Posted on 02/25/2006 10:42:00 PM PST by Cornpone
"Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." The acidulous wisdom of Mark Twain speaks to us across the ages, and never more than this week during the great congressional mobilization to save America's ports from the dreaded hand of Dubai.
The furor over Dubai is misplaced on so many levels, but let's start with the supposed terrorist threat. Military and CIA officials will tell you privately that the United Arab Emirates is among the most effective intelligence partners the United States has today in the Arab world. Their operatives are risking their lives to help gather information about Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups. They don't advertise it, and when an operation goes bad - such as when the U-2 spy plane crashed last June returning from Afghanistan to Al-Dhafra air base - they keep their mouths shut.
Certainly, Al-Qaeda knows who the enemy is. Among the documents released last week by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point was a spring 2002 Al-Qaeda warning to officials of Abu Dhabi and Dubai. It accused the U.A.E. leaders of working with the U.S. government "in order to appease the Americans' wishes which include: spying, persecution, and detainments." Al-Qaeda claimed it had penetrated the U.A.E. government.
The U.S. should certainly vet any U.A.E. personnel working in the U.S. But the idea that by purchasing the British company that has been managing six U.S. ports Dubai Ports World is somehow opening the door to terrorism is, frankly, racist.
The hubbub over terrorism isn't the biggest problem with the Dubai flap. In a sense, the Bush administration had it coming, after having beaten congressional opponents over the head with the terrorism club for four years. What goes around comes around, as they say, and while it may be comical to hear a legislator accuse President George W. Bush of having a pre-September 11 mind-set, the White House made itself a fat target.
The real absurdity here is that Congress doesn't seem to realize that Arab ownership of America's ports is just a taste of what is coming. Greater foreign ownership of U.S. assets is an inevitable consequence of the reckless tax-cutting, deficit-ballooning fiscal policies that Congress and the White House have pursued. By encouraging America to consume more than it produces, these fiscal policies have sucked in imports so fast that the U.S. is nearing a trillion-dollar annual trade deficit. Those are I.O.U.s on America's future, issued by a spendthrift Congress.
Okay....so all of this is because of Bush's tax cuts now...
sheesh!
TOLD TA WE LOOK LIKE FOOLS! THANKS CONGRESS!
***Greater foreign ownership of U.S. assets is an inevitable consequence of the reckless tax-cutting, deficit-ballooning fiscal policies that Congress and the White House have pursued****
FACT CHECK!!!!!!!
It's 30 years of Liberalism that makes it unprofitable for a US Company to be in this business today.
HIGHER TAXATION(Not lower,as this article seems to imply), OVER-REGULATION, OVER-UNIONIZATION, Inane Enviro Regs, and Unlimited Civil Liability...
Now I wonder which Party pushes THAT AGENDA???????
Consider the source first please.
A Lebanese newspaper reporters account of something our Administration is doing?
Well. Now there's fair and balanced.
Where's Al Jezeera's take on all this?
Democrats want to look at the ROOT causes of terrosism and what is a better excuse than this for them to say "look they spit on an allie just because they are ababs"
You want to loose the war on terror? It won't be our troops we loose it...it will be people who put politics above principle and the national security.
Not to mention the Unions, well I guess that is part of the liberalism... :)
I'm glad they posted this. Everyone needs to see how this is playing across the world.
This is David Ignatius, an American columnist who works for the Washington Post. The Lebanon Daily Star just picked up the piece. You can read the same thing in the WP.
Good grief.
This is US commentary, not native to Lebanon.
Have you seen what was printed in the UAE?
2 posted on 02/26/2006 12:43:59 AM CST by CWOJackson
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