Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Because President Bush has so much darn credibility on the War on Terror

I support him as he supports the port deal. He seems to be the only one who isn't hysterical. I trust him more than the instant port experts screaming foul (from left & right). This looks like it's a political disaster for him, but that only means that he's more concerned about doing the right thing than worrying about poll numbers.

3 comments:

Edward Copeland said...

Remember -- this is the man who said you are either with the terrorists or against them -- and the UAE has: * The UAE — and, specifically, Dubai — has been a breeding ground for terrorism.
* Its banking system — considered the commercial center of the Arab world — provided most of the cash for the 9/11 hijackers.
* It continues to stonewall the U.S. Treasury Department's efforts to track al Qaeda's bank accounts.
* Some of the operational planning for 9/11 took place inside the UAE.
* It exchanged ambassadors with the Taliban when the latter subjugated Afghanistan.
* And it trans-shipped weapons to Iran, North Korea and Libya.

Now, today, the White House claims Bush didn't even know about the deal until it was over (and that the appointment of a Dubai Ports World exec to a transportation post overseeing maritime issues in January is merely coincidence).

Edward Copeland said...

This is bizarre -- my comment is here, but on the front it still says zero comments. Let's see if this jump-starts it.

Jeffrey Hill said...

Blogger is nutty sometimes.

The “for us or against us” rhetoric/attitude is part of the reason countries like UAE and Pakistan are siding with us as much as they are. Implementation of such a stance is never going to be pure and simple, especially in a region so infected with radical Islam. But it was the right tone to take and, overall, I’d say Bush has followed through. Given the realities on the ground, I’d rather have partial cooperation from UAE than none at all. Of course, I’d like to get more cooperation from them, but that won’t happen when you stiff-arm these types of deals. Encouraging legitimate business pursuits from the region is exactly what we need to be doing, not shutting Arabs out because for xenophobic reasons. The more I hear about the deal, the more I think it should be approved.