I wouldn’t characterize it quite that way. The tree-clearing and thinning deal is, as far as I’m concerned, 100% demonstratable and observable. You can look at cleared and uncleared forests that have burned and see multiple examples of thinned forests recovering remarkably soon after a burn while uncleared forests are charred and dead nuclear bomb zones for years and years after a fire. You can see unremoved dead trees as insect-pest breeding grounds in dozens of examples.
I agree there is some similarity if you work backwards from the specious Sierra Club objections: Logging roads induce more logging roads; clearcutting is the work of the devil; making money on the poor trees is capitalism run amok.
With the ports, there was really no (scientific) way to tell. Yeah, the objections to the port deal were alarmist, no doubt. But we had every reason in the world to be alarmed and as far as I know, no particular reason to trust the UAE so we could surveil all the other Arab countries who we suddenly realized we could no longer trust. If you’ll recall, one dominant chant at the time was “we have to be right 100% of the time...they have to be right only once”. To me, the port deal was an open invitation to give our enemies multiple shots at attacking us. Let’s also not forget that many years of evading sanctions and surrepititious weapons smuggling had given the other side plenty of experience getting around ex/im controls.
“...we had every reason in the world to be alarmed and as far as I know, no particular reason to trust the UAE ...”
I think the Bush administration knows a lot more — and you can never fully trust ANY country.
I don’t trust China or Russia as far as I can throw them but we work deals with them all of the time. Same with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.
“Trust but verify”...yea, right. When you can...