Did we elect a Republican Senate last November or didn't we?
We'll find out when the Senate votes on the Chemical Weapons Convention
(CWC). That will be the first important test of whether or not
Republican Senators are willing to stand up for American interests
against the internationalist ploys of Bill Clinton and Madeleine
Albright.
If the most conservative Senate in our generation runs from the
fight and approves this dangerous, anti-American treaty, you can
be assured the Clinton Administration will use it as a prototype
to push other dangerous weapons agreements and UN treaties. Secretary
Albright is already nagging Senators in behalf of Hillary Rodham
Clinton's two favorite treaties, the UN Convention on the Rights
of the Child and the UN Convention on Discrimination Against Women,
both of which are bad news for women, children, parents, taxpayers,
and freedom in America.
Anyoxie who thinks that the CWC will rid the world of chemical
weapons is whistling in the dark. The CWC will actually increase
the danger of chemical attack because it would disarm the United
States while the rogue countries most apt to use chemical weapons,
Iran, Syria, North Korea and Libya, won't sign it and wouldn't
be bound by it if they did.
Russia has signed the CWC, but is considered unlikely to ratify
it unless the U.S. taxpayers fork out billions of dollars in U.S.
aid to pay for the destruction of Russin's vast existing arsenal.
Even then, Russia has a deplorable record of noncompliance with
weapons treaties and, considering the shaky state of its government,
we'd be fools to trust in future compliance.
One of the big problems with this proposed ban on chemical weapons
is that so many chemicals which can be used in weapons are so
widely used for commercial purposes that it's totally impractical
to ban them. If a chemical weapon is not listed, then it can't
be banned or controlled by the treaty. Can we be sure that all
dangerous chemical weapons have already been invented?
A former Soviet chemical weapons scientist, Vil Mirzayanov, boasted
that the Kremlin negotiated loopholes in the treaty so that the
list of controlled chemicals does not include several which Russia
has developed to make chemicals vastly more lethal. That's the
way foreign governments play games with us in writing treaties.
There's absolutely no way that the Uaited States or any treaty
can enforce, or that U.S. intelligence can verify, a worldwide
ban on chemical weapons. Rogue states know that even militarily
significant stockpiles are undectable.
Some CWC advocates assert that the treaty's intrusive inspection
system will help us to know more than we would otherwise know.
In fact, we'll probably know less because other governments will
conceal noncompliance. We live in a world in which the United
States feels bound by treaties but other signatories feel no such
compulsion.
Most CWC proponents acknowledge the treaty's defects but argue
that, on balance, it's still a good idea because it's a step in
the right direction of outlawing dangerous weapons. It's actually
a step in the wrong direction. CWC even obligates the United States
to transfer chemical weapons production and defensive technology
to States like Iran, Cuba, Russia and China.
Like most of the treaties the Clinton Admiuistration wants the
Senate to ratify, it would set up a massive new UN-style international
inspection bureaucracy, which, of course, the U.S. taxpayers will
have to pay for (estimated at $200 million per year). So what
else is new!
To add insult to injury, these newly created UN bureaucrats will
immediately acquire the right to visit any site in the United
States on including factories, government buildings, and even
individual homes. Bye, bye Fourth Amendment when the UN busybodies
force American businesses to submit to searches without either
probable cause or judicially approved search warrants.
Of course, other countries don't have protections like our Fourth
Amendment, so U.S. constitutional rights always get the short
shrift in any treaty.
These inspections will impose a costly burden on U.S. industry.
Some 8,000 U.S. companies would become subject to a host of expensive
new regulations and reporting requirements. U.S. companies also
stand to lose confidential business information from these inspections.
The Clinton Administration is champing at the bit to send the
Senate a whole series of global initiatives designed to give Clinton
prestige and camaraderie among other heads of state, but which
diminish American sovereignty and individual rights. These other
initiatives include imposing global taxes to support the UN, controlling
the world's climate and environment, financing family planning
and housing for foreign countries, international gun cmtrol, giving
the Third World control of our technology to mine the riches of
the seas, and giving UN committee of "experts" the authority
to dictate relationships between men and woman and between parent
and child.
The time and place for the Senate to stand up for Americans is
on the Chemical Weapons Convention.