In his March 26 speech to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council, McCain never mentioned the need to preserve American sovereignty. He could have reassured conservatives by stating his forthright opposition to Senate ratification of the U.N.’s Law of the Sea Treaty, which provides for international control over billions of dollars worth of oil, gas and minerals and undermines American claims to North Pole riches. But he chose not to.
Instead, as the Washington Post put it, McCain promised “a collaborative foreign policy,” conducted in coordination with other nations. The New York Times said he distanced himself from “unilateralism” in foreign affairs.
“Liberals are going to love this speech,” conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh said about the McCain address. He said it sounded like the “global test” that liberal Democratic presidential candidate and Senator John Kerry had proposed for U.S. foreign policy in 2004.
Yet, McCain’s new TV ad calls him “the American president Americans have been waiting for.” The public should not be fooled. He is as much of a globalist as Hillary and Obama.
Noting that McCain committed himself to adoption of a new U.N.-sponsored global warming treaty, which would be even more comprehensive and tougher than the Kyoto Protocol, Limbaugh said that “The theme here is that there’s nothing special about America, and that we’re not going to be able to do anything without involving other nations and making them like us and showing them that we intend them no harm and that we want to be good stewards of the planet just as they want to be good stewards.”
The latter was a reference to McCain declaring that “We need to be good stewards of our planet and join with other nations to help preserve our common home. The risks of global warming have no borders.” McCain sounded like another Democrat―Al Gore.
But despite his preference for what appears to be some kind of New World Order, McCain’s prior endorsement of a new Muslim state in Europe by the name of Kosovo could undermine all of his best-laid plans. Recognition of Kosovo could lead to war with Russia and more terrorist problems for Israel.
Scary Rhetoric
Bobby Eberle of GOPUSA commented, “Sen. McCain delivered a laundry list of all things non-conservative.” He said the speech wasn’t conservative or even Republican.
Amanda Teegarden, a grass roots pro-sovereignty activist, was also alarmed. “It is imperative that conservatives listen to this speech―especially if you are concerned about the sovereignty, and the economic survival, of the United States,” she said.
In addition to a new global warming treaty, she noted that McCain’s proposals included open borders in the Western Hemisphere, nuclear disarmament, and a Transatlantic free trade area.
Eberle focused on a segment of the McCain speech that included the statement that “Relations with our southern neighbors must be governed by mutual respect, not by an imperial impulse or by anti-American demagoguery. The promise of North, Central, and South American life is too great for that. I believe the Americas can and must be the model for a new 21st century relationship between North and South. Ours can be the first completely democratic hemisphere, where trade is free across all borders, where the rule of law and the power of free markets advance the security and prosperity of all.”
McCain’s strange rhetoric about “North, Central, and South American life” reflects a view that nation-states are disappearing and being replaced by regional alliances and institutions. He referred to “the powerful collective voice of the European Union,” as if the U.S. response would have to be submersion of our voice in a larger hemispheric entity. But McCain seems to be calling for something beyond even a North American Union (NAU) of the U.S., Mexico, and Canada. He talked about “creating the new international institutions necessary to advance the peace and freedoms we cherish,” as if they would be built on top of the EU and the NAU.
Earlier, McCain had declared, “With globalization, our hemisphere has grown closer, more integrated, and more interdependent. Latin America today is increasingly vital to the fortunes of the United States. Americans north and south share a common geography and a common destiny.” But why should trade with America’s neighbors necessarily lead to a “common destiny?” This implies a political merger of the U.S. with other countries.
Nuclear Disarmament
“We should work to reduce nuclear arsenals all around the world, starting with our own,” McCain said. This appeared to be a call for unilateral nuclear disarmament. He went on to call for the U.S. to lead “a global effort at nuclear disarmament.” This, too, seems to require more reliance on international institutions, in this case the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Indeed, McCain in the past has called for more funding for the IAEA.
McCain added, “We have to strengthen our global alliances as the core of a new global compact―a League of Democracies―that can harness the vast influence of the more than 100 democratic nations around the world to advance our values and defend our shared interests.” But as I noted in a
recent piece, “McCain, Soros, and the New World Order,” this is a liberal project that is being currently funded by left-wing billionaire George Soros and managed by former Clinton officials. It has nothing to do with democracy but is intended to create another global institution that will eventually help strengthen the U.N.
After calling for the closing of the terrorist detention facility at Guantanamo Bay (but not saying where he would put the detainees), McCain declared that “There is such a thing as international good citizenship.” This is the kind of rhetoric we would expect from an advocate of world government. If Hillary or Obama were spouting such silly rhetoric, conservatives would be laughing at them.
It goes without saying that McCain is oblivious to the evidence that the man-made global warming theory doesn’t hold up under serious scrutiny. His proposal for “a successor to the Kyoto Treaty” that “delivers the necessary environmental impact in an economically responsible manner” is potentially very damaging to the U.S. economy. But the proposal pleases the Europeans.
McCain talked about the virtues of the “transatlantic alliance,” which served a purpose during the Cold War with the Soviet Union, but went on to say that “Americans should welcome the rise of a strong, confident European Union as we continue to support a strong NATO.” The European Union was devised primarily as a counter to the influence of the U.S. in foreign affairs. It has also proven to be a bureaucratic disaster for the people of Europe. The “strong NATO” has proven to be extremely weak in Afghanistan, where it cannot field enough troops to defeat the Taliban terrorists. Expanding NATO has not resulted in making it stronger.
“The future of the transatlantic relationship lies in confronting the challenges of the twenty-first century worldwide: developing a common energy policy, creating a transatlantic common market tying our economies more closely together, addressing the dangers posed by a revanchist Russia, and institutionalizing our cooperation on issues such as climate change, foreign assistance, and democracy promotion,” declared McCain.
So not only is the U.S. going to move toward common policies for North, South and Central America, but it is going to develop common energy and economic policies with the European Union. Developing a common policy on “foreign assistance” is a recipe for more looting of the U.S. taxpayers. The Europeans have long complained that the U.S. isn’t devoting enough money to “official development assistance,” as the U.N. calls it.
Nightmare Vision
Does McCain’s vision look like an emerging world government? It is certainly a variation of “global governance,” which is the proposal that former Clinton State Department official Strobe Talbott makes in his book, The Great Experiment. Talbott calls McCain a “pragmatist” in foreign affairs, just like Obama and Hillary, and says that he expects his liberal Brookings Institution to have influence over a McCain presidency.
On other issues in his speech, McCain talked tough about Iran and Russia.
The big problem for McCain, as we noted in a
recent column, is that his vision of a New World Order is incompatible with his support for making the Serbian province of Kosovo into an independent state. Carving Kosovo out of Serbia is a threat to international peace and security. It has split NATO, which McCain says he wants to expand and strengthen. This policy, which has also been embraced by the Democrats, threatens a completely unnecessary war with Russia, which backs Serbian control of Kosovo and wants to aid the Serbs remaining in the province.
McCain spoke about Israel’s survival, without addressing the reality that Kosovo’s independence has energized the Arab/Muslim push for a Palestinian state that could threaten Israel.
While McCain said that the threat of radical Islamic terrorism is “the transcendent challenge of our time,” he seemed unaware how some of those same forces are behind the push for Kosovo statehood. It just doesn’t make sense to fight Muslim extremists in one place, Iraq, while helping them in another, Kosovo, and even giving them their own state.
This is a contradiction that McCain has failed to address.
“We have incurred a moral responsibility in Iraq,” the Senator declared. “It would be an unconscionable act of betrayal, a stain on our character as a great nation, if we were to walk away from the Iraqi people and consign them to the horrendous violence, ethnic cleansing, and possibly genocide that would follow a reckless, irresponsible, and premature withdrawal.”
This rhetoric strikes a chord with conservatives. Yet, some say that genocide is already occurring in Iraq, in regard to the plight of Christians there. More than half have fled the country since the U.S. invasion, and those who remain are being kidnapped, threatened and murdered. Do we not have a moral responsibility to them? Shouldn’t the U.S. be less concerned about the survival of the Muslim government in Iraq and more concerned about the defenseless and unarmed Christians?
McCain seemed blind not only to the issues that conservatives regard as critical in an election year, but he went out of his way to reach out to liberals and Democrats. The only part of the speech they probably didn’t like was on Iraq.
But if the liberals get beyond their differences with McCain on Iraq, they will not only vote for him but promote his agenda as president. Then, as Rush Limbaugh notes, it may eventually be possible to change the name of the United States of America: “We’ll call ourselves New Europe.” In the process, true conservatism as a political force will be finished in the U.S.
The tragedy of this approach is that it comes from a man who served his country in uniform and risked his life on behalf of the U.S. McCain would have been a natural choice to lead a campaign for restoration of American sovereignty in foreign affairs. He could have been “The American President Americans have been waiting for.”
For reasons that remain largely a mystery, he has chosen to take the U.S. down the road of “global governance,” in which the U.N. and other international agencies, institutions and alliances determine our fate as a nation. It is the same road the Democrats are on. It is a tragedy for our country.
