It’s hard to argue with the anti-Dubai deal folks, especially now that they’ve won. But here are a couple of final morsels for thought on the uncomfortable message it has sent to the world.
On how this “ignorant, bogus, xenophobic, reckless debate” has ended up painting “decent, modernizing” Dubai as evil, from The New York Times’ Tom Friedman: “Dubaians are building a future based on butter not guns, private property not caprice, services more than oil, and globally competitive companies, not terror networks. . . . Dubai is where we should want the Arab world to go. Unfortunately, we just told Dubai to go to hell.”
On the economic consequences, this from Newsweek’s Robert J. Samuelson: “Every country has the right to protect its security interests. But those interests must be defined coherently and not simply as the random expression of political expediency. That’s what happened here, as it did last year when Congress pressured a Chinese oil company (Cnooc) to withdraw its bid for a U.S. firm (Unocal). The more this process continues, the more it corrodes confidence in the dollar.”
Posted by Rhonda Holman
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14 Comments
Good God! for the last time on this issue. It is not about race, religion,it is about WAR! And the enemy we are fighting, is the whole region at war with us, no.But people in that region are! Would the terrorists use such a deal to bring weapons and men in YES! The excuse that Bush is doing a crappy job of protecting our port is not the point of this matter. It is the different between failing to take the steps need to protect our ports and just giving the enemy a free way in! Painting this as racism or anti Arab is a metal illness…It is call to stupid to live!
I read somewhere that Dubai Ports World already owned a port terminal operation in Miami for quite awhile and nobody knew it.
When this fisaco of political pandering to see who was the toughest on homeland security, nobody knew the details at all.
It’s all an embarassment, especially that DPW was already running an operation and nobody knew it until a couple of days ago.
I was for the deal by the way. Clinton, Carter, and Bush all were for it.
This mindless isolationism has already begun to hurt US businesses, as detailed in this morning’s paper.
The people who ranted and railed against the port deal were generalizing and lumping all Arab states as one. That would be like lumping all English speaking nations as the same. Or all nations with black leaders as the same.
This simplistic denial of real world international economics is childish.
In retrospect, it would seem (my opinion only) that had the Dubai port deal been announced by anyone else, the reaction would not have been nearly as severe.
But, it was like waving a red flag in front of the hate GW crowd, and they could hardly wait to attack.. regardless of the consequences.
Granted, GW is proving himself to be a buffoon and shoots himself in the foot regularly. This, sadly, is one more example. Had someone outside the Bush administration announced this business deal, I seriously doubt it would have had nearly the reaction it did.
If you live by the fear, you die by the fear.
How dumb could the bushies be, or maybe how arrogant, that they thought they could whip the bedwetters into a fear fed frenzy and then stop the fear when it suited them? Turn the fear on and off like a faucet?
Fear is self feeding, and the bush boys not only lit the fire, they were shoveling coal on top of it as fast as they could. Now they are surprised and disgusted when the fear fire fries them?
Be careful what you ask for bush, you just might get it!
ksfarmgrrl, indeed.
Bush spends six years painting Arabs as evil, and then turns around to make kissy face when some cronies of his stand to benefit directly from the deal. Can’t have it both ways. And from my perspective, it’s great to see the GOP’s anti-Arab racism and fear-mongering come back to haunt it.
As for Tom Friedman, screw him. I mean, truly. ‘Decent, modernizing Dubai’? It’s a center of human trafficking for the sex trade and manual labor.
http://gvnet.com/humantrafficking/UnitedArabEmirates.htm
‘Decent, modernizing Dubai’? Tell that to the Chinese and Russian prostitutes who operate there, or to the Indian and Bangladeshi workers who toil on ‘modernizing’ Dubai in conditions of modern slavery. How vapid can Friedman be? As has been proven time and again, he has NOTHING to say that is valid or even interesting.
To expect any consistancy out of this administration is to spit in the wind. There is nothing but fear they have to offer.
Damn, kfg, why am I agreeing with you. Did you put something in the potato salad?
That potato salad was good! Ya gotta bring more next meet up KFG.
Refusing an arab country a business opportunity is racism but invading their countries is ok?
Hamas is legally elected but because they refuse to recongnize Israel we refuse to recognize them. But hey it’s ok that Dubai/UAE doesn’t recognize Israel?
“If you’re not for us you’re against us” as we invaded the Taliban led nation of Afghanistan. Well since the UAE was only one of 3 nations on the planet that recognized the evil (and they WERE evil) Taliban, logic puts them in “against” column doesn’t it?
This deal aint dead yet. The light should stay on it until it is. In the meantime, don’t look for diplomacy or reaching out or making arab friends. That aint a bit of what any of it is about.
No all we need to do with this deal is follow the money.
Raptor–as the religious fundies say, I don’t hate Bush the person, I hate Bush’s sins, and God knows they are legion.
CF–Ditto, that. But slavery is no reason for Bush to dislike Dubai. If he had his druthers, we’d have wage slavery right here.
Look at the Walmartization of America under the encouragement of this administration. Some Republican Congress-woman said the other that abortion was bad because it denied our country of low-wage workers.
Well, at least she’s honest . . .
the other day (note to self, revise, revise, revise)
Laughing Walker. You found out the secret ingredient of the potato salad. A sprinkle of farm girl koolaide. I am waiting to see if you become a lesbian too.
I enjoyed meeting you JM. Rock on.
JR it was good to meet you too. You had us going when you introduced yourself last night. I was wondering who I could claim to be when you said “I am crusaderx, where is ed?” I figured I would need another pen name…fast!!
President Clinton couldn’t take Ossama out in Afghanistan because our good buddy the Emir of Dubai was in his hunting party.
It somes down to this- we cannot afford to play “nice guys” with people who want to kill us. Perhaps the UAE is “moderate” when compared to other Arab states but they are still Arab muslims and we just cannot take a chance by letting them run ports in this country. We can still have a relationship and do other business with them however.