Monday, February 20, 2006

Homeland Insecurity, or this Rabbit Hole looks familiar

One area that has not been protected, and is very vulnerable to attacks, infiltration, etc. are our ports. So what does our government do? Award the contract to manage our major ports to a group from Dubai (United Arab Emirates)--Dubai Ports World. While we hopefully don't believe that all the people of the UAE back what their government does or vows to do, the fact that the UAE has allegedly vowed to destroy Israel is, shall we say, a bit worrisome.




Comments:
I have read two theories of why Bush is going ahead with this and threatening a veto on any legislation that would hold the port deal. 1) It is possible that he is trying to bait Dems into going after the Middle East, when the real issue is any foreign country managing our ports. 2) If an attack in Iran is in the works, it needs to come from somewhere else other than Iraq and Afghanistan. If it comes from those places, their governments lose all legitimacy. So perhaps the trade off for American presence in the UAE is some nice port deal.

-Carl-

PS: I think this would have been killer for Political Thought class. http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=266122006
Francis Fukuyama disowns neoconservatism.
 
Last night in class, I used the President's veto stance as an example of using an ultimatium, which leaves no place to go without losing face. Hos staff should have adviced him to say, that he trusts his delegation of decisions, but he is the one ultimately responsible (the buck stops here) and he should have asked to hear any concerns or critiques/questions/etc. so that they may be addressed. The veto shoukd have been left in his back pocket, until it was necessary.
Unfortunately he did not do this, and members of his own party are not on his side.
Fortunately, DWP --the UAE owned company is putting things on hold.

The greater question is what is driving the President's decision making? Can we say "Free Trade" ?
 
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