Talk about a ship called the Hope, and most people who have heard the name will think of a floating hospital that served the US military in World War II and then did charity work around the world through the 1960s.

But that wasn't the first vessel to bear the name. There was a famous ship named the Hope back in the 16th century, too. Its mission was not healing or charity.

In 1585 Spain was fighting to maintain its control over the low countries and had the city of Antwerp surrounded. The encirclement was both on land and on the water, where the Duke of Parma's Spanish fleet blocked Antwerp's access to the sea, the Scheldt River.

That is, until Antwerp's defenders launched the Hope. Designed by an Italian naval architect with one purpose in mind, the vessel was packed with explosives, inflammables and shrapnel, and floated into the middle of the besieging fleet with a slow fuse burning.

Nobody knows precisely how many people were killed. At least 1,000 Spanish sailors were blown to bits, burned to death or drowned when their ships disintegrated under them. The siege of Antwerp was lifted. The Hope is better remembered in history as "The Hellburner of Antwerp."

So what does that have to do with this day and age, or with Panama?

Though George W. Bush often seems woefully ignorant of history, not so the American defense establishment. The Pentagon planners know all about fireships and over the course of the past year they and various law enforcement agencies have been taking certain precautions to keep terrorists from setting one off in a US harbor.

But has Panama been doing everything it can to help?

Some time ago, the Panamanian consulate in Manila was caught red-handed selling a first mate's certificate to an unqualified undercover labor leader, but since the surname of the man in charge of our mission in the Philippines is Escalona, there have been no consequences to pay. Coast guards around the world have penalized Panamanian-registry ships with extra inspections because of the corruption that President Moscoso condones, and shipping lines have started to abandon the Panamanian flag as a result.

A certified first mate has the right to be behind the wheel of a supertanker. The possibility of some guy who bought his papers from a Panamanian consulate incompetently running such a vessel aground and fouling the coast with sticky, toxic crude oil is very real.

The situation is worse than that. Due to Panamanian corruption, the world must run an intolerably increased risk of one of Osama's boys getting behind the wheel. Was the Hellburner of Antwerp a devastating weapon? It would seem trivial compared to a liquid propane tanker blowing up in one of the world's major ports.

The Moscoso administration's generalized corruption isn't merely an annoyance for the Panamanian people. It's a deadly hazard for the entire maritime world.

We are what we repeatedly do.

Aristotle

The prophet who fails to present a bearable alternative and yet preaches doom is part of the trap that he postulates. Not only does he picture us caught in a tremendous man-made or God-made trap from which there is no escape, but we must also listen to him day in, day out, describe how the trap is inexorably closing. To such prophecies the human race, as presently bred and educated and situated, is incapable of listening.

Margaret Mead

The jay bird don't rob his own nest.

West Indian proverb

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