Where Is the Outrage at Bush's Dubai Arms Deal?
President Bush approved a deal to allow a company from Dubai, the country that was forced to withdraw from the Portgate deal, to take over American plants that make parts for jets and tanks for the United States.
Dubai is part of the United Arab Emirates, a country that continues to pay money to the families of homicide bombers and to the Hamas terrorist group. It appears to have been protecting Osama bin Laden in the late 1990s for some period of time. America was unable to bomb Osama's hideout because he was meeting with officials of the government of the UAE. That makes it an active supporter of terrorism. It is a threat to national security. Yet President Bush seems eager to bring UAE-based businesses into as many sectors of the economy related to national security as possible. Why?
The President argues that the deal was approved by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS.) But as we learned during the Portgate deal, CFIUS has only disapproved one deal (by a Chinese company) since it was formed in 1988. The recommendation of CFIUS is essentially meaningless.
Where is the outrage? Where is the coalition that stopped the Portgate deal? Why isn't Congress on this issue, fighting to stop the terrorist government of the UAE from controlling a company that makes such vital military materials for our country? Rep. Peter King (R-NY), a leading opponent of the Portgate deal, has been quoted as saying, "This investigation was a significant improvement over what happened before." How is that, Representative King? Dubai is still an active supporter of terrorism. Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) said, "There are two differences between this deal and the Dubai ports deal. First, this went through the process in a careful, thoughtful way; and second, this is a product not a service, and the opportunity to infiltrate and sabotage is both more difficult and more detectable." Of course, he forgets the possibility of sabotaging the product, making it defective, or otherwise undermining the quality so that it will be damaging to our troops in the War on Terror.
Allowing Dubai to manufacture arms for us is at least as dangerous as allowing it to run our ports. Unfortunately, it seems as if the political leaders who helped stop the Portgate deal were just posturing.
Indeed.
Some like johnny (above) want us to assume a fetal position and take it like a true "conservative." Otherwise, according to him, we are whining fools who poison the water trough of the GOP.