A Serious Error In The Lame-Duck Session Of Congress

| | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

One of the arguments made in the lame-duck session of Congress for the passage of the START Treaty was that we needed a way to check on what the Russians were doing and, oh yeah, don't worry about that silly little thing in the preamble about missile defense.  Well, that silly little thing has come back to haunt us.

Guy Benson at Townhall.com and Ed Morrissey at Hot Air are both reporting that the Russian Duma has begun its discussion on the START Treaty. 

Guy Benson at Townhall reports:

"The State Duma plans to confirm the link between the reduction of the strategic offensive arms and the restriction of antimissile defense systems' deployment in the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), signed between the US and Russia, Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the Duma Committee on International Affairs says.

""During the ratification of START in the US Congress the American lawmakers noted that the link between strategic offensive armed forces and antimissile defense systems is not juridically binding for the parties. They referred to the fact that this link was fixed only in the preamble of the document. Such an approach can be regarded as the US' attempt to find an option to build up its strategic potential and the Russian lawmakers cannot agree with this," Kosachev says."

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air reports:

"It is not surprising that there are differences in interpretation of the treaty between the Russian and the American side. Russia insisted on inserting missile defense provisions into the preamble, making it obvious that they viewed this provision as having some importance. Yet the White House has stated that it is non-binding. And to further complicate matters, the administration denied the Senate the opportunity to understand the dispute better, by refusing to share treaty negotiating documents. Now that the Senate has approved the treaty without first understanding how it would be implemented, the Russian Duma will attempt to modify the accord to impose missile defense restrictions -- as critics of the accord predicted would happen.

"The START Treaty ratification process is already a mess. And it is a mess because the Obama administration was not candid about the meaning of the agreement. If the Duma alters the accord in an attempt to impose new restrictions on America's defensive capabilities, the Obama administration will have a full-blown diplomatic incident on its hands."

Whoops.  We were suckered by the Russians and the White House.  Let's not let it happen again.

0 TrackBacks

Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: A Serious Error In The Lame-Duck Session Of Congress.

TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.rightwinggranny.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/2567

Leave a comment

About this Entry

This page contains a single entry by Granny G published on January 4, 2011 8:27 AM.

Keeping Peace In The Ivory Coast was the previous entry in this blog.

Americans Vote With Their Feet As Well As With Their Ballots ! is the next entry in this blog.

Find recent content on the main index or look in the archives to find all content.