Posted on 03/10/2006 12:33:17 PM PST by groanup
REVIEW & OUTLOOK
The New Protectionists - How to create a real security crisis.
Friday, March 10, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST
Dubai Ports World finally threw in the kaffiyah on its American operations yesterday, agreeing to sell them "to a U.S. entity." We hope that entity turns out to be Halliburton, if only for the torment that would cause certain eminences on Capitol Hill.
Dubai Ports was susceptible to this political stampede because it was an Arab-owned company buying port operations, which Democrats have played up as uniquely vulnerable. But this is also the second such mugging of a foreign investor in recent months, following last year's demagoguery against a Chinese company's bid to buy Unocal, a middling American oil company. If Members of Congress want a real security crisis--a financial security crisis--they'll keep this up.
What's especially dangerous here is that we're seeing the re-emergence of the "national security" protectionists. They were last seen in the late 1980s, when Japan in particular was the target of a political foreign-investment panic. The Japanese were buying Pebble Beach and Rockefeller Center, and so America was soon going to be a colony of Tokyo. A Japanese bid for Fairchild Semiconductor of Silicon Valley was seen as a threat to American defense. Those fears seem laughable now. But here we go again, with new targets of anxiety.
snip
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
As you say, if only 5 to 7 percent of the cargo is inspected, what prevented terrorists getting into the ports before now? If I remember correctly, the idiot shoe bomber was British, the same country that P&O is from. Home grown British terrorists destroyed a tube, what prevented British grown terrorists from using the containers unloaded by P&O? A communist Chinese company, hence it is state owned, runs terminals in the port of Los Angeles. What is to prevent them from doing a dirty deed should the temp heat up over Taiwan?
My point is, if security is a problem, it is the problem of the United States to fix through the Coast Guard and US Customs, not to run around like chickens with our heads cut off screaming the sky is falling.
"it was always a fear that the company could be infiltrated on the UAE side, perhaps setting up a conduit with jihadis in the US, setup as a subcontractor at one of the port facilities."
What is to prevent "jihadis" from infiltrating their armed forces and back stabbing us in Afghanistan? Or destroying our naval vessels when they are being serviced in UAE ports? If you live like this then the "jihadis" win because you're chasing shadows.
Thank you.
I am amazed myself of what I hear coming from supposed Conservatives on this issue. Normally Conservatives do not fall for knee jerk reactions but use logic and reasoning to reach a conclusion to an issue.
I do not care about what people say about me on this issue. I know that I am ashamed of what I have seen and heard on this issue.
Believe me, I have been chewed up and spat out about this issue. I think I am right, so are you. I am amazed that so called conservatives on this board so conviently forget W's promise. And he has come through in spades.
I heard one of my most un-favorite commentators, Dick Morris, say to Sean Hannity: "Well I trust this president on terror." Well so do I. I have NO reason not to. He has been villified by the idiotic media that so wants him to crash and burn. But he is not only a patriot and a very smart politician, he is also not prone to be sent out of his focus by a few jabs in the ribs.
This isn't a wrestling match. W knows that. He isn't a legacy seeker like Clinton, he is truly trying to maintain the country for his children and mine, and yours.
Shouldn't Freepers who agree with and post articles by guys like this come out of the closet and admit they're Communists?
If you think it is different I would like to know why. And I would like to be sold.
OK, I'll come out of the closet when you get a sense of humor.
See my post to 1rudeboy:
Post:
Oh Heck! don't you guys know when your having your chain jerked a tad.
Dang I was merely having some fun before going to Saturday night church.
Heres something I got in an email just now, I believe it is a lot more enjoyable to read than the unadulterated crap I was throwing out:
THE CLINTONS PASS IN THE NIGHT E-mail this column to a friend!
By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN
March 8, 2006 -- Bill and Hillary Clinton are the first couple to appear simultaneously and independently on the national political stage. They are using their special circumstances as a convenient shield for one another, fulfilling, at once, Hillarys dream of no accountability and Bills of being able to take both sides of an issue.
Did Hillary know that Bill was pardoning the FALN terrorists to help her win Puerto Rican votes in New York? Oh, she was opposed to the pardon.
Did Hillary find out that Bill was granting pardons to felons and drug dealers who had hired her brothers for six-figure fees to lobby her husband for pardons right under her nose? No way. In fact she was saddened at her brothers involvement.
And we all know that Hillary was gasping for breath when she first learned the truth about Monica Lewinsky.
And the former first lady was bewildered that members of the White House staff would treat her demands that they fire the travel-office staff as an order.
Bill has been out there criticizing the war while Hillary plays to the center by voting for it.
And now, this heavy-footed pas de deux straddles the issue of whether a Dubai company should run six American ports.
Are we truly to believe Hillarys insistence last week that she knew nothing about Bills counseling of his friend and benefactor the crown prince of Dubai, Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, on the ports deal? Do Bill and Hillary Clinton ever speak to each other, or do they just attend funerals, fundraisers and Billy Graham crusades together for photo-ops?
Bill is, after all, a regular in Dubai. The crown prince that is, the government contributed to his presidential library and pays him $300,000 per speech. Recently, Yucaipa, an American company that has Bill Clinton as a senior adviser and pays him a percentage of its profits, formed a partnership with the Dubai Investment Group to form DIGL Inc., a company dedicated to managing the sheiks personal investments.
No doubt Bill Clinton was brought in to cement this lucrative deal from which he and therefore Hillary will likely make millions. Neither Bill nor Hillary will disclose how much he is paid, but her Senate financial disclosure says that he will make more than $1,000. They also wont say how much Dubai royalty gave to the Clinton library.
So when Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) broke the story that the administration had approved the Dubai ports deal and Bill Clinton started to defend it in public, are we to believe that Hillary did not know that the sheik had called him to ask his advice, and are we to believe that Bills defense of the deal was unrelated to his myriad financial ties to Dubai?
Hillary stands to gain millions in income from her husbands Dubai connection. She knows he flies there very, very frequently. And she must realize that Bill is close to the Dubai royal family.
So why did she dump on the port deal? Likely to cover herself. If she were anything less than front and center against the Dubai port deal, she would vulnerable to criticism over Bills involvement with the Dubai royal family. So she held marathon press conferences denouncing the deal and professed not to realize her husband was defending the deal at the sheiks request.
Whats really going on here is that Bill Clinton is trying to please his Arab patrons and business partners at the same time that Hillary Clinton is trying to capitalize on American stereotypes about Arab terrorists.
More important, shes desperately trying to distract attention from the Dubai dollars that flow into her family checking account from Bills political and business dealings with the Dubai crown prince. What better way than to attack them?
We should insist that:
Bill Clinton register as an agent of a foreign principal.
The Clintons say how much he makes from Dubai.
The Clinton library tell us how much Dubai royalty gave to the library.
And Bill disclose, in the future, whenever he is speaking as an ex-president or as a paid public-relations flack.
Eileen McGann co-authored this column
192 posted on 03/11/2006 5:35:55 PM PST by OKIEDOC (There's nothing like hearing someone say thank you for your help.)
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I could not agree more. My main question to those that I've talked to about this is simple.....Who do you trust more on national security.....George W. Bush or Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton?
The answer is easy....W is who I trust. I'm sorry to say that some of my fellow Conservatives and Republicans in congress do not agree with me.
By the way, glad to meet a real Conservative such as yourself.
Great post sir...........I truly felt tears in my eyes and a need to go take another look at my USA flag.
May God bless our President, our brave Troops.......... and save our troubled Country.
Absoltely beautiful, groanup!
Y'all will love this!
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1594068/posts?page=228#228
Excellent post BTTT
Allowing for two-way investments is a way of gaining and strengthening trust, and spreading democracy and freedom, all without firing a single shot or occupying, liberating or taking over whole countries through the use of military force.
BTTT
In-sourcing is another area of foreign activity that many Americans see as beneficial. It brings jobs. This is the left hand of protectionism that many Americans are not comfortable. To reject that hand means more jobs from foreign capitalists.
On the other "hand" it is the ignorance of the basic economics of capitalism that allowing a growing acceptance of this "hand" of protectionism. In-sourcing is rejected because of irrational nationalistic motivations. It is easy to motivate people through manipulative plays on irrational fears to drive this kind of protectionism. It is made even easier when so many have accepted the anti-capilistic thinking/training that has been spoon-fed by the left through the education system and the MSM.
Recently the left has discovered how to manipulate the sheeple through the age-old psychological tactic of generating irrational fears about "outsiders." All you have to do is assign some imaginary threat to the "outsiders," and you can cause enough panic to make people do anything to protect themselves from the boogieman. Such tactics have stirred communities to hang "witches" and burn Protestants for heresy as seen when Queen Mary Tudor ("Bloody Mary") in her five year reign of terror burned 274 poor souls. This is an old tactic. Isn't is ironic that this same tactic is being used by the Islamo Facists against those "outsiders" the infidels.
I will wait for the next episode of the left to ring that bell so the sheeple, like so many Pavlovian Dogs, will respond like the well trained dogs they are.
Ding ding!
All those things can be provided by private enterprise, paid for by use fees. Ask a libertarian.
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