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 thugs err, 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 time

Then, 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 terrorists friends from Saudi Arabia used Hawala, or for those of you confused by big words, the unofficial banking system favored by foreign nationals.

every one of them used the banking system for funding

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.

Time to start looking at the facts, dipwad, and sorting out the relevant ones from the ones that only fit your personal agenda.

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.

AthlonGuy, take a look at http://www.californiaconservative.org/?p=2379

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:

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.

He acknowledged the UAE is being helpful by allowing the United States to dock ships in its country’s waters, and helping the U.S. with intelligence.

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:

The United Nation’s International Atomic Energy Agency in November 2003 itself warned Pakistan of possible nuclear leaks. After two months of investigations, in late January 2004 Pakistani officials concluded that two of the country’s most senior nuclear scientists had black market contacts that supplied sensitive technology to Iran and Libya. Pakistani intelligence officials said the scientists - A.Q. Khan and Mohammed Farooq - provided the help both directly and through a black market based in the Persian Gulf emirate of Dubai.

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:

…but all of the things we recommended back in January [2001] were those things on the table in September. They were done. They were done after September 11th. They were all done. I didn’t really understand why they couldn’t have been done in February [2001].

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?

Generalizations are how bigotries get started and re-inforced.

Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

Indeed.