45 Day Delay: Time to Kick It Into High Gear
Everyone’s been yapping about the need to go through the full 45 day investigation for the Dubai Ports deal, which the Bush Administration has agreed to. I’m all for it, especially if the Administration uses the time to go on the offensive on this.
As I’ve said before, I expect the deal to get done so I don’t believe that’s what this delay is about. Instead, I’m hoping that the Administration targets the bigotted Democrats that we’ve heard from this week. My first target would be Gov. Jon Corzine, (D-NJ), who gave the Democratic radio response yesterday.
Here’s a taste of Corzine’s hate-filled speech:
“Dangerous men, tainted blood money and nuclear technology have moved across UAE borders,” said Corzine, who is suing to block the government-approved acquisition by Dubai Ports World, a state-run company. We were told that the president didn’t know about the sale until after it was approved. For many Americans, regardless of party, this lack of disciplined review is unacceptable,” Corzine said.
Gov. Corzine is right in noting that “blood money and nuclear technology have moved across UAE borders…” What he fails to note is that most of that activity happened during the Clinton Administration. The Clinton Administration didn’t push UAE to reform their banking laws so that terrorist money wouldn’t go washing through the UAE without restrictions.
The reason the Clinton Administration didn’t push the UAE at that time had alot to do with the fact that they didn’t take the terrorists’ threat seriously. It would’ve been nice to have seen them done so.
Let’s also remember how helpful the UAE has been post-9/11:
The UAE Is an Ally. Since 9/11, the UAE has provided unprecedented cooperation to the United States in the war on terrorism, including finding, arresting, and turning over high-ranking al-Qaeda operatives and participating in the U.S. Container Security Initiative to screen cargo bound for the U.S. That Dubai World Ports is owned by the UAE should reassure Americans.
This is part of the Heritage Foundation’s research on Dubai Ports. This isn’t insignificant.
I’d use this information and more to gore Democrats who have sounded awfully bigotted this past week. They haven’t made distinctions between troublespots in the Gulf Region and allies in the region. Generalizations are how bigotries get started and re-inforced.
We owe our closest allies far better than that type of rhetoric.
Cross-post at LetFreedomRing
UPDATE: (2/27)
Michelle Malkin: “Shredding The Race Card”
Offers counter-point
February 26th, 2006 at 9:08 pm
Another blatantly partisan bloviation.
For starters, take a look at Corzine’s remarks quoted above again. Is there one fabrication in the entire paragraph quoted? How is this hate-filled? Don’t give me that “anti-Arab” crap that you’ve been spouting (on command, no doubt… read the talking points memo! Wash. Rinse. Repeat.).
This idea has been universally panned. The only people who are saying that allowing the UAE to take over our ports is a good idea are Dubai World Ports and the White House. Now, before you go all list-happy on me, remember, all of the Bush Administraion sycophants don’t count as seperate opinions. We all know they’re loyal already, and there’s no need to list all the current and former Administration officials who agree.
More relevantly, lets look at who doesn’t agree. From the article you cite above:
I included that last paragraph because I’ve seen all the posts where you say “but they’re a great ally!” and think that nobody seems to know what they’ve done to help, since 9/11. You know what? It doesn’t mean squat. These are the people who let A.Q. Kahn smuggle nuclear secrets and materials to Syria and Iran from his base in Pakistan:
And don’t get me started on how Kahn helped North Korea build its arsenal under the Bush Administration’s nose.
So much for our good friends and protectors, the UAE. Not to mention Pakistan, another “ally”.
Now, as for your inflammatory, defamatory and completely without merit comment regarding the Clinton Administration: Any suggestion that the Clintons didn’t take terrorism seriously is not only wholly untrue, but frankly, quite revealing about your lack of intellectual integrity. Unless, of course, by the Clinton Administration you mean the Bushies for the first nine months of their tenure, in which Bush and Co. were so out of touch with what was going on with regard to terrorism that they ignored the signs of pending attack. Recall the Presidential Daily Briefing headline that Condoleeza Rice was ultimately forced to recite in front of the 9/11 Commission, dating back to that vacation in August 2001? What did it say again? Oh yeah, Bin Laden Determined to Attach Inside the United States. I guess you don’t have to read anything when you’re on vacation. After all, you can always blame the previous administration.
But let’s look at just one of the areas the Clinton Administration asked — no, begged — the Bush Adminsitration to look at. On January 25 — that’s four days after Bush was sworn into office — Richard Clarke, Clinton’s National Security Advisor, wrote a now-famous memo to Condoleeza Rice asking the new Administration to look at the terrorist threat posed by Al Queda. To quote from Clarke’s testimony before the 9/11 commission:
That piece goes on to offer a tremendous amount of evidence that the Clinton Administration was actively working against the threat posed by Al Queda, including a strategy document entitled Tab A December 2000 Paper: Strategy for Eliminating the Threat from the Jihadist Networks of al-Qida: Status and Prospects.
Clearly, you don’t have the first clue as to what you’re claiming. Be honest… is the Bush Administration secretly paying you to make these outlandish and foolish claims?
Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
Indeed.
February 26th, 2006 at 9:17 pm
Conspiracy theories! The guy calls himself “Stop Bush”. Let that be your first clue.
February 26th, 2006 at 9:43 pm
There are great reasons to oppose the UAE takeover of all these terminal leases. None of these were mentioned in Comment #1. It does seem hard to imagine why anyone would be passionately for this takeover without being personally involved with making $$$ off it, though.
February 26th, 2006 at 10:02 pm
Amy, did I say something about conspiracy theories? I think that was the original author’s conjecture, not mine. And besides, your credibility is dog poop. Ahem.
AthlonGuy, take a look at http://www.californiaconservative.org/?p=2379
February 26th, 2006 at 10:22 pm
Amy, I can’t get over this one. You source a web site famous for hoaxes, pictures of horrible accidents/crime scenes, and dog poop, and you say I’m posting conspiracy theories? Please, please continue pointing out to everyone (who will listen) what you think… it just proves my points!
February 26th, 2006 at 10:35 pm
Thomas Kean, a former Republican governor of New Jersey who led the bipartisan probe of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, said the ports deal was a big mistake because of past connections between the 2001 hijackers and the UAE.
“It shouldn’t have happened, it never should have happened,†Kean said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.
The quicker the administration can get out of the deal, the better, he said. “There’s no question that two of the 9/11 hijackers came from there and money was laundered through there,†Kean said.
What’s funny about this is that he’s basing his opinion solely on the fact that 2 of the 9/11 hijackers came from UAE. I’d be opposed to this deal if we learned that the UAE sponsored their training in Afghanistan. That didn’t happen.
Secondly, citing the 9/11 ‘Omission’ in these parts won’t go far. These are the clowns that said that Able Danger wasn’t credible and didn’t even deserve mention in their report. (Of course, we won’t tell the 9/11 Idiots that the NSA intercept program is based on the same datamining that Able Danger was built on.)
As for the rest of your idiot diatribe, I’ll just ignore it.
February 27th, 2006 at 9:44 am
“Oh! Scribe!” New poem- http://apoeticjustice.blogspot.com/
February 27th, 2006 at 6:00 pm
I guess by stopbush’ reckoning, none of the ports should be run by any company associated or controlled by the United States, either, then. After all, every one of the 9/11 hijackers was in this country for an extended period of time, and every one of them used the banking system for funding, and every one of them was…
Time to start looking at the facts, dipwad, and sorting out the relevant ones from the ones that only fit your personal agenda.
February 27th, 2006 at 7:39 pm
I am so glad that the tone of this commentary has gone highbrow!
I know I’ve touched some raw nerves, here. But name calling? (dipwad, idiot…) I thought that conservatives were so much better than the rest of us heathens. I was wrong.
Carlos, you make no sense. What are you blabbering about?
I seem to recall national horror on 9/11. Of course, I’m sure you’ll try and tell me liberals were celebrating in the streets and conservatives were the only ones to feel the suffering and destruction wrought by
Saudi Arabian thugserr,Muslim terrorists… personages of Middle Eastern decent. But I digress.Were these terrorists really inside the country for “an extended period of time” or is that your interpretation? How long is an extended period of time? Fact: Many of the 19 had been in the US for only a few months on temporary visas, issued in conjunction with the State Department, whose imagination failed to see that Saudi citizens could possibly commit heinous acts. In fact, “three of the hijackers in the September 11 terrorist attacks obtained visas in Saudi Arabia through a brand-new program designed to make it easier for qualified visa applicants to visit the United States” … a program in place for less than 4 months before the attacks of 9/11.
every one of the 9/11 hijackers was in this country for an extended period of timeThen, of course, there are the numerous FBI agents who have testified that their attempts to bring attention to the flying students-cum-hijackers doing something (taking flying lessons with no interests in takeoff or landing) suspicious went unheeded. Nobody cared. And why should anybody care?
Saudi Arabia is our friend, just like the UAE. (Subtlety cue: I’m being facetious. Oops, another big word. Get it?)
And, if I recall correctly, many of these
terroristsfriends from Saudi Arabia used Hawala, or for those of you confused by big words, the unofficial banking system favored by foreign nationals.So, Carlos, your conjecture is plainly wrong. But being conservative, you’ll probably be able to come up with some more “relevant” facts. Instead of criticizing me, do your research (and Fox News doesn’t count as research). You might learn something.
To be clear, I believe that our ports should, in fact, be run by responsible companies, regardless of nationality, who are held accountable for its actions. No backroom deals. No secret negotiations. And, for crying out loud, no terrorists! It’s that simple, it really is.