Well, it wasn't our store, by rights. We did invest in the canal, but the
benefits to the US ecconomy over the 75 years or so that we owned it were
enough to ensure that it was a worthwhile investment, even if we
relinquished the canal without any strings.
We needed to get rid of one of the few vestiges of colonialism that we had.
I don't see why we have the right to dictate to a foreign country what they
do with their own property. They'd be stupid to stop US shipping, because
it
provides most of the revenue. If they cut our shipping rights, then I
could
see it as a hostile act...but IIRC, we kept the right to use the canal
explicitly.
Me:
Yeah, but when you make an investment, you don't give it up when you've
broken even, if this were a business analogy, which it isn't. The Canal
was a _strategic asset_. That's a very different thing. There are many
things more important than economics. Sole control of the most important
choke point in the Western Hemisphere definitely counts as one of them. In
this case their property was valuable only because of our considerable
efforts. It was - and remains - important to the strategic welfare of the
United States.
The other thing this demonstrates, incidentally, is the total futility of
trying to buy popularity with gestures like this. No other country in the
world would ever have even contemplated giving up a strategic asset as
valuable as the Canal because of moral qualms over how we came to possess
it. Have the British returned Gibraltar and the Falklands? They're
talking about Gibraltar, although I don't really believe it. Both of those
are important for exactly the same reason that Panama is important - they
control strategic choke points. Much less important ones than the Canal,
but choke points nonetheless. And such choke points are a lot less
important for Britain than they are for the United States. But did the US
get any credit for doing this? Of course not. The level of complaining
about American actions in Central America is exactly the same as it would
be if we _hadn't_ given up the Canal.
A hypothetical for you. How will you react if China attacks Taiwan, and
the transfer of US Atlantic Fleet assets to the 7th Fleet in the Pacific is
delayed by "technical problems" with the canal? A convenient collapse in
the Gaillard Cut, say, or a malfunction in one of the locks. Would
Carter's move have been a good idea then? Wars have been lost over far
less important issues. Now, given American military superiority at the
moment, this isn't likely to be a crippling problem. But Carter could
hardly have predicted that - heck, if the American people hadn't ejected
him with all possible speed, we wouldn't have that superiority in anyways.
Plus, that superiority won't last. Strategic assets are important. It was
Carter's fundamental inability to understand that - to understand that the
world is a hostile place full of people who want to harm the United States,
and that it is the duty of the President to stop them from doing so - that
rendered him fundamentally unsuited to the Presidency. Decisions like
giving away the Canal - without even minimal guarantees to protect American
national interests - are emblematic of that sort of attitude.
Gautam
