Who says Palin has no foreign policy bona fides?

What about Biden's foreign policy judgment?

By Wes Vernon

The propaganda carpet-bombers keep telling us that Governor Sarah Palin's lack of foreign policy experience makes her unfit to be "one heartbeat away" from the presidency. By contrast — our betters instruct us, Joe Biden, as the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is all-wise and is prepared to help Obama (be his seeing eye dog?) to guide America through the waters of international danger and intrigue.

Well, let's review that:

Just for starters, on an issue this column intends to explore more in depth in the future, award-winning author and journalist Paul Williams reports Al-Qaida plans attacks on seven to ten American cities. In addition to New York, Washington and the other obvious targets, one of the ten cities is Valdez, Alaska. That is where the tankers are filled with oil from the Trans-Alaska pipeline that Palin has mentioned in her speeches. Anyone who is governor of Alaska would take more than a casual interest in the pipeline's security from attack.

There's more

Secondly, Alaska's neighbors are Canada and Russia. Russia? Yes, the same Russia that has "demonstrated a rising aggressiveness toward its neighbors," as noted by Frank Gaffney, President of the Center for Security Policy (CSP) — former Pentagon official and first-rate scholar on security issues.

Again quoting Gaffney: "Moscow has also conducted strategic bombing runs with Soviet-era long-range nuclear-capable aircraft. These offensive missions are designed to penetrate U.S. northern air defenses in a manner reminiscent of the most provocative Kremlin behavior during the Cold War." You can bet the governor of Alaska would react to that with an awareness fully transcending an "Oh? — Okay."

Gaffney also points out that the best of those defenses — including a squadron of America's state-of-the art interceptors, the F-22 Raptor — are stationed at Elmendorf Air force base near Anchorage.

The CSP analyst has noted that "Alaska territory is also along the trajectory of ballistic missiles launched eastward out of Stalinist North Korea." Alaska's Ft. Greely is the site for the principal U.S.-based ground-based defense against those missiles.

Which leads us to Biden

Missile defense is bound to be a prime topic of the vice-presidential debate.

Senator Biden is not ignorant of foreign policy issues, his world-view is just wrong-headed — or he "doesn't get it." He has consistently opposed upgrading and advancing this nation's Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) ever since President Reagan inaugurated the program in the eighties. Here is a man who has been in the U.S. Senate for nearly 36 years, and if his policies had prevailed, we Americans would be totally defenseless against missile attacks.

The Cold War

As President Reagan was bringing down the Soviet "evil empire," Senator Biden was dragging his feet every step of the way ...He led the opposition to the Reagan plan to help the anti-communist Contras in Nicaragua. He opposed aid to South Vietnam, contributing to the fall of an ally in a war in which — had it not been for LBJ's muddle-headed "no win" strategy — the U.S. could have held the line against communism's relentless march toward the goal of world conquest. It was no thanks to the Delaware senator that the Soviet empire ultimately failed.

Senator Biden also tried to block President Reagan's assistance to the pro-American government in El Salvador when that regime was under assault from a Soviet-backed Marxist group.

Furthermore, as the eagle-eyed State Department Watch (SDW) recalls, Senator Biden — in his position on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee — has supported for many years the giveaway of 8 American Alaskan islands and their oil-rich seabeds to the Russians. With the help of SDW President Carl Olson, this writer has been bird-dogging this issue for years.

The treaty started in the disastrous Ford administration in 1977 with Secretary of State Henry Kissinger as part of his détente campaign. The state of Alaska strongly opposes the giveaway of billions of barrels of oil and gas potential, but every Secretary of State since then has kept the treaty.

At a Senate hearing on the giveaway, Olson testified against it. Senator Biden chaired the session and voted for it.

Treaty? Sign now, questions later

Over the years, Senator Biden could be counted on to back treaties whose ultimate effect would be to put American interests at the mercy of United Nations bureaucrats or otherwise compromise American sovereignty and/or security. Many of these documents have innocent or high-sounding names and seemingly worthy goals, but behind "nuclear test ban," "global warming," "rights of the child, "or "law of the sea," etc., the devil — as always — is in the details. This column has analyzed the mischief in several of these treaties.

Regrettably, Senator McCain himself has not always been on the right side of the treaty controversies. But most conservatives have (however reluctantly) concluded he is all that stands between us and total disaster for the republic.

Many delegates at the Republican National Convention would have preferred another nominee. But considering the Arizonan's up-close and personal encounter with the face of evil at the Hanoi Hilton and his basic pro-American instincts, he may turn out to be a better candidate than they had expected. His selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate at least offers hope for the caliber of people who would surround him should he gain the keys to the White House.

© Wes Vernon