The Dubai Ports Fisaco

Talk about dodging a bullet... But, the question is, who dodged it?



The entire issue seems to have been avoided because the UAE is selling it's interest in Dubai World Ports... right?

Interesting how the overall outcome is that the same company is still going to get the deal. The same, exact deal is still going to go through.

There were a lot of things about that specific deal that were highly questionable and deserve to stay in the spotlight. For instance they waived standard restrictions such as requiring the company keep their records on American soil. Common sense, right? Then how come it isn't being mentioned?

I wonder, will the "American entity" have their headquarters in Dubai?

It was at least plesant to finally see an issue that Democrats and Republicans could agree on, with 70% of Republicans agreeing with the Democrats in opposing the deal.

This issue exploded because it touched on several growing currents of public thought.

It played on the fears that the Republicans have been playing on ever since 9-11. The Republicans easily confused a group of 16 Saudis, a couple Iranians and a guy from Dubai with the Nation of Iraq by saying "These people attacked us on 9-11". (Now he claims to be worried about "sending the wrong message"?!?)
Of course Americans are afraid of terrorism and conscious that the current brand of terrorism aimed at America is coming from the middle east. The Republicans have beat it into Americans head for 5 years now. Clearly, That rhetoric came back to bite them in this situation.

But this was only peripherally about Arabs. The larger issue that this brought to light was that foreign control of the egress and ingress points of our country has been going on for years.
Most Amercians agree, in the post 9-11 world, it makes no sense from a security standpoint to let another country control your ports.

I am suprised at the Republican stance on this issue because they claim to care a lot about security and controlling what comes into and leaves our country when it comes to the borders.

So why don't they feel that way about our ports?

This also came at an interesting time, when Bush was off in India giving away our Nuclear secrets and encouraging countries to blow off the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty!