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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsObama cedes oil-rich Alaskan Islands??
Anybody out there want to help me decipher this baloney?
http://www.redstate.com/richsr7/2012/04/21/now-he-wants-to-give-alaska-away/
I saw a post on my normally very a-political wife's grandfather. really a sweet guy - I would like to rebut him with some facts.
thanks!
tularetom
(23,664 posts)with Alaska.
That's the dumbest fucking thing I've ever read. About anything.
appleannie1
(5,068 posts)WCGreen
(45,558 posts)appleannie1
(5,068 posts)Authors addendum, Feb. 17, 2012: This is not a new issue. In fact the Bush and Clinton administrations are directly at fault for the same inaction. A maritime agreement negotiated by the U.S. State Department set the Russian boundary on the other side of the disputed islands, but no treaty has ratified this action. Consequently, it is within the presidents power to stop this giveaway. The Alaska delegations failure to put pressure on the administration is inexplicable. State Department Watch, an organization that assisted with this article, has confronted each administration and is currently confronting the Obama administration and has been met by silence. Im hoping this piece will help reinvigorate efforts to stop this handover.
http://www.wnd.com/2012/02/obamas-giveaway-oil-rich-islands-to-russia/
You need to read it to understand.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,361 posts)baldguy
(36,649 posts)Why hasn't any President over the last 130 yrs - especially during the Cold War - ever enforced US sovereignty over them? If Reagan wasn't going to, and Bush Sr wasn't going to, and Bush Jr wasn't going to - why should anyone expect Obama to?
muriel_volestrangler
(101,361 posts)The same absurd claims were being made in 2005 - with the added bonus of "ZOMG! Concentration Camps on American Islands!"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3119932#3124001
What's worrying is that this crap has come from Joe Miller, the 2010 Repub nominee for the Alaskan Senate seat (it's from a WorldNutDaily screed by him). Yes, a paranoid nutter got seriously close to being part of the body that is meant to calmly deliberate foreign policy. Fucking Republicans.
steve2470
(37,457 posts)Published: March 28th, 2012 11:44 AM
Last Modified: March 29th, 2012 08:47 AM
FactCheck.org is the latest to look into an old conspiracy theory -- recently promoted online by failed Alaska U.S. Senate candidate Joe Miller -- that President Obama is trying to hand over to Russia some supposedly oil-rich Alaska islands.
From FactCheck:
All [the islands] are far closer to the Russian mainland than to the Alaskan mainland. All lie on the Russian side of the U.S.-Russia maritime boundary set by a treaty that the U.S. Senate ratified overwhelmingly more than two decades ago, after being signed by President George H.W. Bush, and with the support of both of Alaska's senators. ...
And sure enough, no president or secretary of state since has shown any interest in disputing the Soviet/Russian claim to Wrangel Island or the others. Which brings us to the present accusation that President Obama is somehow giving away something the U.S. has never claimed to own. How can that be?
*more at link above*
muriel_volestrangler
(101,361 posts)Radiocarbon dating shows that at least a few hardy individuals were still hanging on as late as 1700 B.C.
http://news.discovery.com/animals/woolly-mammoth-extinction.html
And the Code of Hammurabi was written about then:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/18th_century_BC
happyslug
(14,779 posts)I suspect it was a long dead mammoth that someone with a musket used as a target centuries ago, but the mammoth was found with a musket ball in its head a few years ago. The finder of the mammoth said it was a musket ball, but one fired to kill the mammoth thousands of years ago, but anther argument is that Mammoths survived till the advent of muskets.
Arctic Dave
(13,812 posts)Jesus H Christ, these morons act like no one lives up here that knows better.
happyslug
(14,779 posts)The Actual Treaty:
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=015/llsl015.db&recNum=572
On page three, the border between Alaska and Russia is set at the point midway between the two area in the Bering Sea then straight north.
It starts at a point halfway between Little Diomede (Ignaluk) Called Krusentern Island in the Treaty and the Big Diomede (part of Chukotka Autonomous Okrug), also known as Imaqliq, Inaliq, Nunarbuk or Ratmanov Island (Ratmanoff is the name used in the treaty).
Here is Satellite photo of both, they are the small islands in the middle of the Bering strait
If you draw a line straight north from that point, i.e. to the North Pole, it is clear all of these Islands belong to Russia, something we conceded even when the Tsar ruled Russia, and again during the Cold War.
It is only a factor now, for much of this area may have oil, until then no one cared (even during the Cold War Native Inuit did cross over the area to visit relatives (through never officially) but the US NEVER send anything to those islands. Now the US did call the Arctic Ocean an open sea that anyone can use, but that is NOT the same a claiming the right to exploit what is under the ocean. The US has long conceded a 200 miles economic zone around a is country. At present the issue in the Arctic is how to divide it up for oil exploitation and that is all this treaty addresses, but has to be based on existing treaties. The only treaty that applies is the Alaskan Purchase treaty.
Now a counter argument can be made is the form that the Alaskan Purchase treaty did not apply beyond the then accepted limit of three miles from a coastline. Then the discovery of an island makes gives it priority over anyone else, provided they is no evidence of subsequent abandonment. The lack of US attempts to do anything with these islands indicate abandonment of any claim. The conceding of all of these Islands during the Cold War is further evidence of abandonment. For example Argentina every so often send someone down to the Antarctic peninsula and claims it for Argentina, There is no evidence that the US ever did anything similar. Thus the US has no claims to these islands.
One last comment, the US has made a claim to Arctic resources, resolving who gets what is what is being negotiated, but everyone has to start with their claims from the 1700s or 1800s. Given that the largest coastline of the Arctic is Russia, they will end up with the most resources AND given that the Arctic is thawing along the Siberian coast first, that gives the Russian a huge starting point. The proposed treaty just recognize that reality.,
Confusious
(8,317 posts)The islands he points out are right above Russia, nowhere near American Territory.
Never have been, never will be, in any sense, American territory.
humanityisfree
(108 posts)This really helps, I already provided him with links to the fact-check article, the state dept. website, and the original US/USSR treaty. good stuff - and fast too. gotta love DU! Thanks!
dems_rightnow
(1,956 posts)That seems a bit odd.
Art_from_Ark
(27,247 posts)Wrangell Island is in the Alaskan Panhandle, far removed from Russian territory.