to defend our country); rather he views Gulliver as the ideal symbol of our nation: a giant who blunders about, causing harm and damage, and who must be restrained by the Lilliputians of the world.

We should know by now that our Academic in Chief wants to pass the global test made famous by Senator John Kerry (now the head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, alternative Secretary of State, and the man who will shepherd these treaties through the Senate).

Having won the highest office in the land by saying things that pleased the necessary groups, now he has set off to please the so-called international community -- and particularly those foreign leaders who disdain America and what we represent.

No wonder he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize: the far-left wing Norwegian judges gave him a nice pat on his head for passing their test with flying colors -- albeit not the red, white and blue ones.

Ed Lasky is news editor of American Thinker.

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