Vieques essential to our national security
Published on Sunday, October 31st 1999 on The San Juan StarQuestion: What single trait makes the United States the world power? Answer: Military might. Question: What is the most versatile weapon in today's warfare? Answer: The aircraft. Question: What is the limiting constraint of most modern military aircraft? Answer: Range. They cannot fly too far carrying a full complement of weapons on the limited amount of fuel that they can carry aboard. Question: How do you circumvent that range limitation? Answer: You give the aircraft a ride on an aircraft carrier. Question: When the President, the Security Council and the Joint Chiefs of Staff get together to discuss military intervention anywhere, what is the first question raised? Answer: They ask "Where is the aircraft carrier?" Question: Is the aircraft carrier a single vessel? Answer: No. The aircraft carrier is a battle group consisting of at least eight vessels on the surface and maybe a couple of submarines down below. Question: Do you rehearse a presentation? Answer: Yes, if you want it to be successful at it. Question: Should you rehearse combat? Answer: Yes, if you want to survive and be successful.
If military readiness is still of paramount importance to national defense, the Navy cannot leave Vieques. Vieques is endowed with unique features that do not exist anywhere else on the Eastern Seaboard, and that do not exist anywhere else along the Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico, or the Caribbean under the U. S. flag.
Only at Vieques do you have the one thousand-meter contour (500 fathom line) two (2) to five (5) nautical miles from the beach. (See bottom contour map) Only here can you deploy an aircraft carrier, amphibious landing operations, and submerged submarines all within a two- or three-nautical mile radius. These depths this close to shore do not exist anywhere else in this hemisphere in U.S. soil. Simple as that.
The United States has suddenly discovered –been confronted against– its Achille's Heel: Vieques and Puerto Rico. Vieques and Puerto Rico are clamoring for the U.S. to jeopardize its military readiness; its military might; its position as a world power. Vieques and Puerto Rico are wanting the U.S. to yield its national defense capabilities, and those in the U.S. Congress who did not major in geography or in history while in college are asking, "Puerto Rico who?"
If anyone in the White House or in the Nation's Capitol is still compelled to defend the Nation's capability to defend the free world, they would never commit themselves to jeopardize military readiness. It does not seem to bother Puerto Rico, but it certainly will bother the U.S.
It does not bother us –Puerto Rico and Vieques– because well over three quarters of our population was born after 1946. What do we know or care about the Second World War? Pearl Harbor who? Why bother about Nazism and the Holocaust? Who remembers man's inhumanity to man, or the gas chambers? Who gives a damn about armies and navies and marines and air forces and those who went to combat and died or were maimed there? This is all in the past. Forget the past. Today is today. We are too comfortable, too peaceful, too complacent, too well fed to care.
Besides, we have a good reason to carry a chip on our shoulder. There also has been a lamentable accident. The Navy's disregard towards agreements reached with the local government, and the Navy's near total disdain towards the people of Vieques and Puerto Rico, have left much to be desired. The Navy has not been a good neighbor, by its own admission. The Navy must embark upon some very imaginative and intelligent public relations. The people of Vieques must feel adequately compensated for the contribution they have made towards military readiness if you are to expect their attitude towards the Navy to improve. The damage will not be repaired in one year; maybe not in five. Vieques deserves more than a Navy Medal.
But our role as the Achille's Heel or as "The Mouse that Roared" is getting to be a withdrawal from reason. Our sudden notoriety as an important –keystone– contributor to the military readiness of the U.S. should not be wasted or made to vanish because of our anger. It should be taken advantage of because of our capacity to negotiate in high-level statesmanship, not because of our anger and machismo.
Lets cool our heads and negotiate. We can. We are important. Not because of civil or human rights, or because we have been victimized by gringo sailors, or because of a lamentable accident, or because we are a "nation". We are important because, in this day and age, Puerto Rico and Vieques are making –and will continue to make– the most valuable contribution to the military readiness of the United States.