Several Democratic Congressmen and Senators are using this story to brandish their national security credentials by calling for a review. It's unfortunate the Administration has given them this opening.

I saw an interview on FOX with a security expert in which he minimized the issue, saying that though the UAE would have ownership, the employees would remain largely American with a smattering of Brits. But all it would take is a few strategically-placed new hirees to be able to sneak in some dangerous cargo.

And remember, the new employer would not be a private concern but the government of the UAE. The death of the ruling emir via natural causes or a palace coup could transform that government from friend to foe overnight.

Posted by: Cornelius at February 21, 2006 7:36 AM

Congress needs to make a law that says NO FORGIEN COUNTRY CAN OWN OUR PORTS....................

It was Congress who stopped the China oil take over it is their Job it was Congress who said a Forgien Company could own it in the first place??

I don't feel good knowing that a British company own them KNOW.

Think of Reid the Show bomber he was English and with the Cartoon Roits in England posters in London of behead people for writting cartons is just a bit much.

NO Congress needs to change that law and like ASAP!!!

NO FORGIEN COMPANY SHOULD OWN AMERICANS PORTS!!

Part of the American Tribe
Squirrel Hunter
Spider Killer
GOD BLESS THE USA AND HER FIGHTING FORCES AND ALL WHO FIGHT WITH HER GIVE THEM STRENGTH, WISDOM, SIGHT, AND COURAGE TO DESTROY ALL ISLAMIC TERRORIST AND ALL WHO SUPPORT THEM LET NOT THE WORLD BE DECEIVED BY THEM AMEN

PS
Congress do your JOB!! Protect this country like in the OATH you took TO DEFEND AGAINST ALL ENEMIES FORGIEN AND DOMISTIC

Posted by: Catherine at February 21, 2006 7:37 AM

OT, but here are some words of wisdom from the brilliant David Horowitz in a recent interview discussing the proclivities of the Left. Note the allusion to Islam:

"[The Left] is incapable of confronting its failures and crimes – of being minimally accountable – because its agendas are not pragmatic to begin with. Leftists don’t really care about the balance sheet of what they have done. What they care about is the future – their fantasy of a world redeemed. Their calculus is analogous to that of the suicide bomber. When you get to the garden of Allah what you’ve left behind is trivia that doesn’t matter.

On the psychology of the Left:

"Envy, resentment, hate – these are the left’s emotional motors."

When asked about why the average person should care about the Left-wing indoctrination going on in our universities:

"Does this person care about the accounting scandal at Enron? Because this a far greater scandal whose implications are infinitely more serious. The intellectual corruption of the university is not merely about money; it is about minds, young minds – and therefore the future of our country."

Posted by: Cornelius at February 21, 2006 7:41 AM

its strange how the Dems say the GOP is the blame the US's policy etc for Muslim's hatred.. butyet they instinctly know you cannot trust Muslim companies, for the defense of the ports.. they talk a good talk.. and of course they can look good now..using politics to their advantage but not using it for the country.

Posted by: Lulu at February 21, 2006 7:56 AM

And true to form the idiot Carter sees nothing wrong with the Arabs being in charge of Port Security.....he said it's a global economy.

Help, we are ruled by idiots!

Posted by: learjet0450 at February 21, 2006 7:57 AM

"Republican Sen. Lindsay Graham of South Carolina said on Fox News Sunday that the administration approval was "unbelievably tone deaf politically." GOP Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia said on ABC's "This Week,""It's a tough one to explain, but we're in a global economy. ... I think we need to take a very close look at it."

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20060221/D8FTFTJ89.html

So Senator, because we're in a global economy than to hell with such notions as national sovereignty? Unless of course your "secret deals" come to light?

GET THAT STUPID SMIRK OFF YOUR FACE GEORGE!

CARTER! SHUT UP!

Posted by: witness at February 21, 2006 8:09 AM

When Jimmy Carter endorses a policy, you know it is foolish. I have no confidence in Secretary Chernof to protect our homeland security.

This fiasco results from the inability of the Bush administration to clearly identify and understand our true enemy. When people at the highest levels believe that Islam is a religion of peace, and the terrorists have hijacked this religion, they are incapable of defending us.

How can we defeat the enemy when we do not even realize who that enemy is? The enemy is not terrorism, but the death cult of Islam. The UAE is an islamic nation. They worship and accept the principles of Mahammed. That alone makes them unacceptable owners of port facilities. The fact that there are so many administration officials that are completely clueless is frightening.

Posted by: GFB at February 21, 2006 8:17 AM

whats next,hire the mujahedeen to protect the president?i hear they have lovely school's in pakistan,training more everyday

http://partners.nytimes.com/library/magazine/home/20000625mag-taliban.html

Posted by: patriot at February 21, 2006 8:31 AM

Looks like this is the latest economic consequence of gas guzzling Yanks-recycling of petro-dollars. Whether it is granting control over the venerable P&O shipping and port management company to Dubai World Ports or Saudi and emirate sheiks buying Sharia condoned real estate here in America, or buying our long term debt, these are the economic consequences of being a global hydro carbon "hawg."

Having said that, the federal foreign direct investment cleanace agency, CFIUS clearly only looks at the economic control issues, and not the national security concerns.

The Bushites and the NSC staff have given Dubai World ports a pass, in part because Dubai is "host' to CVA task forces of our Fifth fleet.

But the fact remains that the container "trades" are the most vulnerable to insinuation of WMD into the US.

The 2003 protocol adopted by our Bureau of Customs and some international groups have yet to be effectively implemented.

Even the recent announcements by both GE and Siemens of so-called "smart containers" won't affect the outstanding huge inventory in the world's shipping lanes. And those "smart containers" are being built in another troubling location, mainland China.

According to the 9/11 Commission and DHS studies, something less than 2% of containers entering US ports, including thsoe to be prospectively managed by Dubai World Ports, are checked, currently.

Dubai itself is a large container 'free port" with allegations that transhipments of materiel from North Korea and Iran across the Persian Gulf somehow get a "pass."

I understand that in the large European ports like Antwerp the only scanning that is accomplished is by weighing the containers-only those deemed too heavy or too light are spot checked.

So, while Members of Congress and several state Governors may launch legal actions to stop the P&O takeover by Dubai World Ports, the Bush administration has given this acquisition a "pass."

Meanwhile the world's container trades remain vulnerable to tampering and the possible use by Islamist terror groups and terrorist states to undertake actions against major western trading partners.

Remember, just one of those North Korean supplied and nuclear tipped missiles provided the Iranians can easily be fitted into a standard "double 20" or 40 foot long container with an effectibe range of 2,000 miles, to say nothing of other seaborne WMD threats.

Posted by: Chinese Gordon at February 21, 2006 9:06 AM

Cal Thomas has some interesting incite into this

http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/calthomas/2006/02/20/187197.html

Posted by: Mackie at February 21, 2006 9:13 AM

SORRY ABOUT LENGTH BUT WHEN I READ THIS I HAD TO CUT AND PASTE IT. SHOULD BE SHOWN TO ALL WHO APPEASE.

'Whoever insults the one true Church deserves to be killed.' (News report)
David Aaronovitch

“EUROPE MUST LEARN to live in and with the world, not to dominate it, nor to assume it is superior or more virtuous. Any continent that has inflicted such brutality on the world over a period of 200 years has not too much to be proud of, and much to be modest and humble about.” Martin Jacques, The Guardian, on the cartoons row.
Meanwhile, in a parallel universe . . .

From a Reuters report, Rome, some time around now

The Vatican has protested in “the strongest possible terms” against the publication in paperback of Dan Brown’s bestselling novel, The Da Vinci Code. Cardinal Loopi, of the Office of the Defence of the Faith, condemned the book for defaming Catholicism and, in its suggestion that Jesus Christ was married, of heresy. “We demand that the book be destroyed and that the author be punished,” said Loopi, “otherwise we cannot be held responsible for how Catholics throughout the world may react.”

Excerpt from a speech by Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor

Merkel: “The affront to the honour of the one true Church is in fact an affront to the worship of God, and to the seeking of truth and justice, and an affront to all the prophets of God. Obviously, all those who harm the honour of the one true Church . . .”

Crowd: “Death to Dan Brown.

Death to Dan Brown.

Death to Dan Brown.

Death to Dan Brown.”

From the Paris correspondent of al-Jazeera

A Lyons priest today offered half a million euros and a top-of-the-line Toyota as a reward to anyone who killed Dan Brown or any executive of the Da Vinci Code publishers, Jonathan Cape. Speaking to a 1,000-strong crowd gathered after Mass outside the church of St Marie-la-Vierge, Fr Jules Monbiot announced that the offer was “a unanimous decision by all bishops that whoever insults the one true Church deserves to be killed, and whoever will take this insulting man to his end will get this prize”.

News stories in al-Ahram (Cairo)

Bookseller shot dead in Poland, by teenager shouting: “For God, and the Pope!”

Ten killed in Lisbon Dan Brown riots, when police opened fire on mob ransacking the Canadian Embassy. “We thought he was Canadian,” says riot leader.

Violence in northwest London as Jews go on rampage against Holocaust denial in Muslim countries. Kebab restaurants and curry houses ablaze from the Finchley Road to Edgware.

Iranian and Syrian embassies and consulates attacked in 20 cities worldwide. Iranian Embassy destroyed in Canberra. Australian Government describes violence as “regrettable, but understandable”.

Speech by Angela Merkel, about the convening of an international conference in Berlin to “investigate” Islam

“We propose the following to the Muslims: if you are not lying, allow a group of neutral, honest researchers to come to Mecca, and to talk to people, examine documents and let people know the findings of their research about the Muhammad myth. You have even prevented your own scholars from researching this issue. They are allowed to study anything except for the Muhammad myth. Are these not medieval methods?”

Reuters report from Berlin

“German Chancellor Angela Merkel today caused alarm in diplomatic circles when she called for the Netherlands to be ‘wiped from the face of the earth’.” She went on, “The establishment of the Dutch regime was a move by the world oppressor against the Catholic world.”

Summary of an article in French government newspaper, Le Monde

The Netherlands may have created the avian flu virus in order to damage the economies of Europe, and cleverly planted it first in the Far East to divert attention away from the real plan.

Angela Merkel on German attempts to produce a nuclear weapon

“Those who oppose us should be grateful that our people has acted nobly towards you so far, and has been patient. We want to remain patient. Don’t make us lose our patience. The peoples have awakened. The world of Christendom has awakened. Do not make us reconsider our policies.”

Reuters reports from Munich

Fr Rudiger Schlitz, the assistant to the head of the Catholic Church in Germany, has said that it is doctrinally permissible for nuclear weapons to be used. “When the entire world is armed with nuclear weapons, it is permissible to use these weapons as a counter-measure. According to church law, only the goal is important . . .”

Al-Jazeera News. Mark Seddon reporting . . .

These are the pictures of Our Lady’s Church in Shoreham, following the explosion in which 31 parishioners died, along with the suicide bomber, who is believed to belong to the majority Anglican community. This is the fourth such bomb attack on a Catholic church in the last two years.

Statement from Human Rights Watch . . .

Calling on the Italian authorities to order an immediate, independent investigation into the violent suppression of an apparently peaceful demonstration by Seventh Day Adventists in Naples on February 13, 2005. Hundreds of demonstrators, including women and children, were injured when police and armed militia from the Catholic Enforcement League broke up the protest, apparently using excessive force, and as many as 1,200 protesters are believed to have been arrested. A year later 200 of those detained are still being held without trial.

Report from al Quds-al-Arabi

Finland. Mr X, a local celebrity and Muslim, was exhumed after his funeral and given a Christian burial, despite his widow’s objection that he had not been to Church since he was a child, and had converted to Islam at the age of 15. A church court had considered the case following a complaint from a local Lutheran preacher, and ruled that Mr X should be treated as a Christian.

Excerpts from Amnesty International Report for 2006

In Newcastle, England, a special court sentenced a Gateshead woman to be burnt to death for witchcraft. Betty Spencer, 53, was immolated in front of a crowd that had gathered in the Newcastle United football stadium. It was the sixth such execution since the year 2000.

In Idaho a teacher was killed and three of his pupils badly injured when militia members of the “Party of Christ”, who object to girls being educated on the same premises as boys, fired into a packed schoolroom.

And finally, the good news . . .

From hiding, somewhere in Pakistan, Dan Brown apologises to the Judaeo-Christian world for the publication of The Da Vinci Code, promises to donate the proceeds from all his books to any charity nominated for the purpose by Opus Dei and undertakes to become a monk in a silent order at a monastery atop a high mountain in the Apennines.

Posted by: Truth4u at February 21, 2006 10:21 AM

Republican governors... What say you, Jeb?

Posted by: Shinoliite at February 21, 2006 10:24 AM

Utter insanity! I saw a talking head on O'Reilly last might say that it wasn't that bad. that it would only increase the danger a bit.

And O'Reilly just went along!

What is wrong with these people what is wrong with President Bush.

I am a conservative and a Republican, but when I head this I just shook my head.

This must be stopped and those who proposed it must be punished at the polls!

Posted by: El Cid at February 21, 2006 10:41 AM

Chertoff cannot even secure our borders. We are
supposed to trust him that the UAE will run our ports with adequate attention to security?

When the president leaves you baffled, repeatedly, by his actions; ultimately, you must conclude that those actions reflect upon him in some way. In President Bush's case, I have long since concluded that he really is dim-witted. How else to explain these lapses? In fact, that's just the problem - they are not lapses; they are his modus operandi. He is a dim-wit.

Posted by: 00Buck at February 21, 2006 10:46 AM

I have had tremendous confidence in President Bush (and Cheney and Rove) to do what was right for the country. My giving a pass to him on coddling liberals and spending like a drunken sailor I interpreted (on The Dumb Ox) as part of his plan coming into office: priority #1 was to take back the culture, which meant securing a conservative (judicially) majority on the Supremem Court. All other policies were subject to this aim.

Then came 9/11. The President rose to the occasion. Now a new priority #1 became operative. The President already had a firm Tocquevillian confidence in the power of liberty, as do I. But the President's view is also informed by his confidence in the power of markets. I share this confidence as well, but I do not make of the market an idol. (See the discussion last month on this topic.)

I believe the President (or his advisors) have made this colossal blunder on the ports for the heady mysticism of markets. Snap out of it George!

The Dems have been waiting for their opportunity to jump on an issue to show their support for defense, and George, you handed it to them on a silver platter. Let's hope the GOP can take this issue back from the opportunists.

Hey, you readers might like to take a break and submit an entry in our regular Tuesday feature: "You know you're a right-winger when..." We're collecting finishing lines for several weeks and then will vote (using a poll gadget) for the top 10.

At The Dumb Ox http://thomistic.blogspot.com

All the best,
D. Ox

Posted by: Dumb Ox at February 21, 2006 11:06 AM

Email justifiable disgust and outrage immediately to:

president@whitehouse.gov

This lunacy will not pass.

Posted by: profitsbeard at February 21, 2006 11:13 AM

very off topic:

I can't pick up the whole article because I'm not a subscriber, but here's the URL to a recent New York Sun article about an "alliance" Jean-Marie LePen is proposing to enter into with France's Muslim community that may interest some of you.

I've written here many times about the dangers of flirting with the extreme right as a bastion against Islamofacism. Seems that LePen ain't much of a bastian after all (just a bastard):

http://www.nysun.com/article/27822

Posted by: waterdragon52 at February 21, 2006 11:23 AM

It seems the article you reference is elsewhere, too, waterdragon52.

If you clip a distinctive phrase from it and Google that, you'll see - e.g.:

"oxymoron, but Jean-Marie Le"

Haven't read it yet ... looking now.

Posted by: Yojimbo at February 21, 2006 11:42 AM

... one of those sites also requires subscription. I'll quote only very briefly from what of the text is on another, as I suppose there may be copyright issues.

The NY Sun reporter claims that Le Pen's National Front is actually "popular among Muslim immigrants or second-generation Muslim citizens".

This is news to me.

Apparently, M. Le Pen has campaigned against immigration, which obviously might be thought to annoy North African immigrants, but has, nevertheless:

always extended support to Arab and Islamic causes abroad, from Saddam's Iraq to Arafat's or Hamas Palestine, and from Al Qaeda to Iran. And it is as firmly anti-American and anti-Jewish as the Muslim community itself tends to be.

The article also claims the French left is becoming increasingly anti-Semitic and notes "the emergence of Dieudonne, a former liberal music-hall humorist who has turned into an enormously popular French equivalent of Louis Farrakhan."

France sounds like an increasingly dangerous place for Jews.

Posted by: Yojimbo at February 21, 2006 11:58 AM

To conduct the war of self-defense against the Jihad successfully, Infidels should not continue to be confused. Permitting the Arab Muslim government of the U.A.E. to own the company that will run six major American ports is madness. It is madness no matter how many security measures remain in place. It is madness because it gives a terrible, and terribly wrong idea, to Americans who do not know nearly enough about Islam, and who have been told, over the last few decades, all manner of things that now get in the way of comprehension that, in order for this war of self-defense to be conducted, requires greatier wariness and suspicion.

For decades, during the Cold War, we were assured that Islam was not merely a menace, but in fact "a bulwark against Communism." Propagandists from ARAMCO (see J. B. Kelly, "Arabia tne Gulf, and the West"), through a series of expensively-produced coffee-table books, and magazines, and of course sponsoring all sorts of journalistic gush about that swell country Saudi Arabia, and its truly swell rulers, the Al-Saud, who had been the swell allies ever since that famous meeting with FDR and the Saudi king on board that aircraft carrier. And weren't the Saudis so very kind to help us out by allowing us to buy their oil? And couldn't we just count on them to "moderate" prices in OPEC, so that there was absolutely no need to have any long-term energy policy in place, no need to tax gasoline at the pump or oil by the barrel, no need to build nuclear reactors or develop through government programs and subsides wind and solar energy -- Saudi Arabia would do it for us.

And then there was brave Turkey, permanently secular, with those tough Turkish troops who joined us to "battle Communism." Actually, Turkey was battling Soviet power -- that is to say, fighting against Russia, its historic enemy. And of course, Turkey was a permanent ally, because those nice Turkish generals at the Defense Minisry in Ankara, the only kind of Turks American officials really knew, were our sort.

And our sort too were those ramrod-straight mustachioed pukka-sahib more-English-than-the-English Pakistani generals, or at least so the same easily-impressed American generals thought so. And who would John Foster Dulles prefer -- the nastily anti-American marxisant Krishna Menon, and the holier-than-thou third-worlding aristocrat Jawaharlal Nehru, or those Pakistani generals who beamed, and expressed their solidarity with America and their hatred of Communism. Thus CENTO, that short-lived and useless supposed military alliance of Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Pakistan with Great Britian and the United States, the last two being the suckers who supplied all the training, all the weaponry, and above all the money, for the first four. It was put out of its misery when the 1958 coup of Qassem ended the monarchy, and the long career of "strongman" Nuri es-Said, whose mutilated corpse was dragged through the streets of Baghdad, to be met with the same spirit of delirious and hysterical hatredm that was displayed in June 1941 against the hundreds of Jews seized and murdered, some by being tied to tram-tracks so that all could enjoy the spectacle, or that was displayed by those wonderful Baghdadis in the late 1960s, when 13 Jews (and one Christian) were hung to the satisfied delight of half-a-million Iraqis who had gathered in the main square to watch.

In Afghanistan, CIA operatives were so pleased with the fierce mujahidun that they passed out money, and Stinger missiles, like confetti. It occurred to no one that perhaps the already-collapsing Soviet Union did not need to be pushed out of Afghanistan, and that by 1980, the main threat to the Western world was not Soviet power, but Muslim power, from OPEC revenues and the settlement of Muslims behind Infidel lines.

While the Cold War has ended, and with it the need to depict Islam, so misleadingly, as a "bulwark against Communism" (the Arabs never saw Russia as the main threat to Islam, but the successive leaders of the Infidel West -- France and Britain until World War II, and then the United States afterwards) a new dreamy belief -- that as a "religion" Islam must be essentially a force for good, because all "religions" are held to be good, and this pious assumption remains, for many, a substitute for studying the particular contents of Islam, and what it means for non-Muslims.

In light of that continuing inability of so many to see Islam, and especially Muslim Arabs, as threatening, and to hope, or to pretend to hope, that we must act as if there is not such a problem, the indifference to this Arab-owned company running American ports is understandable.

Understandable, but not acceptable. It would be salutary to make as big a fuss as possible, a fuss that Republicans and Democrats can join in, not necessariy for the same reasons, in order to spread the message that Muslim Arabs should not be allowed to control anything of major importance to our security. That is a lesson that has to be repeatedly given.

And the lesson is not only for the Americans and other Infidels. By refusing to countenance such a situation, the American government would make clear that the attitudes the Arabs seem to think they can count on, the absence of extreme wariness and of hostility, they can no longer count on. Every chance Infidels get to make the point that Muslims will have to change their ways, and in fact change their belief-systems, if they wish to earn our trust, and that they should feel ill at ease among the Infidels whose innocence of Islam they have repeatedly, and in so many ways, exploited. Every sign that the game is over, the jig is up, that changes in everything, from energy policy, to access to Western arms and indeed to all kinds of Western goods and services and medical care and education, are no longer to be taken for granted and may well be denied, will help in the self-defense.

The U.A.E., Saudi Arabia, and all the rest should be made to worry. They have to stop assuming that things will be as before. They have to stop assuming that money will allow them to buy everything. They have to stop assuming that the Western world will continue to treat them as it would non-Muslim investors. They need a noisy and public lesson in our growing misrust, and perhaps that will begin to get their attention. And that mistrust has been earned, and cannot be set aside from here on out.

In the same way, attitudes can be changed in a salutary way if all those Muslim states and peoples that lack oil wealth should be told to go to all the rich members of the umma al-islamiyya, their fellow Muslims, for aid, rather than count on the continued Jizyah of foreign aid from Infidels, will do so much to help allow Infidels to reassert themselves, to cease to see things, as they have been inveigled into seeing them over the past 35 years, through the prism of Islam, and to accept so much of the Arab and Muslim view of the world's conflicts.

We have to undo, and reverse, perceptions. We must not allow the Arabs to think, as they do, that they can use their oil wealth to buy control of the running of American ports. We cannnot allow them to buy up wind or solar energy companies or patents. We cannot allow them any major acquisitions beyond things like entertainment parks. And they should also be given to understand that the seizure of the assets of enemy aliens, which routinely took place in past wars, remains as an option today. But that, someone will sputter, will make them not want to invest in the Western world? Yes. That's exactly right. But the rulers will still have their flats and villas in Marbella, in Monte Carlo, on Avenue Foch, in the Home Counties, in McLean, Virginia -- and that real estate, and other illiquid assets, will always remain to be seized. There's plenty we can do, now and in the future. And right now the government needs to be pressured or forced to demonstrate that it will not accept that the company that runs our ports should be owned by people in the United Arab Emirates. It is not as bad as Saudi Arabia, perhaps, but for Infidels it is still very bad.

Posted by: Hugh at February 21, 2006 12:14 PM

To: President Bush and the Republican Party

It continues to astound me that you, President Bush, and your administration continue to make mistake after mistake concerning Islam and Islamic terror.

President Bush, your continued mistakes in not dealing with Islam is allowing one little piece here to fail then one little piece there to fail until the whole of AMERICA will be surrounded by Islam and we all are Muslim or dead.

You can not deal with the Muslims because they are diabolical and patient in attaining their goals to subjugate the world. The Quran tells Muslims to lie and make treaties with their enemies that are stronger until the Muslims have sufficient power to defeat and kill their enemies.

President Bush, you and your staff need to read the Quran to understand the barbaric mind of the Muslims instead of listening to the lies that spew out of Muslim mouths.

Islam continues to nibble away at America with your approval, President Bush. This has to cease if America is to survive.

I am a diehard Republican and have voted Republican since the first time that I voted.

President Bush, if you were up for election today, you would not get my vote or the vote of my family and any other Republicans that I have influence with.

History will show that you, President Bush, wasted over 2,000 American lives in Iraq and over 200 billion dollars in Iraq. The only way to have the nation of Islam reform is to totally and utterly defeat the nation of Islam as we did to Germany and Japan who were reborn as nations that joined the civilized world.

I and my family will vote for the candidate, regardless if it is a Democrat or Republican, male or female, that stands up and states that he/she will protect America, seal our borders and take the war to Islam

The war with Islam is inevitable.

Prepare, be armed be ready.

You can guarantee that the Muslims in America are prepared, armed and ready.

The Texican.

Freedom. The only choice at any cost.

Posted by: Texican at February 21, 2006 12:20 PM

Catherine,

"NO FORGIEN [sic] COUNTRY CAN OWN OUR PORTS..."

It's not a question of ownership, it's a contract to manage the port operations. Apparently no American company is willing or able to do so.

And anyway, until we mandate and fund better inspections at the ports, it doesn't make a damned bit of difference who runs them.

We're currently inspecting between 2% and 5% of cargo that comes through our ports . . . the same number we were inspecting over four years ago, i.e. before 9/11.

Oh, and who the heck cares that you're a squirrel hunter and spider killer? The litany of pious crap at the end of every message gets mighty old with time.

Posted by: Cato the Elder at February 21, 2006 12:45 PM

GFB

You commentary sparked an interesting thought for me -- and please, understand that I say this as someone who hates to see ANY innocent person suffer.

Islam hijacked by the extremists -- yes, that one most people agree on.

We also agree (as 9/11 left us no other option) that hijackers can hurt us.

So, as a matter of policy, a hijacked plan in the US will be escorted by fighter jets, and if it fails to respond as it is ordered to do -- will be shot down.

So, Americans accept that it might be necessary to kill our OWN innocent civilians (on the hijacked planes) to protect the populace at large -- but we can't accept that some of the innocent Muslims that the extremists are using as ideological shields might have to face the same treatment?

How blind are we!?

Posted by: toleranceorappeasement? at February 21, 2006 12:48 PM

When GWB decided to go into Iraq, I had my doubts, like why Iraq, and why now? Now I see our military in two countries bordering Iran, waiting for that situation to explode. This was a good chess move.

As I look at this situation with the UAE managing our ports, I wonder how much information is not reaching the MSM and the general public? On the surface, it seems like a pretty stupid thing to do, and is political suicide.

WIll we look back in a few years, and say "That was a pretty smart move, because ...". GWB is not a stupid man, nor are his advisors. I'm holding off on any judgement for now to see how this plays out.

Posted by: ShortBoard Surfer at February 21, 2006 1:10 PM

This brings the Administration to an elevated level of Stupidity. Background check??
God's sake get real. ANY Saudi is an apparent
danger that will do ANYTHING to fulfill Allah's
empty rules....ALLAH equals Satan.

Posted by: Siciliano at February 21, 2006 1:21 PM

I am wondering if Bush made a pact with the devil and said to UAE if you let us stage military stuff in your country we will let you have the port business...of course, they are still the devil.

This is like having the fox guard the hen house.

If no American firm is able to do this then our government should.

For me it is a non-negotiable. Why isn't anyone asking themselves...why has an Arab Muslim country specifically bought the British company that is doing U.S. Port Authority management? They could have bought any number of businesses...but why did they choose this specific one? Hmmmm?

Posted by: Abby at February 21, 2006 1:34 PM

And since a Arab Muslim group bought an interest in Fox News...they have been much more circumspect when discussing Islam and Islamic activities/terrorism.

Posted by: Abby at February 21, 2006 1:35 PM

"Islam hijacked by the extremists -- yes, that one most people agree on."
-- from a posting above

No, most people do not "agree" that Islam has been "hijacked by the extremists." Most people know too little about Islam to form, much less express, an opinion. The verb is wrong. The second of the two nouns is wrong. No hijacking involved. No extremists involved. Unless the word "extremist" is to be defined as those who take their Islamic duties seriously, and are the willing shock-troops of the Jihad.

What makes these so-called "extremists" extremists? What have they done that Muhammad would not approve of, or that has no textual justification?

Posted by: Hugh at February 21, 2006 1:38 PM

I think that bringing in the emirati people to control our ports was a bad idea,actually such an idea shouldn`t have even been considered,at all.
But now some liberal democrats are fighting it,among them Chuck Schummer and Hillary Clintong...basically they are right on this one,but aren`t they promoting "racial profiling" here???!!!
Here we have two leading liberal democrats basing their decision on racial profiling....let`s see what will the ACLU have to say about it?!

Posted by: adela at February 21, 2006 2:28 PM

Hugh,

I increasingly (baby steps, baby steps) agree with everything you are saying. I am shaking off my leftist academic's fog and actually looking at the facts. And those facts give a pretty clear indication that Islam is the problem.

What I meant by most people agreeing on Islam having been hijacked by terrorists is that, among my own circle of intelligent, news reading, politically aware, but leftist academic befogged friends, THEY would accept that statement.

The people who by all rights should know the truth are far too hesistant to accept it.

But, even they tend to agree that "the peaceful religion of Islam, which has the right that all religions do to exist, appears to be subject to or hijacked by an small percentage of extremists...interesting.."

My point was, that if they can see that at least that much, and if they support (as again, those I know do) the shooting down of hijacked planes carrying U.S. civilians as necessary for the greater good -- they should be able to apply the same formula to the "hijacked religion".

Posted by: toleranceorappeasement? at February 21, 2006 2:39 PM

00Buck said

When the president leaves you baffled, repeatedly, by his actions; ultimately, you must conclude that those actions reflect upon him in some way. In President Bush's case, I have long since concluded that he really is dim-witted.

That is all part of Bush's plan. He wants everyone to think he is dim-witted, to put the jihadists at ease so they think they can outsmart him. But all along, he's scheming and watching and scheming some more. All the years of bad grades in college and substance abuse? Just building up the foundation for his charade. All those personal friendships with Saudis and Kuwaitis? Ditto. Just when they think he's about to zig, he's gonna zag. Sure, he says "Religion of Peace", but he's smirking 'cause he's thinking "Religion of Pieces"! He calls Islam a "noble religion", but he means "Nobel religion", as in the inventor of dynamite! He'll open up the ports to the jihadists, and then when they start smuggling in WMD's, BAM! he'll be on them like a ton of rancid pork. The only thing I haven't figured out is what he is waiting for to spring his surprise on the jihadists.

Posted by: special_guest at February 21, 2006 2:50 PM

But what about Bob?

Posted by: Hugh at February 21, 2006 2:58 PM

W has a certain unpleasant resemblance to his Granpappy, Prescott Bush. Google "Prescott Bush" and read with wonder.

The people of the West --not the politicians-- must wake up. We are being sedated while we are devoured alive by avaricious politicians on the one hand and the followers of an arrogant false prophet on the other.

Posted by: Chatillon at February 21, 2006 3:06 PM

Cornelius said

Several Democratic Congressmen and Senators are using this story to brandish their national security credentials by calling for a review. It's unfortunate the Administration has given them this opening.

Has it come to this, that one has to hope that the Democrats fail in their duties to protect the nation, just for the political benefit of the Republicans? What could possibly be "unfortunate" about Congressmen and Senators, be they Democratic or Republican, of whatever creed or ethnicity or philosophy, taking a stand to protect the nation? Does the phrase "United we stand, divided we fall" have any meaning whatsoever in today's political climate?

Posted by: special_guest at February 21, 2006 3:28 PM

I can NOT stress enough how important it is that everyone here write to your representatives and/or call their offices and voice your complaints loudly today! Tell your friends and family to do the same. Politicians will react if the pressure is so large that they fear for votes and I can tell you -- when I hear Rush call this a "typhoon" of response to the UAE port issue, you KNOW that we are being heard loud and clear.

I firmly believe this port deal will not stand. Put a Dutch company in charge if they have to, any European nation if an American company can not be found to do the job, but no majority Muslim nation should ever handle our ports -- not today, not tomorrow, not ever.

Posted by: Foehammer at February 21, 2006 4:29 PM

Special Guest,

Perhaps you feel that Chuck Schummer and other liberal Democrats who have worked so diligently over the last 5 years to undermine America's war effort are suddenly sincere in their concerns over port security. I don't believe it for a minute. In my humble opinion, it is pure political grandstanding designed to burnish their own tattered national security credentials.

Posted by: Cornelius at February 21, 2006 5:47 PM

Cornelius, leaving aside the distinction between supporting the Iraqi "Light Unto the Muslim Nations" project and protecting U.S. border security, I am just glad the Democrats and Republicans can agree to work together on anything, let alone agree on the danger of an Arab nation being in charge of our border security.

Posted by: special_guest at February 21, 2006 6:27 PM

Gee may-be back in the 30's and 40's we should have had the Japanese guard our ports.

Posted by: Real American at February 21, 2006 9:03 PM

Bush says the administration has already looked into the security issues...Well I guess that takes care of that, we dont have to worry now.

Cathrine...no matter what 'Cato the Elder' says about you, duh swami loves ya baby...short skirts and all...

Posted by: duh_swami at February 21, 2006 9:30 PM

"That is all part of Bush's plan. He wants everyone to think he is dim-witted, to put the jihadists at ease so they think they can outsmart him."

You got that right Special guest...did you know he practices looking stupid. Yep, uses a mirror...two hours a day... he has developed over two hundred stupid expressions...that beats Clintons by thirty. Bill never had to practice much. War is deceit, or so sayeth the prophet. All Geo is doing is confusing the enemy...he's doing such a good job, He's confusing me too...cheers...

Posted by: duh_swami at February 21, 2006 9:42 PM

Hooray for these guys! Somebody had better stop this madness!!!

Posted by: pythagoras at February 21, 2006 10:13 PM

toleranceorappeasement?-

Flight 93 over Pennsylvania was hijacked on the morning of September 11, 2001.

Using the metaphor of Islam being 'hijacked' by extremists, where are the brave Muslims rising up to overpower the jihadist hijackers and take back control of their stolen "religion"?

The passenger on Flight 93 did. They prevented the Islamic terrorist hijackers from fulfilling their mission, even if it meant that the passengers themselves died in their courageous effort.

Are moderate Muslims all cowards?

There are hundreds of opportunities, weekly, for them to oppose the Islamic terrorists.

But we see almost nothing but two journalists (in Jordan and Yemen) in the Middle East who published the Mohammad cartoons, and were arrested by their own governments for their secular daring.

Weasel words and apologists are the norm.

Or are the moderates, other than one or two immediately-arrested figures, simply non-existant?

A fantasy of the fearful West?

Posted by: profitsbeard at February 22, 2006 1:13 AM