If They Want Us Out of Vieques...

You know what? I think that our days as the world’s policeman need to end. Yes, theoretically, we are the world’s only superpower. Yes, we are the richest nation in the world. Yes, we have the most powerful military in the world.

Obviously our interests are global. Our economy may even be the only one that affects every other country in the world, without exception. Yet, for our largesse, our charity, and our advice, what do we receive in return?

Take Vieques Island as an example. This island is a perfect location for live fire exercises, and we’ve conducted them there since 1941. In all that time, there has been one accident that I’ve been able to find. In 1999, two Marine bombs were accidentally dropped off target, killing one security guard and wounding four other people. A tragic occurrence to be sure, but considering the risk inherent in military exercises, once in 60 years is doing pretty damn good. Should what happened have been investigated and corrected? Absolutely. But I don’t think that one mistake is grounds for shutting the facility.

The local inhabitants of Vieques Island also claim that their health has been affected by the smoke and debris from the exercises, though they present no proof and no studies to back up these claims.

But that’s ok. If the residents of the island want us to stop using it as a range, we can do that. And we can pull out of Roosevelt Roads too. Shut the base, and reopen all the facilities at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and use that as the primary Naval base in the Caribbean. How many millions of dollars will that remove from the Puerto Rican economy? Once the impact of that move set in, how quickly will they want us back?

A perfect example of this is in Israel, where the Sixth Fleet has halted all port visits to Haifa because it is afraid of terrorist attacks on our vessels there. Guess what the Israeli response is?

Don’t go. Their reasoning is that not visiting Haifa shows weakness and a lack of confidence in ourselves and in Israel, but I wonder how much of the local concern is really economic?

What alternatives are there in the Atlantic Basin to using the range on Vieques? The Navy checked out an area in Texas, near Corpus Christi, which would have worked well, though it was geographically undesirable, but decided against it. The only other place I can think of is Saba Island, off the west coast of Cuba, but the ownership of the island is slightly in dispute between us and Cuba. If anyone else has any ideas, I’m sure the Navy department would love to hear them, because very soon, we will not be able to fire live ordnance at a target and be able to accurately evaluate how well we did.

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