Posted on 05/02/2006 2:03:14 PM PDT by TBP
President Bush approved a deal to allow a company from Dubai, the country that was forced to withdraw from the Portgate deal, to take over American plants that make parts for jets and tanks for the United States.
Dubai is part of the United Arab Emirates, a country that continues to pay money to the families of homicide bombers and to the Hamas terrorist group. It appears to have been protecting Osama bin Laden in the late 1990s for some period of time. America was unable to bomb Osama's hideout because he was meeting with officials of the government of the UAE. That makes it an active supporter of terrorism. It is a threat to national security. Yet President Bush seems eager to bring UAE-based businesses into as many sectors of the economy related to national security as possible. Why?
The President argues that the deal was approved by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS.) But as we learned during the Portgate deal, CFIUS has only disapproved one deal (by a Chinese company) since it was formed in 1988. The recommendation of CFIUS is essentially meaningless.
Where is the outrage? Where is the coalition that stopped the Portgate deal? Why isn't Congress on this issue, fighting to stop the terrorist government of the UAE from controlling a company that makes such vital military materials for our country? Rep. Peter King (R-NY), a leading opponent of the Portgate deal, has been quoted as saying, "This investigation was a significant improvement over what happened before." How is that, Representative King? Dubai is still an active supporter of terrorism. Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) said, "There are two differences between this deal and the Dubai ports deal. First, this went through the process in a careful, thoughtful way; and second, this is a product not a service, and the opportunity to infiltrate and sabotage is both more difficult and more detectable." Of course, he forgets the possibility of sabotaging the product, making it defective, or otherwise undermining the quality so that it will be damaging to our troops in the War on Terror.
Allowing Dubai to manufacture arms for us is at least as dangerous as allowing it to run our ports. Unfortunately, it seems as if the political leaders who helped stop the Portgate deal were just posturing.
The lack of outrage over this Dubai deal proves that the hysterical outrage over the Dubai ports deal was nothing but politics.
But the anti-Portgate activists were right. Unfortunately, the politicians were just posturing, or they would be disturbed about this too.
Have you noticed? You can't even get any outrage going among FReepers, who can usually muster up outrage at a moments notice.
Yes, I know. It's distressing.
I for one (as were there others), brought this up during the port debate and were as outraged by this as the other. But, what are we going to do? Is it not obvious to all by now that this administration and most of our Congress don't give a damn?
I've written and faxed extensively about both, as well as the immigration issue, all of our elected rep's and quite frankly, I'm tired and I'm fed up.
If you don't notice the outrage, perhaps it's because everyone else is tired and fed up too.
What I find rather funny is I tend to be quite a bit more hesitant about the Dubai company taking over the plants than I ever was about the "ports" deal. I haven't done any research on exactly what parts it is the plants manufacture and just off the top of my head it seems like there would be more room to cause problems with the plants than there ever was with the "ports" deal. After all, they could start using sub-par material which would fail over time, they could slightly alter the specs which could also cause failure, they might have access to classified information, etc. (I underlined might simply because haven't done any homework like I did on the "ports" deal.)
Seems to me there's a lot more room for sabotage with the parts deal than there ever was with the "ports" deal.
I'm using asterisks around the "ports" deal because I did do my homework there and concluded:
It wasn't ports.
It was some docking facilities within the ports, a few terminals located in the ports, a few warehouses located within the ports, etc.
Security would still be handled by the same organizations who were in charge previously and are in charge today.
The same personnel who load/unload cargo would have been doing the same thing as they are doing now.
And so on...
Problem with the port deal is some people didn't look beyond the end of their own noses and all they heard was "The muslims are coming, the muslims are coming! And they're taking over the ports!"
These same people didn't realize the unions were upset about the deal because Dubai is known to upgrade and streamline operations. Needless to say there would have been people out of a job because of the mechanization of their jobs.
Quite a few people have an image in their head about countries in the ME, as in they live in mud buildings, they have poor education standards and are a third world country.
These same people refused to see the Board of Directors were made up of a diverse group of folks. Why, gasp, there were even a couple of Americans on the Board! (but they were traitors doncha know.) Also, the Dubai company couldn't possibly be interested in profits or be the slightest bit capitalistic because muslims aren't interested in that kind of stuff./sarc
Ok, off the soapbox now. More than likely if I did the homework on the manufacturing deal like I did on the "ports" deal, I probably wouldn't have a problem with it either. I just don't feel up to doing the research only to have it fall on deaf ears in the event my homework turns up no rational reason to be alarmed.
I am seriously saddened that straight ticket voters have takin over the major lobbying force of the RNC. This includes the bulk of FR. At this point in the game, the Bush white house, or the Republican controlled congress could burn the Constitution, and impliment a communist state and these folks will still defend them and the ones rebelling will get banned..., or shunned.
JMHO....
I'm getting HitmanLV fatigue with your constant babbling about Bush fatigue.
Aren't the Yankees on yet?
Maybe using those words, but you're CONSTANTLY ragging on Bush in some way or another. It just gets old.
The reason the Democrats hyperventilated about the Ports Deal was solely to make Bush look like an evil A-Rab lover to the Republican base and lower his ratings.
Mission Accomplished!
I call them like they are.
If dubya's doing well, that's what I'll say.
If he can't chain two good moves together, I'll say that too.
Since last summer it's been most of the latter, though I like Roberts and Alito and some stuff here and there. He has been very hard to take for most Americans for almost a year now. It might be old, but it's the truth.
Rained out.
The illegal alien demonstrations have everybody kind of sitting back taking a look at how the wind is blowing and checking their Y2K stash. Aside from that, prediction dates for the start of the real ME war range from June to August. There are a few other things such as gold and possible bubbles that have people wondering. Even the C/E threads are running on auto-response anymore.
Tqht is the reason the Democrats did what they did, apparently. But it really was a bad deal. Couldn't they make him look even worse by screaming about this too? Yet they mostly support it.
It is going to get older. His feathers are beginning to get ragged and we deserve better. The criticsm would diminish in direct proportion to his improved performance...If you are tired of the noise, challenge him to get his act together, don't expect everyone to worship W's blunders...especially the conservative base that put him in office and he has now walked away from. It gets old listening to the sycophants praise him ad nauseum also.
Two-faced comes to mind when thinking about those lovely senators...
What gets me is that since so many of htem are two-faced, why are they wearing that one?
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