A Weblog of Centrist Voices in American Politics
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A Weblog of Centrist Voices in American Politics | |
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February 24, 2006UAE Agrees to Delay"The reaction in the United States has occurred in no other country in the world... We need to understand the concerns of the people in the U.S. who are worried about this transaction and make sure that they are addressed to the benefit of all parties. Security is everybody's business." The article is here. Not exactly the actions of a government hoping to sneak terrorist through our ports. This is a huge favor to Bush that in my eyes they should not have had to grant. None the less, this gives the President an opportunity to do what he has been lackluster at to date, which is to defend his own policies. I hope this debate is open, that both sides honestly consider all of the facts, the administration is forthcoming with information, and that partisanship is laid aside. Furthermore, I hope Karl Rove does not use this as an opportunity to back out of a sticky political situation. I am not holding my breath on any of the above. This should be considered as a good faith effort by the Dubai government. It would be a diplomatic mistake to fumble the ball now. On a different note, a commenter was concerned that because I deleted comments that contained profanity and what I thought to be borderline racist statements from one of my earlier entries, that this article would not get shared. It is from Front Page Magazine, a right wing publication, and outlines a connection between Hamas and the UAE. I disagree with the article's premise and I stand by my statement that opponents of the deal have yet to offer any substantive argument that it threatens our security. Guilt by association and nationality alone are not reason enough to break our word. I believe, for instance, the nation of China has committed atrocities against its own people, especially women and other peace loving nations such as Tibet. However, I believe the best way to end those atrocities is to introduce free markets to the Chinese people and the evidence has shown this to be the case. That is the policy of this country and has been under President's from both parties. Middle Eastern nations or companies who may or did once have ties to terrorist organizations, and I consider Hamas to be indeed a terrorist organization, should not be treated any differently. You cannot change the world through isolationism. History is our greatest lesson of that fact. Comments
I read FrontPage every day. They sometimes go over the top, but often highlight issues ignored by MSM. I also read Salon on a daily basis. Centrists should be aware of what both wings are talking about, and address the substantive issues, if not the outrage. Posted by: rickheller at February 24, 2006 07:33 AMI wonder how many of the deal's difficulties are due to the stereotyping idea of the Arab Street having been repeated so often. I mean, if you come to believe Arabs are all or largely alike, and you know some of them did 9/11 and plenty of others partied when it happened, your model of the world has no space for trustworthy Arabs. The truth, of course, is otherwise. Just as here, there are at least as many ways of thinking as there are Arabs. Posted by: Jon Kay at February 24, 2006 08:19 AMP.S.: The reality is that there are many Western-educated people who would like to see more openness and prosperity in their societies, and both groups are outnumbered by those who just want to live their lives peacefully. The UAE is one of the few places where those who want openness hold power and hope. For all of you enlightened and open-minded people who will not judge the UAE simply because it is an arab country and so choose to give it the benefit of the doubt. Not only has this country been a conduit to spread nuclear weapons to rogue states, there's this:
U.S. Didn’t Target Bin Laden in 1999 Because He Was Meeting With UAE Royal Family The irony is that while people like me are dismissed as racist and narrow-minded because of our rightful distrust of arabs, in fact the arab countries are the most racist, close-minded societies in the world, which is exactly why they can't be trusted. Posted by: Laura at February 24, 2006 01:29 PMLaura, Can you confirm that United Arab Emirates even HAS a single emirate-wide royal family. I don't think it does. I think that each of the individual emirates has a royal family. Some may even have several. So I wonder whether your information (unsourced and without links BTW) is factually inaccurate or just poorly worded. If your unsourced story is accurate, then I believe that what it means is that Bin Laden apparently met with ONE of the several royal families in one of the SEVEN nations that comprise the UAE. Can you in fact confirm that 8 years ago, Bin Laden met with Dubai's royal family? And do you understand why that matters? This information only underscores why the administration should have fully investigated the sale, as required by law, before approving it. Just to be clear, for the sake of the audience, let me say that I don't think anyone here is against carefully scrutinizing this deal. But I don't think that, so far, anyone has shown that the appropriate agencies negligently rubber stamped this deal. Nor, (as I've said repeatedly, and as you, Laura, have just as repeadtedly ignored) has anyone shown a specific demonstrable reason to think that Dubai is entering this deal to foster domestic attacks by islamic terrorists. Ot that their managment would make the execution of such plots easier rather than harder. Posted by: bk at February 24, 2006 01:58 PMThe irony is that while people like me are dismissed as racist and narrow-minded because of our rightful distrust of arabs, in fact the arab countries are the most racist, close-minded societies in the world, which is exactly why they can't be trusted. So is that your final solution, I mean final answer? For the sake of national security, we must distrust all arabs and all muslims? And if some of them distrust us, are they just wrong Are we the only ones whose blanket distrust is "rightful?" Your old testament foreign policy isn't very Christian, Laura. Posted by: bk at February 24, 2006 02:06 PMNot only is it not Christian, but it is the same argument that Hitler used on the Jews. Posted by: Mathew at February 24, 2006 02:13 PMThe irony is that while people like me are dismissed as racist and narrow-minded because of our rightful distrust of arabs, in fact the arab countries are the most racist, close-minded societies in the world, which is exactly why they can't be trusted.Wow, Laura impressive, a comeback even BEFORE anyone responded to your first post. Now that's a pre-emptive strike. Posted by: c3 at February 24, 2006 10:01 PM I don't think that Dubai is entering this deal to cause us any harm, intentionally. Far from it. But doesn't their geography alone and their proximity to Islamic terrorists make them a greater risk for someone to hide something in a container than say, a British company might? Wouldn't their common language make it easier to bribe a port official ? Of course they wouldn't be in charge of our port security.However, I contend that no one is really doing a good job of securing our ports. I would be in favor of spending about 100 times more than we do now to secure our ports and make it safer for us. The Dubai's support of the Taliban regime make some folks very nervous as well. You don't think anyone in their government knew that the Pakistani Reid, drug dealers smuggle dope through our ports and airports and customs checkpoints quite frequently. That doesn't mean that people in our government know about any particular transfer of contraband through them. Britain is chock-full of radical Muslims (as, apparently, is Denmark). Are we to adopt a position that any Muslim from those countries is forbidden to work in any port operated by them? That they can have no Muslims in positions of high rank within their companies? What "Dubai support of the Taliban"? We've all heard Laura talking about the UAE's occasional contacts with the Taliban and Bin Laden, but, as Tully has consistently pointed out, the UAE is a rather loose confederation of several basically independent countries. I haven't seen anything to suggest that Dubai was cozy with the Taliban. As others have pointed out the port operations company has little to do with the security operations at the port, and the line workers, the longshoremen, will remain the same Americans who have been doing the same job for decades. "Bribing a port official"? See, to actually smuggle something through, bribing the vice-president of whatever over in Dubai is not going to cut it, because the vice president is not the one on the scene running things. He'd have to pick up the phone and call the guy who actually decides what ships go in what berths and unload into what warehouses. And that guy's going to be a local employee, just as he was when the British were running things. And if the big, big boss from Dubai calls him and says, route the Pakistani shipment to the quiet warehouse in the corner and don't tell anybody about it, he's going to drop a dime to Customs and the Coast Guard ASAP. By the way, if we're going to guarantee US ownership of all ports, we're going to have to mandate a lot of sales. China operates several ports or port components, as do many other countries. And kicking them all out will cause all of them to kick out American companies who are running sensitive operations in their home countries. More facts and less reactionary fear would help a lot. As would understanding all the potential consequences of killing this deal. For instance, how will Dubai, who all agree has been a pretty strong ally in our fight against Al Qaeda since 9/11, react if we tell them they are officially deemed, as a country, untrustworthy by the U.S. Government? How will other moderate Arab nations react? Posted by: PatHMV at February 25, 2006 12:04 PMI live in South Florida. I know about dope smuggling. It's in the news almost daily. However, a kilo of coke sneaking in doesn't have the potential to kill everyone in Miami whereas a nuke sure has that potential. I never indicated that I thought any Dubai big wig would let a bomb aboard a ship knowingly. They would have no desire or need to do that. Of course, it would be a worker , way down on the totem pole. In Miami, very often the men who unload baggage are the ones who sneak it in. But you still left out my concern with the geography involved. A lot of dangerous stuff is floating around that part of the world , and it's a whole lot closer to Dubai than London if you wanted to plant contraband. Wouldn't you agree? I don't like the fact that it's a government owned firm rather than a private one either. In reality, I feel that most thoughtful folks should fear a suitcase nuke more than all of the other dangers put together. One of my biggest gripes with the current President is how he never seems to have grasped how very important it is to buy up all of those old bombs at any cost. One old Russian General, with a few nukes hidden away, needing cash, could sell one too the Islamic terrorists and we would be up the creek. That is scary to me. In closing, lets really beef up the security at our ports and I could care less which private firm does it. Having a foreign goverment do it seems weird to me, unseemly, even meddlesome. It was reported on the news last night that Dubai was one of three countries who recognized the Taliban. They could be wrong of course. We can't outsource everything, can we? That seems to be where we are heading. Have a good weekend. Posted by: Reid at February 25, 2006 03:41 PMExactly, Reid. And the workers way down on the totem pole are NOT going to be Arabs, but Americans, just like they have been when the British company owned the port operations. And Customs and the Coast Guard will continue security operations exactly as always. "It's a whole lot closer to Dubai than London if you wanted to plant contraband"? The ships aren't coming from Dubai. The ships are coming from all over the world to American ports, ships almost universally NOT under American flags. This doesn't mean suddenly that all ships will be routed through Dubai before coming to the U.S. In fact, ships come to this country from Middle Eastern countries every day, loaded with a very volatile and dangerous cargo... oil. Whether the kingpin executive ultimately overseeing its unloading is in Britain or Dubai isn't going to effect security at all. Did you know, in fact, that Dubai was the first Middle Eastern country to join the U.S. Container Security Initiative (in March 2005) to screen containers destined for the U.S.? This post-9/11 program allows U.S. Customs & Border Patrol to place a team of officers in Dubai's own port to inspect sea containers destined for the U.S.? And again, as you seem not to understand, NO private company is in charge of port security. That's the responsibility of Customs and the Coast Guard. We're not outsourcing that. Posted by: PatHMV at February 25, 2006 07:14 PMAnyone have any links to what people in the know about security have to say about the issue? From what I've heard, they have not had anything to say that there is any real threat, but I'd like to see their actual description. I saw Stephen Flynn, someone who definitely is in the category of being in the know, on the News Hour on Thursday night. Wasn't following that closely, but didn't seem to raise any issues where there was any real threat. One issue which I also see being ignored is that the Democrats are anxious to be seen as opposing the Bush administration on something which appears to be to strengthen national security, something which the ports issue clearly appears to be. Now some of the more politically motivated Republicans are trying to deny the Democrats that opportunity and are thus joining the attack against the port deal. Posted by: Scott Smith at February 25, 2006 11:28 PMScott, how about Rear Admiral Craig Bone of the U.S. Coast Guard, director of port security in the Maritime Safety Security and Environmental Protection Directorate at U.S. Coast Guard Headquarters (former captain of the Port of New York and New Jersey)? He recently gave an interview to Hugh Hewitt (no friend of the port deal), and basically said that it's no big deal and he doesn't think the security issues will change much at all. Posted by: PatHMV at February 26, 2006 12:58 AMI do understand that no private firm is in charge of our security. Of course not. But in all honesty, do you think we have allocated enough money for the Coast Guard to do their job? I sure don't. I live in Miami. Every week, speedboats go to Cuba, pick up about 15 people and then drop them off in the Florida Keys. How is that possible on a regular basis? Our security has never been what it should be, and I think our priorities are out of whack. Untill this year, Wyoming would get the same amount of money to fight terrorism as New york? That's not smart at all. I still don't like the idea of a government being involved in any port operations. Governments change all the time. sometimes friends become our enemies. You are correct in that Dubai is our friend at this time. Of course we don't want to flame any more anti-American sentiments; God knows we have enough of that already. In general, I don't trust this administration to get a whole lot right, and especially not to manage our security. I realize that I have a better chance of winning the lotto then getting knocked off by a terrorist. However, I wouldn't live in New York City now If I was given a free condo on Park Avenue. If these criminals ever get a suitcase bomb, bye bye Manhattan. That is what troubles me the most. God Bless America. Posted by: Reid at February 26, 2006 01:16 PMIn other words, you're scared and you just don't like the deal because you don't trust Muslim countries to stay friendly to us. Is that about it? Posted by: PatHMV at February 26, 2006 03:14 PMReid, How much security, in your view, is "enough?" What are you looking for? A 100% guarantee? Shall we set up some sort of system that detects every movement in and out of our country along every inch of our thousands of miles or borders, and hire people to serach, every box, bag, car, truck, boat etc that enters and leaves our nation at every point of entry? Or can you wrap your ahead around the notion that such perfect security is far beyond the scope of our ability to do so, our will to do so, and the resources (both financial and in labor) we'd need to do so, even if we could. Posted by: bk at February 26, 2006 03:14 PMbrilliant site! happy to be here. Round will Circle unconditionally: http://www.fark.com/ , Astonishing Corner Percieve or not to Compute Soldier you should be very White , Girl will Chips unconditionally Memorizing Tournament becomes Curious Grass in final Posted by: Jonathan Miller at March 4, 2006 12:13 AM |
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