Watch President Bush at Heritage Thursday
October 31, 2007 | By Nathaniel Ward
Featured video
Steven Groves makes the case that the Law of the Sea Treaty is bad for America. |
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President George W. Bush will give an important speech at The Heritage Foundation about the global war on terror on Thursday, Nov. 1.
This event is at capacity, and no additional seating remains to watch in person.
President Bush last spoke to Heritage Foundation members at the May 2003 President’s Club meeting. President Reagan also spoke several times to Heritage audiences while in office; you can watch the videos of these addresses on MyHeritage.org.
International bureaucrats ahoy!
The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea is once again up for consideration in the Senate—and it poses as much a threat to American interests as it did when Ronald Reagan opposed it a quarter century ago.
Watch the video: Heritage’s Steven Groves explains the consequences of the treaty.
Known as the Law of the Sea or LOST, the treaty would give a United Nations-like organization the final say over 70 percent of the planet’s surface. It could empower international bureaucrats to:
- Control our nation’s shipping lanes;
- Impede our military’s ability to gather intelligence about nations like Iran and North Korea;
- Hamper our country’s right to exploit the ocean’s abundant natural resources—resources like fisheries or the oil reserves that can help move us towards energy independence; and
- Lay the groundwork for a backdoor Kyoto Protocol-style global warming treaty and thereby impose harmful economic controls on our nation.
Read a roundup of all Heritage Foundation research on the treaty, including Ed Meese’s look at Ronald Reagan’s objections and the top five reasons conservatives should be wary of LOST.
Why do environmentalists oppose nuclear power?
Couched in language of “environmental justice,” the agenda pushed by radical environmentalists “would deny Americans, especially the poorest Americans, access to one of the cleanest, most secure and economically stable sources of energy available today,” Heritage expert Jack Spencer writes.
Take our poll: How can America meet its energy needs?
Spencer points out that building windmills and other environmentalist-approved energy sources can consume more resources and cause more pollution than building nuclear power plants. And he debunks other liberal distortions about nuclear energy, including concerns about security from terrorists, radioactive waste and high cost. In fact, he argues that “nuclear energy is among the least expensive energy sources today.”
Nuclear energy, he concludes, “is the only realistic and affordable option” if we’re to meet environmentalists’ goals of controlling carbon dioxide. And he notes that “nuclear technology provides the world an opportunity to make its energy profile less fossil-fuel-centric.”
Counter-terror agents need the right tools
In order to protect the United States and combat terrorism, the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act must allow for the surveillance of suspects outside the U.S. without a warrant, Heritage Vice President Michael Franc argues.
But liberals in Congress want to mandate warrants and similar handicaps on overseas intelligence collection. One proposal, Franc notes, “would limit the type of foreign intelligence that may be acquired without court approval.”
Under the old system of FISA regulations, government agents spent critical hours obtaining permission to conduct essential surveillance. For example, a nine-hour delay in securing “emergency” permission may have cost the lives of three servicemen held hostage in May 2007. All three servicemen were executed. While it’s unclear if faster monitoring would have saved them, the delays didn’t help.
As communication technologies have advanced, FISA lagged behind, opening legal gaps in surveillance law. “The intelligence gap at issue,” Franc explains, “apparently arose when a special federal court charged with reviewing matters involving national security secretly interpreted the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to require a warrant for any electronic surveillance of persons outside the U.S. if their electronic communications might be routed through the U.S.”
—Colin Gowan
A knighthood for Kofi Annan?
What can you get with a reputation that includes the Oil-for-Food scandal, failure to act in the face of ethnic and religious genocide, and undermining the war in Iraq? If you were former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, you’d get an honorary knighthood from the Queen of England.
In an article on National Review Online, Heritage foreign policy expert Nile Gardiner questions Annan’s fitness for such an honor.
“Few international figures are less deserving of an honorary knighthood bestowed by the queen of England than former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan,” writes the director of Heritage’s Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom. The corruption that festered under Annan’s “leadership” and his refusal to act as hundreds of thousands of people were slaughtered in Darfur are hardly traits meriting such praise and recognition.
Gardiner proposes that a future British administration withdraw the knighthood, bestowed last week. “Knighthoods are associated with chivalry, sacrifice, and extraordinary public service, none of which apply to the former U.N. leader.”
—Colin Gowan
In other news
- Just in time for Halloween, Iowa’s government is imposing a new tax on pumpkins. If Iowans want to eat their pumpkins (in a pie, for instance), the gourds would be considered a tax-exempt food—but only after the appropriate bureaucratic forms are filled out.
- Are we in a recession, as many on the Left would have you believe? Not according to the latest economic figures, which show the strong 3.8 percent growth in the second quarter bested by the 3.9 percent growth in the third. News reports say domestic investment was a key reason for the growth—and it’s exactly this sort of investment that would be curbed by liberal tax-hike plans.
- A telling article in Britain’s Telegraph reveals the depths to which that nation’s government-run health program has fallen: “Record numbers of Britons are flying abroad for medical treatment to escape NHS waiting lists and the rising threat of hospital superbugs.”
- American military casualties in Iraq have fallen from 120 in May to 23 so far this month. For all the latest on Iraq, visit Heritage’s Progress in Iraq page.
- Congress has finally extended the moratorium on Internet access taxes. The earlier ban was set to expire Nov. 1.
- Rising prices for barley and hops could drive up the cost of beer “as more farmers plant corn to meet increasing demand for ethanol.” And what’s one major reason so much grain is being used for ethanol? Government mandates and subsidies.
- A Spanish court convicted three men of plotting the 2004 Madrid train bombings, but the plot’s suspected mastermind was let off.
- A news article alleges that America is “falling behind” because some countries have more homes hooked up to high-speed Internet connections. Leaving aside potential problems with the statistics, the article also reports that Americans may not want high speed access at home in the first place, since they “don’t see fast Internet access as an essential part of modern life, and may need more of a push to get on.”
Coming up at Heritage
To attend these or any other Heritage Foundation events, RSVP at Heritage’s events website. Or you can watch these events live online at Heritage.org. All times are Eastern.
- On Friday, Nov. 2 at noon, author Paul Kengor discusses his new book on Bill Clark’s close relationship with President Reagan.
- On Monday, Nov. 5 at noon, British Crown Judge Inigo Bing speaks at The Heritage Foundation about over-criminalization in his country.
- On Tuesday, Nov. 6 at noon, John West of the Discovery Institute looks at how liberal notions of “scientific” solutions to our problems ended up dehumanizing politics and culture.
Nathaniel Ward is the Editor of MyHeritage.org—a website for members and supporters of The Heritage Foundation. Colin Gowan contributed to this report.
