DON’T KNOW MUCH ABOUT HISTORY…

…BUT WE SHOULD 

(Tuesday January 22, 2013)  Forty years ago today the United States Supreme Court handed down its landmark ruling in the Roe v. Wade case deciding in a 7 to 2 judgment that the right to privacy and due process extended to a woman’s right to have an abortion.  The repercussions and reverberations of that epic Court decision are seen and felt to this very day as abortion remains one of the most polarizing and politically charged issues.  Prior to the Roe decision abortions were illegal and were performed by a wide range of providers in a wide range of environments.  Roe took what is actually a medical procedure out of the hands of “back-alley” abortion providers of diverse, often dubious expertise and ensured that woman seeking an abortion would not be fated to exist in the shadows and on the fringe of accepted sanitary, hygienic, and sterile medical practice.

To fully appreciate the significance of this Supreme Court decision and the persistence and longevity of the controversy that still infuses it one must consider the context, the “times” in which it occurred.  That is true of virtually every issue of today.  Nothing happens in a vacuum of time although the present can often be mistaken as the defining age.  History provides the requisite context to every argument, every issue, debate, and decision confronting us today.  Sadly, for the majority of Americans under 45 years of age, history consists of all that transpired in their limited lifetime. 

George Santayana the profound philosopher, essayist, poet and novelist wrote in his Reason in Common Sense, The Life of Reason, Vol.1, that "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."  Santayana's quotation, in turn, was a slight modification of statement by the 18^th century British philosopher, Edmund Burke, "Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it."  No matter the genesis of this phrase it represents an all-important truth while admonishing all to keep matters in perspective, to view the debates of today through the prism of their history.

Quotes and adages about the need and value in having knowledge of history are plentiful.  It is absolutely true that in society, governance and politics “everything old is new again”, “past is prologue”, and, “to understand the future one must study the past”. These and similar sayings speak to the necessity of having at least a broad grasp of the history of an issue to acquire the proper context and perspective by which to access it.  A wealth of recent polling and surveys have shown that the majority of Americans born since 1968 have a terribly inadequate and generally poor understanding of recent (post WWII) history with that majority increasing exponentially as those polled or surveyed are younger and younger.  Essentially, young adults who are in their first year at our nation’s colleges and universities have an abysmal lack of knowledge of recent American history.  This paucity in knowledge is a severe handicap for us as a country, a society, and a member of the global community.

UNDERSTANDING NOW BY KNOWING THEN

Yesterday President Barack Obama was publically sworn into office in the 57^th Presidential Inauguration Ceremony.  His Inaugural Address which is receiving high marks for its substantive contents and historical references is being lauded as the enunciation of a true “progressive” ideology.  Aside from the lofty oratory and rhetorical flourishes one cannot fully appreciate the words he spoke, the ideals he set forth as goals, and the scale, scope and weight of his second-term agenda without familiarity with the history of some off our most seemingly intractable and divisive problems.  The fact that an American President of African-American ancestry was being sworn in to the highest elected office in our land on the federal holiday celebrating the life and accomplishments of Dr. Martin Luther King, was steeped in late 20^th century U.S. history.  Many among us of a certain age had never thought they’d see an African-American President in their lifetimes. 

Until 1965 African-Americans were denied the right to vote and segregation was endemic in many parts of the Country. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was the southern Minister turned civil rights activist at the forefront of having our Country, by way of our federal government, recognize, grant and enact laws to provide equal rights and non-discriminatory practices for the long oppressed African-American population.  Though the “War Between the States” had been over for 100 years the vestiges of the Old South and the rabid bigotry of the day had systemically denied the African-American segment of our populace equal access to housing, education, jobs and all manner of common services, rights, privileges and courtesies compared to the predominantly Caucasian society into the 1960’s.  The Voters Rights Act of 1965 and all the subsequent legislation that followed was the Nation’s first efforts towards redress and equality for the descendants of slaves. That was not that long ago yet how many people today have no idea of the struggles of the not too distant past?

“History” was not necessarily all that long ago.  To better comprehend and ponder some of the political discourse and discord of today, an acquaintance with our Country’s history since the end of WWII would provide a solid foundation for a broader, more stable perspective perch.  The ferocity of the arguments and the more pronounced sources of rancor, anger, and confrontation in Washington DC over the past dozen years or so can be much better understood by tracing their roots in our history.  The on-going argument over abortion is one such topic.

ABORTION:  SAFE AND LEGAL TODAY…BUT…

Viewing abortion from the narrow confines of today, as a bitter battle between the “Right to Life” hard-core Republican/Conservative/Evangelicals and the “Pro-Choice” Democratic/Liberal/Progressive/Populists, is to see just a sliver of the larger whole.  Some who champion one side or the other today behave as if the “abortion question” fell, as is, into the laps and consciences of Americans out of nowhere.  This could not be further from the truth. To understand the truth about abortion, the long, sordid, often tragic history of women who sought to terminate their pregnancies for whatever individual personal, private reasons prior to the Roe Decision, it is essential to pull the curtain of history and peek behind it. 

Women who desired to terminate their pregnancy before January 22, 1973, would find a way.  There were a wide assortment of kooks and cranks, medical providers and charlatans, neighborhood nurses and village midwives, acting as abortion providers. The infamous “coat hanger abortion” was an act of desperation and isolation where a young woman would use a wire clothes hangar as an intrauterine probe to expel a nascent fetus or cause her body to reject the pregnancy.  So many of these women suffered severe septic shock, infections and sustained self-inflicted damage to their reproductive organs that the chance of any successful pregnancy in her future was rendered impossible.  Women died and often died alone and estranged from their families and friends; not too many decades ago the social stigma associated with a pregnancy “outside of wedlock”, was a cruel, powerful motivation to keep a pregnancy secret or to have it terminated secretly.  One just needs to do a cursory Google search to read of the horrors of abortion before it was deemed legal.

 As previously noted, the legality of the “right to have an abortion” was decided by the Supreme Court citing the Constitutional grounds to a woman’s “right to privacy” insofar as what she did or did not do with her body and that her right to privacy was an extension of “due process” as codified in the 14^th Amendment.  Yet, 40 years out from the “legalization” of abortion the fights and conflict rage on and the anti-abortion forces have been involved in all manner of legislative actions to turn back the hands of time regarding the availability of abortion.  People have been killed over this matter.  The most recent murder was of a physician, Dr. George Tiller, in Wichita Kansas on May 31, 2009.  Some states have no abortion providers due to the aggressive tactics of the abortion opponents.  Yes, there is a long history and it continues to be written today as old debates are re-engaged, reinvigorated by new zealousness, and actually, one’s views on abortion and its “constitutionality” have become a political “litmus test” for anyone seeking elected office or appointment to a higher court as a judge.  This, even though, the last 40 years have established a strong base of legal precedent and Roe v. Wade has thus far survived the ever escalating onslaught to repeal or overturn it.

MARKING TIME, MEASURING “PROGRESS”

If nothing else history provides us with mile markers, points of reference, and a map of the roads that have led us to the present.  Our past contains all the glaring flaws and faults of yesterday as well as the nuanced more subtle forces that fueled the fires that burned for change, which refused to be held at bay by the status quo and moved us all forward. Hindsight, if accurate and true, permits an unvarnished vision of exactly where we have been and why we are where we are now.  That is what history is all about.  It is not about knowing significant dates or arcane facts from antiquity.  Such are the purview of the academic, the scholars who sift through the ages seeking answers and understanding.  The average American need not be scholarly in the appreciation and pursuit of historical context.  It is vital to the present as are the particulars and details of all the multitude of variables and vagaries that constitute the climate we live in today, the landscape we traverse as a People.

TAGS: ROE V. WADE, 40 YEARS LEGAL ABORTION, SUPREME COURT DECISION 1973, POST WWII AMERCIAN HISTORY, HISTORICAL CONTEXT, CIVIL RIGHTS, VOTERS RIGHTS ACT 1965, PRESIDENT OBAMA’S SECOND INAUGURATION, DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.

LINKS:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/10/study-rates-colleges-base_n_1954987.html

http://www.timesdispatch.com/opinion/their-opinion/college-students-starved-for-knowledge/article_f40d4a9a-5192-5ff5-81fc-e5037e866aa0.html

http://www.isi.org/quiz.aspx?q=FE5C3B47-9675-41E0-9CF3-072BB31E2692&AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1

http://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/high-school-notes/2012/08/22/high-school-students-not-prepared-for-college-career

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade

 Copyright The Brooding Cynyx 2013 © All Rights Reserved

CUT THE RIBBONS

ENOUGH’S ENOUGH

(Thursday January 17, 2013)  Let’s have at least a temporary moratorium on Ribbons: Cause Ribbons, Advocacy Ribbons, Awareness Ribbons, Support Ribbons.  Whatever they are called let’s not have any new ones added to the dizzying plethora of these annoying ubiquitous little ornaments.  It has gotten completely out of hand.  The entire Crayola crayon collection of 64 colors has already been exhausted and now there are some colors that are associated with more than one single cause or issue.  It has reached the point where the normal spectrum of colors is insufficient to the incessant demand so, some Ribbons are in patterns – camouflage, spotted, plaid, rainbows, argyle and a host of other hideous designs to make one despise not only the imbecile wearing the Ribbon on their lapel, collar or hat, but prompt you to immediately develop a “fuck them” attitude to whatever group is represented by that particular ribbon.  Enough is enough.

Americans are a quirky, idiosyncratic, often simple-minded people, as diverse and disparate as a population not engaged in armed conflict with each other can be.  Our culture, or what passes for it today, is prone to fads of all kinds and sorts.  The preponderance of ribbons has moved way beyond a simple fleeting fad into a trend and now, apparently, into a full-fledged embarrassing fetish.  You know that your cause, illness, gripe or issue has officially arrived when it gets a fuckin’ ribbon.  This entire Ribbon shtick may have started out innocently and sincerely but it is now a shallow practice meant to signify the wearer’s allegiance with a group or cause without really doing anything of substance or meaning for that group or cause. 

Actually these Ribbons have moved beyond ribbon.  The ribbon loop image is available as car and refrigerator magnets, novelties of every kitschy variety from mugs, key chains, pens, beach towels, hairnets, trusses, caps, scarves, Frisbees, purses, handbags, wallets, combs, suppositories, playing cards, beanies, aprons, belt buckles, Goiter clothes, slippers, stuffed animals, vomit basins, oven mitts, ear rings, bracelets, barrettes, spare tire covers, trailer hitch covers, tarps, flags, banners, lawn ornaments, neon lights, condoms, and every kind of throw-away, give away item you might get at an insurance agency’s open house.  These ribbons are virtually everywhere, they are inescapable and it is well passed time that we put an end to this madness.

There is no arguing that many of these causes and groups are important; there is no denying that many of these illnesses, ailments, conditions, syndromes, rashes, and diseases; congenital and acquired, need to have a greater level of the non-afflicted public’s attention.  No.  Some of these advocacy/support ribbons have shed light on afflictions and impairments the victims of which have had to suffer in silence often feeling alone in their struggles.  Perhaps all Americans needed to be more cognizant of the fact that too many of our fellow American’s, our friends, neighbors, co-workers, distant cousins, and bowling team members are engaged in a daily, ruthless battle with horrid maladies and miseries such as Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Vaginal Itch, Fungating Prickly Heat, Megacolon, Chronically Abscessed Warts, Hairy Nevi, Flatulence Profundus, Morbid Halitosis, and Degenerative Gastritis, just to name a few.

Some of the people who teach our children, cut our hair or lawns, bag our groceries, deliver our Chinese Food and Pizzas, wait on our tables, fix our computers, install out cable service, drive cabs, trucks and buses may be plagued and stricken with any number of manias, phobias, fits, fugues, seizures, tics, spasms, aphasias, delusions, spells, cramps, or any of the countless aches, attacks, blights, bugs, cankers, contagions, convulsions or debility, decrepitude, defect, disorder, distemper, endemic, epidemic, or feebleness known to modern medical science.  Maybe we all need to be more aware of the various strains of fever, hemorrhage, indisposition, infection, inflammation, unsoundness (of mind or body), and virus that still retain age-old stigmas and force those among us so affected by and smitten with such curses to live forlorn and lonely in the shadows with their adversity, anguish, crux, distress, hardship, misfortune, ordeal, pain, plight, scourge, torment, trial, tribulation, trouble and woe.  Even if we need to be aware of all this shit, it is dubious, if not doubtful that the wearing of some hideously colored strip of ribbon fashioned into a loop will do much to raise our awareness, conscientiousness, and concern.  Frankly, some of us would probably rather not know that the kid handing us a Happy Meal at the local McDonald’s hasn’t had a bowel movement since birth or the woman sitting on the bus next to us has had plantar warts and weeping sores on her feet.  Perhaps having such intimate knowledge of our fellows easily accessible just by looking at the ribbon on their coat might cause us to react negatively, maybe even violently towards them and their gall at such blatant, cheap, callow, crass and insulting advertisement for sympathy or support.  People should keep their abnormalities to themselves, not wear them on their hats.

TAGS: HUMOR, CRITIQUE, CAUSTIC OPINION, SARCASTIC COMMENTARY, SOCIAL OBSERVATION, HUMOR, SATIRE, AWARENESS RIBBONS, ADVOCACY RIBBONS, SUPPORT RIBBONS, ENOUGH FUCKING RIBBONS.


 Copyright The Brooding Cynyx 2013 © All Rights Reserved
 

PORT HOLES

US PORTS UNSECURE AND VULNERABLE

Terrorists could be in virtually any major City in the Eastern half of

America within a 24 hour drive from Gulfport on the Interstate network.

(Photo courtesy of the Mississippi State Port Authority at Gulfport)

Part I of a three Part Series on Port Security; a TBC Exclusive Investigation.

(Friday January 11, 2013.  Gulfport, MS.)  The Port of Mississippi here at Gulfport is a sprawling 204 acre intermodal facility with over 6000 feet of berth space.  Located just five nautical miles north of the Intracoastal Waterway and an hour’s sail from international waters, it is the third busiest port on the United States Gulf Coast.  Standing dockside here on a typical humid morning, the activity appears frenetic but is actually a well-orchestrated industrial symphony between looming gantry cranes, huge ocean travelling ships toweringly loaded with hundreds of 40 foot shipping containers, and a hoard of semi-trucks, yard jockeys, and empty chassis.  This is the picture of the global economy, of the vital supply chain in action.  The port at Gulfport handles over 2 million tons of cargo a year according to The Port Authority of Mississippi.  This is largely a “green port” meaning that the bulk of the incoming freight is edible perishables.  Both Dole and Chiquita Banana are prime customers of this facility.

While the activity here is impressive there is one notable absence at this vital point of entry into the United States – security.  With all the talk and concern in this post 9-11-01 age about all the many and varied facets covered under the rubric of Homeland Security, there is little security of any kind in evidence.  There are some cosmetics of security including fences and uniformed “guards” as well as a handful of Department of Homeland Security (DHS) “agents” as well as a couple of US Customs and Border Patrol personnel who comprise a force that is so wholly inadequate given the scale and scope of the operations here that for all intents and purposes there is no security.  There are times when the only “security” personnel present are unarmed security guards from a local company.

The men and women employed by the myriad of companies who work here are all too willing to speak about this lack of security.  Many can rattle off a list of legislative measures taken in the name of Homeland and Port Security and can attest to the fact that all of them are just so many words printed on the never idle presses in Washington DC.  Some of their comments may come across as cynical, sarcastic or comical but the concerns they address are extremely serious and their worries are very, very real.  These are the people, crane operators, truck drivers, dock hands, forklift drivers and longshoremen who see all too clearly on a daily basis just how vulnerable this facility is.  Virtually anything can be inside one of the millions of containers that pass through here annually; even the casual observer is struck by the fact that it appears anyone can enter the port unquestioned, unimpeded, and unidentified.

 

ALPHABET SOUP

After the unprecedented terrorist attacks perpetrated on September 11, 2001 every department, agency and division of our federal and state governments were badly shaken.  No one, it seems, ever realized just how vulnerable we were.  Sadly, but in true Washington DC fashion we are basically as vulnerable today as we were then despite the avalanche of legislation and regulation developed under the auspices of Homeland Security.

Congress was quick to act and signed George W. Bush and Dick Cheney’s “Patriot Act” into law on October 26, 2001 thereby clearing the acreage needed to construct a huge, clumsy “Super Agency” which absorbed 22 separate federal agencies at least as dysfunctional collectively as most of them were individually. To trace the genesis of The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is akin to reading an Old Testament passage in the Bible. 

The DHS begat the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and as swiftly as wild rabbits breed there was spawned the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and a small legion of other alphabet agencies and a flood of legislation addressing security in factories and on farms, in food processing, warehousing and distribution.  The powers of the day saw that our nuclear facilities, power grid, vital infrastructure, airports, airplanes, borders, and ports were almost wholly unsecured.  Along with the now almighty DHS everyone jumped into the act from the DOT, FDA, DOE, DOJ, FBI, and even the hapless CIA was eager to ramp up their operations after their abysmal failures that allowed 19 men to successfully attack us on our own soil.  Concerns over the safety of our water supply, livestock and crops invited a level of regulation and accountability never before known in the agricultural industries and public utilities.  Actually, once it was realized plainly for anyone to see, it was utterly stupefying to realize that we had left so many components and elements of our country, economy, and people nakedly exposed as so many sitting ducks blithely paddling atop a still lake while a semi-obese, intoxicated camouflage adorned hunter aims his shotgun at them.

So Washington DC did what it always does and does best, they had an epic knee-jerk reactionary seizure and largely without thought or logic began to assemble this gawky apparatus of “security” agencies cheaply strung together by equally thoughtless and arguably unconstitutional legislation.  That there were enormous security challenges confronting us was not the issue; we were an amazingly open, unmonitored, unsecured nation.  But, in the efforts to provide security to facilities and industries that needed to be more secure, the legislation crafted in DC did not translate very well down to the rank and file workers and employees of these highly vulnerable potential “targets”.

HERE A TRUCK, THERE A TRUCK, EVERYWHERE A SEMITRUCK

The major American seaports that primarily receive imported goods from around the world are vast complexes covering thousands of acres.  Our network of distribution centers, industrial parks and warehouses are important links in the supply chain of virtually everything we use to live.  But the most obvious links in the supply chain that is the very lifeblood of our economy and way of life are mobile; they are the ubiquitous tractor-trailers traversing America on ribbons of cement and asphalt.  

An intermodal semi-truck running down the road.

the trailer is a shipping container mounted on a chassis.

One would be hard pressed to find an item in their home, office, school, local markets, shopping malls or anywhere else that did not spend some time from its point of origin to your home, business, school or local retailers on a truck.  That is a plain and simple fact.  Today there are an estimated 7 million semi-trucks in service in America with upwards of 3.8 million on the roads at any given time.  There is an approximate ratio of 1::7 meaning that for every power unit there are 10 trailers; so 70 million trailers are parked in most unsecured locales at any given time.  The trailers not connected to a power unit are dropped at terminals, carriers, shippers and receivers and are largely unattended.  Due to the advent of the “just in time” inventory management system at the wholesale and retail levels, semi-trailers have become de facto rolling warehouses for commodities and goods of every kind. 

As for shipping containers, exact numbers are notoriously difficult to come by however the best industry estimates report upwards of 27 million shipping containers being off loaded in American ports every year.  Of these, prior to 9-11-01 less than one percent were screened or scrutinized and since 9-11-01 that number has risen to near 1.4%.  Just think of these numbers for a moment and you get a picture of the enormity of the challenge when it comes to having even the most modest control of what is, is not, and what may be in a shipping container from some far flung port and just how easily a bomb of any kind or even nuclear material could be shipped into America.  The scanning process for nuclear material at our ports today is, according to one Port Manager at Port Elizabeth, New Jersey who asked to remain anonymous, “a freakin’ joke.  It’s like no one believes that we do so little to actually inspect what’s comin’ in here.  By some law most of the nuclear screening is supposed to take place at the port of origin but I doubt…screw that, I know, that is not the case.  What containers are run through the scanners here are a tiny fraction of what we receive.  The whole system is a fuckin’ joke and, mark my words, somebody is going to do some real damage to us using a device or material that was off loaded at an American port and sent on its way.”  These very same sentiments were expressed by dock mangers, port masters and longshoremen from Charleston South Carolina, to Long Beach California.

TWIC OR TWEET

Mark Whetstine is an Operations Coordinator for a major refrigerated motor carrier serving their customers here at the Port in Gulfport.  A former long haul owner operator trucker with over 2 million miles driven without an accident to his credit, he takes a few minutes to express his many and varied opinions.  He is not a shy man by any means and he is a highly intelligent and observant port employee who daily witnesses the folly of “security” at the Port of Mississippi.  We spoke on a recent balmy Sunday afternoon.  Whetstine’s concerns transcend the glaring lack of adequate security and the many sanctioned “loopholes” that exist to circumvent even the paltry security measures in place in the port at Gulfport; he and his family live within 15 miles of the Port and he is acutely aware of the potential for some terrorist activity that could destroy the area he, his family and friends call home.

“I guess it was shortly after they passed the MTSA (Maritime Transportation Security Act) in 2002 that they came up with the idea of the TWIC (Transportation Worker Identification Credential) card.  I had to pay $132, have the FBI do a background check, get fingerprinted, photographed and God knows what else so I could have a TWIC card.  Well, I got my TWIC card and let me tell you, TWIC card or not, anyone can bring anything they want into this port.  The TWIC card was just another revenue stream for the feds.”    

Technically, legally but actually just theoretically no one can enter the port without a valid TWIC card.  In reality, the very same federal agency that devised the TWIC program has built in a gapping loophole that anyone could literally drive a truck through. 

So it is by law that any and all truckers entering facilities covered under the TWIC card law must have undergone the tedious, costly, time consuming process of acquiring this card.  However, there is a legal way for virtually any truck driver to enter the Port here as well as others across the country without a TWIC card.  The existence of this particular loophole shows the idiocy of the entire “security” system at our ports and provides a free pass, or rather a $40 pass to any driver to enter any port.

In most ports as here at Gulfport there is a contract “escort service” available. These escorts are not of the sexual companionship variety although, as one Port employee here put it, this escort service could result in “a whole bunch of folks getting fucked and killed.”

A driver without a valid TWIC card can pay a mere forty dollars to America’s Security Escort Service, a company climbing to be “In compliance with the TWIC program.”  No doubt there employees who serve as escorts into our ports are in compliance.  The ludicrousness of this service is almost beyond belief and is actually advertised on this company’s web site.  America’s Security Escort Service functions much like the “mules” that help illegal aliens traverse the Rio Grande and the badlands between the United States southern border and Mexico thereby gaining entry into America.  Their boldly stated mission is: “To keep your company from the expense of $ 132.50 per person/TWIC card that belongs to the individual. This is crucial to your company due to the transient nature of this business.  To maintain your current workforce without interruption due to some personnel not being able to pass the stringent FBI screening process (i.e.)

    (a)  Individuals who lack certain immigration status.

    (b)  Have connection to terrorist activities.

    (c)  Have been determined to lack certain mental capacities.

    (d) Those who have been convicted of certain crimes will be ineligible.”

If you should happen to be a terrorist of some kind and have decided to wreak havoc in an American port or on a ship in a harbor, all you need to do is construct an explosive device, load it onto a semi-trailer or shipping container, arrive at your chosen port of preference, pay the escort fee, and they will guide you into the port for you to deposit a trailer containing a bomb, nuclear material, biologic or chemical warfare dispersal mechanism and you are in.  Your background will remain unknown to anyone.  The escort service makes the entire concept of the TWIC card an absolute joke and the card itself not worth the paper it’s printed on.  Yes indeed.  If you are a trucking company and have drivers who cannot pass an FBI background check, may be illegal immigrants, have connections to terrorist activities, lack certain mental capacities or have been convicted of a felony, there is no need to worry.  Just pay at the port and your driver and whatever it is he might be hauling is in.  This is what constitutes “security” at our already pitifully vulnerable commercial cargo ports.

IN THROUGH THE OUT DOOR

In practice every semitrailer exiting the Port here is run through a scanning device that registers the presence of radioactive material in the hopes of finding nuclear material sent via shipping container for use in America.  The odd, almost bizarre inverse of this protocol is that nothing entering the Port is scanned.  The system, for lack of a better word, is akin to having a front door on a bank designed only to keep people in while allowing anyone to enter at any time.  One security consultant from BronxWest Consulting commented, “ That anyone can so easily circumvent the port entry process is cause enough for concern but, add to that the fact that a step by step set of instructions are provided to do so by this escort service, is so far beyond my comprehension that it almost seems to be a sick joke.  Add to these facts the irresponsibility of the federal agencies tasked with port security obviously condone, if not encourage these breeches of protocol, and it all amounts to criminal negligence. If this scenario does not meet the standards of dereliction of duty on the parts of those overseeing these agencies and operations than, I suppose, I do not know what does.” 

IN THROUGH THE BACK DOOR

On October 12, 2000 while harboring and being refueled at the port of Aden in Yemen, the United States Navy guided missile destroyer, the USS Cole was severely damaged when a small water craft (no larger than a john boat) made contact with the hull of the ship detonating an explosion that left a 40’x40’ gash in the ship killing 19 Sailors and wounding 39.  The investigation afterwards revealed that the extensive damage to the billion dollar warship was caused by an estimated 400 – 700 pounds of explosive material molded into a shaped charge.  Essentially two terrorists in a rowboat equipped with an out board engine and a crude bomb came perilously close to sinking one of the most advanced US Naval ships in the fleet.  What would happen if a similar event were to occur in the Port at Gulfport or in the harbor?  What would be the economic, psychological, logistic, environmental and commercial shipping impact of such an event?  One long time maritime security analyst noted that such an attack on an inbound or outgoing freighter or a docked ship would be, “catastrophic in many ways.  It would render the Port unsuitable for use until the damaged or sunken ship could be salvaged and removed.  Psychologically it would be a victory for those who perpetrated the act and another blow to our national psyche and sense of security.”

The gaping hole in the port side of the USS Cole caused by

two men in a small boat and a homemade bomb.

The security breaches on the dockside of the operations and entry into the Port facility from the surface roads via the entry gates are just one component of the abysmal security at this facility.  The vulnerability and lack of security is just as serious from harbor side or from the water as demonstrated by the USS Cole incident.

Two local fishermen enjoying a Sunday afternoon within 20 yards of

the Port of Mississippi piers well within the harbor.

The United States Coast Guard Station Gulfport is located within one half of a mile from where the photo above was taken.  Virtually every Port employee commented that the Coast Guard presence is so infrequent in the Port and harbor that one would never know they “have a base right here in the Port, basically.”   The US Coast Guard personnel at Station Gulfport are reluctant to answer any questions regarding their “operations and security measures.”  They should be reluctant or ashamed to comment because for all intents and purposes they provide such a flimsy layer of security to this essential port that they may as well not even bother. 

“ONE IF BY LAND, TWO IF BY SEA”

Prior to the famous Battles of Lexington and Concord during our Revolutionary War against England, the Boston militia man and patriot, Paul Revere, devised a simple yet effective intelligence and alarm system to monitor the movements of the British forces.  He and a handful of others hung lanterns in church steeples to alert those within line of sight of the lanterns where the British were coming towards them from. It was a primitive relay system communicating that vitally important information from hamlet to hamlet, from cities to towns along the way. His “One if by land, two if by sea” quote is not only basic American history it is part of the lore of our fight for independence.

Unfortunately, despite far more sophisticated “intelligence and alarm” systems at our disposal, there will likely not be a counterpart to Paul Revere to alert us of the approach of terrorists.  This is our own fault and the fault of our elected leaders, appointed officials and those charged with oversight responsibility over all the constituent parts of our Rube Goldberg-like Homeland security apparatus.

We’ve had the last 12 years and have spent untold trillions on all aspects of Homeland Security, Intelligence gathering and analysis and possess the most powerful military force ever assembled but, we remain inconceivably unsecured with long standing, pre- 9-11-01 vulnerabilities and weaknesses remaining to be exploited. If rapid, reasoned, logical, practical actions are not undertaken by the federal government, the next terrorist attack is just a matter of time from being another devastating reality. 

TAGS: HOMELAND SECURITY WEAKNESSES, PORT SECURITY LOOPHOLES, DHS, ICE, USCG, MTSA, PORT OF MISSISSIPPI AT GULFPORT, AMERICA’S SECURITY ESCORT SERVICE, TWIC CARDS, TRUCK DRIVERS EXPENSES, SECURITY VULNERABILITIES, TBC EXCLUSIVE INVESTIGATIVE REPORT.

LINKS:

http://www.ases-llc.com/faq.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Act

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_security

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-13/u-s-backs-off-all-cargo-scanning-goal-with-inspections-at-4-.html

http://www.emergencymgmt.com/emergency-blogs/disaster-zone/port-security

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-565180.html

http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2003149964_portsecurity25.html

http://www.aapa-ports.org/Issues/USGovRelDetail.cfm?itemnumber=1047

http://www.aapa-ports.org/Industry/content.cfm?ItemNumber=1032

Preview of Part II of this three part series:  We will take a closer look at the security arrangements provided by non-governmental agencies, private companies as well as the complicity on the part of certain locally elected officials, business leaders, and those making money from the DHS while providing inadequate services employing largely inept, unqualified, ill-trained personnel.

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