Documents Reveal White House Deal on Ports

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

The UAE was used as a staging area and commercial hub by some of the hijackers. But cooperation has improved significantly since then.

One should just substitute "Germany" with "U.A.E." in the statement above. The terrorists also used Germany as a staging area.

Germany? Try the substitution and switching of just one letter. Here: UAE (Swap E for S and change latter's position to the center). I think they lived in this very country for very long, came and left at their pleasure and even took their friggen flight lessons right here. Unmolested. Hell, they got visas approved 6 months after 9/11 by this very government. Comparing the UAE with Germany. Gimme a break!

[kaydee457 13]

Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co is a british company - i don't see anyone screaming national security and what not before? are we just afraid of dem a-rabs?

Well, that's a big part, if not the major part, of Bush's problem with this one. His administration told the people every chance they had to be afraid. Very afraid. It's their own ####### that comes back biting them now.

Once again you're distorting the presidents words, and his message. We are not to be afraid of ARABS/MUSLIMS, but rather a few that would make war on us. It's Al Queda; not the ARABS. It's never been the ARABS!

What's hard to understand here?

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Once again you're distorting the presidents words, and his message. We are not to be afraid of ARABS/MUSLIMS, but rather a few that would make war on us. It's Al Queda; not the ARABS. It's never been the ARABS!

What's hard to understand here?

And the sudden Islamophobia in the US as well as the conviction that Iraq was responsible for or at least connected with 9/11 has nothing to do with the rhetoric of this administration? Where have you been sleeping?

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

We are not to be afraid of ARABS/MUSLIMS, but rather a few that would make war on us. It's Al Queda; not the ARABS. It's never been the ARABS!

Why do you insist on bringing your hateful anti-Arab screeds to every thread? Stop trying to tell us to be scared of Arabs!

[Sister Fracas 5]

This deal's going through once all the naysayers realize how foolish they look.

Has anyone explained why this has to be rushed through?

I guess that would be a "no" then....

[kaydee457 13]

We are not to be afraid of ARABS/MUSLIMS, but rather a few that would make war on us. It's Al Queda; not the ARABS. It's never been the ARABS!

Why do you insist on bringing your hateful anti-Arab screeds to every thread? Stop trying to tell us to be scared of Arabs!

Huh?

This deal's going through once all the naysayers realize how foolish they look.

Has anyone explained why this has to be rushed through?

I guess that would be a "no" then....

Has anyone explained why it has to be delayed?

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

We are not to be afraid of ARABS/MUSLIMS, but rather a few that would make war on us. It's Al Queda; not the ARABS. It's never been the ARABS!

Why do you insist on bringing your hateful anti-Arab screeds to every thread? Stop trying to tell us to be scared of Arabs!

Huh?

People hear what they want to hear.

All I hear is you hate Arabs and therefore you are a bad person. Doesn't matter what you actually say.

[Sister Fracas 5]

We are not to be afraid of ARABS/MUSLIMS, but rather a few that would make war on us. It's Al Queda; not the ARABS. It's never been the ARABS!

Why do you insist on bringing your hateful anti-Arab screeds to every thread? Stop trying to tell us to be scared of Arabs!

Oh A.S., stop playing both sides of the fence...you KNOW you said you'd hoped this was halted....

Senators Clinton and Menendez are trying their best to legislatively block this.

Governor Pataki is trying his best to stop it too.

Hope they succeed.

Has anyone explained why it has to be delayed?

Shouldn't Congress get their answers? Or are they only for show these days?

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Oh A.S., stop playing both sides of the fence...

As soon as you stop listening to Rush Limbaugh every day.

[Sister Fracas 5]

Oh A.S., stop playing both sides of the fence...

As soon as you stop listening to Rush Limbaugh every day.

dang...where did my ditto go???

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Oh A.S., stop playing both sides of the fence...

As soon as you stop listening to Rush Limbaugh every day.

dang...where did my ditto go???

Yesterday as I was driving to the local bank branch, I was browsing my radio presets. Happened upon Rush telling his listeners that the best way to control health costs was for employers to stop giving paid sick days. He said if you had no sick days you'll never get sick. I had a good laugh and changed the channel.

[kaydee457 13]

We are not to be afraid of ARABS/MUSLIMS, but rather a few that would make war on us. It's Al Queda; not the ARABS. It's never been the ARABS!

Why do you insist on bringing your hateful anti-Arab screeds to every thread? Stop trying to tell us to be scared of Arabs!

Huh?

People hear what they want to hear.

All I hear is you hate Arabs and therefore you are a bad person. Doesn't matter what you actually say.

Suggest you brush up on those reading comprhension skills...That is if you're literate enough to take my suggestion

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Suggest you brush up on those reading comprhension skills...That is if you're literate enough to take my suggestion

Book larnin' is overrated if ya ax me.

[kaydee457 13]

More good reading.... I particularly like the comments about the CNN anchor....

Going overboard

The wave of bipartisan protest over a Dubai company managing U.S. ports is a tempest in an election year.

Jonah Goldberg

February 23, 2006

DID YOU HEAR the one about ####### Cheney, a priest and a rabbi walking into an Arab-run port?

No? Too bad, because the brouhaha that has replaced Cheney-mania is a lot less entertaining. This week brought a strange bipartisan convergence over, of all things, the commercial management of U.S. ports.

Bipartisan consensus is often a troubling sign, particularly when it's on an issue few know much about. It was prompted by the Bush administration's decision to defend the bid by Dubai Ports World, based in the United Arab Emirates, to buy the British-owned Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Co., which currently runs six U.S. ports. The deal was unanimously approved by the administration committee charged with reviewing the national security implications of foreign acquisitions.

In response, Republicans and Democrats alike have gone batty.

For five years, Republicans have chanted "trust the president" on national security. They even won elections on the issue. For nearly five years, Democrats have said President Bush should use more carrots and fewer sticks in his diplomacy in the Muslim world. They argued that we need to reward our allies with trade and trust (except when we actually did it in places such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia). Liberals lectured that equating "Muslim" or "Arab" and "terrorist" is not only bigoted but counterproductive, in that it will feed the "root causes" of terrorism.

But suddenly, virtually all leading Republicans and Democrats — with the laudable exception of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) — now argue that Bush can't be trusted on national security, that our Arab ally the UAE should go suck eggs and that racial profiling of foreign firms is just fine. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) now even thinks Halliburton should run the ports. And Jimmy Carter is backing the White House.

At this rate, Barbra Streisand will soon be holding benefit concerts for Pennsylvania's conservative Sen. Rick Santorum.

The one guy clearly sticking to his principles is CNN's Lou Dobbs. But that's because he went bonkers a long time ago. The perfectly coiffed millionaire anchor has anointed himself the defender of Joe Sixpack, opposing every manifestation of globalization (save for CNN International, of course). He's perfected the art of the highbrow demagogue, maintaining a perpetual state of shock about how those fat cats are giving guys "like us" the shaft.

So it's not surprising that Tailgunner Lou insists that the review process that allowed the port deal to go through didn't take into account national security. Of course, for the author of "Exporting America," it is axiomatic that all outsourcing, downsizing or free-trading is against national security.

In response to the port decision, Dobbs ran one of his typically less-than-scientific online polls: "Do you believe national security should play a role in the national security review process?" He knew this was like asking "Do you think prostate exams should screen for prostate cancer?" He just didn't care.

And that's the point: Few politicians — or commentators — seem to care about the facts.

So here are a few, in no particular order: The Dubai firm wouldn't be handling security — the U.S. Coast Guard would continue to do that; unionized American longshoremen would still to do all of the loading and unloading; the ports in question were already foreign-owned, as are countless other ports in the United States; and if the U.S. had rejected the Dubai bid, a Singapore firm would probably have gotten the contract from the Brits instead.

Democratic and Republican politicians respond by insisting that the UAE is a bad country full of bad Muslims and Arabs, while Britain is a nice country where everyone likes us. I'm as Anglophile as they come, but you might have noticed that Britain has a surfeit of jihadi nut bags, such as the guys who blew up the Underground and want to behead Danish cartoonists.

Besides, the same Dubai company bought CSX's American port business in 2005, and nobody seemed to care then. So, why now?

Well, Bush is in the second-term doldrums, and presidential wannabes are taking advantage of what was, in retrospect, a political — but not a policy — blunder. The White House's tepid defense of the Danish cartoons sent the message to some that Bush is going a bit wobbly. Democrats have found a populist route to zing Bush from the right for a change. The war in Iraq, the war on terror, the bombings abroad and the increasing arrogance of Europe all produce, if not screaming isolationism, the desire to keep all that junk "over there."

Port security is a serious concern, but scapegoating Dubai is a distraction. And if we're going to argue about distractions, we might stick to the entertaining ones.

So did you hear the one about ####### Cheney doodling a picture of the prophet Muhammad?

[Scott & Lai 12]

This deal's going through once all the naysayers realize how foolish they look.

Has anyone explained why this has to be rushed through?

I asked that in the original thread...I'd still like to know the answer. And why was this done in secret? There are some good reasons for allowing this deal (including the fact that we have important military bases in the UAE), but we should have been told those reasons beforehand, instead of after the deal was revealed. There should have been a public discussion. I do find it ironic that the very same Democrats who were so against any hint of racial profiling by airport security are suddenly against Arabs owning the port operations