America's 2nd Worst Presidency Continues to Haunt Us
May people today are unaware the most difficult and brilliant feat of engineering in modern times, one which cost an estimated 32,000 plus lives and almost 100 years from conception to finish is no longer in American Control. One of the crowning achievements of the the Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt , a strategic tool in the defense of America and the western hemisphere and a vital weapon in the winning of World War 2 was signed over to new owner by that brilliant Statesman, the 39th president, Jimmy Carter.
On October 1, 1979 Carter signed the Torrijos-Carter Treaty, which set in motion the process of handing over the Panama canal to Panamanian control and providing for a twenty-year period during which Panama would have increasing responsibilities for Canal operations, culminating in complete U.S. withdrawal on 31 December 1999, during the presidency of Bill Clinton.
The treaty was highly controversial, and its passage was difficult. The controversy was largely caused by contracts to manage two ports at either end of the canal, which were awarded by Panama to a Hong Kong-based conglomerate, Hutchison Whampoa, a company that has close ties to the the Chinese military.
The Chinese have undertaken more massive construction on the canal and will have a strategic advantage over the west, no ship, commercial or military will be able to pass without being electronically scanned, photographed and spied upon as they move from ocean to ocean.
The rise of the Chinese navy and control of both ends of the canal will allow free movement of the their navy into the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean for the first time, as well as shutting off the world's easiest means of commercial and military movement of water traffic in a minutes notice.