Obama’s UN Speech 2014

[Jolie Rouge]

Long on Rhetoric, Short on Substance
September 24, 2014 - 5:32 PM
By Brett D. Schaefer

President Barack Obama’s 2014 speech to the United Nations General Assembly today highlighted a number of major crises facing the world today, but it focused particularly on the responsibility of nations “to observe and enforce international norms” and reject “the cancer of violent extremism.”

In substance, though, it was a strangely bipolar speech. Obama laid out a vision: “We can renew the international system that has enabled so much progress or allow ourselves to be pulled back by an undertow of instability.” But he then failed to identify concrete actions the international system should take.

For instance, he condemned Russia’s action in Ukraine as “a vision of the world in which might makes right – a world in which one nation’s borders can be redrawn by another… America stands for something different. We believe that right makes might — that bigger nations should not be able to bully smaller ones.” He said the U.S. and NATO would assist Ukraine and asked Russia to change direction, but did not call on the U.N. to do anything — an implicit admission that the international system was incapable of action on the matter.

The speech had a far more aggressive tone than most would have expected of Obama even a year ago as he finds himself having to justify a U.S. bombing campaign in the Middle East. He expressed in detail the atrocities of ISIS and other terrorist groups. But again, he weakened his case by repeatedly contradicting himself. For instance, he asserted that “No God condones this terror. No grievance justifies these actions. There can be no reasoning, no negotiation, with this brand of evil. The only language understood by killers like this is the language of force.” But, he clarified, use of force would be limited and “we [do not] intend to send U.S. troops to occupy foreign lands.”

Obama insisted the “United States of America will work with a broad coalition to dismantle this network of death.” But, he assured the assembled delegates, “I have made it clear that America will not base our entire foreign policy on reacting to terrorism. Rather, we have waged a focused campaign against al-Qaeda and its associated forces—taking out their leaders and denying them the safe-havens they rely upon.” So, the “network of death” should not be destroyed, but merely dismantled and denied safe-havens.

Obama dedicated a great deal of his speech to calls for international efforts to counter religious extremism. Yet, his condemnatory remarks were undermined by American political correctness, as when he insisted, “Islam teaches peace. Muslims the world over aspire to live with dignity and a sense of justice. And when it comes to America and Islam, there is no us and them—there is only us, because millions of Muslim Americans are part of the fabric of our country.”

He made strong statements: “There should be no more tolerance of so-called clerics who call upon people to harm innocents because they are Jewish, Christian or Muslim. It is time for a new compact among the civilized peoples of this world to eradicate war at its most fundamental source: the corruption of young minds by violent ideology.” But then he needlessly drew comparisons between the Islamic extremism and Christianity and Judaism with statements such as, “There is nothing new about wars within religions. Christianity endured centuries of vicious sectarian conflict.” Where in the world are Christians and Jews doing anything like what ISIS is doing? This moral equivalence serves only to shield those responsible from the condemnation they deserve.

Finally, his remarks today stand in stark contrast to his remarks yesterday at the U.N. Climate Summit, where he stated, “For all the immediate challenges that we gather to address this week — terrorism, instability, inequality, disease — there’s one issue that will define the contours of this century more dramatically than any other, and that is the urgent and growing threat of a changing climate.”

In today’s speech he dedicated only a few bland sentences to climate change.

The difference between the two speeches mere hours apart was jarring and raises questions about what the president truly sees as the greatest threat to America.

http://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/br...hort-substance


I]October 23, 2014 [/I]

Obama to Avoid Senate Vote on New Climate Treaty

Making the announcement first on August 26 and confirming it in his speech before a United Nations climate summit in New York City on September 23, President Obama has committed the United States to forging an international climate change agreement to compel nations to cut their planet-warming fossil fuel emissions, without Senate ratification which the Constitution requires for international treaties. Obama said he intends to have this agreement ready to be signed at a United Nations summit meeting in 2015 in Paris.

“President Obama is determined to pursue his incredibly expensive and useless global warming agenda, Congress and public opinion be damned,” said Myron Ebell, director of the Center for Energy and the Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

New but Not New

When first broaching the plan in August, an administration spokesman admitted it was virtually certain the Senate would not ratify any new international climate change agreement, especially if it includes legally binding U.S. greenhouse gas emission reductions. Therefore, the Obama administration is shaping a “politically binding” agreement it will attempt to tack on to the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

President George H. W. Bush signed this treaty in 1992, and the Senate ratified it. As the Obama administration describes it, Obama’s plan is a hybrid agreement combining legally binding conditions of the 1992 Framework on Climate Change with voluntary commitments for countries to enact climate change policies for reducing emissions by specific amounts and sending money to poor countries. Instead of an enforcement mechanism, the agreement would, in the words of Obama’s negotiators, “name and shame” countries into cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

With no legally binding targets or specific punishments tied to the commitments, Obama administration surrogates say the new agreement would not require Senate ratification.

Congressional Response Negative

Congressional reaction has been sharply critical of Obama’s plan. Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) issued a statement saying, "Once again, the president is trying to go around Congress and ignore Americans who cannot afford more expensive, extreme energy regulations."

House science committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX) said in a statement, "This yet another example of a president who is willing to ignore the rule of law to get what he wants."

"We will continue to fight the president's economy-crushing domestic greenhouse gas regulations,” said Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) in a statement.

“U.S. economic competitiveness is hanging in the balance, and additional U.S. restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions will only hurt the United States as other nations like Australia either scrap or water down their unsuccessful green dream policies,” Inhofe added.

Scholars Critical of Plan

Jonathan H. Adler, director of the Center for Business Law and Regulation at Case Western Reserve University School of Law, said any agreement the president would sign without congressional approval would no have the force of law. “The latest announcement is more symbolism than substance. Any executive agreement on climate cannot empower the federal government to do any more than it is allowed to do already,” he said.

“The President lacks the authority to impose any legally binding constraints without congressional approval, either in the form of legislation or Senate ratification of a valid treaty. With or without such a treaty, the only legally binding limits on greenhouse gas emissions will be those adopted pursuant to the EPA’s existing Clean Air Act authority,” Adler added.

Ebell said Obama’s new climate plan is an attempt to shore up his legacy on the climate change issue. “The White House realizes that any successor to the Kyoto Protocol will never be ratified by the Senate, as Kyoto was never ratified. Nonetheless, the president wants to sign an international climate agreement in Paris in December 2015. It will be the high point of his legacy on climate policy and perhaps one of the few achievements of his last two years in office. And so the State Department is insisting in the UN negotiations on some type of agreement that will not require ratification,” Ebell said.

http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-...climate-treaty

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