Posted on 03/12/2006 8:29:15 AM PST by Valin
According to a Gulf News poll, 64 per cent of readers say the DP World affair "changed their opinion for the worst" about investing in the United States. A number of businessmen told the newspaper yesterday that Arab investors would think about other destinations. The majority agreed that DP World has been forced out of the US port operations due to "racism".
President George W. Bush admitted Congress has sent the "wrong message" to the rest of the world.
We don't feel that DP World lost. It in fact won the respect of the international business community when it won the bid to acquire the British P&O Company. It gained the admiration of the political community when it showed the maturity to bow out with grace.
Nevertheless, the whole affair served as a lesson for other Arab companies who may have thought of investing in what has proved to be a hostile US atmosphere. All the free trade talk proved to be just empty rhetoric. Another irony is that the Democrats, the supporters of globalisation, were the key opponents of the deal. There must have been something else behind the sudden change of heart.
It was definitely not the concern for national security, as they fully know the Bush administration had run a meticulous review of the deal, which established it was not a threat. Was it the "Israeli element" as some have suggested? Maybe. Otherwise, why would some Congress members bombard the
DP World executive, during last week's hearing, with questions about the Arab boycott of Israel? Did they want to force the UAE to end the pan-Arab boycott of Israel in order approve the deal?
These questions need to be investigated. But the fact remains it was an ugly scene in Washington. Other foreign-owned companies run US ports but they were not Arab. That is the message.
And we got it.
"Then again China is not at war with us."
Funny, I didn't realize the UAE was at war with us. Somebody better go tell that to the U.S. Military, because we're hanging out at their base. They're loading and unloading our Navy ships and they're training Iraqi soldiers with us.
The majority of Americans did not understand what the debate was about. They rose to the race-bait and the rest is history.
I think the problem with your post is that you paint all Arabs/Muslims with the same brush. Do all Muslims hate us? Do all Arabs hate us? Should we distrust all of them?
If the answer is yes... and all hate us, then we should distrust them all... But if the answer is no, then what happened this week in Washington was disgraceful...
I love you... you are so good... LOL!
I fully expect to see them with Molotov cocktails and throwing brick at the next trade meeting.
What a bunch!
Yes, and no. All practicing Islamists hate us. They're required to. They teach it in Sunday school, and write it into their laws. The ones who do not hate us cannot properly be called Islamists any more than could someone who supports abortion be rightly called a practicing Catholic.
Actually now that I understand this whole thing I'm still torn.Yes there is a part of me that doesn't trust the UAE or any other Muslim and or Arab as far as I can throw them,..for good reason.Then there is the rational part of me that can look at a map and understand just how important an ally the UAE is and hope we didn't screw that up.Mostly this has been a PR disaster for Bush which I hope doesn't rub off on the rest of the party.
Only a nitwit paints a people group with one paint brush.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1595016/posts
Have you seen this thread?
I don't think I painted all, at all. But neither do I think we have to wait until every single Muslim on the planet goes on record wishing us dead, before we conclude we'd be suicidally stupid to trust them. My tolerance level, my fuse and my magic number may differ from yours.
What I was saying was that it seems there are more people who understand the Muslim hatred of the West, and fewer who understand our distrust of the Muslims.
And that regardless where you stand on the port deal, the port deal controversy should never have happened. Somebody dropped the ball there.
I bang my head upon the wall in sympathetic agreement. ><
I agree the Port Deal has handled badly, but I blame the Congress... their behavior this week makes all the jokes about politicians pretty valid.
When the hell did the adminstration PROPOSE this deal?
DPW bought out the British company, and all the administration did is say "You don't look like the kind of people who blow stuff up, so we're OK with that."
Learn what you're talking about before you go around throwing names and CAPITALIZING things.
I think it is a bit more complicated than that...
It is NOT a fact, it is not what I wrote and it is not what I think. I must have expressed myself poorly. Hope this clears it up.
Good...
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