START Treaty to Bring All National Military Forces Under the Control of the United Nations

Senate Rejects Amendment Blocking New START Treaty

December 18, 2010

New York Times — The Senate on Saturday beat back the most serious Republican effort to block approval of a new arms control treaty with Russia this year, after President Obama reassured lawmakers that it would not constrain American plans to build a missile defense system in Europe.

By a margin of 59 to 37, lawmakers rejected an amendment to strip out language from the treaty preamble that, despite the president’s denial, critics had argued could inhibit missile defense. The White House and Senate Democrats considered the amendment a treaty killer because any change to the text would require the United States and Russia to go back to the negotiating table.

The vote was the first on the substance of the treaty since debate opened last week. Republicans may propose other conditions or statements that would accompany the treaty but not actually alter the pact itself.

Treaty supporters needed only a majority to defeat the amendment but fell short of the two-thirds they will need for final approval, suggesting that they may need to satisfy the concerns of as many as eight senators who voted for the amendment.

The vote came shortly after a letter from Mr. Obama was read in part on the Senate floor reaffirming his support for missile defense. Mr. Obama said the treaty “places no limitations on the development or deployment of our missile defense programs” and dismissed Russian warnings that it might withdraw from the treaty if American plans ultimately evolve into a threat to Russia’s nuclear deterrent.

“Regardless of Russia’s actions in this regard, as long as I am president, and as long as the Congress provides the necessary funding, the United States will continue to develop and deploy effective missile defenses to protect the United States, our deployed forces, and our allies and partners,” Mr. Obama said in the letter.

At issue in Saturday’s vote was an attempt by Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, to delete a clause in the treaty preamble that says the two sides recognize “the interrelationship between strategic offensive arms and strategic defensive arms” and “this interrelationship will become more important as strategic nuclear arms are reduced.”

Obama administration negotiators have said such language was intended as a gesture to Russian concerns about missile defense after American negotiators rejected any meaningful limits in the treaty. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and the nation’s top generals have said the preamble language would not constrain American missile defense.

Mr. McCain said the language could provide an excuse for Russia to later obstruct American plans to deploy missile defense installations in Eastern Europe by threatening to withdraw from the treaty, known as New Start. Russia issued a statement when New Start was signed reserving the right to pull out if it decides missile defense ever undermines its nuclear deterrent.

“Words matter,” Mr. McCain said. “To open ourselves up to this type of political threat by accepting an outdated interrelationship between nuclear weapons and missile defense is wrong.”

He added, “We have handed the Russian government the political tool they have sought for so long to bind our future decisions and actions.”

Senator John Kerry, the Democrat leading the fight for the treaty, said Republicans were making an issue out of phrases that would have no tangible impact.

Mr. Obama’s letter, according to one official, was privately requested by Mr. McCain, among others, to provide assurances to Republicans who want to vote for the treaty without undermining missile defense. Senator George V. Voinovich, an Ohio Republican who had been leaning toward the treaty, said the letter reassured him and that he would now vote yes.

U.S. Senate Gets Going on START

December 16, 2010

The Voice of Russia - The US Senate has launched the process of ratification of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, signed between the US and Russia in April. While the Democrats want to reach the finish as fast as spring runners, their opponents – the Republicans say the Senate has little time for a proper discussion to hold the final vote before Christmas.

At the beginning of the START treaty ratification debates the Democrats voiced President Barack Obama’s position, who said that the document should be ratified before the Christmas holidays. The Republicans replied that the Democrats wanted to push the treaty through and proposed first to read the treaty out loud in full. The idea turned to be ridiculous because such a reading would last 12-15 hours setting a new Guinness Record. That is why that proposal was turned down. However the Republicans expressed intention to make changes in the agreement and the resolution on its ratification. According to Vladimir Yevseyev, the head of the Russian non-governmental Center of Social and Political Studies, this is very dangerous for the content of the treaty.

"Russia is concerned with the amendments, which may be introduced by the Republicans because they can remove many of the achievements contained in the Treaty the two presidents signed in Prague. Firstly, this concerns the definition of the missile defense system. In this case the Russian lawmakers will have to accept the treaty with amendments. This is the most vulnerable point in the development of the US-Russian relations in the field of reduction of strategic offensive arms."

The US Democrats say that amendments will kill the treaty. The treaty’s ratification requires its approval by at least 67 of 100 senators. To do this, the Democrats must win the support of at least nine Republicans. That’s the number of Republicans who spoke for the ratification in the beginning but it does not mean that all of them will support the treaty during the final vote. Now even the senators do not known when the final vote will take place. A source with Russia’s Foreign Ministry told the “Voice of Russia” that the senators won’t leave for the Christmas holidays and the debates will continue next week. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said that Moscow is watching the development of the dispute.

"We would like to hope that the efforts, which have been made not only by the US administration but also by many other US officials and politicians, including the members of former administrations, will be successful."

In his interview with the “Voice Of Russia”, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov confirmed that Moscow is ready to fulfill the commitment on simultaneous ratification of the treaty with the US. The ratification of the treaty in the Russian parliament won’t meet any obstacles unless there are some which are put by the US lawmakers, the minister said.

There will be no date, no particular point in history where you can say, “On this date, the New World Order was ushered in.” To a very large extent, we’re already in it. We’ve been in it for a long, long time. What they’re really doing is just building the walls a little bit at a time with the passage of each day, and we’re in it. We will never be able to say, “Gee, it started on this date.” If there was to be a date that historians might want to put on the arrival of this monster, I suppose it would be the date on which all of the nations of the world surrendered control over their money and over their military, because those are the two legs on which national sovereignty stands. If you’ve got a strong military and a strong money system, you’re a sovereign nation. If you don’t have those things, you’re nothing. You’re just a territory that is controlled by someone who does have strong money or a strong military. So we’re very close to the surrender of our money right now. I suppose that would be a date that historians might choose for the crossover point. - G. Edward Griffin, Restore the Republic's Reality Report, May 17, 2009

Flashback: Beware Santa's Secret Legislation

Originally Published on December 24, 2009

Clarington Fund - It’s no secret this time around, but once again we see the unseemly prospect of a select group of key legislators staying up all night and delaying their Christmas break long enough to muscle-through some controversial legislation before the close of the year. In doing so, they are continuing a grand tradition. December 23 or 24 has been a great time to pass controversial laws, while nobody’s watching too closely. Here are a few examples of legislative skullduggery enacted on December 23 or 24 in history:

• On December 23, 1975: President Ford signed the Metric Conversion Act, still a controversial law, and still widely ignored 34 years later.


• On December 23, 1982: Congress passed an unpopular five-cent-per-gallon Gas Tax increase, on the premise that nobody would notice the nickel, or the secret vote.

While those items might seem trivial and harmless in the rear-view mirror, some of the worst legislation in American history was also hatched on Christmas Eve:

• On December 24, 1827, a group of Congressmen under the control of Andrew Jackson drafted a tariff bill so outrageously protectionist that it was later dubbed “The Tariff of Abominations.” It didn’t pass until the next Spring, but it had the intended outcome of helping Jackson oust John Q. Adams in the 1828 election -- and alienating the South.


• On December 23, 1913, Congress passed the Federal Reserve Act, President Woodrow Wilson’s economic initiative for the creation of a national bank to match those in Europe. President Wilson quietly signed the Federal Reserve into existence on Christmas Eve, while most of the press was on holiday break, ignoring the epochal news.


• And on December 24, 2009, a massive new healthcare bill is likely to pass, one for which the recent head of the Democratic Party, Howard Dean, said that he would NOT vote.

At the New Orleans Investment Conference in October, I had a chance to meet and interview Howard Dean. He seemed like a reasonable, honest, candid man, unlike the media image I’d seen before. That’s why I was not surprised when he wrote last Thursday:

“In Washington, when major bills near final passage, an inside-the-Beltway mentality takes hold. Any bill becomes a victory. Clear thinking is thrown out the window for political calculus. In the heat of battle, decisions are being made that set an irreversible course for how future health reform is done. The result is legislation that has been crafted to get votes, not to reform health care. …I reluctantly conclude that, as it stands, this bill would do more harm than good to the future of America.”

But rather than share a partisan stand on the current sausage of new laws and regulations, I want to use the rest of this column to take a closer look at the mistaken rush to create the Fed in 1913 . . .

Read More...