Posted on 02/21/2006 9:22:01 PM PST by nickcarraway
Apparently I'm dead.
There can be no other explanation; I have always maintained that I would never live long enough to agree with Charles Schumer about anything. Still, it is ironic that my first posthumous column has to be in support of his position. He is in favor of chucking the recently announced dubious Dubai-U.S. deal to have that Arab emirate operate our major ports in New York and Miami. To be more precise, a quote-company-unquote quote-based-unquote in Dubai.
Okay, enough Schumer for one lifetime. Let me rather align myself with Republican Congressman Vito Fossella, who did hie to seize this matter of political piracy on the high seas, jumping on it early last week (although, in a dirty-pool bank-shot, Peter King's office stole the weekend New York newspaper coverage for their guy). Fossella is a favorite of mine, because I was there in 1996 when Guy Molinari, the cigar-chomping godfather of Staten Island politics, anointed Vito as the presumptive successor for daughter Nancy's Congressional seat.
We were at a rally for Republican foot-soldiers in a "club" on the Brooklyn side of the Verazzano Bridge. I was there flacking for a Republican Congressional candidate amid a gaggle of the mousy bespectacled reporters that New York seems to spawn in such profusion. As I circulated among the buzzing crowd, I heard two responses repeated everywhere. "He looks like a jock, but he was Fordham Law." "Doesn't his wife look exactly like Marisa Tomei?" Than which, in Big Apple parlance, no more vociferous approbation is imaginable.
Vito is concerned that the United Arab Emirates, which has a history of terrorist citizens and princes who go hunting with Bin-Laden, not to mention being officially sworn to destroy Israel, is hardly the sort of entity to manage secure ports on our shores. How well can we possibly have vetted the employees of such an outfit? And how do you pronounce Umm al-Qaiwain (one of the emirates) anyway? But President Bush has an answer for Vito -- a veto! If Congress legislates the transaction into oblivion, the President threatens to break out the veto pen. Bad move, Mr. Prez: you are ignoring some overriding concerns.
He defends the transaction on the basis of the fact that the UAE has been an ally in the War on Terror, is currently managing ports in other countries from which we receive a great deal of shipping, and it would send the wrong signal to black-list, or red-line, certain parts of the world as ineligible for significant roles in our economy. It seems obvious to me that most Americans believe that this would be precisely the right signal to send: we are not going to trust you guys until you show many, many years of incredibly clean security records. This is a flash of the famous Bush obstinacy, but for my money he's fighting a sure-lose battle.
In truth, my concern differs from Vito's a whit. I am the proud coiner of the maxim: "Matters of the moment are rarely matters of moment." The actual fear of a killer, or explosive cargo, osmosing through the Dubai port guys into our cities is slim indeed. It is remote that they would lose control over the screening. Their interest in making the job work for them would supersede any ideological predispositions. They may harbor grudges, but not on our harbors.
My concern is the opposite. Sure Dubai can purge their terrorists. They do it by making them take a long walk off a short pier. They do "mean" well, in fact they do it very well. Brutally, autocratically, repressively, they will out-terrorize the terrorists. Which means, in essence, that we are submitting to a protection racket. Because we fear the terrorists which those leaders allow to breed, the leaders can force us to hire them as the "experts" at cleaning up their own mess.
The War on Terror cannot be limited to fighting terrorists and preventing their achieving political ends through terrorism, nor is it sufficient to trounce the sovereigns that openly assist them. It must also prevent those nasty neighboring autarkies from making a cottage industry out of offering "protection" from the thugs. Look, I know how it works; in Mexico City I had to pay a kid to protect my car in a mall parking lot. Is it acceptable for us to be held hostage to the political version of that reality?
Using the same logic, Hamas should be the ideal party to govern the Palestinian Authority. After all, they have been the most effective at stopping terrorism. When they declare a truce, the bombings magically stop. Indeed the Emirates used to be known as the Trucial States, because their existence was founded on a truce they engineered in the battle of local Arabs against the British. If we want to defeat terror, we must prevent it from becoming a basis for any profiteering. Then we may return to our way of life (or Vito).
Now go back to calling all of our wins as losses you leftists dirtbag
You don't even know what a leftist is. You're just a sycophantic punk with delusions of intellect. So, you were a supporter of Clinton, Carter, Johnson, Kennedy, Truman, Roosevelt, et all?
Go stick your head back in the sewer where it belongs.
HELLO, try to remain on topic, we are talking about the War on Terror, not WWII, and there is no comparison
I am on topic, moron. History repeats itself. Your stupidity is not my problem. Blame your parentage.
Comprehension must not be your strong point, revisionism must be
ROFLMAO, OK sure thing! did Miss Cleo tell you that?
And you call me a moron????
When will we experience the next Boston Tea Party?... right after we declare our Independence form the UAE?
:
You said WHO doesn't matter, and if that is the case then Democrats are just fine with you. And you called me a leftist!
I'm so sick of mealy-mouthed pieces of crap like you. You're a totally worthess waste of skin. Go beat your wife, or molest your children, or whatever else it is that you do for fun.
You must be really desperate, responding to the same post over and over again. Whatsa matter little boy, nobody else wants to play with you?
WOW, I'm impressed with your debating skills, I haven't seen anything that comes close to you since the last time I visited DU
BUMP!
Another example of intellectual impotence.... Keep posting slick! You're making my case :-)
Jimmy Carter and Ramsey Clark would agree, but no self respecting American could ever agree with such an ignorant statement
Here's the thing, John: if you're serious about national defense, you don't think port facilities, power generating stations, railroads, or airports should be run by any foreigners. Ditto using suppliers from out of country for military parts and equipment. It just shouldn't happen.
That Bush is supporting the contracting to a state that is only arguably an ally in the WOT is icing on the cake for people already pissed off that we buy Beretta sidearms and use all sorts of parts in our military aircraft and vehicles from overseas.
Sure, this is a pump-up by the MSM. Schumer is an ass, we all know that. Peter King is a camera-hungry congressweasel, too. But the discussion here goes to the heart of what is most important to American national security. Is it free trade--to the point of having countries like Dubai in charge of service at our ports? Or is it a real degree of protectionism in the areas that serve our military and guarantee our supply lines, even at a higher price?
Viewed from the latter perspective, this is just as stupid as giving the Canal back to Panama, and then letting the Panamanians hand it over to Chinese management. Even if all they do is take a cut, the Dubai folks will have the plans and security knowledge regarding every shipment in and out of those ports. And that is not kosher in a world where Dubai is only terrorist unfriendly when they get called on it. Dubai is an authoritarian state that only bashes terrorists when they become a bug up the ruler's ass. One firebrand Muslim who has access to the security plans of these six ports could cause serious trouble for an already weak port security structure in the U.S. I've already hypothesized that the next big terrorist action will be a nuke up the port of Houston via such containerized cargo, but who knows?
Anyway, this sort of action doesn't visibly seem to make America better off, which is what we trust the President to be doing. And backing it to the hilt is not selling it. If the President wanted to sell it, he couldn't have explained how strict CFIUS is (it isn't) or how great Customs is in these ports (they aren't). He'd have to roll out better enforcement efforts--and he seems hellbent on doing nothing of the sort when it comes to protecting the American mainland for some reason, unless it's in airports checking on nailclippers. This flashpoint is simply the culmination of a lot of folks' complaints, and a very visible outlet for their frustration at seeming Bush administration disinterest in this aspect of terrorist prevention.
Don't you recognize a wise ass comment when you see it?
Not according to Frank Gaffney, who broke this story.
He said tonight on the Savage show, one of the problems with this is that they will be read in on the security issues, not to mention it will allow them to put in personnel and cargo.
Also Savage emphasized something that one of his callers had relayed: that P&O quickly extended their contracts at the TX ports of Beaumont and Corpus Christi, contracts moving military equipment, and now we will have the Dubai company moving our military equipment out of those ports.
If we choose, as a nation, not to allow port operations to be run by foreign corporations, fine by me. Let's pass the legislation, sign it into law, and get dragged to the WTO. We'll fight it out there.
But, in the present case, we're not arguing about whether foreign corporations oought to operate our ports. They ALREADY are. This is about the sale of P&O to Dubai World Ports (or whatever their operating name is). If we're going to go out into the world community with the position that British ownership (or Dutch, Japanese, Korean, Australian, German, etc.)is OK, but Dubai is not, are we not saying "No Arabs" If Dubai isn't an acceptable owner, can you name an Arab country that would be?
I agree with you about the Panama Canal, by the way, but these are two very different issues. Nobody is talking about selling our ports, or turning security over to foreigners. And Dubai already knows about out port security measures anyway as they need to follow our regulations. They welcome our homeland Security Inspectors at Jebel Ali for inspection of containers leaving there bound for the US. Once again, I say, the Democrats are miscasting this issue, lying about it in fact, and are driving a wedge into their opposition. And we're falling for it.
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