..."Now the Dems are attacking the port deal..."

*blink*

When the horse bleep did Bill Frist and Dennis Hastert switch parties? Did I miss something?

Oh, and for those keeping score. UAE is one of the GOOD guys...this whole thing is utterly ironic.

The democrats saw this deal as an oppurtunity to attack Bush from the right.

The moonbats already believe that Bush is in league with rich oil sheiks in order to destroy America, so there was little to risk to them, they also probably think that trading Arab American votes for isolationist votes will be a net gain.

Congressmen like Frist and Hastert feared erosion of support from their right, and so acted too fast to play sufficiently xeno-phobic as to not lose the isolationist wing of the Republican Party. Craven Idiots.

If the deal falls through, the relationship with a major ally in the war on terror gets damaged. Another plus for the democrats.

Comments wouldn't me use the phrase "m0ved to" in the above posting. apparently its objectionable. weird.

Mitch said,

"Now, the Dems are attacking the "port deal" because...the company that wants to buy the rights to manage the ports (not security; not navy bases) is from a profiled nation."

No Mitch, the Democrats are attacking the port deal because Bush's own rhetoric and fear mongering has risen up and bit him in the ass.

For the last five years the administration accused anyone in Congress or the media who dared question anything about the Iraq war of being soft on terrorism. Now, when Congress and the press turn that accusation back on the White House, Mr. Bush acts offended and hurt.

You guys have used fear and paranoia for political gain since 9/11 but now that the same fear and paranoia that you bred threatens to block a financial transaction, you cry foul.

And by the way Mith, it's Republicans denouncing this stupid decision as well as Democrats but you didn't bother to mention that fact.

The real issues, and there are only two that matter are, how is it possible that a decission of this magnitude was made without the President or Mr. Rumsfeld knowing about it? And secondly, now that there is a massive ground swell in Congress and among American citizens to kill this horrible decision, will the President put profit for his friends ahead of national intetrests?

My guess is yes, he will and if or when an incident does occur at one of the ports, you will find some way to blame Hillary Clinton and the Democrats for allowing it to happen.

The next time the administration tries to block the release of documents for "national security" reasons, the Democrats and responsible Rebublicans better damn well ask if it's acceptable then to release control of our ports.

Ho-hum. By your logic, Doug, when Mercedes bought Chrysler, fear and paranoia carried the day. What we have here is a commercial transaction between two American allies, essentially a title transfer of commerical operations between Britain and the UAE involving about 2% of American ports, none of which has absolutely anything to do with harbor security. Meanwhile, the UAE is already servicing our battlefleet in the Persian Gulf and the PGA tour plays golf in Dubai. Should they stop? Shall we tear up the contracts? Shall we arrest Tiger Woods?

This latest media tsunami is just one more example of the collosal ignorance of not just the "ground swell" of the American public, but of the idiots we elect to Congress and the morons who report the "news." Such a thing was not a problem when the Chinese bought up Long Beach or when the Clinton Administration opened the floodgates to Saudi immigration in the wake of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. But let a British firm sell a subsidiary to an Arabian ally, one far more sympathetic to the West than, say, Saudia Arabia or China, and the usual screamers and moaners all go berserk.

How to explain it? For years the Democrats have done nothing but condemn the (cough!) outrageous discrimination and racial profiling being done at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, not to mention any given American airport. They have exposed and demanded an end to highly selective transnational telecommunication surveillance, and have launched massive legal assaults to defend Al-Qaeda suspects asserting their protection under the U.S. Constitution. But NOW they're outraged that an Arab nation we've been doing business with for more than a decade has a commercial interest in 6 of our sea transport facilities? This is alarming?

Since when have the Democrats given a damn about American national security anyway, especially as it concerns Islam?? For chrissake, the Minnesota DFL is currently conducting an all-out propaganda war over a pair of paid advertisements by some folks who support the U.S. mission in Iraq and had the audacity to define Al-Qaeda as the enemy. But the Bush Administration vets a business deal between two coalition allies and it's a threat to national security because one is an Arab state?

I will grant you this. The Bush Administration should have seen this media tsunami coming and taken steps to prevent it by alerting and better informing the usual suspects. People in the financial world are aware this sort of transaction happens all the time --Georgetown, for instance, might as well be a Saudi Arabian protectorate-- but the average American, member of Congress, and reporter from the Fourth Estate will just see "Arab" in connection with "US ports" and automatically assume the patients are running the asylum.

Meanwhile, all that has happened is the American and British governments have agreed to allow the same Arab outfit servicing our ships in Middle Eastern ports to conduct business in 6 American ports, further emphasizing the international communication and cooperation necessary to succeed in the war against Islamic terrorism.

What's the alternative?

I'm against this deal. I am often not very eloquent when it comes to voicing my poltical opinions sometimes, but James Lileks managed to sum up in one short paragraph, exactly how I feel about this:

"The UAE is not exactly stuffed stem to stern with pro-American individuals; the idea that the emirs will stand foursquare against infiltration by those who have ulterior motives is the sort of wishful thinking that makes buildings fall and cities empty. I’m not worried that some evil emir is putting a pinky to his monocled eye, and saying Mwah! at last I have them where I want them! I’m worried about the guy who’s three steps down the management branch handing off a job to a brother who trusts some guys who have some sympathies with some guys who hang around some rather energetic fellows who attend that one mosque where the guy talks about jihad 24/7, and somehow someone gets a job somewhere that makes it easier for something to happen."

Lileks' Screed

To me, this is just opening the doors WIDE OPEN to give us a situation that is straight out of a season plot of 24. Only problems are that Jack Bauer is a fictional character, and Keifer Sutherland is just as moonbat lefty as his Dad.

Maybe the UAE is cleaner than Syria and Iran when it comes to purity test scores in terrorism, but you know what? They aren't England, they aren't Australia, they aren't Canada. 2 of the 9/11 highjackers were from UAE.

To me, maybe this DOES have some racist overtones, but you know what? When it comes down to the physical and economic lives of my country and it's citizenry, the easily offended sensibilities of the rest of the world can (rhymes with duck) off. When the middle east stops producing and funding terrorists, then maybe I'll let my symbolic guard down. Until then, MY LIFE IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN THEIR NOT BEING OFFENDED.

And of course Eracus completely misses my point as usual.

If you condition a dog to attack, don't punish the dog for attacking.

Here's the best part of your response...

"This latest media tsunami is just one more example of the collosal ignorance of not just the "ground swell" of the American public, but of the idiots we elect to Congress and the morons who report the "news.""

You certainly seemed proud to boast that Bush won by a majority of American citizens but now that the same majority freaks out over selling our ports, they're ignorant.

I have news Eracus, they were ignorant back then too. That's why we have the President that we have.

Also, Republicans are the majority in congress and yes, they are idiots - but they're your idiots.

As for the morons who report the news? We've been saying that for years. Thanks for finally catching on.

Doug, did you actually READ what Eracus wrote in his posting? I don't think so. You just react...and predictably...and annoyingly (idiots...hey, there's a new word from the "enlightened ones" on the left...haven't heard that one...). Cripes.

I'd like to see you respond to the argument he makes.

The problem with the concerns over a situation straight out of "24" is that terrorists don't necessarily have to get their cargo into and through a port to achieve their goal. If they get a nuke or a dirty bomb in a container into a harbor of a major US city, it's already game over. The real vulnerability isn't what's being unloaded at US ports, but rather what's being loaded at foreign ports and this deal has no impact on that.

The obvious danger of this deal was spelled out nearly 20 years ago, in Chuck Norris' classic and prescient "Invasion America"; terrorists crowding onto container ships, charging ashore in US ports (even easier, when they own the ports) and taking over the whole country.

And it's all Dubya's fault.

I'll try to be succinct.

Selling to Dubai Ports is just another in a long chain of funneling US Tax dollars (as security fees) to Sinclair Group/MNC's. Bush is first and foremost about lining his friends pockets - he didn't even really engage here because it's just business as usual. This is the same company that operates the port in Dubai that had a Pakistani scientist smuggle uranium to Iran, N.Korea and "WMD program disbanded" Lybia.

The events in Iraq are tragic, almost beyond words. I have a heavy heart for the US Soldiers who must be heartbroken watching this nation tear itself apart. The thing is, it's not as if this wasn't predicted LONG BEFORE WE INVADED BY OUR OWN CIA. Instead, though, Cheney develops his own intell branch because he doesn't like what CIA is giving him, and we commit our troops to a nearly hopeless case - namely, keeping Shiia and Sunni from killing each other when Al Qaeda is PLENTY HAPPY to throw bombs to get it all going. The blame rests not with the troops, with our hopes for democracy, but with an administration which was so insincere in their design as to send in 1/3rd the troops asked for, NOT guard weapons cache's that were then used against us, and plan for permanent bases in direct hypocrisy to our stated aim. This was predictable... but I'm sure civil war which will end in a Shiia dominated (Iran dominated) theocracy is preferable to keeping Houssien bottled up. Neither are good choices, but sometimes, you pick your battles with w-i-s-d-o-m rather than g-r-e-e-d.

But hey Mitch, you want to try to bluster through the disaster in Iraq and the PR disaster of selling control to Dubai Ports Inc.. you go for it, it shows you'll apparently back Dubbya no matter what he does. You're our own Bill O'Reilly.

PB

PB, your post made it four words. The US is not "selling ports" to Dubai. Whatever else followed is not worth reading. Try again.

Lileks is just plain wrong, but he's got the bleat of the sheep these days. The only material change in this whole affair will be the masthead on the manifest and the signature on the checks. To the extent Lileks' concern has any foundation at all, consider this. Since we are fighting a nefarious enemy dependent on stealth and surprise, what better way to defend ourselves than to have our own people alongside the network and machinery necessary for his success? It is the oldest maxim of warfare: Hold your friends close and your enemies closer. And while there is much to be desired when it comes to our homeland security, would it not make more sense to have our enemies forced to move under our own direct surveillance than to have them lurking in shadows on some foreign pier where we don't even speak the language?

The sad truth is that for decades, particularly under the previous administration, the United States eschewed human intelligence for "technical means" in an effort to save money and advance the canard that we're all friends now that the Cold War is over. Such was never the case, of course, and here we are now engaged to the death with an enemy we know very little about. Consequently, most of our success to date has been the result of tremendous risks taken by friendly governments in the Middle East, such as the UAE, which long ago granted control of their defense and foreign affairs in treaties with Britain. We didn't break the AQ Khan nuclear proliferation network, the Pakistanis did. In Iraq, we'd be deaf, dumb, and blind if it weren't for the Iraqis themselves. And when it comes to transport shipping, what better strategic alignment to have than one of the most modern, civilized, Western-modeled Islamic societies in the Middle East than the United Arab Emirates, who were sailing ships into commercial ports long before any pilgrim boarded the Mayflower? Hell, Michael Jackson made news using a ladies room in Dubai. Not exactly a hostile nation, one might conclude.

As for your comments, Doug, your distorted worldview is nearly impossible to decipher. That "a decission (sic) of this magnitude was made without the President or Mr. Rumsfeld knowing about it" more suggests it was no such thing, as any financial professional could tell you. It happens every day, as with the CNOOC attempt to buy Unocal or yet another Saudi national buying a shoe store in Georgetown. This is America. You got the money, you get the deal. That's how we do business with the world and should be doing more of it, not less. As for the ignorant public, the idiots in Congress, and the morons in the media, even if a billion people believe a stupid thing it is still a stupid thing. Popular opinion once held that the world was flat.

Any argument to jettison this opportunity is simply myopic. We need allies in the Middle East. We have a friendly government in the United Arab Emirates with a long history of international cooperation in business and security affairs with the United Kingdom, the Western Europeans, and the United States of America. Why should we now suddenly pass some legislative slap-down rejecting their business relationship simply because some Arabs are bad people and an otherwise entertaining newspaper columnist is scared some spook in mid-level management might be a friend of a friend whose brother married the daughter of a cousin whose Uncle Mustafa once had falafel and tea with some nutball involved with Al-Qaeda?

Really, how stupid is that? Do we really want to antagonize a friendly Islamic state just so the usual political opportunists can take yet another ham-handed swipe at that poor dumb bastard Bush? When we need help in Iran, and we will, who then should we call in Dubai?

Mitch,

Perhaps beer is just not your thing. (please don't tell me you've gone metro) Maybe a nice bottle of Rombauer or Cakebread will interest you.

Actually, it might take 2 or 3 bottles...25 years of catching up is a long time!

Chris

"People don't need to worry about security," President Bush Feb 23, 2003.

Eracus.

The US is approving the sale of port and facility operations of 6 large and 20 total ports to Dubai Ports World, a government owned company of the UAE. That you need to have that spelled out speaks plenty about who you are. Perhaps fixating on the tree really isn't the idea here ERAC.. just a thought.

As for not being worth the read, I suppose if you think civil war in Iraq, a predicted outcome, isn't a concern, isn't worth the space, then it isn't worth the read.

When the blog author focuses on Al Gore reiterating a UN Human Rights report, rather than the explosion of violence in Iraq, while the President, who doesn't believe Canada (you know, our Ally to the North) is capable of producing drugs, but will entrust shipping logs, manifests, rotational duties, staffing, and the like, to a country that sponsors terrorism, impeded investigation into Al Qaeda funding, allowed a Pakistani scientist to smuggle nuclear weapons technology, and which still declines to admit Israel's right to exist, well, I see a certain hypocrisy there, or not, when you consider he is beholden to the drug companies, and to the Carlisle Group, both of which profit from his stances.

Now I don't really beleive selling the Brit operation to Dubai Ports World really offers much risk to the US, but given the hand-wringing over the exposure of the NSA wire tap program, a program Al Qaeda DOUBTLESS understood was going on, you don't get to eat your cake and have it too. You want to hype up terrorism, and then claim practicality when profit is on the line. And that's the rub, profit, profit is the real motivator, and the President is merely being exposed for being all hat and no cattle on National Security. He doesn't take it seriously, except as a launching point for his own financial aims. I certainly don't think Dubai Ports World proves that by itself, but rather that he ignored port security for four and a half years.

The point of the post was that Iraq is a far more important topic. Whether we need allies, well perhaps rather than pissing on the allies we have, we might have listened to them as Robert McNamara suggested. Further, simply improving yourself does not grant you license to become instrinsicly involved in how to circumvent port security (if you were nefariously motivated). Capitalism is not a suicide pact. The UAE does not rank highly on the old list of "democracies", and we're talking about a sale to their government, not a private concern. I'd bet we wouldn't even dream of allowing Venezuala's government the opportunity to buy port operations, at any price, because Bush simply doesn't like the socialist nature of Chavez, despite the fact that he's lawfully elected (although he is looking like he wants to be El Presidente for life). No, our foriegn policy isn't really about democracy, or security, it's about bucks.

As the saying goes, follow the money, but I'd suggest NOT following Eracus very far, he seems to be interested only in blowing smoke.

PB

Eracus said,

"would it not make more sense to have our enemies forced to move under our own direct surveillance than to have them lurking in shadows on some foreign pier where we don't even speak the language? "

So then the U.A.E. is the enemy... Thanks for clearing that all up for us...

As for your extreemely long winded excuse for the sale of the ports to the U.A.E., It all sounds so... neat and clean. Isn't capitalism neato keen Kidies?

Read my post Eracus. I don't care if the U.A.E. gets control of the ports. I don't care if drunken pygmies control our ports. The incoming containers aren't being checked anyway so whomever is running the port when a big ole' dirty bomb blows up Miami doesn't make a hell of a lot of difference.

All I said was that the climate of fear that you and your buddies sold to us for pure political gain is coming back to bite you.

And personally, I think it's funny. And the fact that both Bush and Rumsfeld have said they weren't aware of the deal yet they still defend it is priceless.

That being said, lets compare and contrast shall we?

Saddam Hussein had tied to al Qaida - bad!

The U.A.E. had ties to al Qaida - uhhh... not so bad.

Saddam Hussein supported terrorists - Really Bad!

The U.A.E. supported terrorists - No Problem!

Saddam Husseins' representatives met directly with Osama bin Ladens second in command - terrible!

Officials with the U.A.E met directly with Osama bin Laden - move along folks... nothing to see here...

Finally Eracus, you said,

"Popular opinion once held that the world was flat."

Yup. And popular opinion once held that Bush was a strong leader too. You said it yourself... even if a billion people believe a stupid thing it is still a stupid thing.

At least you got that right.

It's amazing how easy it is to just shake the tree so the moonbats fall out. Stalin is chortling in his glass coffin, no doubt, but then I digress. It's a certainty neither one of you understands the reference.

Doug and PB, the two of you are so deluded by your ideological bias, (to the extent it can be defined as a bias and not an outright, full-blown psychosis) that you neither comprehend the facts at issue nor understand the debate. All that is clear is you hate George Bush. You hate the Republicans. You hate the conservatives. You hate your own country. You're angry. You're mad. You're outraged and have been for years, and your only relief is whatever and whenever some dreadful hardship or national tragedy befalls this great country or anyone who might disagree with you. What a world.

Look what we got here. Both of you re-define your arguments at the slightest challenge. They are so specious and uninformed that, PB, you're invoking ROBERT MCNAMARA, of all people, whose greatest contribution to American geopolitical strategy was to recommend the assassination of our own allied leadership and to keep count of dead yellow bodies. How can you expect anyone to take you seriously? "Profit is on the line." Whose profit? The Brits? If that were true, they wouldn't be selling the business. The United Arab Emirates? They just dropped a bundle on something the Brits couldn't make work. The United States? We still own the ports. We're contracting for services. We don't make a dime on this deal. We're not even in it.

And as for your remarks, Doug, if you can back up a single assertion with a credible source, post it, otherwise you're just making stuff up. You might be surprised to learn many in the United States for years have supported Al-Qaeda, the PLO, the IRA, communist China, North Korea, and more recently Hugo Chavez and Hamas. They're in your party. They're your party leadership, for chissake. Or do you think Al Gore's recent remarks in Jeddah as a guest of the bin Laden family or Jimmy Carter's embrace of Hamas was just for the money?

For the record, if the whole point of this discussion is the Bush Administration has failed to properly present what was certain to be a controversial decision, I have no argument. They deserve what they're getting. But to suggest that a financial transaction between two American allies will cause the sky to fall down is just silly.

Meanwhile, given that Bush is consistently "misunderestimated," one wonders if there's not more to this story than meets the eye. It's interesting, for instance, that prominent Democrats and Republicans, together with most of their constituencies, all seem suddenly united over an issue of national security.

FINALLY.

And just when Iran and China have signed a $70 billion oil deal. Why is this important you ask? It's because the Iranians fly the No-Dong North Korean missile. They have problems with its guidance system. And in 1998, in exchange for more than $600,000 in campaign contributions to the Democratic Party, the Clinton Administration issued a waiver to allow the Hughes Corporation to sell China the very telemetry system that will correct Iran's problem. No doubt China got a good price on the oil.

And you're worried about a dirty bomb in a cargo container?? Do you think Al-Qaeda is?? Not for a moment, pal. Not one little bit.

So you kooks are complaining because the American people don't have a sufficiently nuanced view of Middle Eastern politics and the administration is getting killed by both parties on the ports thing? Live by the sword...

Interesting how, when we're invading a country that poses no imminent threat and has no connection to al Qaeda, Republicans think A-rabs is A-rabs. Now we're getting lectures on the differences between Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

Bush may or may not be right on the facts, but he's all wrong on the politics. Bad year for your guy.

Good God Eracus...

My position is pretty clear.

Rather than respond to what I have clearly stated, you go on to rant about how much I hate everybody.

I don't hate anyone. In fact, I love you. You make me laugh.

As for posting the assertions I've made, I would but why bother. You have already laid the foundation by saying I should post it with a credible source.

We've played this game too many times in the past. Here's the way it works... I post the evidence, you discount the source - never the evidence... Just the source.

The entire web is all a buzz with the evidence you are asking for. Go find it yourself.

I'll help get you started by looking at the words of that looney leftwing, tin-foil hat wearing moonbat - Lou Dobbs.

"DOBBS: McClellan went on to say that the Committee on Foreign Investments examined 65 deals a year on average, but as we reported here last night, and we would like to remind Mr. McClellan, that the committee has turned down only one deal out of 1,500 deals that it has reviewed.

President Bush has put forth a challenge tonight that I simply can't ignore. The president yesterday said he wanted those who are critical and questioning of this port deal to "step up and explain why all of a sudden a Middle Eastern company is held to a different standard than a Great British company."

Well, first of all, Mr. President, to equate any country to your principal partner in the coalition ignores that special relationship this country's enjoyed with the United Kingdom for decades and decades. This also is not just a British company and an Arab company, as I think you well know.

Peninsula and Oriental Steam Navigation is a British privately owned company. Dubai Ports World is a UAE government controlled and owned company. You see the difference, of course.

And furthermore, the money used to fund the 9/11 attacks, most of it, in fact, was sent to the hijackers through the UAE banking system. In fact, two of the hijackers were originally from the UAE.

The UAE stonewalled U.S. efforts to track al Qaeda bank accounts after 9/11. In addition, the Emirates does not recognize Israel as a sovereign state. And the UAE was a transfer point for shipments of nuclear technology to Iran, North Korea and Libya.

And if those aren't good enough reasons, I would just suggest I'm at a complete loss to offer what might be considered good reasons."

"Bush may or may not be right on the facts, but he's all wrong on the politics. Bad year for your guy." --AngryClown
--------
I would agree it looks like a bad start, but this is February and two months does not make a year, clown. And, agree or not, these guys don't make many strategic mistakes in politics or national security. What's happened isn't really the issue anyway; it's what happens next that matters, and it probably concerns Iran.

As for you, Doug, you obviously don't have any credible sources and so beg off with a typical strawman excuse. Nevertheless, Lou Dobbs (whose "looney leftwing, tin-foil hat wearing moonbat" credentials have long been well-established) and many others have articulated a valid argument, no question. I just don't happen to agree with it. I look forward to a public debate, which is what should have occurred in the first place. That it didn't, knowing this administration, makes me wonder if this isn't just more rope a dope to set the Democrats up to defend national security. (For once). That Jimmy Carter has come out in support of the decision suggests something more is afoot. I really don't know, but something just seems rotten in Denmark.

The distinction between a "privately" owned or a "government" owned enterprise, for instance, is only pronounced in this case because the government happens to be Arab. Why is this not a problem with Russia or China or any number of other dozens of states whose enterprise is government-owned? Say, France and Germany, for example, and every other socialist state. And so what if the terrorists used the UAE banking system? They used the American banking system too. It's all the same system these days because there's no currency standard. That the UAE "stonewalled" U.S. efforts to track Al-Qaeda bank accounts is a sovereignty issue, which any nation-state would address before it started exposing the financial records of its citizens. And as for technology transfers, many on both the Left and the Right will undoubtedly stipulate that while the UAE may have indeed been a "transfer point" of nuclear and other weapons technology to "states of concern," the shipping points of origin have too often been the United States itself, or France, or Germany, or Britain, or Russia, or China, or........well, you get the picture. The world is much more highly integrated than Lou Dobbs would have you believe, or believes himself, and to point to this fact or another does not even begin to tell the whole story.

That's not just the problem with your argument but as well describes what lies at the heart of our national discord. Most of the people alive today, and by "most" I mean by a large margin on both Left and Right, have absolutely no idea what is actually going on in the world they live in. They don't know their history. They don't think critically. Instead, they just feed off emotions created by a steady stream of soundbites, editorial opinion, and visual images without any sense of context, depth, or perspective. The great body of "news and information" these days amounts to just this or that celebrity journalist, politician, or entertainer exchanging opinions with one another, 24/7, while the average "informed" citizen just repeats what was said without ever bothering to investigate what he's been told.

The unhappy result is the vast majority of people believe things that are simply not true, which explains why we find ourselves in the position we're in today. They believe Clinton's impeachment was "just about sex" or that Nixon's resignation had to do with a third-rate burglary attempt at a downtown Washington apartment complex -- as if they stabbed Caesar over theater tickets. If you'll buy that, you'll buy anything, which is precisely what our enemies are counting on.

So now Lou Dobbs IS a moonbat...?

I was of course being sarchastic but if you really believe that's the case, hey - good luck with that.

Of course you just stepped into the big pile of poo I predicted... here it is again...

"you discount the source - never the evidence... Just the source."

Like I said, anything that I post, you will dismiss out of hand because your are driven by your own ideology and you accept only the facts as you see fit.

You don't want a public debate. You want to lecture and pontificate. That's fine. You do it very well. Just don't claim a victory if others choose not to take your bait.

If Mitchs' blog were a bar in Boston, you'd be our own Cliffy Claven.

"And, agree or not, these guys don't make many strategic mistakes in politics or national security. "

Sorry Eracus. The expiration date on that observation coincided with the botched Katrina response. Republicans know they need to try to get reelected this year, and they aren't exactly hitching their wagons to Bush's ever-dimming star.

It's time for Bush to think about limiting the damage to his historical image (shoot for "below average" rather than "failure".) And time for the aides who aren't facing indictment to start faxing resumes to John McCain.

Oh wait, Eracus, I almost missed your assertion that the Bushies don't make many strategic mistakes on *national security* - not just politics.

Let me give that the point-by-point rebuttal it deserves: Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha! Hooooo.... Angryclown's greasepaint is running from the tears of laughter!

And I thought you were a humorless bore, Eracus!

Whenever your belief system is challenged, Doug, you never offer any substantive rebuttal. All you do is whine and complain. It's because you really don't know what you're talking about and we all know it. You just think and say whatever makes you feel better whether it has any basis in fact or not. What matters is your contempt before consideration, because heaven forbid you should ever entertain any new information and broaden your worldview.

Let's take Lou Dobbs. He has a 1978 Harvard B.A. in economics. That's it. Disco City. No graduate studies, no actual business experience. In 1980, Ted Turner hired him to read the business news on his fledgling Cable News Network in Atlanta, today's CNN. He's a television journalist and has always been a television journalist. As CNN gained in popularity, he has enjoyed some notoriety, but he's still just another celebrity talking head who works for Ted Turner. That's a fact. That is reality. He is not a source; he reads teleprompters. Nevertheless, contrary to your assertion I merely discredit your sources, I gave you point by point rebuttals to the arguments Lou Dobbs presented in the transcript you provided. You chose to ignore them because you don't dare think critically about your own arguments because it would threaten your spoonfed identity. It's a weak mind that resists change.

As for you, angryclown, okay. Please list for us the strategic and political mistakes of this administration. But don't just give us your opinion, list the actual mistakes, illustrate their consequences, and explain how they occurred and why they were a mistake. We all know what an angry clown you are, but is there anything more to your reasoning than simple indolence? The reason I ask is because Bush has been elected twice, the GOP captured the Senate in 2004, two conservative judges have been confirmed to the Supreme Court, unemployment is low, Americans are making more money than ever, two former Islamic terrorist-states are now nascent democracies, and there hasn't been a terrorist attack on American soil since 9/11.

C'mon. Show us what you're really made of. One way or another, you will.

Ercus, lets try this one last time and do try to follow along...

I'll state my position one more time as clearly as humanly possible.

It doesn't matter who runs the ports. The issue for national security is in inspecting the containers coming into the ports - currently around 5% and leaving the ports - currently ZERO %.

With me so far...?

The administration has built an entire war on presenting loose bits of information, heresay, conjecture and paranoia but now that we, a vast majority of Americas, 64% to 17% ( http://www.rasmussenreports.com/2006/February%20Dailies/Dubai%20Ports.htm )
are basing our fears about the port authority transfer the same way, suddenly we are an ill informed mass of idiots.

I don't disagree. We are idiots. You knew that in 2004 and used it to win an election. Good for you.

Don't whine and complain now that the conditioning you used so effectively is now hampering your ability to make a few billion bucks for your shareholders.

Those issues aside, the U.A.E. and the company slated to take control has direct ties to the White House, the Presidents father and his buddies. If this were the Clinton White House, you would be going ape sh*t crazy and calling for a grand jury investigation.

If Congress were to attempt to stop the sale because they believe there are enough concerns about national security but the President vetos them, what does that tell you about his agenda? Where are his priorities?

All of your bloviating about Lou Dobbs, about the movement of funds though various banking systems, state-owned versus privately owned is entirely irrelevent to the point I was making.

I chose to ignore your rebuttal of Dobbs because rather than addressing the point that Dobbs made, you went on a predictable tangent but that's not suprising. You do it all the time.

Here it is again.

"The president yesterday said he wanted those who are critical and questioning of this port deal to "step up and explain why all of a sudden a Middle Eastern company is held to a different standard than a Great British company."

Stop for a minute and read that again... "explain why all of a sudden a Middle Eastern company is held to a different standard than a Great British company."

You very successfully argued why the sale to the U.A.E should be a non-issue. Good on you but that wasn't what Dobbs addressed.

You said, "It's a weak mind that resists change."

I would argue that it is a weak mind that fails basic reading comprehension.

Doug, you are recycling tired old Marxist-Leninist propaganda as argument which has completely distorted your reasoning. The issue for national security is not about inspecting transport containers over here, it is about finding out what is being shipped over there, whether it comes here or not. Does it not then make sense to work with an established ally already in command of a "tranfer point" in the Persian Gulf and clearly in position to know what is actually being shipped when and where? To then buttress your argument that the expansion of this established alliance to our own ports is somehow connected to war profiteering by the Bush Administration is just plain ridiculous. It is the usual anti-capitalist propaganda that comes standard with every communist screed written since Lenin got the keys to the Kremlin. It's nonsense, and reflects only the extent to which you have been drinking the Kool-Aid.

What you really should be asking yourself is why it is that when in September 1995 the Clinton Administration leased the Long Beach Naval Air Station to COSCO, a shipping line owned and operated by the Chinese government, the media didn't heap scorn and contempt on Bill Clinton for leasing the actual port facilities to our communist enemy. Where was the public outcry then? And thereafter, why is it that nary a newspaper editorial or television journalist registered so much as a complaint when, a few months later, ATF agents interdicted a COSCO shipment of 2,000 illegal Chinese-made AK-47 assault rifles for sale to Southern California street gangs, the very same weapons the Chinese have been selling to Al-Qaeda, Hamas, and Hezbollah for decades.

Even setting aside the hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal cash donations from the Chinese military to the Clinton/Gore 1996 re-election campaign, what you really should be asking yourself now is why is it that when the Democratic Party leases American military port facilities to a long-time communist enemy in order to sell assault rifles to Los Angeles street gangs, it does not make the news, Congress does not act, and there is no public outcry. But when the Republican Party simply contracts for commerical port services with an American ally in the Middle East where our military is fighting and dying in a war of annihilation, it's all over the news, Congress springs into action, and the public convulses in outrage.

Why is that exactly?

You say it's because this administration has "built an entire war on presenting loose bits of information, heresay, conjecture and paranoia," but I say it's because the Democratic Party and its portals in the mainstream media are aligned not with the national security interests of these United States, but with our enemies' strategy to subvert our national defense, overwhelm our resources, and destroy our political will to defend ourselves.

Apparently, Doug, you have already surrendered, as your posts have made abundantly clear.

Give a man enough rope and he's bound to hang himself sooner or later...

Eracus said,

"To then buttress your argument that the expansion of this established alliance to our own ports is somehow connected to war profiteering by the Bush Administration is just plain ridiculous."

Followed by,

"But when the Republican Party simply contracts for commerical port services with an American ally in the Middle East"

Thank you Eracus. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you.

And Eracus, you are a laughably shallow demagogue.

"...where our military is fighting and dying in a war of annihilation..."

Priceless.

Finally, you said,

"I say it's because the Democratic Party and its portals in the mainstream media are aligned not with the national security interests of these United States, but with our enemies' strategy to subvert our national defense, overwhelm our resources, and destroy our political will to defend ourselves."

Damn... You're on to us. Quick everyone! To the UN headquarters for an emergency meeting.

Seriously, those are the paranoid rantings of someone who should be on meds.

Well, Doug, you're obviously living the liberal utopian fantasy. That's why you cannot respond substantively to a structured contrary argument. You don't know how to. You're confronted with facts and information you've never considered before and so immediately dismiss it unexamined just to feel better fast. Your identity depends on contempt before consideration to insure your fantasy survives notwithstanding the expense of your erudition, no matter how foolish you look in the process. For example, you cite Lou Dobbs without even knowing who he is, thinking you're being sarcastic. Instead, it's ironic. You're so far left of center and don't even know it you think Lou Dobbs is to your right. The rest of the time you just make stuff up and pretend you know everything when the reality is you don't know shit and so have no idea how to respond to an idea or a thought you didn't encounter before when watching TV or reading some rant you already agree with. That's a mighty small world, Doug, which explains why the best you can come up with is yet just more abusive and contemptuous words to describe me, when the fact is I'm just another guy with a computer you're trying to shut up on some other guy's blog because you don't like what I'm saying.

Your approach is no different from the Islamic miscreants burning cars in the streets of Paris or attacking government embassies over some cartoon in a newspaper. That you fail to recognize that only more defines the problem. While your self-serving liberal fantasy no doubt insists you are acting for the benefit of all mankind, the reality is that you're not. You're part of the problem, not the solution, because you have no idea what you're talking about or where your own arguments lead. All that matters is you and YOUR world, in which the rest of us cannot possibly survive.

Is that not your liberal fantasy?

And is it not the same as Al-Qaeda's?

Think about it.

Okie Dokie Eracus...

"That's why you cannot respond substantively to a structured contrary argument."

You haven't made one. I said it doesn't matter who controls the ports because it's the inspection that matters and you respond by detailing why the U.A.E. deal should go through for it's economic and diplomatic benefits.

To be fair, you eventually do get around to addressing the point, cargo inspections, but as usual, you set up another strawman argument and use ridiculously naive justifications to argue your point. Here it is,

"Does it not then make sense to work with an established ally already in command of a "tranfer point" in the Persian Gulf and clearly in position to know what is actually being shipped when and where?"

You tell me Eracus. Does the U.A.E. control every port in the Persian Gulf Eracus?

How about ports in Asia from countries like Indonesia? By the way, just what is the dominant religion of Indonesia and what happened on October 12th 2002?

Next...

I said it was because of the administrations own fear mongering and labeling that there is such resistance to the deal and you counter with,

"...Democratic Party and its portals in the mainstream media are aligned not with the national security interests of these United States, but with our enemies' strategy to subvert our national defense, overwhelm our resources, and destroy our political will to defend ourselves."

Eracus, that's just nutz.

Add to that your continual references to communists, marxists, leninists stalinists and I think my insinuation that you're dealing with some chemical imbalance is clearly justified. And for the record, you Eracus were the first to fire the mental stability volley early in this thread...

Here it is...

Doug and PB, the two of you are so deluded by your ideological bias, (to the extent it can be defined as a bias and not an outright, full-blown psychosis)

But you get it in return and you cry foul? Grow a spine.

You haven't met any of my points without deflection and misdirection and citing "facts" that are completely irrelevent to the point.

When I suggest Lou Dobbs as a place to start looking at reasons why the U.A.E. should be scrutinized differently than a privately held British company, you respond with a rant about his political leanings.

The question was never should the sale move forward. It was, should the sale be scrutinized more thoroughly and why but that completely whizzes right by youy because you're so focused on your own ideology and filled with hate, contempt and paranoia for anything different than your narrow view of the world..

Put put the icing on the cake, you equate me with radical Islamists who burn cars in the streets and burn embassies over cartoons and you expect me or anyone to take you serious?

Please

You tell me Eracus. Does the U.A.E. control every port in the Persian Gulf Eracus?
------------
Here's the problem, Doug: You don't have any idea what you are talking about.

The Dubai state government owns Dubai Ports World (DPW). DPW was formed in September 2005 from the combination of the Dubai Ports Authority and Dubai Ports International Terminals. This organization is responsible for the Shariah compliant port at Dubai and the Jebel Ali free trade zone as well as Port Kelang, in Malaysia, which will soon become Malaysia’s primary maritime and logistics hub. In January 2005, Dubai Ports International purchased the container company, CSX World Terminals, for $1.14 billion. In September, Dubai then merged its two state-owned port companies to create DP World, which operates ports from the Middle East to Romania and India. With the acquisition of P&O, the company will have terminals in the most important areas of the world, stretching from Australia to Canada and Argentina to Eastern Russia and the heartland of America.

So I ask you again, Doug, does it not then make sense to work with an established ally already in command of a "transfer point" in the Persian Gulf and clearly in position to know what is actually being shipped when and where?

And as for the rest of your whining, you are simply in way over your head. American scholarship is quite well-along exploiting the Soviet archives to expose their use of communist disinformation and propaganda, its agents of influence, its techniques and methodologies and the degree to which it has successfully penetrated American media, academic, and political institutions to influence popular opinion over the past two generations. It is a matter of historical record. The Communists taught the Islamists everything they know and they are today working in tandem to "subvert our national defense, overwhelm our resources, and destroy our political will to defend ourselves," and have made no effort to hide their intent throughout their print and electronic media from which that very phrase was lifted. They have been at it since before Yalta. Propaganda and disinformation is the geostrategic core of Islamic and Communist foreign policy and has been long since before you were born. It has played a big part in how you've been "educated," particularly here in Minnesota, which gave us Gus Hall, of Virginia, Minnesota, whose parents were founding members of the international Communist Party, and who himself established and led the American Communist Party for 45 years until his death in 2000.

Of course you believe "that's just nutz." It's what you've been taught. You simply haven't done any research into your own politics, because if you had, it would have shattered your preconceptions about who you are, whose side you're on, and what kind of fight we are in the moment a little homework opened your eyes. Asserting the self-serving claim that this is all somehow "irrelevant" does not make it so. It's just sticking your head further back down the hole to escape the fact your liberal cant has been exposed to reveal your ignorance of the issues at hand and the context in which they are being debated. You don't know your history and when you're confronted, you just issue this or that odd fact as if some kernel of knowledge will absolve you of any intellectual responsibility for the crap bubbling up from your brain.

Your party, for instance, has its origins in the Farmer-Labor Party of Minnesota, which was an adjunct of the American Communist Party. In 1944, it merged with Minnesota's anemic Democratic party to form today's DFL, which has remained true to its radical communist heritage and produced some of the most liberal Democrats in the national party from Eugene McCarthy to Walter Mondale. It owns more than half the land in this state, controls its government and academic institutions, dominates the print media and radio and television airwaves, and usurps our income in taxes at the fourth highest rate in the nation just to keep itself on top.

No doubt this is all news to you because you've never bothered to consider why you believe the things you believe, or who taught you to believe them. So naturally, when confronted with new information from outside your artificial worldview, your first inclination is to dismiss it as "irrelevant," that the messenger must be "sick," and that you're "better" because you are politically "correct." The reality, meanwhile, is you're just another "useful idiot" who doesn't have a clue.

Wake up.

Thanks for sharing there Cliffy.

Eracus said,

"The issue for national security is not about inspecting transport containers over here, it is about finding out what is being shipped over there."

And I'll ask you again. does the U.A.E. or Dubai Ports World operate every port in the Persian Gulf?

Do they operate every transfer point in every port in every country in the world?

Unless the U.A.E. knows everything coming into this country, I would say that inspecting the cargo is a national security issue.

BTW, I don't need the freaking white paper marketing material for the damn company. I asked you a simple question. Spelling out the entire history of the company doesn't answer the question I asked you. It's another deflection.

Colleen might be impressed by your ability to use google but I'm not.

As for your extended rant about Democrats and the DFL, It's clear that you seriously believe that the Democratic Party and the mainstream media are in league with our enemies.

And how are they, oops, I mean WE doing that...?

Since you have it all figured out, i'll let you in on our plan...

Well, We start by subverting our, oops, your national defense, overwhelm our, I mean, your resources, and destroy our, dangit, YOUR political will to defend yourselves.

First, we'll subvert your national defense by infiltrating companies friendly to your government - companies that manage ports for example... Our person on the inside, Comrade Bush will assure our success by overturning any attempt to block the transfer. Then, we'll have Comrade Bush sign an agreement that stipulates that all manifests can be kept in Dubai. Only we will know what comes in and out of our ports and since the Coast Guard only investigates and inspects when WE flag a container as suspicious, we won't flag the hot containers.

Next we'll overwhelm your resources by starting an artificial war. We'll assure the American people that their share will be no more than 1.8 billion dollars but by the second year we will have spent close to 300 billion dollars. Instead of taking immediate funds away from the hapless Americans, too obvious, we will lend the American Government funds and charge them interest. Lots of interest. We will then use our proceeds from the loans to buy American oil companies and more ports around the world. When American finally figure it out, it will be too late. We'll own most of the corporations, property and we will have the largest indentured servant work force the world has ever known.

Finally we'll redefine Empire building as political will to defend ourselves. Anyone who disagrees with our goals to stretch the Empire will be classified as a threat to National Security and sent to detention camps in Cuba and Afghanistan.

There you go Eracus... there's the whole plan laid out for you.

Now don't go spreading it around ok?

eracus challenged: "As for you, angryclown, okay. Please list for us the strategic and political mistakes of this administration. But don't just give us your opinion, list the actual mistakes, illustrate their consequences, and explain how they occurred and why they were a mistake. "

I would no sooner get in an intellectual wrestling match with you, Eracus, than I would kick-box a second-grader. While the outcome would not be in doubt, the whole exercise would be a waste of time. You're too foolish to know when you've been beat. I admire Doug for his tenacity. I'll leave the point-by-point stuff to him. Angryclown will continue offering his humble, mean-spirited japes.

Thanks AC.

I've heard rumors that in the mid 1930's Benito Mussolini spent some time as a sheep herder in the Alps. The story goes a young American chicken farmer from Appleton Wisconsin traveled to Italy and there he met and fell in love with a the young Mussolini.

Although their love was forbidden, they managed to meet several times a year telling their wives that they were getting together to hunt Communists, Marxists, and Socialists and to fish for trout.

On one of their earliest trysts, they discovered a very young boy who had been abandoned by his peasant family.

Although it was extreemely difficult, Benito and his lover Joseph raised that child as their own.

After the death of his adopted parents, the young man whom Joseph and Benito had named Eracus went to Minnesota and vowed to carry on the work of the two parents that he loved so much.

Bergback Mountain.

So the best you two fellas can come back with is a cyber circle jerk? Figures. I suppose that's one way to make the most of your shortcomings. That you rely on Doug's help to keep up your fantasies pretty well defines all you're made of, clown, as expected.

Meanwhile, as usual when faced with stupidity, the gods prevail in vain. For the record:
------
"I asked you a simple question. Spelling out the entire history of the company doesn't answer the question I asked you."
------
Not if you're ignornant, I suppose. If they don't own the port, they own the shipping line. If they don't own the port or the shipping line, they own the containers. The security they rely on, here and in the Persian Gulf, is American. (Coast Guard, U.S. Customs). Elsewhere, it's the UK, Australia, or Japan.

If you had any idea how the shipping business functions internationally, you would know that I answered your question. But you don't because being politically "correct" is more important to you than knowledge, as is abundantly clear from your posts, which are nothing but political gamesmanship over subjects you know nothing about and are to lazy to learn.

That's why the best you can do is just make stuff up or repeat Leftist propaganda to attack anyone who disagrees with you. That's what useful idiots do. Because you don't think for yourself, it's all garbage in and all garbage out, but at least you gain some job satisfaction from carrying the garbage. If you'd bother to look who's garbage it is, you'd stop carrying it. But then what would you do? Who will you be?

Heaven forbid you should stand on your own two feet, do your own homework, and think critically for yourself. Then you wouldn't be politically "correct" anymore, but you would know and understand alot more than you do now. Of course, it's easier to just hold some other clown's hand and carry the garbage, but then that's all you'll ever do and all you'll ever be.

What a pity.

Eracus pontificated: "If you had any idea how the shipping business functions internationally, you would know that I answered your question."

Doug's got you pegged. You are Cliff from Cheers.

Tell us more about how the shipping business functions internationally, Eracus. Please?

What would be the point? You'd first have to know what a ship is, clown. They're made of metal and they float on water, but of course every piece of metal you've ever dropped in the water has sunk, so the whole concept is probably just too vast for your mind to grasp. You would only conclude the very idea of international shipping is just another outrageous, kooky, right-wing conspiracy hatched by Dick Cheney to make more money for Halliburton.

Maybe your mountain buddy can explain it to you.

That's very flattering, Eracus. I guess to you it must seem as though Doug and I inhabit Olympus. Really, though, we're both just way above average. Which no doubt makes us appear godlike in the eyes of you and the other wanna-Bergs.

Oh, we see you two on the mount with each other alright, clown, we just don't think your activity is godlike or way above average, quite the contrary -- no matter what Hollywood says.

Don't hurt yourselves.

Eracus is making with the sodomy jokes! Angryclown clearly hasn't created a comedy phenomenon, but he's lured Eracus away from the turgid crackerbarrel philosophizing. And that's something.

There we go, Angryclown and Doug proving their uneducated Marxist roots run deep.

The Apls is the name for one of the great mountain range systems of Europe, stretching from Austria, Italy and Slovenia in the east, through Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Germany to France in the west. The word "Alps" was taken via French from Latin Alpes (meaning "the Alps"), which may be influenced by the Latin words albus (white) or altus (high), or a Celtic word.

If you weren't so narrow minded and unaware of your own indoctrination into communist geopolitical strategy you would recognize that you are nothing more than a useful tool.

You foolishly believe everything the communist controlled propoganda mill extolls but the Alps arose as a result of the pressure exerted on sediments of the Tethys Ocean basin as its Mesozoic and early Cenozoic strata were pushed against the stable Eurasian landmass by the northward-moving African landmass.

You would believe that because to look outside of your comfort zone would scare you into understanding the real war we are fighting and supporting our brave young men who are fighting to preserve the freedoms you enjoy.

You believe it's funny to mock me and throw insults about my personal hero Benito. Only an uneducated fool would know that the sheep Mussolini herded were less frequently described as members of the genus Ovis, or as members of the goat antelope family. All the sheep are bovids (members of the family Bovidae) and ruminants, meaning they chew cud. The domestic sheep is thought to be descended from the wild moufflon of central and southwest Asia. Male sheep are called rams— or wethers if castrated—females ewes, and young lambs. Members of the genus are highly gregarious.

No doubt this is all news to you because you've never bothered to consider why you believe the things you believe, or who taught you to believe them. So naturally, when confronted with new information from outside your artificial worldview, your first inclination is to dismiss it as "irrelevant," that the messenger must be "sick," and that you're "better" because you are politically "correct." The reality, meanwhile, is you're just another "useful idiot" who doesn't have a clue.

Wake up.

Eracus stated,

"The security they rely on, here and in the Persian Gulf, is American."

As I'm sure you are aware Eracus, the Port terminal operators are responsible for the security of the terminal itself. They hire their own security staff, their own lift operators, handlers and shipping agents. They keep their own records of who and what goes in and out of the terminals and in the case of Dubai, the administration has agreed to let them keep permanent records off of US soil back home in Dubai.

Of course, being the well read, uber informed expert on international shipping, you already knew that.

The idea that an al Qaeda operative or radical extreemist could infiltrate the operation would be just silly.

"...the administration has agreed to let them keep permanent records off of US soil...."
------------
Congratulations. You have been doing some homework and you are correct. Good work. The question you should now ask yourself is why would we allow them to do that? If you continue this line of inquiry you will discover the answer. I'll give you a hint:

There is no Bill of Rights in Dubai and no 4th Amendment.

Meanwhile, because of Sharia law, which makes Arab financing anemic, most of their infrastructure is built under government contract with Western developers, which have their own security operations, of course, in addition to the various Western government security agencies operating there as well. They're all integrated. Even U.S. Customs has operations in Dubai. We design and build much of their buildings, bridges, and roads; we have many American businesses with a presence there, and all of them, naturally, are very keen on security. The higher the level of integration, the more human intelligence, and thus a higher level of security. That's the theory anyway.

By allowing Dubai to "keep permanent records off U.S. soil," we limit the risk of having some counter-intelligence operation turning up on the front page of The New York Times and the ACLU from setting our courts aflame attempting to extend Constitutional rights to yet another Islamic terrorist every time one of them gets killed or arrested. If the Arabs do our dirty work, we don't have that problem. Besides, whether "permanent records" are on file here or there doesn't make any difference. It's not like we don't see them. Guess who built and services their computer systems. We're doing the same thing in China.

Let's be clear. You seem to be worried about the Al-Qaeda trojan horse. It is a valid concern. But we have our own trojan horse and not just in Dubai. With any luck, we'll have more elsewhere, courtesy of the UAE, but not if the opposition continues to grandstand using disinformation to persuade people the Bush Administration just "sold" 6 U.S. ports to Al-Qaeda. The real story is the UAE just bought into protecting more of our counter-intelligence and security appartus abroad, but that's not what you'll read in The New York Times or see on CNN. Harry Reid sure ain't gonna tell ya, but that would explain why the Bushies didn't make a public relations pitch for the deal. The Emirates have their own problems to worry about and expected some cover. This current political fiasco probably just pours more gas on their fire.

Yes, the deal is a risk. I agree. Perhaps a large one. But this is war. What I think will probably happen is some political compromise will be reached so that an American front company will have its masthead on the manifests and its own paymaster to sign all the checks. Any profit will still go to DPW, but the commercial services they provide will then be under "American management." The lawyers will make a pretty penny working out the details, of course, but the cost will be passed along to the consumer. That's us. And the ultimate result?? Think airport security, only this time with ships.

Helluva way to run a rodeo if ya ask me.

Eracus said in response to "...the administration has agreed to let them keep permanent records off of US soil....",

"Congratulations. You have been doing some homework and you are correct. Good work."

Funny, I discussed the fact that Mr. Bush sgreed to let them keep their own record quite a while back in this thread and as I recall, your wholesale response to all of my points was...

"That's why the best you can do is just make stuff up or repeat Leftist propaganda to attack anyone who disagrees with you."

It looks to me as if you finally bothered to look at what I said and Golly Jeepers, I was right.

In addition, you are actually starting to acknowledge that there are real risks and legitimate concerns about this deal.

Considering that in this entire thread my issues were:

A: The initial hype and paranoia over this deal was a response to the same fear mongering the Administration used for it's own political gain.

B: Because of the circumstances and parties involved in the port deal, we have to scrutinize the sale differently than we would it it were someone else.

I would have to say thank you for agreeing with me and supporting my views.

I disagree with point (A) and with point (B) which follows, because your premise is flawed.

To mischaracterize U.S. national security policy in wartime as "fearmongering" is disingenuous, particularly given the nature of the enemy we are fighting, whose use of pejorative terms is central to the distortion of language in its strategy of informational warfare.

For the multicultural Left to suddenly drop its resistance to racial profiling, advocacy for Islamic immigration, and determined extension of Constitutional protections to Arab enemy prisoners to now instead demand the exclusion of a U.S.-Arab business alliance wreaks of hypocrisy and political opportunism in an election year. On that basis, point (B) does not hold because no special circumstances exist and the fact in this case that our ally is Arab is irrelevant.

From my perspective, what we are seeing is just another politically motivated media campaign as that which gave us the disinformation on our ill-equipped troops, that we did not have enough troops, that we then had too many troops, that there were 100,000 dead Iraqi civilians, that there was no connection between Iraq and international terrorism, no WMDs, that we lied about our intelligence, the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and Guantanomo, the desecration of the Koran, Bush went AWOL from the Air National Guard and the false documents that "proved" it, Nigerian yellow-cake, the CIA, and Valerie Plame, 10,000 dead in New Orleans, and most recently, how Bush "sold" 6 American ports to an Arab country with ties to Al-Qaeda. This is all propaganda; it is all part of the same pattern of informational warfare being conducted in this country to undermine and criminalize the American government's conduct of our national defense and install a leadership more sympathetic to our enemy's objectives.

Where I agree with you is that the ports deal involves certain, vital national security risks and that further scrutinization is politically necessary, not so much for the risks involved as for the opportunity to better inform our own people the extent to which some Arab nations are willing to help us. Because inasmuch as we are fighting in Iraq, we are at war with Iran, and we, and the world, need all the help we can get. And the more our security services are entwined with the Arab security services, however imperfectly, the more effective we will be and the better our chances for victory.

It is a war we must win. We can debate how we do it, but on that point I think we can agree.

C-SPAN, "Washington Journal" transcript:

HOST: Jayson Ahern, ... There are more than 300 ports of entry in the U.S., are they safe?

CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER JAYSON AHERN: I believe they are. Certainly, we're on a path of continuous improvement, but the many layers we've put in place since the 9/11 tragedy I think has strengthened our port security in the United States tremendously.

HOST: Well, walk us through those layers. Since 9/11 what has been put in place?

AHERN: Well, I'd be happy to walk through. I think one of the key concepts we put in post 9/11 was actually forward deploying our officers overseas and beginning our interdiction efforts overseas before they even hit the U.S. ports. We want to have our U.S. ports be one of the last lines of defense in the war on terrorism versus one of the first.

We begin with a regulation we put in place over two years ago, the 24-hour rule, where we have the ability to get all the manifest information submitted electronically from the carrier 24 hours in advance of waiting in a foreign port. We then score that for risk at a national targeting center where we have intelligence information and an expert rule based system to score the container shipments for risk before they're even placed on board the vessels.

We also have -- 42 foreign ports now have Customs and Border Protection officers there that actually work with host country nation counterparts be it custom authorities in that location or the law enforcement authority that has jurisdiction over the ports. They actually go out and use large scale x-ray systems and radiation detection capabilities to resolve the risk, as well. And then upon arrival in our shores here in the United States, we still have our officers who are trained and highly skilled at doing what they're doing, as well as a considerable amount of technology to include radiation and x-ray containers capabilities at our ports here in the United States as well.
…

HOST: Admiral Gilmour, explain for us what the Coast Guard's responsibilities are when it comes to port security.

U.S. COAST GUARD REAR ADMIRAL THOMAS GILMOUR: Well, I like to explain that we have responsibility for the vessels that carry the cargo, and the facilities that house the cargo. And Customs and Border Protection has responsibility for the cargo itself. I think we work very well together and I would just like to say, since 9/11 we have a piece of legislation, the Marine Transportation Security Act, that gives us wide responsibilities to not only provide security for the facilities, but also for all vessels that come into U.S. ports. We get a 96-hour advance notice that provides us with the cargo manifests and with all crew members that we can run through a database. And in addition, as the vessel comes in we track it with automated identification, and through our VTS on its transit through the ports. But we can decide who, with a risk-based matrix, who we board outside the port and who we board once we get into the port.

HOST: Jayson Ahern, explain for us what you think are maybe myths out there in the public or misperceptions or misconceptions that they have.

AHERN: Sure, I think a couple of things. First in the last couple of weeks with the Dubai Ports World transaction here in the United States, one of the things I've seen consistently misrepresented is that this foreign company was going to come in and take over ports and port security. First off, that's not true. Port authorities are still run by state and local and county governments consistent with standards set forth by the United States Coast Guard, and also the companies that would be involved with this transaction are actually purchasing another foreign company that actually runs or leases a terminal within that port. So I think that's one of the first distinctions is making sure that the public understands this is not a foreign company coming in and taking over the United States' ports or running a port or setting security standards. They're merely coming in to lease a terminal within that port, which is just one of the facilities that operates within a port.

SENATOR HARRY REID REMARKS ON THE FLOOR OF THE U.S. SENATE, transcript:

"President Bush has mastered the rhetoric of the post-9/11 world, but his decision to outsource the control of America’s largest ports to the government of Dubai shows he still doesn’t understand the realities. Even in today’s speech, we heard tough talk, but no acknowledgment that the decision to sell our ports, as well as his Administration’s other national security policies, have made America less secure. Democrats understand that it takes more than tough talk to protect the American people in a post-9/11 world. It takes smart policies, strong U.S. leadership, and real resources as well."
------------------
Disinformation. Propaganda. Garbage.

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