Important port issue

The editorial, “Putting Into Port” (BDN, April 17), addresses a variety of dire consequences that may be expected should it be deemed necessary to shut down the nation’s ports by reason of a credible threat to our national security. The editorial, among the many issues mentioned, includes the observation, “The large majority of goods consumed in the United States come through its ports…”

That is really the single most important issue involved. The rest is, in my opinion, “window dressing,” and $400 million in grants and legislative attention to security won’t come close to giving it the essential attention needed.

There is a fundamental fallacy in the administration’s approach to the kind of “security” that Sens. Susan Collins and Patty Murray are attempting to address by legislation. The absolutely vital question is bound up in “The … majority of goods consumed in the United States come through its ports…” In other words, the suppliers we depend upon around the world need only to refuse to transport their goods to our ports effectively to hold the U.S. hostage. Why bother to ship to the United States at all?

Sound like a fantasy? How would we counter such a strategy? We’d better start thinking very seriously about leaving ourselves a route out of the corner into which we appear to be intent upon painting ourselves.

We are not indispensable to the rest of the world.

Robert C. Dick

Castine