The shallow brouhaha over the United States surveillance plane which assisted us when we had to fight back drug thugs last year is much ado about nothing.

Had we not been in the throes of an election campaign, it would not even have made the front pages. But everything is fodder now for one or the other of the political parties, especially the Opposition which is really being hypocritical.

We forget already so soon the terrifying scenes of police stations burning and thugs extending their barricades outwards from Tivoli Gardens, West Kingston, as if they were about to stage a coup and take over the capital city. Imagine criminals running our country!

There are two facts that every thinking Jamaican man, woman and child will appreciate.

First, the Jamaican people were happy to be rid of the criminals who massed in Tivoli Gardens to prevent Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke from being arrested and extradited to face gun and drug charges in the United States.

In fact, it is not hard to see that had the gunmen been more equipped and had our security forces not received surveillance help, many more than the reported 73 persons would have been killed.

Second, the US is not going to sit back and allow terrorist gunmen to take over a country virtually on its borders, especially in this post-9/11 world.

We would be living in a fool’s paradise if we thought that the notion of sovereignty is going to mean anything to the US where there is even the remotest threat to its national security.

Whether we had invited them or accepted an offer of assistance or not, Washington would have had a vested interest in what was going on here in May 2010, and that is even without factoring in their request for the extradition of Coke that triggered the entire episode.

Furthermore, the US is an ally, and allies come to the assistance of friends when it is necessary. We are gratified to know that we have such friends that we can call on in times of disaster, man-made or natural.

The People’s National Party (PNP) understands this very well. That is why then National Security Minister Dr Peter Phillips signed that controversial Memoranda of Understanding (MOU) under which evidence was found to convict Coke.

We don’t know why National Security Minister Dwight Nelson denied the presence of the plane, given the gravity of the situation last year. It was a sensible move to accept that kind of assistance.

Of course, we are aware that the military has a culture of secrecy when it comes to matters of security, and it is conceivable that Mr Nelson did not know the details of the operation. We note, for example, that he might not have known that the extradition papers had arrived for Coke had then Police Commissioner Hardley Lewin not told him.

But as far as the secrecy of the military is concerned, we wouldn’t want it any other way, wherever and whenever our national safety is at stake.

The childish talk about the US unearthing all sorts of information about Jamaicans is akin to talk about Russian ships in the harbour.