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.
Broken clocks, twice daily, yadda yadda.
"racist, sexist, homophobe, anti-semite, nativist, jingoist, capitalist, isolationist, protectionist, meat-eater, male chauvanist, etc."
The insults of the left against Pat, Ann Coulter, and Rush never ends. Just say "America First" and it drives them into a rage.
Insults - a substitute for thought.
The military has signed off on this deal and General Tommy Franks has said UAE is a great ally in the wot. He is not worried in the least.
On the other hand: HILLARY, CHUCKY, JOEY (BIDEN), TEDDY ET AL.....all are against. (Rule #1 - Never side with Hillary - on any issue!)
"I'd rather see no foreign nation having any control over any part of the operations for US ports of entry."
Did you protest the fact that a British(gasp! foreign) firm operated these ports heretofore. You know. That country which enabled its citizen, al-Qaeda suicide shoe bomber Richard Reid to get on a flight to the U.S. intending to kill hundreds of Americans?
I thought not.
Zing........!
Sorry. You're wrong.
It was testified to during the briefing/hearing that Warner gave with the key players of the Committee that the Committee is not to call Congress.
Members said specifically that Congress can call them and then they can answer questions. The reports of this were in MSM news and business articles since October 2004 and not one member of Congress called anyone for an explanation of this.
"The sky is falling, the sky is falling, the sky is falling..."
The claim is also that he is anti-semite. Of course that claim peppers the haters rant throughout. How then, can they justify a relationship with the UAE, who officially crosses Israel off their maps? Their circle jerk logic doesn't wash. Blackbird.
So is the UAE. Put your circular spin on that. Blackbird.
You must be young with good eyes. :-)
"We all need to write our President and tell him not to back down on this deal."
Too late...I've already written him and said that I would not vote for any Republican who lets this deal go through. The Bush clan has always been in bed with the globalists who think our sovereignty is old-fashioned. I don't trust them to put national security above making deals with anyone with a buck. That's the difference between being a patriotic conservative and being a partisan Republican, who is regarded in the same way by Republican leaders as black Democrats are regarded by Democrat leaders.
During that time, ten years ago.
Are you the same person now that you were ten years ago? Didn't 9-11 change you?
Oh, now common sense and self protection is xenophobic.
East Coast ports had been sold to Arab sheiks as wildly irrational.
It's wildly irrational to want Americans to run American interests the way we used to and keep what money we have left in our own economy and not further enrich some middle eastern country. It's bad enough we have to buy oil from them.
"who would want to trade with us after kicking the whole world
out? They would see us as the Soviet Union only worse, a Soviet Union with no equal"
We are the richest market in the world. Japan/China/etc. need us more than we need them. Cut off their exports to the USA and these countries would be plunged into depression.
Again the hyperbole. Either free trade without restriction or no trade. Absurd. Why is is that Japan/China/EU etc. have restrictions on trade and just do fine?
Suggestion, lets let the UAE company operate some ports in Israel, after all its just one big world.
The UAE allows us the full use of their harbor for our military to stage fuel and supplies as well as medical support for our wounded.
They are also just across the channel from IRAN and represent a valuable strategic location if and when that situation heats up.
As far as the U.S. "Outsourcing" our ports, all countries that trade internationally exchange such favors on a regular basis. We run terminals and operations in other countries as well. It makes better sense to maintain friendly relations instead of making more enemies and become isolated in our own little world.
The best lack all conviction while the worst
Are filled with a furious intensity.
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