Sunday, February 19, 2012

Obama Gives 7 Oil-Rich Islands to Russia: Secret GiveAway – Alaska Not Consulted


Obama Gives 7 Oil-Rich Islands to Russia: Secret GiveAway – Alaska Not Consulted


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It appears Congress had nothing to do with this 7-island giveaway with tens of thousands of square miles of oil-rich seabeds. The Department of the Interior says these islands are a source of BILLIONS of barrels of oil. Our president and the State Department can just give away American sovereign land – Alaskan land. A story like this leaves me speechless. I’ll let Joe Miller, a former US Senate candidate from Alaska, do the talking: (see an important UPDATE below)

World Net Daily (read the entire story here including the American historical connection to these islands):
Part of Obama’s apparent war against U.S. energy independence includes a foreign-aid program that directly threatens my state’s sovereign territory. Obama’s State Department is giving away seven strategic, resource-laden Alaskan islands to the Russians. Yes, to the Putin regime in the Kremlin.
The seven endangered islands in the Arctic Ocean and Bering Sea include one the size of Rhode Island and Delaware combined. The Russians are also to get the tens of thousands of square miles of oil-rich seabeds surrounding the islands. The Department of Interior estimates billions of barrels of oil are at stake.

The State Department has undertaken the giveaway in the guise of a maritime boundary agreement between Alaska and Siberia. Astoundingly, our federal government itself drew the line to put these seven Alaskan islands on the Russian side. But as an executive agreement, it could be reversed with the stroke of a pen by President Obama or Secretary Clinton.

The agreement was negotiated in total secrecy. The state of Alaska was not allowed to participate in the negotiations, nor was the public given any opportunity for comment. This is despite the fact the Alaska Legislature has passed resolutions of opposition – but the State Department doesn’t seem to care.

The imperiled Arctic Ocean islands include Wrangell, Bennett, Jeannette and Henrietta. Wrangell became American in 1881 with the landing of the U.S. Revenue Marine ship Thomas Corwin. The landing party included the famed naturalist John Muir. It is 3,000 square miles in size.

Northwest of Wrangell are the DeLong Islands, named for George Washington DeLong, the captain of USS Jeannette. Also in 1881, he discovered and claimed these three islands for the United States. He named them for the voyage co-sponsor, New York City newspaper publisher James Gordon Bennett. The ship’s crew received a hero’s welcome back in Washington, and Congress awarded them gold medals.

In the Bering Sea at the far west end of the Aleutian chain are Copper Island, Sea Lion Rock and Sea Otter Rock. They were ceded to the U.S. in Seward’s 1867 treaty with Russia.
The State Department’s maritime agreement is a loser – it gives us nothing in return for giving up Alaska’s sovereign territory and invaluable resources. We won the Cold War and should start acting like it.
UPDATE 2-19-12 @ 9:18 a.m. CDT: The longer story is that this covert mission began under G.W.H. Bush, but the thing to remember is that no he, nor any president following made the giveaway reality. Reader Sheri left a link to another WND report dated May 2000. Here’s a snippet:
The tranfer would have gone unnoticed were it not for State Department Watch, a Washington-based group that monitors State Department acitivities.

Retired U.S. Navy Lt. Cmdr. Carl Olson, who heads State Department Watch, recently checked with the Census Bureau, asking if it had plans to count the inhabitants of these disputed islands in the current census.
Olson was stunned by the response he received from the Census Bureau.

“Census Bureau officials were informed by the U.S. Department of State that these islands remain under the jurisdiction of Russia,” wrote Kenneth Prewitt, director of the Census Bureau in a letter to Olson.

“Without confirmation and appropriate documentation from the Department of State to the contrary, the Census Bureau cannot include these islands as part of the State of Alaska,” Prewitt concluded.

Americans Become Russians

Olson notes that the Census Bureau, with the approval of the State Dept., has just stripped Americans of their citizenship.

Consider the inhabitants of Wrangell Island, the largest of eight disputed islands – five lying in the Arctic Ocean and three in the Bering Sea.

Geographically speaking, the island’s inhabitants would also be citizens of the state of Alaska since no other American state comes even close to the proximity of the islands.

But if anyone desired to visit Wrangell Island, they would be greeted not by the Stars and Stripes waving proudly in the brisk air but by a Russian military tower.

According to Olson, the islands including Wrangell have 18 Russian soldiers and one officer and 50 to 100 inhabitants.

Olson insists these people have been made to endure foreign occupation by the Russian military and believes the U.S. government should do something about taking the islands back.

NewsMax.com contacted Mark Seidenberg, a former senior traffic management specialist within the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and asked him if he believed the United States should pursue its sovereignty on the islands. Seidenberg, without hesitation, said “yes.”
The article linked above says after Congress ratified the Maritime Boundary Treaty, Russia DID NOT SIGN IT. At that time, the industry was up-in-arms. American fisherman did not want to lose their right to the waters in the area. Russians didn’t care.
Nevertheless, former U.S. Secretary of State Jim Baker and the Soviet Union’s Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze signed a secretive executive agreement the year before that bound both governments to the treaty. ["Executive Agreement!"]

Currently, Russia is demanding hundreds of millions of pounds more fishing rights from the United States that would undermine the Alaskan fish industry and, subsequently, the state’s economy.
A wealth of petroleum and natural gas hang in the balance as well.
Again, this is 2000:
Even though now recognizing Russian jurisdiction over the islands, the State Department had testified at the June 13, 1991, treaty hearing that the maritime boundary agreement “does not recognize Soviet sovereignty over these [five Arctic] islands.”

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