Posted on 02/24/2006 10:18:56 PM PST by Reagan Man
“This Dubai port deal has unleashed a kind of collective mania we haven’t seen in decades ... a xenophobic tsunami,” wails a keening David Brooks, “a nativist, isolationist mass hysteria is ... here.”
The New York Times columnist obviously regards the nation’s splenetic response to news that control of our East Coast ports had been sold to Arab sheiks as wildly irrational. In witness whereof he quotes Philip Damas of Drewry Shipping Consultants, “The location of a company in the age of globalism is irrelevant.”
But irrelevant to whom?
Why is it irrelevant, in a war against Arab and Islamic terrorists, to question the transfer of control of our East Coast ports from Britain to the United Arab Emirates?
Our cosmopolitan Mr. Brooks lives in another country. He has left the America of blood and soil, shaken the dust from his sandals, to enter the Davos world of the Global Economy where nationality does not matter and where fundamentalists and flag-wavers of all faiths are the real enemies of progress toward the wonderful future these globalists have in store for us.
“God must love Hamas and Moktada Al-Sadr,” snorts Brooks, “He has given them the America First brigades of Capitol Hill.”
To Brooks there is little distinction between Islamic mobs burning Danish consulates and America First patriots protesting some insider’s deal to surrender control of American ports to Arab sheiks.
But the reflexive recoil to this transaction between transnationals is a manifestation of national mental health. The American people have not yet been over-educated into the higher stupidity. Common sense still trumps ideology here. Globalism has not yet triumphed over patriotism. Rather than take risks with national security, Americans will accept a pinch of racial profiling.
Yep, the old America lives.
Like alley cats, Americans yet retain an IFF, Identify-Friend-or-Foe radar that instinctively alerts them to keep a warier eye on some folks than on others.
But in rejecting a deal transferring control of our ports to Arabs, are Americans not engaging in discrimination? Are they not engaging in ethnic prejudice?
Of course they are. But not all discrimination is irrational, nor is all prejudice wrong. To discriminate is but to choose. We all discriminate in our choice of friends and associates. Prejudice means prejudgment. And a prejudgment in favor of Brits in matters touching on national security is rooted in history.
In the 20th century (if not the 19th), the Brits have been with us in almost every fight. It was not Brits who struck us on 9/11, who rejoiced in the death of 3,000 Americans, who daily threaten us from the mosques of East and West, who behead our aid workers, bomb our soldiers and call for “Death to America!” in a thousand demonstrations across the Middle East. And while not all Muslims are terrorists, almost all terrorists appear to be Muslim.
As Mother Church has a “preferential option” for the poor, there is nothing wrong with America’s preferential option for the cousins.
Does this mean all Arabs should be considered enemies? Of course not.
The folks from Dubai may detest the 9/11 murderers as much as we do, for those killers shamed their faith, disgraced their people, and bred a distrust and fear of Arabs and Muslims that had never before existed here.
Yet, just as sky marshals seat themselves behind young Arab males, not grannies taking the tots to Disney World, so, Americans, in deciding who operates their ports, naturally prefer ourselves, or old friends.
Why take an unnecessary risk? Just to get an A for global maturity on our next report card from the WTO?
The real question this deal raises is what happened to the political antenna at the White House? Did it fall off the roof about the time President Bush named Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court?
Anyone in touch with Middle America, especially after 9/11 and endless warnings of imminent attacks on U.S. soil, would know this country is acutely sensitive to terror threats. Surely, before approving this deal with Dubai Ports World, someone should have asked:
“How do you think Bubba will react when he’s told sheiks will take over the port of Baltimore where, in Tom Clancy’s ‘Sum of All Fears,’ Arab terrorists smuggle in an a-bomb and detonate it?”
Apparently, no one bothered to ask, or the question was brushed off in the interests of hastily greasing the deal.
Now this episode is going to end badly. Bush, who has denied advance knowledge of the deal, is being ripped by liberals for living in a pre-9/11 world and being out of touch with his government.
As for our remaining friends in the Middle East, they have been given another reason to regard Americans as fickle friends who, down deep. Don’t like Arabs.
Unquestionably, this will result in a victory for those who wish to sever America’s friendships in the Arab world. But it is Bush and his unthinking globalists, not the American Firsters whom Brooks cannot abide who engineered this latest debacle.
Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States "CFIUS" , not CIFIUS.
I just reposted whatever they posted, and I agree no sweetheart deal, just a standard deal
Oh, I'm sorry.................I apologize!
" is not about killing all them "A-rabs", but resolving this issue so that a peacfully world will emerge when all is said and done."
Peace is the result of the willingness to defeat the enemy. You do not allow the enemy to enter the fortress.
It's difficult to forget these facts about UAE:
In 1996, al-Qaeda assumes control of Ariana Airlines, Afghanistan's national airline, for use in its illegal trade network. Passenger flights become few and erratic, as planes are used to fly drugs, weapons, gold, and personnel, primarily between Afghanistan, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Pakistan.
The Emirate of Sharjah, in the UAE, becomes a hub for al-Qaeda drug and arms smuggling. Typically, “large quantities of drugs” are flown from Kandahar, Afghanistan, to Sharjah, and large quantities of weapons are flown back to Afghanistan. [Los Angeles Times, 11/18/01]
About three to four flights run the route each day. Many weapons come from Victor Bout, a notorious Russian arms dealer based in Sharjah. [Los Angeles Times, 1/20/02]
Afghan taxes on opium production are paid in gold, and then the gold bullion is flown to Dubai, UAE, and laundered into cash. [Washington Post, 2/17/02]
Taliban officials regularly provide militants with false papers identifying them as Ariana Airlines employees so they can move freely around the world. A former National Security Council official later claims the US is well aware at the time that al-Qaeda agents regularly fly on Ariana Airlines, but the US fails to act for several years.
The US does press the UAE for tighter banking controls, but moves “delicately, not wanting to offend an ally in an already complicated relationship,” and little changes by 9/11. [Los Angeles Times, 11/18/01]
Much of the money for the 9/11 hijackers flows though these Sharjah, UAE, channels. There also are reports suggesting that Ariana Airlines might have been used to train Islamic militants as pilots. The illegal use of Ariana Airlines helps convince the United Nations to impose sanctions against Afghanistan in 1999, but the sanctions lack teeth and do not stop the airline. A second round of sanctions finally stops foreign Ariana Airlines flights, but its charter flights and other charter services keep the illegal network running. [Los Angeles Times, 11/18/01]
from this link: http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/searchResults.jsp?searchtext=UAE&events=on&entities=on&articles=on&topics=on&timelines=on&projects=on&titles=on&descriptions=on&dosearch=on&search=+Go+
I certainly wouldn't blame them.
And I think that's probably what some of the anti-dealers around here want.
FRiend, I've been here since 1999. The term sweetheart deal is not limited by political affiliation, ideology or philosophy.
I stand with General Tommy Franks (Ret.) and George Bush. Carter is the broken watch.
You can have Buchanan.
I agree, but what are you going to do punish the UAE because of it?
“delicately, not wanting to offend an ally in an already complicated relationship,” and little changes by 9/11. [Los Angeles Times, 11/18/01]
And nothing has changed. Our Govenment still refuses to learn the lessons of Vietnam. When will they take the lesson of WW2?
try to look at the bigger picture
Like Jimmy Carter and Madeleine Albright? !
It is very simple why most people "so far" are against this deal. For then UAE=Arabs=Terrorists, it is unfortunate but true. Most people think that this company will really important thousands of Arabs from the Middle East to run the ports and hence the terrorists will sneak into the country via this company! This extremely laughable and irrational thinking is due to ignorance for most people. For the democrat politicians it is hypocrisy and they are using this mass hysteria to score political points. For the Republicans in congress and other position of powers it is a knee jerk reaction in an election year. For a small minority it is just blatant racism and bigotry.
My hope that in the next few weeks more and more people will know the real facts and they will change their mind to accept the deal and see the truth. Just look at the new FR port, where it is now that 50% who approve the deal after they heard the facts versus 35% when the hysteria started few days ago.
And you were doing so well. :-)
I don't feel a bit reassured.
its all good, looks like you have your hands full with lots of new posts to you. :) I know it gets hectic
I didn't think that's what it was in the beginning, but as the rants and justifications kept up after being presented with facts right in front of their very face, there's not much left to figure, is there?
They legally bought this company for like what around $7-8 billion? doesn't sound that sweet that all im saying.
To call the UAE Islamofascists is wrong and just plain incorrect.
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