Living La Vida Vieques.(The Providence Journal)

WASHINGTON _ The big debate over the island of Vieques _ should the U.S. Navy continue testing ordnance there? _ misses the point.

The question is not whether the Navy should continue refining its drills, or testing explosives, or protecting the people of the United States from attack. Of course it should do so. And Vieques, a tiny speck east of Puerto Rico where the Navy has been conducting military exercises since before World War II, is an ideal location for such exercises. No, the real question is whether that big island west of Vieques, called Puerto Rico, is worth the trouble.

This is one of those contentious subjects that attracts people who are naturally attracted to contentious subjects. Ever since 1999, when a bombing accident killed a local guard on the Navy range, Puerto Rican nationalists have been exploiting the issue, and with considerable success. First, protesters invaded and occupied the range for nearly a year, preventing the Navy from carrying out its duties. Then the Clinton administration was badgered into resuming the tests with non-explosive devices, giving up 8,000 acres of Navy land on Vieques, in return for a local referendum on the exercises.

Of course, this characteristic act of appeasement did nothing to appease anyone. Puerto Rico's new governor, Sila Maria Calderon, is pledged not only to abrogate the Clinton agreement, but has threatened to withdraw local guards from duty, thereby inviting protesters to reoccupy the range.

Since then, the issue has served as political flypaper. Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark _ who has made a career of public solidarity with the likes of Col. Moammar Khadafy, Saddam Hussein and the Ayatollah Khomeini, announced his opposition to the resumption of Navy tests. Bobby Kennedy Jr. is planning to join protesters at the site, and asserts that "a Dunkirk-type fleet is being assembled." Columnist Mary McGrory has written impassioned columns. And all three major candidates for governor of New York, where Puerto Rican immigrants constitute a voting bloc, have come out solidly against the Navy on Vieques.

The issue came to a climax, of sorts, this past week when Gov. Calderon repaired to federal court, seeking to ban the tests. Her argument, for which there is no reliable medical evidence, is that inhabitants of Vieques suffer higher rates of disease than do residents of the main island. She also cited a new Puerto Rican ordinance against noise, which was enacted solely to stop the training. U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler was not impressed: "I cannot find that (the naval exercises) would cause irreparable harm to the residents of Vieques," she ruled, and a one-week program of testing was begun.

Protesters briefly occupied ...