May 31, 2004

  • The Panama Canal, American Sovereignty and Self-Defense, Part II of III


    Also see


    Part 1


    Part 3


     





    In part I, we covered the history of the Panama Canal from its exploration as a place to build a transoceanic waterway to transport Spanish gold in 1534 to the nineteenth century when British and French governments for reasons related to their own interests sought to achieve the same, and finally the concept's successful realization by the United States after ten years of toil and hundreds of millions of dollars of investment. As we know, the Panama Canal was subsequently opened to shipping in 1914.


     


    We then touched on the canal's vital importance as a strategic waterway for the United States by pointing out just a small example of its use as such in World War II by the U.S. Navy (the battleship depicted therein was the USS New Jersey, which was in the Atlantic at the time of the Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor and made its way through the canal, as shown, shortly after to join the battle in the South Pacific). Also mentioned was the role Panama played for the U.S. in drug interdiction and we hinted at how that was impacted once U.S. troops withdrew from control of the area.


     


    Now we will look at some of the details surrounding the handover; the atmosphere in Panama and the politics at home. Naturally, it would be impossible to fit every important fact and nuance of the time into this blog, however we will touch on a few of the key items you need to know. As history raced towards the deadline at the end of the millennium, what safeguards had been put in place to insure the smoothest transition possible and what provisions were being made to leave the Canal Zone open to U.S. shipping would be two of the biggest questions Americans would have to ask when American forces left the Zone.


     


    The Time of Y2K


     


    31. December 1999, 11:59 PM. While back in the States, where people stood with champagne at the ready, "2000" sunglasses seated firmly on their noses, and some feared the end of the world as all fell victim to the allegedly ubiquitous millennium bug that was feared to wreak havic on computer systems at the dawn of the year 2000, in one minute the history of Panama and the Western Hemisphere would change more than it had in 99 years for completely other reasons. 99 years ago Panama won its independence from Columbia and carved out a place for itself on the world stage. Tonight, for the first time, Panama north and south would be united. Emotions among local residents and U.S. citizens working in Panama covered the gamut from elation and pride, to angst, melancholy, ambivalence and outright opposition.


     


    Some of the locals saw the handover filled with nationalistic pride. Leftist groups and drug lords in Columbia saw it with eager anticipation. Protests had risen to a feverish pitch from both corners in the late 70’s against the American presence. Now no more would the mammoth superpower be in their backyard, no more interfering in their affairs, altering their history. Many no doubt thought back twenty two years to the day the Panama Canal Treaty and the Neutrality Treaty were signed, 7 September 1977 by then U.S. President Jimmy Carter and Panamanian leader General Omar Torrijos. In 1999, many had only read about it in school books. Others were old enough to remember for themselves. At the time of the signing and until now, I’m sure, all of it for them seemed so far away. Americans stationed in Panama had grown to call the Canal Zone their home away from home. They had become a part of the fabric of the local culture and economy. They would now be leaving, many of them, all that they knew. They had friends in Panama and neighbors, acquaintances at the local pub and so forth, whom they realized they may never see again one minute past right now. It would be a world of difference.


     


     The More Things Change...


     


    In America, things had changed a great deal since the 1970’s. So much had changed and yet seemed to come full-circle twenty years later in the 1990's. When the treaty was signed by American President Jimmy Carter, a Democrat, video games were the latest rage, the Dallas Cowboys were world champions in American Football and the cult film Star Wars hit the scene with its first iteration. Somehow sandwiched between that time and the stroke of midnight, the last day of 1999, America had changed and accomplished so much. The U.S., with a renewed sense of national pride and purpose under two-term Republican president Ronald Reagan and Republican successor George H.W. Bush, had helped the world cast off Soviet domination, had seen the return to Space, the liberations of Grenada and Kuwait, the reunification and democratization of all of Germany and a revived U.S. and global economy. Americans also lived to see New Wave come…and go off the music charts. Under President Bill Clinton the age of the Internet, cell phones and the definition of "is" had finally come of age. Now, Bill Clinton was nearing the end of his second and final term as American President; the eighties were a distant memory and the nineties were nearing their close. Once more a Democrat was president, as when the post-signing saga started. America’s military power had once more begun to retract and the Star Wars saga was again the cult-movie favorite. To be sure, by this time in history the Panamanian economy had grown to rely on the heavy American presence in the Canal Zone. The footprint was much more than military. In fact, with the Naval presence at either end and along the canal and the massive zone economy serving thousands of servicemen, zone workers and their families, the presence meant an economic stability the region would not have otherwise seen. The pullout meant folks who lived in the area would be severely tightening their belts in times soon to come. And for a country just north of its drug-lord-driven neighbor to the south, the economic downturn likely would cause a great deal of apprehension for many.  According to one BBC article at the time, dated 19 December 1999, “There have already been several cases of the Colombian army pursuing guerrillas into the jungles of southern Panama. Also, several thousand peasant farmers fleeing the conflict have crossed the border into Panama.”  “There are also fears that the illegal drug trade from Colombia and other South American countries could undermine Panama's new-found independence”.


     


    Up until the handover of the Canal Zone back to Panama, the U.S. had used its presence, most notably the Howard Naval Base on the Pacific side of the crossing, as an important staging ground against narco-traffickers in South and Central America.


     


    Would Panama become completely over-run by the cartels or South American insurgents? What had seemed so far off not that long ago, was now at hand. Change, for better or worse, had come. Americans back home continued to hope for the best as the moment for the handover drew near. Back In 1977 most Americans polled were against the turnover, which was ratified by the Senate by a margin of just one vote. In 1999, the public sentiment had mostly gone unchanged- it remains fairly the same even today. Nevertheless, Americans are an optimistic lot who when unable to get their way, try to find some good in the situation. It was arguably that self-same optimism that built the canal to begin with.


     


    Happening in Pairs


     


    Interestingly, the Panama turnover happened to nearly coincide with (and was largely overshadowed by) another significant turnover of sovereignty set in motion years ago by a treaty which came of age in 1997. On this occasion, it was on the other side of the globe and it was the United Kingdom which ceded all control over the land and people that made up the proud water-front metropolis of Hong Kong, to the Peoples Republic of China. The two events on either side of the ocean marked the transfer from one era to the next. This time, like no other time, was truly one that would punctuate and embody a decade of immeasurable rebalancing and re-alignment among global superpowers, that would shape the world's history to come.


     


    As the clocks in Panama wound down to 12:00 midnight Central America Time (GMT -06:00), the baton changed hands, officially, and the responsibility to guard and keep the canal open for commerce and Naval passage was gently handed to those who called Panama home. Would it be safe? Would they take pride worthy of maintaining such a monument to human achievement by keeping it the vital link between the waters it had been until that point?


     


    We will find out when we conclude with part three of our series next time.


     


     


     


    Additional Resources


     


     


    More information on the Panama Canal can be found at the Library of Congress


    http://search.loc.gov:8765/query.html?qt=panama+canal


     


    You can find and read the complete Panama Canal Treaty of 1977 by following the link below


    http://www.state.gov/p/wha/rlnks/11936.htm


     


     


    Quick facts


     


    Teddy Roosevelt (in white) inspecting the progress


    Did you know that Theodore Roosevelt was one of America’s youngest presidents?


     


    He indeed was! Although he had not planned on it, in 1900 the New York governor was tapped to be President William McKinley’s Republican running mate as he made his bid for a second term. The ticket won McKinley a second term, but just six months later it all ended at the point of an assassin’s bullet. Roosevelt was then sworn in as the 26th commander-in-chief. Teddy Roosevelt later went on to win re-election three years later to serve through 1909.


     


     


    On the side


    Well, weather (of all things) has not been too kind for the second part of this series, but here it is at last. I was forced to shut down all of my systems for the past day or so due to the severe thunderstorms which continued to pound the area. And shutting down all of Blogbat’s systems is no small feat! Blogbat has 13 state-of-the-art desktop PCs, laptops, small devices, routers and servers in all with a wired and wireless network spanning four floors, basement to loft. Redundant power supplies are a good thing to have, but when things get severe in North Texas, me takes no chances. By the time I started booting everything back up, it was around midnight. When I finally got into my office to work on the article, it was nearly 2:am, and then I realized I had forgotten to type in the bios password on my file server...up in the loft. Well, it went without saying that it was time to call it a night, and so I did. I popped an action flick into the DVD player of my Toshiba Portégé M200 (it's still a new toy), flopped down on the bed (with Dogbat taking up his usual half out of the middle) and quickly managed to fall asleep before the movie had nary begun.


     


    -Blogbat


     


     


     

May 30, 2004

  • For fun...

    This wasn't too shabby. It was close, which is all I'll say.
    Propz to         Vellicator, who did it first. 

     

     











    Extroverted (E) 51.43% Introverted (I) 48.57%
    Imaginative (N) 57.5% Realistic (S) 42.5%
    Intellectual (T) 50% Emotional (F) 50%
    Easygoing (P) 51.35% Organized (J) 48.65%





    Your type is: ENTP




    You are an Inventor, possible professions include - systems designer, venture capitalist, actor, journalist, investment broker, real estate agent, real estate developer, strategic planner, political manager, politician, special projects developer, literary agent, restaurant/bar owner, technical trainer, diversity manager, art director, personnel systems developer, computer analyst, logistics consultant, outplacement consultant, advertising creative director, radio/TV talk show host.


     

    We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog

May 23, 2004

  •  


    The Panama Canal, American Sovereignty and Self-Defense, Part I of III


     


    Also see


    Part 2


    Part 3


     





     


    The Panama Canal represents without a doubt one of the great wonders of the world.


    Long dreamt of by Spanish explorers, French and British pioneers, it was not realized until, relative to Spain, centuries later by good old fashioned American know-how. And it was not gold or commerce which inspired it for the Americans; it was in the spirit of national defense and self-determination that both provided for the man-power and governed new treaties that would be signed under which the U.S. would be able to better protect its interests, assets and people. During the Spanish-American War, the United States Navy for the first time was severely pressed to move its vessels between ongoing hotspots. They not only needed to move them to Cuba and locations of contest in the Caribbean, but also across the Pacific to the Far East and the Philippines. And they needed the true fluidity that would allow them to victoriously wage war on two disparate fronts. What if the Spaniards had pinned down forces in either of the two theaters? It would surely take months to move reinforcements down the coastline of South America and below Cape Horn at the tip of Chile. Even worse, the seas close to Antarctica could be hostile to traffic in certain seasons. The American Navy needed an alternative, and Theodore Roosevelt was happy to provide one.


     


    In the next few days I will discuss the essentials of the history of the Panama Canal (a primer, if you will) in order to provide you with a true context, along with examples of its strategic importance put in use during the 20th Century. Next we will investigate and assess the claims that today, during wartime, our troops, fleets and missions could be endangered, along with the canal itself. As well as what that should mean to continental Americans if a hostile power were to prevent passage of our vessels through the canal, or use the abandoned U.S. bases there to launch attacks or espionage.


     


    We begin with the history of the Panama Canal 1534-1977


     


    Worldwide Interest, American Ingenuity


     


    French drawing of canal plans, 1888



    The first notions of a canal through what would become Panama began circulating around Madrid, Spain in 1534. In that year Charles V, the Spanish King, decided a route was needed to transport goods across the short isthmus to the other coast. Eventually this was abandoned in favor of paved roads, but it stands as the first attempt known to provide an adjoining waterway between the Atlantic and Pacific across Central America.


     


    Based on a failed British idea for a canal in the late 1840s, as well as later attempts by the French which failed, the US began formal plans to build the throughway in 1904 after war with Spain in 1899 forced them to realize the strategic vitality of just such a naval passage. A year later Panama declared independence from Columbia with the assistance of the U.S. in exchange for the canal rights, signed into law as the Hay-Bunau Varilla Treaty. The canal was completed ten years later in 1914 at a cost of over $370 Million- and possibly upwards of 25,000 lives at the worksite.


     


    The BBC describes President Theodore Roosevelt’s support for the canal in this way:


    “The US President Theodore Roosevelt saw the canal as being vital to America's destiny as a global power, and it was this that had driven him to push Congress to let him acquire the French rights to the Canal.”


     


    Today it is a vital waterway, passing some 14,000 ships a year through its locks, many of which are ships of the U.S. Navy as it carries out various missions around the globe.


     


     


    The Panama Canal During WWII


     


     In the 1930’s Japan began expanding its influence throughout Southeast Asia and the Pacific. At the time, the U.S. was a key trading partner with the regime and used that position to pressure the Japanese to limit their expansion. In late September 1940, Japan however had different ideas and signed a strategic pact with Germany and Italy. As a result of this, the U.S. placed an embargo on Japan and, in July 1941 closed the Panama Canal to all Japanese traffic. Months later after further cascading events, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, surprising U.S. forces who expected hostilities instead to begin in Malaysia. 


     


    In order to revitalize a devastated Pacific Fleet after the 7 December 1941 Japanese attacks, the U.S. sent some of her largest war ships, including her giant Essex class aircraft carriers through the canal. Though not the largest class of ship possible in the canal, these carriers required special provisions be made prior to their passage: lamp posts on either side of the canal had to be removed. This vital passage took weeks off of the time needed to navigate Cape Horn at the southern tip of South America near Antarctica and to replenish naval forces in the Pacific and was likely instrumental in getting the United States onto the footing it needed to successfully prosecute the war.


     


    In the late summer of 1945, a desperate Japanese fleet plotted a surprise attack on the Panama Canal using submarine aircraft carriers. But given the weakness of their force at that time, a different target was selected. However that target was not realized either. The war was ended and the mission was altogether canceled.


     


    Today


     


    “The U.S. military presence in Panama has also played a role in the country's battle against illegal drug trafficking”, according to Infoplease.com, an online encyclopedia. “After Dec. 31 (1999), Panama's special police force will be the only armed forces left in the country.”


     


    The transition, part of a treaty signed on 7 September, 1977 by U.S. President Jimmy Carter and Panamanian leader Gen. Omar Torrijos, relinquished control over the canal to the government of Panama at midnight, 31 December 1999. Though the treaty as ratified by the U.S. Senate called for allowing U.S. military ships priority and ability to control the canal during times of war, the Panama version passed by their legislature omitted that crucial part. In point of fact, this should completely nullify the treaty, but it has continued to be recognized by both parties with little or no discussion over the finer details nonetheless.


     


    We will begin part two with the Panamanian giveaway of 31 December 1999 and what happened next both in Panama and elsewhere abroad.


     


     


     


     


     


     


     


     


     


    Additional Resources


     


     


    A fantastic website with regularly updating live webcams of the canal and loads of interesting trivia: http://www.czbrats.com/cz_brats.htm


     


     


    Quick facts:


    Did you know the United States had to break a treaty with Great Britain in order to Fortify the Panama Canal?


     


    It did. In 1901, the United States obrogated a treaty it had made with Great Britain in 1850. The Clayton-Bulwer Treaty with Britain allowed for the building of canals, but prohibited the fortification of them and required free international use, as well as dividing any stake in building a canal into a 50-50 share. The treaty was made null when the U.S. signed the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty in 1901 without British objections. The American public was pleased with this nullification due to the canal’s strategic importance and the unsavory appearance of appeasing the British Empire which the old treaty bore.


     


    -Blogbat


     


     


     

May 22, 2004

May 14, 2004

May 9, 2004

May 3, 2004


  • Watch video



    A Splendid May Day, Comrades.


    In honor of all the workers around the world who toil endlessly without reward, without honor, powerlessly under the thumb of those who enslave them for worldwide economic domination. We have gained so much, yet there is so much left to do. For those who are not even permitted to unionize; for the common man... living under communist tyranny. I salute you all. Keep the faith. Overthrow your governments and put down the socialists who oppress you and steal your wages and rape your women. Viva la Revolución!


    -The Peoples Liberation Army of Blogbat


     

May 1, 2004

  •    Notes From the


    Garden Journal


     


    SHOT OF THE DAY...



    Some people come to Starbuck's for lattés. Others for a mocha and an Internet hot-spot. Then some come to apparently get away from their wives and kids. This guy was deep-REM-ing it.


     


     


     


    THE TRUTH ABOUT CATS AND TECHNICAL SUPPORT


     


    There exists out there a notion about consumer technical support among many. I must regret it isn't true. Recently my father had to call his ISP because of a problem he was having connecting to his DSL. This time they actually spoke one of the languages he speaks fluently (which include English), but it was still clearly a case of the blind leading the blind rift with long pauses as the girl waited for the next page of her script to come up.  Worse than McDonald’s, because he didn’t even get anything to eat in the end.


     


    Clearly, it is a misnomer among many in the public the fact that computer and internet technical support reps know anything about computers or networking. In my own experience, that is starting out and working for companies like Dell and Everyone's Internet, you quickly find out that quite the contrary is true. Their policies were essentially that while they did hire people who were technical and experienced in computers and internet technologies, they generally preferred people with customer service backgrounds (or no background at all) instead. The reasons for this are manifold. A big reason is cost. People with technical experience and training typically expect and get much higher pay in the form of salaries, good benefits and the like. In order for these companies to keep costs down, they lean towards the inexperienced. Since most users never call technical support (for Dell it was around 3% of all computers sold), the companies also see this as something not often-enough accessed to make a genuine priority, so low costs is the first call. Thirdly, there is something to be said for “skulls full of mush”. Techs who are truly technical may spend more time on the phone assisting the caller because he or she sees another issue which may be at the root of the user’s problem and as such may not always cling to policy out of technical insecurity. This, as the mantra goes, will raise user expectations the next time they call in to a tech, who will most likely be unable to fulfill them. A good example of this is AOL tech support that, when I worked at Dell, liked to pass their users on to me with not even a moment of troubleshooting, even though the user’s computer worked fine before the AOL software had been installed. In fact, AOL did the same thing when I worked for Everyone’s Internet if users were using both ISPs (even though Everyone’s Internet never installs any extra software on its users' computers).


     


    So next time you call in to tech support, know that more than likely the person at the other end either knows less than - or the same as you do. The only difference would usually be the script they have in front of them. If the company offers this script (a troubleshooting tree) on their website, I would recommend going there first. At least you won't be on hold for an hour and then have to suffer the likely prospect of your intelligence being insulted by those who do the hiring at those companies.


     


     


    Epilogue…


     


    In all fairness, there are a few good apples. Some of them drove Mercedes and had great jobs before the .COM bubble burst. Others are starting out, as I was way back when. But they usually don’t last long doing this form of technical support, because it usually is anything BUT technical. I remember speaking with a support rep at Microsoft on one occasion where it was in fact very much technical several years ago. I needed some help with one of my NT machines and had tried white papers and poured through volumes of other material before we decided to go to Redmond. The support fellow also was actually an MCSE- knowledgeable, friendly…and miserable. Somehow we got onto the topic of his career path and he (hopefully not too candidly) told me of the plight of tech support as the necessary evil between the computer science degree or the certifications and the “bling.” I was just thinking how lucky I was to have gotten him on the other end and not the usual faire.  


     


    -Blogbat


     


     









    Notes from the Garden Journal


April 24, 2004

  • "EDJUMAKATE" ME, weekend edition

     

    Today, the truth about MoveOn.org...

     

    I
    really don't typically have much space to dedicate on my site to
    news relating to activist groups and other such inner-workings of
    elections. Candidates, yes. Issues and ideas, indeed. But activist
    groups and the like; too much like the Jerry Springer show for my
    tastes. The exception comes when these groups cross the line of
    activism and begin to do things which are universally wrong (such as
    trying to mimic the whole Hitler-Youth movement thing the Germans did
    by indoctrinating innocent little kids against their parents' wishes
    and creating little armies out of them or aligning themselves with
    national mortal enemies- such as al Queda- during wartime). When that
    line is crossed, Blogbat chimes in on them. Why? Because Blogbat does
    not stand for or tolerate traitors or fascists (especially hypocritical
    ones) and neither should you. And knowledge is power...

     

    So Blogbat has compiled a quick primer to get you up to speed on what groups like MoveOn.org are doing.

     

    By the way, if you want to tell MoveOn.org what you think about their unacceptible behavior which endangers our troops and our children, here’s how you can do just that:

     

    Phone number is 510-524-6100

    E-mail addresses are Press@moveon.org, info@moveon.org, info@moveonpac.org, wboyd@moveon.org, and doug@moveonpac.org

     

     

    Brainwashing Preschool Peaceniks

    How
    pre-school teachers are using MoveOn.org literature to indoctrinate
    your children and enlist little ones into leftist letter-writing
    campaigns

     

    Bin Laden Mimics MoveOn.org?

    Recent Bin Laden tape shockingly mimics MoveOn.org and other Dem Talking Points...point for point

     

    MoveOn.org, Others Cited as Front-Group for Illegal Democrat Soft Money Meant to Alter Election

     

    Kerry's Supporters Spend as Much as Bush's Campaign…but secretly

    Moveon.org and others cited by Washington Post as reason

     

     

    -Blogbat

     

     

     

    "EDJUMAKATE" ME, weekend edition