From Fox News:
WASHINGTON — After Republican leaders warned President Bush that the House and Senate appeared ready to block Dubai Ports World from taking over some U.S. port terminal operations, the company said it would give up its management stake in the deal.The Thursday announcement was a blow for Democrats, who were pushing for a Senate vote on an amendment that would halt the deal. A few minutes later, the Senate voted to ignore GOP requests to wait until a 45-day review of the deal is completed before they try to stop it.
"This should make the whole issue go away," Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said, holding up a copy of the DP World press release. "The [review] process is underway ... we should not have to interrupt it on the floor of the United States Senate."..
Sen. John Warner, R-Va., read a statement from DP World executives on the Senate floor Thursday, announcing the concession.
"Because of the strong relationship between the United Arab Emirates and the United States and to preserve that relationship, DP World has decided to transfer fully the U.S. operation of P&O Operations North America to a United States entity," DP World's chief operating officer, Edward H. Bilkey, said in the statement...
Thanks! Edward H. Bilkey!
As a loyal American, I always hate getting bilkeyed by our mortal enemies, or the innumerable shills and hucksters on their payrolls!
Yep, they definitely were aiming to allow terrorists to attack the US or were they? Lets consider the fact that perhaps some people are a bit paranoid. A company works for profit and nothing else no matter it's nationality the only thing that can control it is the government and even then as we can see in China those companies continue to put profit first and anything else second. It would not have been in their interest to allow for terrorists to inflitrate. Bad for business, bad PR=less customers. Also, it is obviously not in their interest to bicker with the Americans let them do w/e they want. The company will find another customer.
If they wanna buy American so bad, we have 4 million or so Moslems we'd like peddle. The only stipulation would be that they have to remove them from the 50 states and territories, never to be seen on our shores again.
Excellent. One less source of jizyah.
I am so distrustful now, I don't know if I believe this move. Who is the American company? Is this just another end-run?
Now that the original ports deal has been scuttled, it's time to consider who this new entity is going to be--this entity to which will be transferred the responsibility of managing the American ports.
My suggestion is the one company who is capable of doing so, and in particular that division, that legacy of Texas planning, that formidable subsidiary, known as Kellogg Brown & Root, still rich from the Vietnam road contracts engineered their way by Lyndon Johnson, whose Herman Brown and friends used to meet in the old Lamar Hotel in Houston and plot the course of that city's rise to prominence. I speak of none other than that bane of the Democrat's existence: the parent company being ye old Halliburton.
It is a perfect fit.
It was the right thing for DPI to do so as to avoid bogging this down in congress for the next 45 days.
From the other side of the coin, this however may well have produced some very unwanted publicity for DPI if congressional meetings where held on the negative or positive aspects, IE. air the dirty laundry ETC.of the DPI deal.
The overwhelming perception of an Arab company having some degree of oversite on something as strategic as our American ports is simply unacceptable in todays climate between the two conflicting ideologies.
Yep, just read this article, (posted at LGF)
http://www.iris.org.il/blog/archives/1117-Dubai-Port-Capitulation-Likely-Fraudulent.html
I am cynical....but these days it pays to be cynical.
Hmmm...Smells like a Rove deck shuffle...catered to distance the republican body from W before the mid term.You didn't really think this deal was going to go through,did you?Silly Kafir...Tricks are for Infidels!!
We must keep up the pressure, the Dubai company must have no connection at all with our ports direct or indirect.
No company that discriminates against Israel should be allowed to buy anything in the US. I don't care if Donald duck is put in charge of some so called independent company, NO! they can not do business in America.
No company with direct or indirect connection with Dubai must be allowed to do this deal.
We should also expose all the dirty linen that the Dubai government hides.
The Koran reported to the police in Germany..this could mean,let`s hope,the begining of the end for islam in Europe.
http://www.english-france-echos.blogspot.com
But the same company manages the Dubai seaport, and
maintains the US warships stationed there.
Believe it or not, Bush may have a point--UAE should have been rewarded for cooperating with the
US military in the Gulf.
Carolyn2 said
I could not have put a better description to my feelings. Perfectly said. Can we trust our media to untangle the complex shell-game scheme that will be used to mask this?
The U.A.E. needs the pressence of the American Military to deter the hordes of islamofacists from their lands. do you think how long those wealthy Arab families, and the like would last if the religious immans came in and took control!
Fox news said
Speaking as a Democrat, it is not a "blow" to have the Dubai Port deal (supposedly) die a quick death. That is what Democratic and Republican Senators and Representatives were working together to make happen. Fox seems to be trying to paint this as a Democrat vs. Republican issue, when in fact it was a bipartisan Congress vs. the White House. Kudos to Congressmen and women from both parties for stopping (supposedly) this deal.
George...The UAE and especially Dubai require tourism and other means of making money as oil only accounts for 6% of their income. Tourism is their biggest draw and having the US Navy and military there surely brings in the taxpayer dollars for the sheetheads.
Siciliano said
I thought money-laundering was their biggest draw; must be number two then.
Quite a few issues are raised by this revolt from below -- a revolt not so much by Congress, as by those voters who have called in, furious, because they sense that something is not right in this Administration's comprehension of things. Not everything knows exactly what is wrong, but the dismay is general. Some have long realized that the phrase "war on terror" is misleading and unhelpful. Some have come to realize that the messianism about the March of Democracy, and the ease with which that democracy can be transplanted into the stoniest ground, has been reduced to sentimentalism about how "everyone wants freedom" (false), in either version has been shown to be false. False the messsianism, false the sentimentalism. And wasteful, and squandering of men's lives, of money, of materiel, if it continues, and there continues to be ignored the unsentimental, un-Messianic, and far more frugal and clever course, of exploiting the pre-existing fissures within Islam, that present themselves on a platter in Iraq, the ethnic and sectarian hostilities that we are trying so desperately to work against and disourage and tamp down, when we should see it in our interest to let them expand, and cause Sunnis and Shi'a from outside Iraq to offer their own support, men, money, materiel, and for tensions to rise between Sunnis and Shi'a in Yemen and Lebanon, in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain and Pakistan, and within the immigrant groups now settled behind enemy lines, in the Dar al-Harb of Western Europe and North America.
The evidence of our senses, the evidence that contradicts Bush and Rice whenever they tell us that Islam is a "noble religion," a religion of "peace" and of "tolerance," has become too great. That evidence has been building and building. At the World Trade Center in New York and at the Pentagon in Washingto. In a theatre in Moscow and a school in Beslan. In pizza parlors and Passover celebrations in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. At subways in Madrid and London, as years ago in Paris. All over France, during the riots, and last week at Bagneux. In the southern Sudan, and now Darfur, where the Arab League works mightily to prevent any effective Western force from moving in and protecting black African Muslims from marauding, raping, looting, murdering Arab (or those who regard themselves as Arab) Muslims)government-sponsored Janjaweed. In Bangladesh, in Pakistan, in India itself at Virasani, in the Coptic villages of Upper Egypt and a Coptic church in Alexandria, and everywhere that there are Muslims who assemble in murderously aggressive fashion to chant, to yell, to scream, to threaten with death all those among whom they live, but who do not show that they are willing to change their ways, to give up their rights, in order to placate Muslim demands, Muslim ideas of a rightly-ordered, or rightly-guided by Muslim power, world.
Those powerful and connected people who have failed to construct, since 1973, any kind of energy program to diminish Arab and Muslim oil revenues that fund the Jihad, and who have played at being traitors by making their own deals, getting their own expensively-compensated lecture invitations, or consultant's contracts, for themselves, their relatives, their friends, their corporations, from the Arabs, from that oil money, need to be exposed, investigated, held up for ridicule. In all parties. Former ambassadors, and former presidents. They should be treated as pariahs. Words should enter the language -- words that will perform the same function as "quisling."
But this is something for Congress to do. Congress, with those furious voters -- the ones who insisted the Dubai deal be stopped -- not ceasing for a minute, but keeping the pressure on. We don't like the way our rulers have chosen been unable to come up, over the past one-third of a century, with any ways to recapture oligopolistic rents, and to lessen the size of the largest transfer of wealth in human history.
We don't like the way that the only solution that these rulers of ours, in Washington and even more openly, and more scandalously, and more cynically, in London and Paris, have come up with is to "recycle petrodollars" -- a few million or a few billion, when trillions are being transferred to the Arabs, some of it quite unnecessarily, had the proper gasoline taxes been put in place in 1973.
We are disgusted. The disgust is non-partisan. It is equal opportunity disgust.
Special guest...
Great point! I'm sure that is #1.
CNN just reported that the deal is being killed because of "muslim bashing" and "racism..."
Now you know!
"CNN just reported that the deal is being killed because of 'muslim bashing' and 'racism.'"
-- from a posting above
If that is what CNN is reporting it will go hard for CNN. The 70-80% of the country that is furious about the Dubai Ports deal will not, and should not, take kindly to such transparently false charges made about it. We know that we are neither "Muslim bashers" nor "racists" and are perfectly capable of explaining why. CNN can go the way of all flesh, the way that The New Duranty Times appears to be going.
Those so accused will will look at CNN in a new light, and with a jaundiced eye, and go elsewhere. There's only so much of Wolf Blitzer and Larry King anyone can take, even if you are forced to endure them because that is the channel the large falt screen is set to, on the wall at the gym, which you watch (my god, they do keep going over and over the same damn things, don't they? And just look at that machine transcription of spoken words onto the screen -- how comical the mistakes, what fun when the sound is off to try to figure out what those crazy mispellings and bits of nonsense must really, when spoken, have meant.
What do you want to bet that the " United States entity," will be owned in whole or in part by the UAE?
Now, if we can only figure out what the State Department promised them so that they withdrew from this transaction, what transaction will they be promised and move onto?
Any time the State Department and a Goverment participate the last thing it is about is business. Next time they will be smoother and more discreet.
It slithered in quietly, and now tries to slither away as silently.
Someone needs to poke a forked-stick on the neck of the UAE -before it gets away- and see what kind of Enron-esque nonsense may have been simmering in the backround.
There's tons of lobbyist cash. Temptations galore for a travel and golf-starved politicos.
I think this "failed deal" requires a hard look.
It stinks, even in its absence.
Before everyone pops the "champagne" on the defeat of free trade, Bohemand is right, this is just semantics. The Republicans get to claim victory and standing firm on security while the UAE makes all the profits.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/06/AR2006030601767.html
Because foreign companies, like Dubai Ports World, frequently buy corporations that own sensitive U.S. businesses, Washington has evolved a legal and regulatory apparatus that deals with this kind of national security problem all the time.
It's easy. You let the buyer own the whole company -- but you don't let it control the strategically important business. That part is insulated from the rest of the acquired company and is controlled by a separate board of directors with impeccable national-security credentials. The new owner gets the financial benefits of ownership but can't exercise any control over the sensitive stuff.
El Cid,
What are your thoughts on a Venezuelaen owned company being the largest shareholder of Citgo?
Bravo, Hugh. Bravo. I was never so outraged by Bush as when he defended this "transaction." I conservative, but this 'transaction' transcends politics. The house gets it. The vote nixed the deal. Killed it. Bush is a lame duck, but it's through his actions. At least Nixon was an honest tragic figure. After resignation, he refused even secret service protection, never took a dime from the Saudis ect. Obviously he had his flaws, but having rich Daddies and Brother's cashing out on the UAE trough was not one of them.
Clearly, the worsening sentiment against Islam in the US is not because of the Dubai Deal. The reverse is true. The endless killing. Do you believe CNN or your lying eyes . . . the cartoon controversy; the Islamic response . . . never grounded in good will, reason or humor, but protests, threats, and always more killing. Yes, we are sick of it. Even if you don't have Hugh's or Robert's textbook knowledge of Islam, joe six pack senses we did liberate a people from a killing thug(Hussein), and what thanks do we get? 2000 plus dead and many more maimed. This does nothing to raise Islam in the public mind. My Mother, who knows nothing about Islam, remarked about the 'Iraqis,' "I've never seen such an ungrateful people."
The average, good natured American response to 911 was obvious. Muslims were not herded or killed. Tolerance was the name of the day. Debate the right-or-wrong if you wish, but there was no protests or killing. We were a wounded nation, licking our wonds. We are sick of being failed by poor leaders. Look, there is only one Sir Winston but this is ridiculous. When I see W talking about bigotry or transactions, I want to puke. He opens the door for loud-mouth demagogues like Chuck Shumer et al. Still the collapse of his presidency; the rebellion within the GOP controlled congress; the bipartisan rejection of his laughable transaction are all good things.
What I want is a impeachment of the *%(*#^ Dubya who was selling us out! Is this why he was elected by Americans to the highest position? If Dubya does not see anything wrong with this, what will it take for him to see the day of light? Now, his holding hands with the killer kingdon, makes prfect sense, doesn't it?
One may down-play this but it is quite clear.. Dubya will sell out any and every American identity for a few Saudi Riyals. And if things go bad for him or his family, it won't take long for him to take Sahada, at a local mosque, with a local Imam, just so he can spend his life in Riyadh. Idi Amin's last days have not been lost on Dubya.
But as for Americans, mistake not. Dubya will sell Americans out for a few Dinars/Riyals or even a goat.
I think It is a serious problem, Latin America is not ready, and not stable enough, just look at Chavez, he is a very dangerous man,
As a American citizen my loyalty is to this country, We are heading towards Global war and the current global trading system and the rise of capitalism will not be enough to forestall it.
We are living in a period similar to the 1920's and 30's where although much progress was made to connect the world through trade and communication, political dangers still derailed this emerging global society.
Dark days are ahead, I live every day to try to make the future safe for my grandchildren.
It is sad that instead of doing great things like space exploration and making a better world, we will soon have to focus every last drop of energy tol the war against Islam, I said Islam and not Muslims because we must realize that they will be as much a victim of Jihad as we.
Dark days are ahead, greater challenges then we have know for a long time,
The world must fight for it's survival for the onslaught of Islam.
We will win!
I have never been more proud of the American people and the Congress than I am right now. Yes, we got the port deal with the UAE moslems trashed, and in the process gave Bush a whupping he'll never forget. Goodbye, and good riddance, to the terrorist vermins of Dubai.
A great victory for us to be sure, but still I want to see the details that guarantee the moslem vermin are completely out of our ports. That said, it does look very good for us, and very bad for the president. He has been handed the equivalence of a national no-confidence vote, and will never again receive the good faith and confidence he once firmly enjoyed from his base.
Bush's power has permanently been stripped by popular demand, he is the butt of every joke on both sides of the aisle, and will never effectively be able to lead this country again. The man simply can't be trusted and is now viewed bi-partisanly as incompetent. He should, therefore, resign from office after this humiliating defeat. He won't, mind you, but he should.
http://www.madzionistblogoff.blogspot.com/
On Wahabbism.... You know it's spreading to Indonesia as well. Now, they've made the parliament to draft (and about to pass) the bill on anti pornography.
This is so sad, the content of the law defies the multiculturalism and multifaiths in Indonesia (soon to be converted to Wahabbism).
People in Bali, Papua, and Central Java, and Women and Children activists are fighting to annul the (proposal) of the law.
But the proponents (islamic organizations) are setting deadline for the passage of the bill. It has got to be in june, at the latest... or....
I post my concerns over that issue on my blog: http://www.jroller.com/page/donraka?entry=i_strongly_reject_the_proposal
(that's where I put my personal opinions).
And the central blog of movement (centralized in Bali) to reject the law is: http://jiwamerdeka.blogspot.com
Please take a time to read, and feel free to voice your concerns and opinions in the comment section.
If you think it's also a 'jihad' -- as it may open the door for shariah law in indonesia --, I'd be thankful to have this issue raised in jihadwatch.
I think this type of jihad is equally cruel to bombings -- which they did to us, as well, twice,
Best regards,
Raka
The world must fight for it's survival for the onslaught of Islam.
We will win!
Posted by: El Cid at March 10, 2006 12:10 AM
-------
The war is underway in America and has only been carried on by the citizens of American until finally Congress listened to the outcry of its citizens.
Each little victory allows for the next victory to be larger until final victory is won.
The Texican.
Freedom, the only choice at any cost.
PS: Email a letter out for victory.
I have never been more proud of the American people and the Congress than I am right now.
___
You are naive.
The move was pure political opportunism, by the
same people who cowardly gave Bush carte blanche to pull troops out of Afghanistan (where AlQaida still
was) and attack Iraq under patently false
pretenses.
Today was a great day in our Jihad on Islam. First came the news that we aren't a fringe minority, and that a plurality of the country, if not the majority, agrees with us. Then comes this - Dubai Ports World retreats tail between legs.
While I'm usually for free trade and non-protectionist, I am all for the proposal that only an US company should be allowed to run things. And while I'm no fan of unions, if the cost of this is the teamsters making money, so be it.
If Dubai Ports World needs business, let them run ports in the Islamic world - Dubai, Kuwait, Bahrein, Basra, Karachi, Alexandria, Tripoli, Algiers, et al. The don't get 22 infidel ports. Period.
A good action, time for a Carlsburg ,me thinks.
As to where this goes from here, the dems. will be watching the next purchaser for any bad blood. It will take a deep cover buyer now to sneak it to a shady company.
If anything even looks funny, it will come out.
How is it possible that you all don't smell the stink when Chuckie Schumer and Hillary Clinton are on YOUR side.
Duh?
We can use some authoritarian Arab countries on our side. Can you say "Cold War"?
Suckers, this is a LONG HAUL.
This war will be fought by our children, and probably by our children's children.
Wake up.
The U.A.E. is an ally. Wake up.
http://thomistic.blogspot.com
The port stuff is just business. We have to tighten up the inspection, etc., of all the ports and borders.
Mark Steyn seems to be moving a little on the ports issue:
I think the whole piece is quite good with some good wake-up calls in it:
He points to the disjunction between what is going on and government rhetoric - to say nothing of media avoidance:
I think he's quite right. I think this is the greatest threat our civilization has ever faced, and for precisely this reason.
This is quite good, too, on what people have just not realized yet - that you can "lose your world":
Here's the link:
http://www.radioblogger.com/#001450
We are disgusted. The disgust is non-partisan. It is equal opportunity disgust.
We are, indeed. And it is, indeed. Thank you for saying so and for expressing so clearly just why, Hugh.
What do they say, "Money can't buy you love!"
Oh Well!
adela,
thanks for that link. I also scrolled down to the "did you know..." story documenting the many ways in which Muslims' demands are screwing up France.
sheik and Hugh comment on the racism canard...
The more the "racism! racism!" canard gets used, and used so recklessly and unfairly (as it so often is), the more this charge becomes discredited in the public eye.
Poor Skeptic may be disillusioned by my next words:
Profit is NOT the only motivation, especially among fanatic Muslims. Sure they like money like everybody else. But some of them put their Islamic meshugas above money. For example. A rich Egyptian bought the Egyptian franchise of Sainsbury, a fancy British supermarket chain. After he took control of the Egyptian franchisee, he promptly shut down all operations in Egypt, all Sainsbury stores in Egypt. Because it was unislamic in one way or another. So profit is sometimes secondary.
Now, back to the ports deal. I think it's a shame that a law was NOT passed that would forbid such a deal. A law would have been useful. The nebulous status of the deal now makes me wonder whether Bush and Sheikh al-Maktoum aren't waiting for a more opportune occasion to try again and sneak it through.
The handling of this deal was based on emotion, and amounted to to Islam bashing and Muslim bashing.
--- a US Army general on TV this morning
Military personnel who are no longer loyal to the U.S. Constitution and the flag should resign their commissions and shut the hell up. It'd be good if they could move from American soil while they're at it.
Yes, like everything else Fox attempts to portray every issue as Republican vs. Democrat, WWF style of covering a topic and they think they are approaching the truth or giving you some sort of depth or nuance on an issue. For the most part they present opposite ideological talking points.
If we would have been a bit more "paranoid" before 9-11 who knows what would have happened. I doubt any of the business androids can be bothered to look into the history of Jihad. For the present count me in with the crowd that refuses to "calm down."
I'll agree with skeptic that profits is the main priority for all companies in the world. Growth, growth and even more growth is what it's all about. I can see that for reasons of national pride some Americans would prefer if the ports were all run by american companies and may feel insecure about letting an arab company run some of it's ports.
However it is in the company's own interest to manage the ports effectively and safely. If just one terrorist attack is done by peopel or weapons smuggled in through a port controlled by a foreign company this will have disastrous PR consequences for the company and may force it to leave the country. I doubt any company would invest billions bying other companies and ports and run such a risk. Sorry guys, but I think your paranoia is running wild.
In any event, to paraphrase Pogo: We have found the problem, and it is us.
Posted by: Big G In TX at March 10, 2006 12:33 PM
___
This is the start of seeing the American Citizen speaking up and telling Washington that this is not acceptable and it will cost politicans there jobs if not stopped.
The MSM joined in and look what happened.
Americans have identifed the problem and it is the cult of Islam.
The Texican.
Freedom, the only choice at any cost.
If I were a terrorist, I'd prefer to infiltrate a politically correct American company with a director of cultural diversity and sensitivity.
You guys really surprise me with your one dimensional views on this.
Doesn't those liars Schumer and Clinton on your side of the issue make you wonder anything?
With an American monopoly on all important infrastructure, they'll have a lock on PORK and be able to beef up Union strength for 20 years.
http://thomistic.blogspot.com
D. Ox
Texican said
Amen, brother. The Dubai port deal was a minor skirmish, but I take it as the first real step towards treating Islam as an entity in itself, without hiding behind demonized nations (Iran) or demonized "radical religionists" (Al Qaeda). It was a small step, but our feet are finally moving in the right direction.
"The handling of this deal was based on emotion, and amounted to Islam bashing and Muslim bashing.
--- a US Army general on TV this morning"
-- from a posting above
This absurd charge was made by General Abizaid, who supposedly is one of the generals -- one of the few -- who understands what Islam is all about. He is said to "get it." Perhaps he doesn't "get it" enough.
The opposition to the Dubai Ports deal was expressive of a great unhappiness, a great unease, a great suspicion of Islam, based on one simple thing: the evidence of our senses, as we look at what Muslims are doing around the world, in southern Sudan to Christians and animists, in southern Thailand to Buddhists and in Afghanistan to Buddhist statues, in northern Nigeria to Christian villages, in Egypt to Coptic churches, in Algeria to French and Italian monks, in Madrid and London and Amsterdam and Beslan and Moscow and New York and Washington to Infidels because they are Infidels, in Hindu villages in Kashmir, in Hindu temples in Bangladesh, in Christian hospitals and schools in Pakistan, in Kosovo to Orthodox churches, in .... oh, should I go on, and on?
And the more this Administration, whether it is Bush idiotically telling us that Democracy is On the March or all people "want freedom" (1. No they don't; many people apparently love being adherents of a totalitarian system that treats them not as individuals but solely as members of a collective, with a Complete Explanation of the Universe and a Total Regulation of Life, and that further teaches them to dislike, to hate, to smite off the heads of Infidels, in texts deemed uncreated, immutable, and the Word of God. Not much room for interpretive ambiguity there.). Nor are people impressed with the failure to grasp that this is not a "war on terror" but much more than that, and that "terror" is only one of the instruments of Jihad. Nor are people impressed with the failure to deal with the "money" weapon by harnessing our justified worries and even our justified hatred of those who would undo our laws, customs, manners, understandings, and ways carefully arrived at over centuries, by those who left all that as a legacy, and whose work will be undone if nitwits who rule over us and are apparently too obstinately wedded to their own messianic or sentimental version of events, too afraid to articulate or even to recognize or admit to themselves that the real, underlying problem is not a discrete group of terrorists, but a constantly-replenished (replenished by the hundreds of millions of Muslims) group, that has employed, and will continue to employ, all the varied instruments of Jihad in order to promote the goal which Muslims have a duty to promote: the Jihad to spread Islam, to remove all barriers to its spread, until "Islam dominates and is not to be dominated."
The letters, the emails, the phone calls to Capitol Hill were not only or even mainly about the Dubai Ports issue. They were a scream of refusal to accept any longer the nonsense that we are being forcefed by this stupid and obstinate Administration, wasting lives, wasting hundreds of billions, wasting equipment, instead of cunningly exploiting the ethnic and sectarian fissures that Iraq presents on a platter. The failure to do so, and the failure to see how the situation in the Sudan presents a similar opportunity to throw back not only the Janjaweed, and the Sudanese government, but its other supporters, such as Egypt and Libya, trying desperately to prevent U.N. troops from entering Darfur, for they realize, even if the Americans do not, that the arrival of a real force that would protect black Africans from Arabs, could lead to other things -- to a referendum on independence in Darfur and the southern Sudan, and to winning the people of Darfur over to Christianity, and to emboldening the imperiled Christians in both East Africa, beginning with the Ethiopians being bullied by Egypt over the headwaters of the Nile, and Kenya, and Tanzania, and in West Africa, where the Jihad against Nigerian Christians may yet provoke another declaration of Biafran Independence, this time, one hopes, with the Western world protecting the Christians from the Muslims -- including the Egyptian pilots who strafed Christian villages -- during the war fought by Nigerian Christians (and not only the Igbo) against the Jihad waged against them by Muslims in the north.
The Dubai Ports deal was about much more. We have had it with this "war on terror" business. Bush is idiotic to claim that the U.A.E. is our "ally" in the "war on terror." It is nothing of the kind. Qatar, too, collaborates with us militarily-- but like the U.A.E., does so for good and sufficient reasons of self-interest. Qatar, like the constituent sheikdoms of the U.A.E., fears local bullies, and wants some American protection. Those bullies are Saudi Arabia, Iran, and once upon a time, and perhaps again in the future, Iraq. That is the sole reason for any cooperation or offer of use of ports or bases. And it is the same with Kuwait. To describe this as being "our allies" shows a misunderstanding.
The other day I had a conversation with J. B. Kelly. For years he was hired by the government of Abu Dhabi, by Zayid himself, to prepare the legal case on the boundary dispute with Saudi Arabia. It is not hyperbole, I think, to describe J. B. Kelly as knowing more, and in more detail, about the history of that area, the western littoral of the Persian Gulf, than anyone else alive (see "Eastern Arabian Frontiers"). As readers of "Arabia, the Gulf, and the West" know, he knows more about how OPEC managed to fool and diddle the West, so as to be in a position to use a pretend-boycott to quadruple prices in 1973, and what's more, to prevent that same West from taking adequate countermeasures, which it failed to do then, and in the one-third of a century since, and the Bush Administration, despite those Five Little Words -- "America is addicted to oil" -- followed by another $5 million for wind energy and a larger, but still ludicrous sum for solar wenergy == shows no signs yet of recognizing.
We've had it with the messianism, now reduced to sentimentalism, of this Iraq venture. Weapons were looked for, found or not found, destroyed or disrupted. That was the only justification for the war that made sense. Removing Saddam Hussein set in motion the inevitable: the shift of power from Sunni despots (disguised as "
Ba'athists" to attract a few Shi'a and even Kurds and Christians so as to pretend it was not a Sunni despotism), to the Shi'a. Once that happened, whether through this "democracy" or in another way, a civil war became inevitable. When I hear another official "warn of a civil war" I want to scream. Why "warn"? Why should it be a "warning"? We should be delighted. We should hope for something that will use up Arab and Iranian money, men, equipment (oh, hell, sell them some more, at greatly inflated prices, if you can be sure it will be used in internecine warfare), and their attention, buying time while in the Western world, or the larger world of Infidels (I don't want to leave India and China and points east out of the plan), studies up on Islam, and the history of Islamic conquest, and the subjugation of non-Muslims that inevitably followed upon such conquest, over 1350 years, from Spain to East Asia.
It's not just the Dubai deal. It's the failure to figure out how to diminish revenues of Arab and Muslim oil states, the failure even to try. The only thing the cheerleaders for this deal can offer is the idea that through economic activity the U.A.E. will "soften." Nonsense.
Oh, did I forget to tell you the reaction of J. B. Kelly to the news of this port deal, and to Bush's attempt to suggest that it was no different for the U.A.E. to be the owner than it would be for the government of the United Kingdom? He just laughed, a laugh that expressed at the same time amazement, amusement, contempt for those who for a minute would consider such a deal to be anything but the absolutely crazy thing it appears to be. And then he added: "But you can't trust them. You just can't."
Outside of David Brooks, The Wall Street Jouranl editorialists, and all those who cannot bring themselves to study Islam and keep thinking that homo economicus is the only one who counts, always and everywhere, and will always triumph over any other aspect of human activity or belief, the rest of us can only add, to Kelly's remark -- "But you can't trust them. You just can't." -- Amen. Amen, brother.
Fitzgerald, are you telling us that the United States Army has a Moslem general?
"Moslem general..."
-- from a posting above
No. General Abizaid counts among his ancestors people who fled Muslim persecution -- Lebanese Christians who, depending on when they arrived, may have borne in their identity cards the words "Turco" or "Siriano" and who, like the late Solomon Rizk (author of "Syrian Yankee" circa 1955), were completely enthusiastic and grateful to the country they arrived in.
At Harvard General Abizaid studied with the late Nadav Safran, in the post-Hamilton Gibb, not yet post-Richard Frye, but pre-Roger Owens and pre-Leila Ahmad and pre-Roy Mottahedeh period of Middle Eastern studies.
He is hardly a Muslim. But he is also a loyal soldier, and loyalty to this administration. And those who run this Administration are not terribly concerned about Islam -- not a word about, not a hint about, the islamization of Western Europe from anyone in official Washington, nor a word about stopping Muslim immigration to this country, as if there is no difference in the permanent and sole loyalty owed the umma al-islamiyya by Muslims, and the duty of Jihad (not necessarily conducted by qital, or combat), and other loyalties, quite unmenacing, that non-Muslim immigrants might bring with them in their mental baggage.
One has heard that Abizaid was among the keener generals. But surely he knows that the U.A.E., that Qatar, that Kuwait, are all allowing us to use their ports or land bases for reasons only of self-interest, in order for the local rulers to have some American protection against Iran, Saudi Arabia, or a renewed Iraq. The ruler of Qatar may make nice noises, and has a pretty and "modern" wife. Big deal, He also has another member of the Al-Thani family that tipped off a member of Al Qaeda so he could escape, just in time, from American agents. And he gives aid an comfort and money and a home to Al-Jazeera, the closest thing to Radio Berlin or Radio Tokyo now going -- a station that is responsible in Iraq for whipping up attacks against American soldiers, and in depicting them as Nazis. Not to be forgiven or forgotten. Qatar is not an ally.
And Kuwait? Kuwait may have some advanced Shi'a who are friendly with Fouad Ajami. And Kuwait, remembering the Gulf War, has been happy to allow the Americans to use Camp Victory for going in and out of Iraq. So what? They were delighted to have the Americans remove Saddam Hussein. Without the Americans there, who will protect them from Iran, from Iraq (or now, the Shi'a in Iraq), and from Saudi Arabia (don't forget that for the Gulf sheiks, the biggest likely bully on the block has always been Saudi Arabia).
And the United Arab Emirates? Not our "ally." Never our ally. When George Bush tells us that the U.A.E. allows our ships to be refueled, etc. and that this is a sign of their change of heart after 9,11,2001, he forgets to tell everyone that for 15 years the U.A.E. has been servicing American ships -- for money, just as it does now. In other words, during the period when the U.A.E. was supporting to the hilt the Taliban (only the U.A.E., Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan gave diplomatic recognition to the Taliban regime), and of course many rich denizens of the Emirates were supporting with money the Taliban and Al Qaeda (remember that what prevented an American attack, early on, on Bin Laden was the presence of members of one of the U.A.E.'s ruling families, come to pay their respects on their pal).
No Muslim Arab country, its sense of Islam reinforced by its sense of "Uruba" or Arabness, can conceivably be a permanent and loyal ally of any Infidel nation-state. The U.A.E., Qatar, Kuwait, Egypt, and all those who either receive the Jizyah of our foreign aid, or who stand in some way to gain from the presence of American troops (would Bush tell us with a straight face that the fact that the Saudis allowed two American airbases means that Saudi Arabia has been, is, or ever could be, an "ally" in the "war on terror"? Would he dare at this point suggest that the reason Saudi Arabia helped to fund the mujahideen in Afghanistan is becaue they are on "our side" and "love freedom" and so were naturally drawn to anti-Soviet activities becuase of that universal "love of freedom"? And would he now dare to suggest that the reason the American air force could use bases in Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War (when Saddam Huseein had occupied Kuwait and threatened Saudi Arabia) was because Saudi Arabia has been our "staunch ally" or was it because Saudi Arabia, as always, was doing what it did to protect the two great loves of the rulers of Saudi Arabia: themselves, that is the House of Al-Saud, and Islam.
Bush may be hopeless. One does not know.
The rest of the country is way ahead of official Washington. After all, the rest of the country is not full of people who have made money, or are making money, or stand to make money, being consultants and shills for the Arabs, and especailly the Saudis.
So that gives those of us not on the actual or potential Arab take an advantage. We can see things steadily and whole. We can take the measure of things.
This is a luxury not permitted the nitwits and traitors who presume to make policy for us, on our behalf.
I haven't read all the posts here but I believe Arab countries already have interests in our ports here in Australia........frightening thought.
For once George Bush is right. The UAE is a valuable ally in the war on terror and the falling through of the deal will just confirm suspicians that America is anti-Arab. I have personally been too the UAE and the country is very westernised and modermised. If anything this will only sour relations between America and it Arab allies. Support which America needs against its war on terror.
Re the book Syrian Yankee,
author: Salom Rizk, native of Rasheiya, "off the northwestern slopes of Mount Hermon." When he was born in 1909, the area was called Syria but now it is part of Lebanon.
title: Syrian Yankee
publisher Doubleday, Garden City, NY
copyright: 1943, republished 1972
book is recommended for a glimpse of Lebanese /Middle Eastern/ reality while under Ottoman rule
adela, what an amazing site you posted, thankyou for that...I just wish we could compile all the horrors that Muslims are doing through out the world and publish it so as the world can see what is goin on... Unless it is something we have done wrong, the media seems to want to keep quite about all the horrors that Muslims do, why...
The same problems or similar are happening in all countries that Muslims adopt, depending on the degree of strong hold that they have, and how many their numbers have grown to... As with Mohammad they are peaceful and wonderful until their numbers grow and then watch out...
I live in Australia, and was horrified with Bush and the port sale... We have seen in history how allies can quickly change side, and when push came to shove, all Muslims will stick with their brothers... great move Bush, open the way for them to take over, ... eh... I am now wondering if he can be trusted to lead the country, he puts all the world in danger with this decision, or has he turned traitor, as surely no one can be that stupid.. I say that because anyone with half a brain knows that you don't take the chance and give ports to a potential enemy no matter how nice they are AT THE MOMENT...
When all over the world Muslims causing violence, strife, rapes and are slaughtering tens of thousands every year, don't you think that it would be logical for anyone particularly the leader of a great nation, to read the Quran to see why...So it is obvious he hasn't had the brains to read the Muslim Quran book of revenge..it is a revenge book against those and their descendents who mocked Mohammad when he said he was a prophet...
This is communism, but with a god...
Up until Bush, it seemed to be all the left winged governments who were opening the doors and protecting them...
biorabbi, has a good point, after sep 11th, if any nation had a reason to run amock, and kill muslims America and the west did, but we did. Why, because we had the brains to think it was not all Muslims who were to blame, they killed our loved ones and we did nothing, they make a few cartoons and the muslim world runs amock killing in the process. I think it is about time we woke up..
Hugh, if General Abizaid whose ancestors fled Muslim persecution, can't make his Administration concerned about Islam then we are finished. If they wont listen to a GENERAL whose family has gone through it and the same religion is still continuing the horrors many years later, we dont have a chance.
I have had a feeling that we are kept perpetually in a state of fear to keep our eyes off what is really going on in the world, and I wonder if it is something to do with controlling the whole world under one administration or leader, what do others think????
These people come into our countries and have the cheek to say that we are racist if we dont give into their demands...I am sick of them, I am sick of their violence, and they dont stop their own from doing violence, they encourage it..
Lately, I have been thinking of giving up trying to wake people up, as I dont seem to get much support from anyone, people dont seem to want to know... they just think you are getting all upset about nothing, how do others feel???
Yes, muslims are trying to buy western society and they have the media on their side. CNN reports about "muslim bashing and racism",also BBC world has a number of muslim programs amongst others the "The World Debate (previously The Doha Debate)" and "Middle East Business Report".
It appears that muslims already have bought themselves quite some influence in our society, especially by "buying" our media. This might be also one of the reason that everybody who is not in favor of muslim rights (read: special treatment) is trashed. Although having won this time, it might be a small victory. Surely enough muslims have influence and power over already too many western companies...