Posted on 02/21/2006 11:41:27 PM PST by KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle
A few words on the Dubai Ports World imbroglio, written without pause or editing, which is probably just as well. Short version: the administration may have thought it was helping a Valuable Ally and probably a pal, end of story. But it plays like Bush defending eminent domain to condemn a neighborhood to build a mosque.
I don’t make predictions, because – well, who cares? You either repeat the conventional wisdom and hide with the herd when you’re wrong, or buck the prevailing opinions and get a reputation as a “maverick” when you’re wrong, again. Works for some. But if I had to make a prediction, I’d say this: 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. If they lose a city, it will be a “critical turning point.”
Do I expect the managers of the ports to start installing Al Qaeda operatives in key positions, so they can wave through all the containers with small nukes for national distribution? No. But such a scenario does not exact tax the imagination, which is why it’s such a stupendously bad idea.
It’s remarkably tone deaf. It’s possible that the Administration did some quiet polling, and asked the question “How much Arab control over American ports are you comfortable with,” and misinterpreted stunned silence as assent. It’s possible the Administration believed that this would be seen as outreach, an act of faith to solidify a Key Ally, and didn’t think there’d be much hubbub – but if that’s the case, it’s the best example of the Bubble Theory I’ve heard, and I’ve not heard much convincing evidence. Until now. The average American’s reaction to handing port control over to the UAE is instinctively negative, and for good reason. There are two basic reactions: We can’t do this ourselves? and We should trust them, why?
As for the first, the assertion that American firms were the lower bidder is unpersuasive, rather like saying that we should have outsourced the flight crew for the Enola Gay to Japanese nationals because they knew the terrain better. As for the trust issue, well, wanting port control to remain in American hands is not a matter of Arabiaphobia, any more than selling Boeing to China means you harbor deep hatred of Asians. Some things ought to be left in local hands. It seems absurd to have to make that argument in the first place. The UAE is not exactly stuffed stem to stern with pro-American individuals; the idea that the emirs will stand foursquare against infiltration by those who have ulterior motives is the sort of wishful thinking that makes buildings fall and cities empty. I’m not worried that some evil emir is putting a pinky to his monocled eye, and saying Mwah! at last I have them where I want them! I’m worried about the guy who’s three steps down the management branch handing off a job to a brother who trusts some guys who have some sympathies with some guys who hang around some rather energetic fellows who attend that one mosque where the guy talks about jihad 24/7, and somehow someone gets a job somewhere that makes it easier for something to happen.
That’s a lot of ifs and maybes. But I don’t want any ifs and maybes. You can't eliminate them all, of course, but I would rather we had a system devoted to worrying about ifs and maybes instead of adopting an official policy of Whatever.
We’re told we’re at war, and we reach back for the wartime memories we all saw in the movies and read in the novels: Yanks walking along fences with a dog, rifle on the shoulder, searchlight playing on the ground, stealthy foes ever at the perimeter. It was never that tight, of course; it was never that dramatic. But there were the constant imprecations to be vigilant, because peril lurked. That would have been undercut, perhaps, if the Roosevelt Administration had given port control to Franco.
Well, not the best analogy, perhaps. But the specifics don’t matter; arguments about the specific nature of the Dubai Ports World organization’s global reach and responsible track records don’t matter. Because it feels immediately, instinctively wrong to nearly every American, and that isn’t something that can be argued away with charts or glossy brochures. It just doesn’t sit well. Period. It’s one thing for an Administration to misjudge how a particular decision will be received; it’s another entirely to misjudge an issue that cuts to the core of the Administration’s core strength. That’s where you slap yourself on the forehead in the style of those lamenting the failure to request a V-8 in a timely fashion. Doesn’t matter whether it was a deal struck between the previous administrators and the UAE; that’s not how the issue will be seen. And it certainly doesn’t matter once the President gets all stern on the topic and insists he’ll veto any attempt to keep the deal from going through. At that point, millions of previously resolute supporters stand there with their mouths open, uttering a soft confused moan of disbelief.
On the good side: we’re probably done with Shotgungate, and the DailyKos people will start getting worried about dirty nukes smuggled in through the ports. On the dark side, for conservatives: woot, there it is – the politically inept, base-confounding, intuitively indefensible decision. Oh, it may be the right thing to do, in the end. Maybe you’re overreacting. Wait, study, read, reflect. But hope you don’t have to go on a cable show and defend it, because you’d feel greasy.
Advice to the administration: If you’re going to shoot yourself in the foot, don’t use a bazooka. You may aim for the pinky toe but there’s nothing left below the hip. The recoil should not be your first clue you grabbed the wrong gun.
Keyboard commando.
Very interesting. Thank you for posting the link.
Thanks. I was post #5 on that thread.
Actually, the election of Hamas to power is a good thing. Now anything Hamas does is state-sponsored terrorism. Israel can respond with retaliatory strikes on the Palestine Authority and even the Euroweenies and the UN can't deny them the right of self-defense. Hamas has screwed themselves.
Iran is not part of the Arab world.
I never liked the term "Bushbots"... Even been called that myself a few times...
But I think the term applies to you. Lacking a substantive argument while insulting people questioning a decision that could have adverse, possibly lethal effects on tens of millions of people does not help clarify the situation at all.
By the way; some of us "Keyboard Commandos" 'walked the walk' long before we 'typed the talk'.
Uh Sir, my arguement is that I will trust a President's judgement who has killed more islamic terrorists than all President's combined, rather than those who think with their words from a keyboard kill islamic terrorists.
The vain, knee-jerk stupidity of some people is staggering.
>>(Sorry, I don't know how else to reference that thread.)
Just cut'n'paste the URL. And the title, so people know what it is:
Just between you and me...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1583188/posts
JohnRob's software does the heavy lifting of turning that URL into a link. Heck, I can do the HTML, and I use that all the time for ease/speed.
Why the hell did we invade Afghanistan and Iraq, then? OH, right, they're all ferriners, one's the same as the other, eh?
Absolutely shameful.
The UAE caused 9-11?
... *sigh*...
Please stop replying to my posts, your naseating racism makes me sick.
Butch up, sunshine. You troll in response to my postings; I respond.
Too tough for you? Try wearing a cup.
I heart Lileks.
Harriet Miers was not a bad move. It galvanized the right and got Alioto almost clear sailing through Congress. It got our attention when it was needed much better than any exhortation to support Alioto or influence your Dem congressman to not oppose Alioto would have been. Miers may not have been a planned operation but I truly believe that as soon as W saw the conservative indignation begin to take form, he chuckled at a realized opportunity and played it for all it was worth and got Alioto through fairly easily. W's political sense is at least as good as Clinton's and and a lot more politically useful because he is getting his program enacted where Clinton was reduced to abandoning most of his(well, hers) and signing things like welfare reform.
Bingo. And the same security precautions if not more will be in place. I wonder, at moments, during this recent dust-devil, if there's jealousy involved -- in that "some countries" have more money than others and therefore it's unfair they get to "invest" in American businesses.
The billions spent by Dubai was for the Asian and Middle East port operations, very little was for US operations.
US Ports that want total control like Virginia, run their own terminals. Maryland decided to sub it out.
You're close, it is unfair that American business can't invest in the UAE, only minority interests. The US should enforce reciprocity with all such regimes.
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