John Bolton in How Barack Obama is Endangering our National Sovereignty, by John R. Bolton
On Crime:
Vigorous democratic debate about death penalty is healthy
In the US, at the national and state levels, we have a vigorous democratic debate over the death penalty, sometimes expanding it and sometimes contracting it.
In every case, though, we do it after free and open debate.
That, however, is not good enough for death-penalty opponents, who can't get what they want in the US.
They too have gone international, using the UN's "human rights" bodies to repeatedly condemn the death penalty. In effect, death-penalty opponents are trying to mobilize international public opinion against the prevailing majority view within the US.
Source: Obama is Endangering our Sovereignty, by John Bolton, p. 40
May 18, 2010
On Energy & Oil:
Climate treaty is another step toward global governance
Since treaties, say the globalists, have been around from time immemorial, what is the problem today with more ambitious treaties that diminish sovereignty somewhat more visibly? Why be so uncomfortable? The key lies in seeing the big picture.
The millennia-old notion of treaties expanded after WWII into a completely different realm. The EU led the way with its regional experiment, and EU diplomats and their worldwide allies sympathetic to their transnational aspirations have been spreading
the gospel.
Revealingly, the EU's first president, former Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy, upon taking office, called 2009 "the first year of global governance. The climate conference in Copenhagen is another step toward the global management
of our planet." Advocates of global governance in the US are not yet so outspoken in general public discourse, but they believe exactly the same things.
They almost uniformly supported Barack Obama for president in 2008.
Source: Obama is Endangering our Sovereignty, by J. Bolton, p. 6-9
May 18, 2010
On Energy & Oil:
Increased taxation is not the answer to global warming
The mother of all such plans is in the environmental area: the Kyoto/Copenhagen global warming enterprise.
Buried in the failed Copenhagen negotiations were critical provisions to generate funding for "climate change" activities completely free of congressional action.
There are many grounds to oppose Copenhagen's statist agenda, but the issue of taxation should be one of the most important. Whatever the reality of the earth's changing temperature and humanity's role in it,
the fundamental debate should be over the proposed solutions. If increased taxation, regulation, and control at the national or international levels are the answers, we are clearly asking the wrong questions.
Source: Obama is Endangering our Sovereignty, by John Bolton, p. 35
May 18, 2010
On Families & Children:
No internationalization of family & domestic issues
The internationalization of domestic issues appears in a host of social issues: abortion; family law and relationships between parent and child (the Convention on the Rights of the Child); and discrimination based on gender
(the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women), race (The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination), or disability (Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities).
The issue here is not, for example, appropriate protections against discrimination, but who should decide such questions.
Should it be American citizens operating under our Constitution, or international agreements with nations that care little about fundamental freedoms or the importance of democratic debate? This is where the rubber truly meets the road on sovereignty.
Source: Obama is Endangering our Sovereignty, by J. Bolton, p. 41-42
May 18, 2010
On Foreign Policy:
International "norming" constrains US sovereignty
Threats to US sovereignty are both imminent and long-term. One element that runs through many of them, however, is the concept of international "norming"--the idea that America should base it policies on the international consensus,
rather than making its own decisions as a constitutional democracy. Using norming, the international Left seeks to constrain US sovereignty by moving our domestic political debate to align with broader international opinion.
Because of the centrality of individual freedom in the US, norming advocates are invariably on the left of the political spectrum; there are simply no other nations out there as liberty-oriented as we are.
One way to drive norming is through votes in multilateral organizations, operating under the "one nation, one vote" principle.
Source: Obama is Endangering our Sovereignty, by J. Bolton, p. 16-17
May 18, 2010
On Foreign Policy:
American sovereignty is chipped away by global governance
For several decades, Americans have slept while their national sovereignty has been threatened, chipped away and eroded by a series of innocuous-sounding and nearly imperceptible decisions.
Opponents of unfettered US sovereignty have been fashioning constraints on the exercise of our fundamental democratic rights, national power, and legitimacy.
We have been locked in a struggle between sovereignty and "global governance" that most Americans didn't even know was happening.
Not surprisingly, therefore, the "Americanists" have been losing to the "globalists".
And the general public does not yet appreciate the chasm between these two worldviews.
Source: Obama is Endangering our Sovereignty, by John Bolton, p. 1
May 18, 2010
On Foreign Policy:
International human rights experts & courts not needed in US
Many senior administration officials have demonstrated their sympathy for using international "human right" norms on the conduct of war to constrain the US. Of course, no one advocates uncivilized or inhumane behavior, but the critical point is who
defines such behavior and who holds those who violate the accepted standards accountable. Under our Constitution, we are fully capable of deciding how and when to use military force, how our warriors should conduct themselves, and how to deal with those
who violate our standards. We do not need international human rights experts, prosecutors, or courts to satisfy our own high standards for American behavior.
This is not the view, however, of those who want to constrain our sovereignty. After all, if we decided what is right and wrong, they couldn't second-guess us and bend us to their views.
Source: Obama is Endangering our Sovereignty, by John Bolton, p. 29
May 18, 2010
On Homeland Security:
International Criminal Court second-guesses US self-defense
Although billed as a successor to the Nuremberg tribunals, the International Criminal Court (ICC), in fact, amounts to a giant opportunity to second-guess the US and the actions we take in self-defense.
The ICC's enormous potential prosecutorial power awaits only the opportunity to expand almost without limit. The Clinton administration initially signed the ICC's founding document, the Time Statue, in June 1998, but there was no prospect that the
Senate would ratify it. The Bush administration unsigned the treaty and entered into more than 100 bilateral agreements with countries to prevent our citizens from being delivered into the ICC's custody.
To date, the ICC has proceeded slowly, partly in the hope of enticing the US to cooperate with it, and the Bush administration succumbed to it in its final years.
Source: Obama is Endangering our Sovereignty, by J. Bolton, p. 25-26
May 18, 2010
On Homeland Security:
Americanists know: national survival requires strong defense
Strong defenses are critical to national survival, so it is hardly surprising that opponents of unfettered US sovereignty strive endlessly to constrain our ability to act in self-defense.
Limiting or transferring decisional authority on security issues to international bodies is thus a core divide between Americanists and globalists.
Source: Obama is Endangering our Sovereignty, by John Bolton, p. 18
May 18, 2010
On Homeland Security:
Supports clandestine Proliferation Security Initiative
The US-led Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) now has more than 90 participating countries working to stop the international trafficking of weapons and materials of mass destruction.
PSI has no secretary-general, no bureaucracy, no headquarters, no endless diplomatic meetings.
It simply focuses, often clandestinely, on working to prevent or interdict shipments of contraband material. As one British diplomat put it, "PSI is an activity, not an organization."
In fact, PSI is precisely the kind of multilateral activity that protects our national security while respecting our sovereignty.
Source: Obama is Endangering our Sovereignty, by John Bolton, p. 20
May 18, 2010
On War & Peace:
Drone strikes don't get Mirandized; why should others?
The campaigns in Afghanistan and Pakistan employ armed drone aircraft to target and kill terrorist leaders and supporters, although, needless to say, the targets don't get Miranda rights read to them. The administration seems unwilling to reconcile these
strikes with how it handles terrorists captured in the US. Already, there are international complaints that the drone attacks are precisely the kinds of "targeted" or "extra-judicial" killings complained about for years when undertaken by Israel.
Source: Obama is Endangering our Sovereignty, by J. Bolton, p. 31-32
May 18, 2010
On War & Peace:
2008: Supported Israeli military operations in Gaza Strip
The UN's recent Goldstone report on Israel's 2008-2009 Operation Cast Lead against Hamas in the Gaza Strip criticized Israel for violations of the law of war, such as the "disproportionate use of force," in ways that severely undermine Israel's
inherent right of self-defense. If such conclusions become widely accepted, they will obviously have direct and substantial effects on our ability to undertake our own self-defense, which is, of course, exactly what the globalists have in mind.
Source: Obama is Endangering our Sovereignty, by John Bolton, p. 30
May 18, 2010
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