Go to the Anchorage Daily news website.
Search for: Palin Putin
Results: "Did you mean plain patina?"
Humorous, but there is one result that caught my eye.
It seems that in 2007, when Russia made its famous claim to own the North Pole, it also made a less famous claim to own 18,000 Square miles of Alaskan sea territory.
From the increasingly vital Anchorage Daily News, July 16, 2007
Russia reaching our way. President Vladimir Putin, looking to restore his nation’s greatness and establish an "energy empire," has his eye on parts of the Bering Sea and the North Pole, according to a story from Time. The story reports Moscow wants to take control over an 18,000-square-mile piece of the sea between Alaska and Russian Chukotka.
This is not a rhetorical question. I really do not know, and in my searching have not been able to find any statement that Governor Palin might have made about Russia laying claim to oil-rich Alaskan sea territory. Please help out and find anything we can. Regardless of the answer it is very important to know.
Did she make a strong statement decrying the claim as ridiculous?
Did she sound a conciliatory note that surely some agreement can be reached?
Did she say nothing at all?
It appears she may have, which most Americans would find shocking. It's not every day that a country makes a claim on treaty-guaranteed U.S. territory, and it's difficult to imagine that the chief executive of the territory in question would say nothing about it. This is not just some minor matter, either. Here's the relevant portion of the Time article in question:
The North Pole isn't the only prize in the eyes of the resurgent Russian empire — Moscow is also looking to restore control over a 47,000 sq. km (18,000 sq. mile) piece of the Bering Sea separating Alaska from Russian Chukotka. The territory was ceded to the U.S. in 1990 under the U.S.-Soviet Maritime Boundary Agreement signed by Secretary of State James Baker and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze. While the deal may have helped ease Cold War tensions, anti-reform Soviet hard-liners always opposed giving up a piece of territory rich in sea life and hydrocarbon deposits, and they and their nationalist successors prevented the agreement's ratification. Today, the Agreement still operates on a provisional basis, pending its ratification by the Russian parliament.
But what had once been a battle cry of the nationalist opposition has now become the official line. In recent weeks, Kremlin-controlled media have berated the Agreement as a treasonous act by Shervardnadze (who later became the pro-NATO President of Georgia). Now, leading pro-Kremlin members of the Russian legislature are publicly demanding that the Agreement be reviewed, with the aim of recovering the country's riches.
The McCain campaign in recent days has talked endlessly about her extensive executive experience, and her leadership as the commander in chief of the Alaska National guard.
It appears that in spite of her diligent efforts to ignore foreign policy in favor of "concentrating on Alaska," there was at least one moment when a genuine foreign policy issue of considerable future importance fell into her lap.
Is it possible that she greeted it with complete silence?