Don’t Jump On The Anti-Dubai Port Deal Bandwagon
Let’s examine past experiences of Republicans jumping on board recent bandwagons: Ann Coulter calling extremist Muslims “ragheads” was met with swift Conservative excommunication. Denmark is being praised as a champion of free speech by Conservatives, despite the fact that what this type of free speech and do for you, it can do to you.
With these “don’t look before you leap” bandwagons overloaded with Conservatives, let’s do a review of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) -owned company, Dubai Ports World, and the contract with the London company to manage U.S. ports. First, here is the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company who currently manages the ports. Here is the Dubai Port company.
MYTHS
Myth: President Bush contracted the UAE to manage US ports.
Fact: The U.S. Committee on Foreign Investments has approved a pending contract with the state-controlled Dubai Ports World of the United Arab Emirates to manage U.S. sea ports. The Committee on Foreign Investment includes representatives from 12 government agencies and departments, including Defense Department, Homeland Security and the White House National Security Council. It took 90 days to approve the deal. The British company, Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company (P&O), currently manages the ports and is selling the management of the ports to Dubai Port. The White House is backing the contract.
Myth: The U.S. will be less safe with the UAE managing the ports instead of the British.
Fact: The private British company currently manages the ports in question. The ports are already managed by foreigners; in light of the Muslim presence in Britian and the vow from extremists to continue attacks like the ones in London, it could be suggested that US ports managed by the Brits is a riskier venture than to sell the work to Dubai.
Myth: The U.S. would be safer managing its own ports.
Fact: The U.S. has had more domestic terrorism than the United Arab Emirates. Consider these home grown American terrorists who carried out domestic attacks:
– Timothy McVeigh & Terry Nichols on April 19,1995 used a truck bomb at the Oklahoma City Murrah Federal Building that killed 168 Americans, including many children. The 2 had links to al-Qaeda. McVeigh was executed for his crimes in early 2001.
– Eric Rudolph, known as the Olympic Park Bomber, killed 2 people and injured 111 after setting off a bomb in Atlanta, Georgia’s Olympic Park during the 1996 Summer Olympics.
– Anthrax attacks beginning Sept. 18, 2001. Five Americans were killed by Anthrax which was delivered to news stations in NYC and 2 Senators in Washington, DC. The crimes are still unsolved.
*Domestic attacks within the United Arab Emirates since it’s conception in December, 1971: ZERO.
Yet we trust the US to safeguard our ports over a country, that happens to be Arab, with a better track record on security.
Myth: The Bush Administration is outsourcing the security of our ports.
Fact: The U.S. Coast Guard and Customs and Border Protection are in charge of security of our ports.
Myth: The Bush Administration hid the deal until it was exposed by the media.
Fact: DP World announced its intent to purchase P&O on November 29, 2005. Even before the official announcement, the press was reporting on the possible transaction as early as October 30. Between October 2005 and January 2006, there were at least 162 mentions of the transaction in the press.
Complete Fact Sheet from the White House
Tackling the concerns
-Two 9/11 hijackers “had ties” to the UAE: All eleven 9/11 terrorists learned to fly in US flight schools, lived in US hotels, used American banks and used the US as an interface to pull off their plots. The United States is no more guilty by association than the UAE is. (keep in mind domestic American terrorists)
– The UAE approved the Taliban’s rule in Afghanistan. The UAE was one of only 3 nations that had recognized the Taliban as Afghanistan’s legitimate government. Political analyst Abdul Khaleq Abdulla said the recognition of the Taliban was aimed at putting an end to a civil war that ravaged Afghanistan following the withdrawal of Soviet troops in 1989, and that the Taliban appeared to be in the best position to control the country. “Little did they know that the regime would turn out the way it did,” Abdulla said.
In addition to the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan also recognized the Taliban after they seized the Afghan capital Kabul in 1996. All three countries cut ties with the Taliban after it sheltered al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
WHO’S SUPPORTING THE DEAL:
– Tom Ridge, former Homeland Security Director.
– Joe Lierberman, Dem. CT-Sen
– Dan Bartlett, White House counselor.
– John Snow, Treasury Secretary.
– Gen. Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
– Donald Rumsfeld, Sec. of Defense.
– Tommy Franks, Retired Gen US Army: “We have more U.S. Navy ships using the port in Dubai, Jebel Ali, than any other port outside the United States. We know he difference between an enemy and a friend. The Emirates is a friend. That is the best run port that I’ve ever seen.”
WHO’S OPPOSING THE DEAL:
– The Usual Suspects
– Dissenting Republicans (like SC Sen. Lindsay Graham, who also broke ranks from the President on the war in Iraq and the surveillance program)
– American Unions (Teamsters Union, full photo)
It didn’t take long, but the demagoguery has begun. Now that Democrats, such as Hillary Clinton (”We cannot cede sovereignty over critical infrastructure like our ports. This is a job that America has to do.”), are coming out and officially blaming the President for outsourcing national security, it seems clear that Conservatives erred in siding with Democrats. The UAE has been our alley for years and the UAE has graciously offered to postpone the contract to ease US concerns. The UAE gave $100 million in aid for Katrina Hurricane relief last year… because that’s what allies do. The aid from the UAE was nearly four times as much as it received from all other countries combined. Other countries, including some in the Middle East, also pledged large contributions but have not yet sent the money.
WHY WE NEED THE UAE
The UAE, according to military officials and former CENTCOM GEN Tommy Franks, has one of the safest and best run ports in the world and currently accommodates US ships for our activities in the Middle East. The UAE has been an outstanding ally on the war on terror with the United States. The map speaks for itself.
Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said that religious and racial bias, not a legitimate concern for security, are behind the opposition to Dubai Ports World managing six U.S. ports:
“Most Muslims would agree that underlying this entire issue is an anti-Muslim, anti-Arab bias that says, ‘Muslims and Arabs are somehow less trustworthy than other people.’ People are saying, ‘Don’t sell  sell our ports to the Arabs.’ Well, that’s not what’s happening at all. The [Department of Homeland Security] is still screening the cargo, the Coast Guard is still protecting the port, the union longshoremen are still loading and unloading the cargo and I believe the majority of the employees of the company are British and American. The [Chief Operating Officer] is American.”
Although Democrats may not intend to, they are engaging in the worst case of racial profiling in their effort to take political advantage of a complex situation. Democrats do not have public confidence on the issue of national security and they have contradicted themselves in an effort to cash in on an opportunity of misunderstanding. While decrying tight security checks at American airports as “racial profiling”, they have proceeded to label an entire race of people because of extremist Muslims within the religion. In fact, the possibility is that religious Muslims aren’t truly behind the terrorist movement; rather, it is a political and ideological movement draped in the guise of religion (i.e., al-Qaeda, the Taliban) to gain global Muslim support that taints the image of Muslims. Certainly there are elements of passion in the Arab culture that frighten Americans, but just as it is wrong to stereotype an entire race, it is even wronger to carry out a stereotype of an entire race for political purposes.
While the jury may still be out, next time, let’s give OUR President the benefit of the doubt. Be suspicious of any bandwagon filled with liberals.
Cross-posted at Amy’s Blog
February 26th, 2006 at 2:31 pm
Homeland Security objected to ports deal
The Homeland Security Department objected at first to a United Arab Emirates company?s taking over s
February 26th, 2006 at 3:48 pm
Well I’m on board! Thanks. Now if we can just get Jimmy Carter to be against the deal, my moral compass will be back in proper alignment.
February 26th, 2006 at 4:48 pm
UAE DP World port management
I would like to think we could trust all people within DP World but most are Arab Muslims who almost to a man hate Jews. We are Israel’s only true friend. Should we not be a little uncomfortable with security details that DP World will have access to?
Maynard
Seattle, Washington
February 26th, 2006 at 6:46 pm
Do Hillary and Bill even talk to each other? While she’s screaming about how bad of an idea this is, he just got through saying during the same week that this isn’t a bad deal at all.
Buzuh?
February 26th, 2006 at 8:12 pm
WHAT?
The emphasis in this quote is mine, and I’m here to ask, what links? Where has this ever been claimed? What is your source?
This claim must be substantiated. Your credibility is on the line.
February 26th, 2006 at 9:13 pm
Dearest Stop Bush,
Here’s one source. Apparently Nicholas wife is from the Phillipines and had al-qaeda connections, or associations of some sort.
http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/crime/terrorists/terry-nichols/
February 26th, 2006 at 9:13 pm
Dearest Stop Bush,
Here’s one source. Apparently Nicholas wife is from the Phillipines and had al-qaeda connections, or associations of some sort.
http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/crime/terrorists/terry-nichols/
February 26th, 2006 at 9:13 pm
Dearest Stop Bush,
Here’s one source. Apparently Nicholas wife is from the Phillipines and had al-qaeda connections, or associations of some sort.
http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/crime/terrorists/terry-nichols/
February 26th, 2006 at 9:15 pm
And….
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Ramzi Yousef spent a lot of time plotting in the Philippines. Terry Nichols just happened to be passing through at about the same time.
http://www.rotten.com/library/history/countries/philippines/
This is speculation, not proof, but it is widely suspected that Nichols got his inspiration and direction from al-Qaeda.
February 26th, 2006 at 10:01 pm
You are basing this information on a web site that posts pictures of dog shit? I think your sourcing speaks for itself.
And for you.
February 27th, 2006 at 4:16 am
Btop Bush, Anger management issues!
Wikipedia links also to the same article claiming an al-Qaeda connection with Nichols because of his wife. I thought liberals loved Wikipedia.
Wikipedia on Terry Nichols
In 1995, Nichols resided in Herington with his wife Marife Torres and infant child (which was not his). The couple have since divorced and his former wife has returned to the Philippines. Nichols made several trips to the Philippines in the months before the bombing.
New American
New Recruits?
In the Philippines, Jones found people who told him Terry Nichols had met there with Middle Eastern terrorists, including Ramzi Yousef (the kingpin of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing) and, possibly, Osama bin Laden himself. Al Qaeda was using the Philippines partly as an auxiliary base and partly as a pool of new recruits. McVeigh ridiculed the idea of Nichols’s involvement in the Philippines, but Jones reports that his client later admitted it was possible.
February 27th, 2006 at 4:17 am
Stop Bush,
Guilty by association, I suppose, rather like the Dubai port management?
February 27th, 2006 at 1:16 pm
Dubai Ports - The Saga Continues
Another not to be missed post on the subject by California Conservative…..Glenn Reynolds points to Mudville who point to a potentially injured third party in the Dubai port deal.
February 27th, 2006 at 2:01 pm
The first issue to be given top priority is : WHY IS THE WEST SO BLIND?
Islam is an ideology aimed at dominating the world. What makes it apparently different from Nazism or Communism is that Islam comes under the flag of religious belief.
Democracy stems from the quest for LIBERTY, it is a bottom-up process : freedom loving ( i.e. submission hating ) people devised Democracy as the best way for governing themselves. The idea of bringing Democracy to “submission” minded peoples is doomed to the bitterest of failures, as adamantly demonstrated by the rise to power of the obscurantist forces of Hamas in Palestine, Shia clerics in Iraq and the coming to prominence of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Though sanctioned through publicly held polls, that’s not democracy, that’s tyranny under the travesty of Democracy.
Submission minded peoples are bound to be governed either by fascism ( Baath ) or fundamentalism. They still belong to the old ages of SUBJUGATION and that’s what Islam is all about : THE WILL TO SUBJUGATE, the worst scourge that keeps haunting the humanity since the very beginnings. Believing that Islam is just a religion like many others is a lethal misjudgment.
Human societies of all kinds have thrived millennia upon slavery in a world where oppression was the norm, while LIBERTY is the antithesis devised — at last — by the human spirit for escaping SUBJUGATION.
LIBERTY is very “recent†in human history. It’s enough to have a look at today’s world — 215 years “only†since when the First Amendment was established — to understand that LIBERTY is still tottering and very frail.
For the “true believers†the world is divided into two sides: Dar El Islam ( the house of the believers) and Dar El Kufr ( the house of the infidels ). The FIRST duty of a believer is to conquer the land of the infidels and submit them.
Submission comes in three choices: 1st is conversion, 2nd is dhimmitude, 3rd is being decapitated.
However those who believe that not to be free but instead to be rich should be the main purpose in human life won’t find themselves restrained under Islamic rule. There are no provisions in the Qur’an against being rich and wealth is indeed praised and recommended.
Islam is akin to HIV : it takes a very long time for the infected host to recognize the lethal enemy and too often when he does it is too late. There is something in HIV that misleads the immune system into trusting the newcomer as one more member of the family while in reality it is an alien.
Would the U.S. have allowed a U.S.S.R. owned company to run its ports? Well, what the U.S. are doing now with U.A.E owned DP World is by far worse.
But business is business!! And what about America’s open investment policy?? Goddamn those who dare to say that DP World’s takeover of American ports management is not business as usual!!
Never seen glittering Dubai’s streets? The big cars and limos, gold and jewels everywhere, the flavor of greenbacks all around, whole armies of obsequious servants, and all the brands of the world available to so-called brand-conscious people. Well, isn’t that what the most of us are dreaming of ? Thus, since we share the same dreams, who dares to say that they aren’t akin to us?
In the West unabashed LOVE FOR GOLD stands on top of everything, while LOVE FOR LIBERTY lags by far behind in the values’ ladder. That’s why we get so easily fooled by the virus of “submissionâ€Â. And when the gates are wide open all kinds of ideological servants lusting for economical and political rewards hurry to show up : political correctness resulting in toleration of intolerance, lambasting common-sense measures of nationality profiling, defending heinous women subjugation as a just different lifestyle, laying down the First Amendment on the altar of so-called religious sensitivity… But that’s history already : now both sheer fear in the West and bitter defeat in the Middle East are looming large.
The alien is taking hold but the infected host still insists upon maintaining that it is just a new a member of the family!!
Two more links worth to have a look at :
The Road To Allah Paved With Gold
http://www.allthingsbeautiful.com/all_things_beautiful/2006/02/the_road_to_all.html#more
Did UAE Save Bin Laden?
Does anybody understand that Muslims are not requested by their religious ideology to be truthful and loyal to the infidels but on the contrary to deceive the infidels is a believers’ duty stemming from both the requested commitment to Jihad and the requested contempt for the inferior and corrupt disbelievers?
February 27th, 2006 at 2:05 pm
Did UAE Save Bin Laden?
http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=12684
March 9th, 2006 at 1:08 am
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