The Panama Canal real estate swindle

The American people are the victims of the world's biggest real
estate swindle. In 1977, President Jimmy Carter negotiated a
controversial deal to give the Panama Canal, which was completed in 1914
by thousands of laborers paid with American tax dollars, back to the
country of Panama. It was an expensive gift because the American people
not only bought and paid for that elaborate piece of engineering, we
also built the ports of Cristobal on the Atlantic and Balboa on the
Pacific side of the canal and the associated military bases necessary to
defend this 50.72 mile strategic waterway.

Acting as agent for the American people, Mr. Carter worked out a
contract in two parts with Omar Torrijos Herrera, a military officer who
had taken control of Panama nine years earlier. Then the contract,
known as the Panama Canal Treaties, was presented to us through our
representatives in the United States Senate. The first treaty provided
for the transfer of territorial jurisdiction of the area around the
canal to Panama in 1979 and for Panama to take control of the canal
itself on Dec. 31, 1999. The second treaty pertained to the canal's
neutrality.

However, Arizona Sen. Dennis DeConcini was not satisfied. In 1978 he
added a reservation to give us the unilateral right to intervene in
Panama if ever we have reason to believe the canal to be threatened. In
real estate this is known as a counter offer which was signed --
ratified -- and delivered to Torrijos for his rejection or approval.

However, Torrijos countered our counter offer by adding three new
paragraphs that require Panama's "cooperation" before we can exercise
our option to do whatever is necessary to defend the canal. President
Carter, knowing full well that this would not be accepted by the United
States Senate, hid that piece of paper from the American people and
announced to the world that we had a deal, when, in fact, the people's
representatives in the upper chamber of Congress never accepted or
signed -- ratified -- that final contract.

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Now that this deception has been exposed, why are we giving up
control of the canal at the stroke of midnight on Dec. 31, 1999? It's
because one big swindler in the White House ultimately was replaced by
another, and the overwhelming majority of our elected representatives
are sitting by, silently and allowing the most important piece of real
estate in the Western Hemisphere to be stolen right out from under us.

Most people believe that Jimmy Carter is a good, but shallow man, and
that he did this because he sincerely thinks that this end -- which he
believes is the right thing for our two countries -- justified his
means. President Clinton, however, is another story. By now, everyone
on the planet knows that he sold his soul to the communist Chinese, who
helped finance his 1992 and 1996 elections, and who will gain control of
the canal in the year 2000 by paying off corrupt Panamanian officers to
rig the bidding process for the leases on the ports at both ends of this
strategic waterway.

However, it is the members of this United States Senate who bear the
lion's share of the blame, and all but a handful should be thrown out of
office when they come up for re-election. The members who voted against
removing Bill Clinton from office have convicted themselves. Only Larry
Flynt and a few White House operatives know why they are such cowards.
My guess is that at least some of the answers can be found in the FBI
files the Clinton White House illegally obtained. Now the sins of these
senators have been compounded and, thanks to their inaction, the
greatest heist of the century soon will be complete.