Q. What Broomfield, CO resident has no fucking idea what he’s talking about? Answer: Charles W. Wooten.

From the Rocky Mountain News’ Letters to the Editor, we get this parade of ignorance:

First, this letter to the editor is nothing more than a verbatim cut/paste job from an Internet message forum, and has been subsequently re-posted in numerous right-wing blogs.

Original posting here: http://forums.military.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/69719858/m/4970067791001

Rudimentary use of the Google (search terms: “Sarah Palin Security Clearance“).

Mr. Wooten’s points for originality = 0

The assertions, however, are completely unsubstantiated and the fail utterly under any degree of scrutiny.

Missile Interceptor Defense? Do you mean Star Wars? Or a Patriot missile battery? As it breaks down, the U.S. has three primary “front lines” of defense: one in Alaska, one in Europe, and one in Canada (for those missiles that would come across the North Pole/Arctic Circle). All of these “front lines” are legacy Cold War deployments for a threat that ceased to exist almost 20 years ago. Yes, Russia is still a threat, but they now pose a very different threat than what we knew back in the 60s, 70s, and 80s.

She’s “Commander in Chief” of the AK Nat’l Guard? Yes. But as others have noted, their primary (and most often performed) duties include search and rescue along the Alaskan coast, and cold-weather research and training for military units expected to operate in cold weather environments. The primary responsibilities of the missile battalion involve monitoring RADAR for airborne threats–they don’t even get to monitor movements of Russian missile batteries. The monitoring of Russian ground forces is the responsibility of the U.S. (federal, not state) intelligence agencies (the DoD, NSA, and CIA). Palin only gets that information which is relevant to Alaska.

Do you honestly think that Palin is the only governor briefed on national security issues? Yes, Alaska is sooooo critical. But New York, Florida, Texas, California? … Screw ‘em.

Palin has a higher security clearance? Please. Biden and Obama both serve on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. You’re asserting that the Gov. of AK has a higher security clearance than the Senate Foreign Relations Committee? Foreign relations don’t involve just champagne soirees and black-tie affairs, a la James Bond. From the committee’s website:

http://foreign.senate.gov/

So just what is the “terroristic threat” to which Alaska would be exposed that Sarah Palin would need briefing on counterterrorism efforts?

Of all the places where terroristic threats are of concern, Alaska has to rank in the bottom 1% of the list. Alaska has no national landmarks like the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, Sears Tower, or Golden Gate Bridge. Although it is home to Denali, the highest peak in North America.

The only viable target in Alaska is the Alaskan pipeline, and it is more likely to succumb to wear/tear/age/weather than to terrorist activity. Terrorists want to instill fear in the population and draw attention to their cause. In this respect, they would get more mileage from bombing a day care center or office building (i.e., Timothy McVeigh or 9/11) than the Alaskan pipeline. Besides, the Alaskan Pipeline has already been deliberately blown up once (Feb. 1978) and ruptured by a gunshot from a drunken hunter (Oct. 2001). Impact to our national energy infrastructure? Nil. In addition to the above referenced incidents, the pipeline has been shut down several times for maintenance and reconstruction with no visible impact.

What else would terrorists do? Scale Denali and blow its peak off? Kudos to them if they can accomplish it.