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.
This is a very wrong-headed statement. Most skinheads are white, therefore no whites can be trusted. A complete non-sequitor.
Kind of like most rattle snakes are piousness, therefore no rattle snakes can be trusted.
Actually, the comparative statement would be:
Most poisonous creatures are snakes, so no snakes can be trusted.
The reason you may have thought your comment made sense is because there are cases where it would make sense. If you were going to randomly search a few people, and all terrorists were muslim, you would randomly search only muslims.
But it makes no sense as a statement of action against a people. In fact, it is precisely the textbook example of a racist comment -- saying that no muslim can be trusted because of the actions of a few muslims.
Thanks for the backup! :)
Really? You should inform this person about that then:
You know the rules. When speaking of another poster, make sure you ping that poster.
It's not backup; it's forum courtesy; you have a right to reply if you want to -- or just ignore it; but you have the right to KNOW somebody is trashing you.
Pat is racist A$$hole...and undermines the conservative movement by 'appearing' on the cable and networks...as a 'conservative'
This screed is ripe with isolationist racism...
This 'port' issue is his wet dream...
He asks and postulates rhetoricals through out...feeding on the lather of the ignorant...
Echo Talon Stupid?
Sigh...
Pat's not an enemy of America. He's just ventured way off the GOP reservation and he doesn't like PresBush AT ALL. He's still a conservative on a few key issues, but his isolationism has made him persona non grata with many traditional value and mainstream conservatives. Sometimes Pat is right and sometimes he's stuck on stupid.
(Hell, why not?)
It is not a "sweetheart deal". What rational basis do you have to claim that?
P&O was offered on the open market. Anybody in the world could bid for the company. Two companies actually bothered. DP World outbid the other company. It is clearly paying the "market price" for this company, if it wasn't another company would have outbid them.
I doubt the leases are "sweetheart deals" to begin with. They were bid on the open market, so the price should be fair market value for the rights. DP World will have to now pay that money.
Petronski wrote: "...wails a keening..."
I wonder if Buchanan is making an obtuse reference to Ireland and Irish wake traditions.
The Banshee
John Todhunter (b. 1839)
"...Around her shuddering isle,
With gray hair streaming:
A meteor of evil omen,
The spectre of hope forlorn,
Keening, keening!..."
Keening of the Dead
Fear bruíne, bean chaointe ná garbhmhuilleoir, Ní bhf aighidh sna Flaithis aon leaba go deo.
Three persons who will get no bed in Heaven: A quarrelsome man, a keening woman and a crude miller.- O Súilleabháin, Irish Wake Amusements., p.142
The deal was was allowed to go though, maybe we should take your advise and tell the UAE to go take a hike pay them the $8-9 billion fine then, have them kick us out of their country and not allow us to use their ports for naval operations or their airfields for our refueling planes, not to mention the intel we would lose.
The hate america first crowd is screaming the loudest against this deal.
So to the degree you base your opinion on who is on the other side, you are WITH the hate america group on this one.....
And old Pat openly embraces Hamas.
Well, I have nothing against Newark, but if we're going to boycott everybody and every business and every country that was associated with 9-11, that's a good place to start.
Go Pat Go, you're so full of it, when you finally go, MSNBC will go broke just cleaning up your HAZMAT, you ASSHAT.
It's the only possible explanation.
Thanks for the great reference.
Boycotting Newark is about the same as giving up broccoli for Lent. ;O)
I have visited Dubai three times, it is shocking to see an Arab muslim city in the desert with such an open society with huge Western influence. Dubai is a very nice city and as Rush Limbaugh said they want to be like us; isn't this what we really hope for in the Middle East?
If that is true then so are STATE owned companies which, golly gee, Dubai Ports is.
Echo Talon<~~ "d**m people are calling me dumb! boo hoo!" :)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.