Am I the only one who's noticed the irony of the DPW hupla?
We now have the same people who gasp in horror at the mere suggestion that we ought to racially profile people on the subways and buses and airplanes doing exactly that with an entire country. Not just any country either, but the UAE, the one arab nation that has been something resembling an ally in this "War on Terror" thing.
UAE hosts more of our war ships than any other foreign nation. To date, zero attacks.
UAE allows us to use their airspace and landing strips. To date, zero attacks. We're more worried about our planes taking off from JFK getting hit by seagulls than we are about our planes taking off from UAE.
UAE also seized the assets of terrorists immediately after 9/11, without much fuss or equivocation.
True, their banks laundered some money that belonged to the terrorists, but I'd be willing to bet the German, French, and Swiss banks did the same. Atta lived in Hamburg prior to the attacks, why not blame the Germans and not allow them to own anything in our country either?
My point simply is this: Whatever our concerns with port security (and there are many that are legit), they ought to have come to the forefront without this as a catalyst, and this deal should not be the source of the concern.
Wanna be worried? Be worried about the fact that fewer than 5% of containers coming here are inspected, by our own Coast Guard! Be worried about the fact that the Communist Chinese (not exactly our bosom buddies after all) are--and have been for some time now--running the port of Long Beach. Be worried that there aren't American companies to do the job of running operations (which is fancy language for owning the lease on the ports, nothing much else) so if Hillary gets her way and legislation were to go through prohibiting foreign ownership of our port operations, we'd be in quite a pickle with no goods coming in or out of most of them.
I also find it ironic that the very same people who--just a couple of weeks ago mind you--were ranting and raving about the theory (preposterous though it was) that Cheney PURPOSELY shot his poor buddy to get the bad news of Iran, the war in Iraq, etc... off the front pages are now sinking their teeth into this thing? The same people who said "All we have to fear is fear itself," who accused the administration of keeping us terrified at all times of an enemy that doesn't really exist, the ones who claim the "War on Terror" isn't really a war, but just a small group of fringe extremists having a bad day (or year or decade or century or whatever...) are now acting like a business transaction is the scariest thing in the universe for us because it has A-RABS involved (egads)!
The whole thing is SICKENING. The Dems will get a lot of mileage out of this one though because the Republicans--not wanting to be outdone, and for no other reason than saving face mind you--are joining the rallying cry. This really highlights how corrupt and out for themselves they ALL are, on both sides of the aisle.
I'm not that worried about this deal honestly. I don't think it makes us any less safe than the Chinese are making us. In fact, we could squish the UAE like a bug if they had the balls to try to allow anything to happen through one of the ports they manage. China? Not so much.
I hate to sound like a friend to big bidniss and all, but the scary thing is the way our politicians are behaving and the way the media isn't questioning THEM enough, not the ports deal. If the politicos cared about our safety, the Coast Guard would be recruiting at every college in this country, they'd have more money for more ships to do more inspections, and other nations from whence our cargo comes would know in no uncertain terms that if they did not adequately inspect enough cargo to satisfy us, well, we'd tax the crap out of their goods so it would sit on the docks and rot instead of sell to our people.
But hey, what the heck do I know?
Posted by insomnomaniac at February 28, 2006 7:34 PM | TrackBack