I am not at all surprised that Dr. Wheeler and I see eye to eye, tooth to tooth, and reason to reason on the current burlesque the Democrats have manufactured to distract and confuse the American people. And with a willing and complicit fifth column fourth estate (the press), it's a no brainer getting their knee jerk message out there. Those lap dogs can't lap it up fast enough.
The Republicans chasing lefty tail on this is unfortunate but they will see through this ruse of that I am sure.
The first casualty of political conquest is the truth.
The Federalist Patriot makes points here
Despite the rancor, the U.S. does not outsource the protection of our critical national-security infrastructure.
Approval of the DPW proposal underwent three months of interagency review. According to Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England, "This review definitely was not cursory and it definitely was not casual. Rather, it was in depth and comprehensive." This is the same review that management companies based in China, Denmark, Japan, Singapore and Taiwan underwent before being authorized to manage terminals in the port of Los Angeles. We might add, China now manages some terminals on both ends of the Panama Canal.
Foreign investment in the U.S., including port management, is nothing new.
Dr. Jack Wheeler's take is much more in depth than my previous post earlier this week here.
But Wheeler is a paid subscription only so I am running the whole thing. And if you don't have a subscription - get one here, NOW, worth every last penny. Jack rocks - bad dah bing, bad dah boom
DISRAELI IN DUBAI Written by Dr. Jack Wheeler
The 19th century British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881) once commented on accusations that a political opponent of his was lying regarding an important issue before Parliament: "It is worse than a lie - it is a blunder."
We can be sure that the Earl of Beaconsfield (the peerage awarded to Disraeli by Queen Victoria) would make the same observation today over the travails of George Bush and the port scandal.
There is no secret deal here. CFIUS, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, that vets these things, ran it through 12 agencies including Defense, Treasury, State, Homeland Security, and the White House National Security Council. Their approval was unanimous. Had just one objected, it would have been put on a 45-day investigative hold.
Bush was blindsided on this out of sheer naiveté. He still can't accept as real the bottomless mendacity of Democrats. For Barbara Boxer and Chuck Schumer to foment in protest over a deal with America's closest Arab ally, when they have gone far more ballistic at any suggestion that Arabs be profiled at US airports - well, I guess it's standard liberal chutzpah.
Outdoing Bush in naiveté are Republicans in Congress being led with rings in their noses by Boxer and Schumer into an orgy of Bush-bashing. It would be nice if they all took a deep breath, switched on their brains, and began thinking of how to take advantage of this fiasco.
Wouldn't it be great if Bill Frist stood up in the Senate Chamber and congratulated his Democrat colleagues for their concern over the safety of America's ports, and that he was sure they would now show their concern for the safety of America's airports by mandating Arab Moslem male passengers instead of grandmas and others at politically correct random?
Or if Denny Hastert stood up in the House Chamber to say he was sure his Democrat colleagues, so newly passionate about national security and concerned over our dependence on Arab oil, would now support drilling oil in Alaska's ANWR, offshore drilling in Florida and the East Coast, and eliminating government restrictions so that nuclear power plants and oil refineries can be built in three to four years.
So, should the deal with Dubai Ports World be toast? Because the Dems have demonized the UAE in order to demonize Bush once again, this is going to be tricky. So let's talk about this place, the United Arab Emirates.
It's a collection of seven tiny Persian Gulf sheikhdoms welded together by the Brits in 1892, changing what was called the Pirate Coast to the Trucial Coast, and creating a British Protectorate protecting them from the Ottoman Turks. The truce between the seven - Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Fujaira, Ajman, Umm al Qaiwan, and Ras al-Kaimah - worked so well that by 1972, they were transformed into the UAE, with their respective leaders being upgraded from sheikhs to emirs.
They were all mud hut fishing villages until oil was found in Abu Dhabi and pumped out in quantity in the 1960s. With one exception, the other emirates were happy to kick back and live off Abu Dhabi's largesse. The exception was Dubai. The Maktoum clan of the Babi Yas tribe that runs Dubai have always been traders. So they made a decision in the 1970s to prosper on their own.
They did it be transforming their mud hut fishing village into the Hong Kong of the Middle East. Their success in doing so has been beyond spectacular.
If you associate "Arabs" with "camel-herding" and "poverty," if you visit Dubai you're in for the shock of your life. For openers, there's the world's only seven star hotel, the Burj al-Arab (see photo)
The amount of business being done in Dubai is staggering, thanks to a zero corporate tax rate, no restrictions on repatriation of capital, and 100% foreign ownership of businesses permitted. The Dubai International Finance Center, with millions of square feet of state-of-the-art hi-tech office space, is rapidly becoming the Wall Street of the Middle East.
Dubai Healthcare City is a $3 billion project, making the emirate a world class center for medical treatment, research, and education that includes branches of the Mayo Clinic and the Harvard Medical School.
With a $5 billion dollar project called Dubailand, it plans on being the Disneyland of the Middle East, with 15 million additional tourists as year.
There are millions of tourists and businessmen coming every year to Dubai already. The lubricant of tourism, of course, is booze, rivers of which flow through Dubai's hotels, bars, and discos. Remember this is a Moslem country.
And wherever there are hordes of tourists with money, there are hordes of hookers. Prostitution is as illegal as it is in Las Vegas. Every bar in every 4 and 5 star hotel in Dubai offers a selection of ladies from Russia, England, China, Pakistan, the Philippines, Ethiopia, and elsewhere. The Cyclone Disco is legendary for being a "United Nations of prostitution," with over 500 international ladies of the evening available on an average night.
You would think that this debauch of money, booze, and sex would outrage the Islamists. Yet Dubai has never been hit with a terrorist attack. Right across the sandy border, Saudi Arabia has been hit by suicidal Moslem crazies numerous times. But Dubai - America's best friend in Arab-land, the Moslem Fleshpot - never.
That's because Dubai, besides being the Middle East's Hong Kong, Wall Street, Disneyland, and Las Vegas, is also the Middle East's Switzerland, where everyone's money no matter how drug, mafia, or terrorist-tainted, is handled with equal discretion.
That's the trade-off. As it's the place where terrorists can do business, the terrorists leave it alone.
But what if Al Qaeda or an Al Qaeda wannabe decides to blackmail the Dubai government, owners of Dubai Ports World? One suicide bomber wiping out the lobby of the Burj al-Arab could cost Dubai billions in tourist and investment revenue. To prevent this, all DPW has to do is insert a few Al Qaeda boys to work in American ports.
Terrorist Blackmail is the security issue that needs to be discussed.
The Bushistas have made a bewildering blunder in not briefing Congress and preempting Democratic demagoguery. A lot of conservatives knee-jerk reacted with a "not just no but hell no!" unthinking rejection like Sue Myrick (R-NC). This is going to change as conservatives calm down and actually start to reflect on the matter, instead of venting and demagoguing like liberals do.
Take a look at the White House's reasoning in its Fact Sheet on the CFIUS Process and the DP World Transaction. The case is well made. If the White House can effectively assuage the terrorist blackmail concern, then you'll see a shift in support for the president.
It has already begun - Jack Kelly's column, Is It Smart To Attack All Moslems?, this week is example.
Look at it this way - to be on the side of Barbara Boxer, Chuck Schumer, and Hillary Clinton and against George Bush on an issue is prima facie not pro-American.
Maybe - just maybe - the port scandal will turn out not to be a Bushie blunder at all. You wonder what Disraeli would say about that.
Thanks Jack........... (click below for Kelly's column)
IS IT SMART TO ATTACK ALL MOSLEMS?
Written by Jack Kelly
Friday, 24 February 2006
What do the arrests of three suspected Moslem terrorists in Ohio have to do with the purchase by an Arab company of the firm that manages facilities at six U.S. seaports?
Nothing...and everything.
The Justice Department indicted Tuesday Mohammad Zaki Amawi, 26, of Toledo; Marwan Othman al-Hindi, 42, of Toledo, and Wassim Mazloum, 24, of Cleveland, on charges of plotting to kill U.S. military personnel.
A fourth person is mentioned in the indictment. He is "the trainer," a U.S. military combat veteran and "respected member of the Moslem community" in Toledo from whom the plotters sought weapons training and bomb making advice.
The "trainer" reported the terrorists to the FBI, and agreed to work undercover to build the case against them.
So what does this have to do with the purchase by Dubai Ports World of the British firm that manages commercial operations at ports in New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Miami and New Orleans?
Bush administration approval of the sale has united Democrats and Republicans in fury. Conservative pundits are apoplectic.
"The Dubai ports fracas will become a flap, quickly swell into a firestorm, then become a debacle before settling into the history books as a 'historic miscalculation' -- providing the Republicans only lose the Congress," predicted James Lileks of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.
On the left, Jack Cafferty, CNN's resident bozo, opined the ports deal could be grounds for impeachment.
Distilled to its essence, the argument against the sale is that Dubai Ports World is an Arab firm, and it was Arabs who attacked us on 9/11 (including Marwan al Shehhi, a citizen of the United Arab Emirates, who flew United Flight 175 into the World Trade Center).
The argument is comparable to the one President Roosevelt used to send Japanese Americans from the West Coast to concentration camps.
If we are to win the war against the Islamofascists, we need to be able to distinguish our friends from our enemies.
In this war, there are good Moslems and bad Moslems. The Toledo conspirators are examples of the latter. The "trainer," and the 1,715 Moslems currently serving in the U.S. Army are examples of the former.
We wouldn't lump "the trainer" in with the terrorists he risked his life to catch, and we shouldn't lump the UAE in with Iran or Syria, or even with Egypt or Saudi Arabia.
Among Arab nations, we have no better friends than the United Arab Emirates. The government (which owns Dubai Ports World) sponsors a U.S. Air Force base, services U.S. Navy warships, and is assisting in our efforts to shut down terrorist funding. (Dubai is the banking, and consequently the money laundering, center of the Gulf.)
Unlike Saudi Arabia, the UAE is a modern, tolerant country. The British Financial Times describes it as "the Singapore of the Gulf." The UAE is what we wish every Arab country were like. But we will not make more friends in the Arab world if we treat the friends we have as if they were enemies.
There are, of course, Islamists in the UAE. But not, so far as we know, in the management of Dubai Ports World, whose security record has been exemplary.
There are, as we have seen, Islamists in Toledo, too. And there are lots of Islamists in London, which is where Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Company, the British firm Dubai Ports World bought, is headquartered. Not even Jack Cafferty has yet suggested we stop doing business with Ohio and Britain.
Dubai Ports World bought P&O; it isn't replacing it. Management of the ports will continue as before. The employees who load and unload ships -- nearly all of whom are Americans -- will remain the same. The managers simply will report to a different board of directors.
And P&O has nothing to do with port security, which remains in the hands of the Coast Guard and other federal agencies. U.S. intelligence agencies and the U.S. military reviewed the deal, and say they have no problem with it.
Opposition to the ports deal has been fueled by ignorance and prejudice. Blocking it will do no more to defeat the terrorists than Roosevelt's concentration camps did to defeat the Japanese.
It is stupid as well as shameful to turn the war we must fight against Islamic extremism into an attack on Moslems generally.
