Posted on 03/13/2006 10:30:20 PM PST by Cedar
The Ports and the President
by William J. Murray
The transfer of the operation of six American ports to a company owned by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) became a major controversy, with virtually the entire Congress on one side and the President on the other. Both Republican House Speaker Hastert and Senate Majority Leader Frist have started the process of passing laws to ban the transfer, while the President stands by the decision of the Treasury. Democrat Senators Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer of New York also wanted the deal blocked and have accused the President of continually allowing the sale of American assets to questionable Middle Eastern interests.
What really happened? First Dick Cheney is winning the power struggle at the White House between Dick Cheney’s economic conservatives and the George Bush social conservatives. Dick Cheney is a Richard Nixon Republican who honestly believes tax reduction and business growth are far more important than any other issues. His influence continues to grow in this regard in the second term of the Administration, but has always been present. Just a few days before 9-11 the White House blocked the passage of a bill that would have economically punished companies that do business with the Sudan because Cheney had convinced the President that no social issue should come before the free market place -- despite the fact that hundreds of thousands of Christians had been murdered by the Sudanese government. On the day of the Jihad attack against us, I was headed to the Hill for a news conference with Senator Sam Brownback and others to go on the offensive against the White House and to get the Sudan bill passed. The press conference was canceled when four of our aircraft were hijacked and three flown into buildings by Islamists. Cheney wants business as usual with the Islamic world despite the fact that our dollars are financing the Islamist war against us.
Secondly, the Administration is desperately seeking ways to get money back into the United States that is bleeding out in a one-way direction. We give the Islamic states hundreds of billions of dollars for oil, but we have nothing to sell them to get the money back except equity in our businesses. We have sold them everything from convenience stores to luxury hotel chains. Islamic interests financed by petrol-dollars purchase huge chunks of commercial real estate each year. Even the parent company of FOX News is slowly but surely being swallowed up by Saudi interests. The ports deal is a way to get back a few of the bucks we have given the UAE in petrol-dollars. There is one underlying issue no one seems to look at; When we sell them equity in corporations and business property we get some cash back right away, but the profits from those deals then flow back to the Islamic states which in the long run makes the deficit flow from the USA even greater.
The Treasury Department continues to stand by its approval of the sale of a company to Islamist interests that would have operated six American ports for other reasons. At the Treasury Department, as with the Federal Reserve Bank, inflation is the number one enemy, not terrorism. To keep inflation down in a nation with an economic growth rate as large as that of the USA requires actions that are viewed by most as repugnant. This includes the outsourcing of jobs to India and other nations, which keeps down the costs of labor in the United States, as does the importation of illegal aliens from Mexico. Big businesses such as Microsoft or General Electric may not hire illegals, but the mere presence of illegals holds down the entire wage scale of all Americans and it is for that reason big business backs the presence of illegals in the United States.
It is estimated that the combination of illegals and outsourcing brings down the average wage of American workers by more than 10% and virtually stops wage growth. This is good for business and keeps inflation down - for now! The fact that the middle class is being destroyed and the social fabric of the nation is being strained is not important to the Treasury or the FED. As I heard one Treasury employee say, "If you’re having trouble buying a taco in Chicago maybe you should learn to speak Spanish." To economic conservatives, dollar strength and the defeat of inflation trumps all other issues, even which language your children will speak at their jobs in the future, if they have jobs. An editorial in the Washington Times opposes the port deal; however, the voice of economic conservatives, The Wall Street Journal supports it 100% and hopes for more deals like it.
The United Arab Emirates itself is made up of several small Islamic kingdoms each with an unelected emirate or king who inherits a throne. In turn, the most powerful of these is chosen as the unelected leader of the entire UAE. There is no religious freedom and little if any freedom of speech or press. It is this unelected, undemocratic monarchy that owns the company that will control operations at our ports. Apparently brave men died in our Revolutionary War to give us the opportunity to do business with dictatorial, undemocratic monarchs. It now seems that some one on K Street has choked on the wad of cash they made convincing the White House to support this deal.
William J. Murray is the chairman of the Washington, DC based Religious Freedom Coalition.
As a European I have to say that America doesn't spent too much money in Europe or Japan but in China and the middle East. In difference to the Chinese we Europeans sell mainly productive goods like machines. This is something America is earning money with (if we exclude some of our luxury toys like Porsches or Ferraris). The cheap consumption crap that you buy in China in combination with your exaggerated energy usage is your real problem. Growth is wonderful as long as it is not based totally on debts.
The relativly high unemployment in Europe does not threaten your exports over here since your products are anyway only bought by consumers of the upper/middle class that are employed and earn a good living. Unemployment in Europe is mainly a problem for those people who worked in the low paid sector before they lost their job. The problem is rather that many American goods do not fit into European markets (i.e. most your cars are not interesting over here due to their high fuel consumption. Gas is much more expensive in Europe. Models with lower consumption sell quite good - i.e. the recent Chrysler models). Furthermore much of your industy is selling millitary goods we do not need in Europe since there is no political will to buy them in the moment or we produce them by ourselves already. There are some branches were US-firms are very sucessfull i.e. the IT-industry, but this is for sure not enough to counter the growing trade gap.
I am afraid that the deep recession will come when China wants to buy something back for its greenbacks. They already have huge mountains of it. To print simply more money will not solve your problem in the long run. Therefore such BS like political protectionism endangeres the world economy. Of course I understand your need for security. But will it be impossible to provide security if those ports are owned by some people from Dubai??!
Sen. Warner, Sen. Frist, et al said it, too.
And W was so PO'd at us "bigots", that I thought it was probably true, too. Always before when Bush called us names like "vigilatees", sexcists, rascist, etc., he was really mad.
So the people stopped yelling at their congress critters via email, phone and snail mail, because they thought it was true, too...
Once again, we've been had.
I think I'll contact my rep's office tomorrow and find out if anyone there knows what the heck the status is of the "deal."
Is this ridiculous or what?
Who was it said FReepers have the attention span of a gnat?
Oh yeah, it was Reagan Man.
FReepers don't pay much attention to sources of articles or details of posts either...
From your handle, do you know the significance of OPS1, OPS2A, and OPS2B?
:-)
"Since your coast guard and your customs are those being responsible for the security in American ports this alarmism is difficult to understand from the outside."
Maybe you haven't read the articles about the weaknesses still present in our Coast Guard port security. Look up the thread titled:
"Port Security Is Still A House Of Cards"
I'm sorry Europe doesn't yet understand our "alarmism" as you say. We still remember well the lives lost and damage done on Sept. 11, 2001, so forgive us Americans for being still deeply concerned about national security.
Hopefully, Europe will not have to see greater damage before fully understanding our point of view.
We didn't really disengage with the UAE. We just denied them further leverage in our country for the time-being.
"This might be true, but it is still not enough. America is spending much more money in consumption than it earns with its exports."
One of the central points the author was trying to make is that foreign purchase of domestic assets accelerates this problem, rather than bringing it back into balance, over the long-haul.
Does the money to finance the spread of Islamofascism not come, at least in part, from what we spend on oil?
Personally I do not believe that it is possible to control the boarders of such a huge country effective enough to shut all the bad guys out. If your Coast Guard or other authorities are ineffective you simply have to reorganize them. This incompetence has nothing to do with the ownership of a port. When I was a student in univercity I worked for some time in the harbour of Hamburg to finance myself. Although German police and customs are among the best in the world, it wouldn't have been a big problem to smuggle things or persons there. Once our police found 4 Russian antiaircraft tanks (tanks not guns!) from the former NVA (East German Commie Army) that were sold from the BND, our secret service, to the Israelis without any permission in some containers ;-). By fluke (or by a mischance - whatever you like) they were found by the customs.
Therefore - keeping people from the Middle East out of your country and its markets will cause severe damage but will not help you to provide security. In the best case they are only insulted, in the worst case it could happen that the dollar is replaced by the euro as the leading currency in the long term.
Not throwing blame. Just emphasizing the need for us to quit suckling the ME teat, if we wish to continue on as a sovereign nation. Nice line about the libs. They're idiots for the most part. The ones that tick me off the most are those who know better, but play along for personal power or gain.
Yep, and that's why the discussion is to be about anything but the clarity of the author's core points. There are a lot of globalists who don't want anti-globalism to grow anymore legs than it has and they'll do whatever it takes to derail clear thinking and conversation.
Hey man, you and I were talking about the Sudan in post #34. Now you tried to change the subject to the UAE in the middle of a discussion. You can't do that...lol. Get your act togther dude and debate correctly...lol.
I can, and I WILL, I say! =)
LOL!
Back to Sudan...
Much like all foreign relations, the situation in Sudan can be described in terms of behavioral psychology. Positive attention (trade, in this case), can be seen as a type of reward. Reward only encourages current (bad) behavior.
The only way for us to positively effect the situation would be to either remove the positive reward (trade & aid), or to punish the bad behavior (military intervention, diplomatic isolation, or economic sanctions).
Typically, reward works better than punishment for encouraging positive behaviors. Sociopathic behaviors (genocide, FRinstance) however, require a psychic shift on the part of an individual or society to extinguish. The only way to affect that type of change is through contrition and retribution.
Internal contrition normally only comes after punishment (negative reward), and understanding the cause for being punished. Then genuine retribution can be made, and wrongs mended.
Clinton should be jailed, IMHO. We'll be paying for his follies, and outright crimes for decades. Next question?
The UAE's view of us is not important in this matter. Their citizens were involved in committing and financing 9/11. We're trying to get them to examine their own behavior pre/post 9/11, and understand why ATM it's neither proper nor necessarily beneficial to have them managing port operations on our soil.
More importantly, ports management is a skill-set that we need to maintain domestically. Strategically, it's not in our long-term best interest to have foreign powers involved in sensitive infrastructure-type operations in America.
Agreed there. Personally saw the UAE ports-deal as increasing, rather than decreasing, our vulnerability in the long-run. I have the same opinion of the Saudi and ChiCom involvement. IMHO, we need to do everything possible to release their grip on our infrastructure.
"were Somalia handled as more than just a humanitarian food depot these terrorists and the rest of the world just might have a different opinion of US prior to 9/11."
Unfortunately, we can't go back in time and change the '92 & '96 election results. We can try to repair the damage done, and slowly right the ship.
If not us, who? If not now, when?
Now that is really good news! The Lord continues His work, doesn't He?
Maybe in the near future the name of Jesus Christ will be spoken freely in the public places of UAE without punishment.
"in the worst case it could happen that the dollar is replaced by the euro as the leading currency in the long term."
That's an interesting debate. Seems economists are divided on the subject, but it does make for good reading.
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