i think the facts will prove bush right and the deal okay. it might be oidifed a little to giove everybody a win - even the uae ayrabs.

this is another case of hysterical misinfiormers/demagogues getting to define (misdefine) the story.

sadly, the BIUG STORY here is how many GOP weenies jumped ship.

i sorta exoect malkin and coulter to do it but not ehrlich and pataki and king and other more dependable GOPers.

of course: hillary and chuck will pander like this all the time. i expect it of them. and the msm.

oh on your other point: foreign companies can't do this at airports.

and if we want to do that in our ports: cool, but foreign leasing of terminals has been going on for decades.

but remember the bottom-line: this deal doesn't and can;t effect port security or "port sovereignity" as the demagogouges have claimed.

who manages a terminal CANNOT effect security. the terminal off-laoding the container has no REAL/major/important role in security.

the "CSI" and the USCG and Customs are what makes container shipping secure.

this crisis is BOGUS, and it will pass, and when it does bush will look STRONGER.

those who scream SOVEREIGNITY on this issue are like those who scream CIVIL WAR re: iraq.

all the best!

Frank, this is a slam dunk, after all the facts come out. the ones usign polls for positions will come to regret it.

1.Dubai Ports World manage ports around the world, and more effiecient than most.

2.If you read the names of seinor management, there are an aweful lot of Smiths, William's, Moore's, and Wong's. theses don't sound very Arab to me.

3.UAE is one, if not, the most international countries in the world. It is the crossroads of the world, a very tolerant, liberal, open society. Stand on a corner in Dubai and you would be just as apt to see a mini skirt as you would a burqa. Neither will cause a second look.

4.Shipping is their thing. They own more oil, per capita than jsut about anywhere else in the world, but, the PRODUCE more wealth per capita from trade and transport tahn they do from oil.

5. DPW will have nothing to do with port security. the Coast Guard and Customs will. this is unfortunate as DWP knows more about port security than both of those fed agencies put together.

6.the UAE guys know who is about to do what. sometimes, the FBI and the CIA do not have a clue. it is in DWP's best interests to have the bad guys go to jail instead of blowing up their ports.

go to their web site and check out their operations, then go to this site and tell me who's a modernized capitalist, to the max.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/4491210.stm

I think that its beyond the "reality curve" at this point. Preception, is very often, the only reality.

When I first heard this story, I was ballistic, I could not believe that it had been allowed to happen. It took about a day for me to think through the whole thing and when I did, I came to a completely different opinion than I started with. So, Ive gone from 100% against to 100% for in the space of about 5 days.

But what I see going on is something far worse. I see the use of phrases like " outsourcing our security", "freindly towards terrorism", "cant trust the arab nations because the dont support israel and they once supported the tailban..." as a way to wedge the Republicans into political weakness.

When it gets so bad that I cant listen to a middle of the road guy like Bob Brinker on the weekend without screaming at the radio, its gone beyond a simple issue of policy.

Frank,

I'm disappointed -- I expected more super-heroes from you. What about Gasbag Kennedy? Hillary "will scare little children for money" Clinton? The possibilities are endless.

In re the actual issue at hand -- I'm reserving judgement for now. It seems clear to me that there are issues we don't know about yet. (For example, why is the President defending the program so strongly, up to and including the threat of his first-ever veto, for a program he didn't know anything about before it was announced?)

Interestingly, people in the intelligence community seem to be evenly divided on this issue... which, by itself, suggests to me that there's more here than meets the eye.

No question, the President has gotten himself a PR disaster here... and during an election year. It'll be interesting to see what Karl Rove does with it.

respectfully,
Daniel in Brookline

Varifank -- this is a bad deal and Bush is getting lots of trouble because it's a bad deal.

UAE simply is untrustworthy. Seven Sheikdoms ruled by Princely autocrats that have pretty opaque politics. Combine that with a history of playing footsie with Bin Laden (princelings hanging out with binnie, hunting and so forth when Clinton wanted to kill bin Laden after the 98 Embassy bombings but before the Cole) and you have unacceptable risk.

You are asking the American people to accept into the sensitive operations of our ports political control by a set of absolute monarchs (seven in all) who have a long and bad history of co-operating with Osama. The UAE depends entirely on the US for it's territorial integrity (absent US forces Oman and/or Saudi would simply annex them) so there is no downside for us turning them down.

Our downside: UAE government provides bin Laden with sensitive information he needs to get a nuclear device out of a port and into Times Square or the Washington Mall. Our upside: UAE is not offended. All the incentives for the UAE princelings are loaded to co-operate with bin Laden; since bin Laden can threaten their lives and we haven't provided anything on that level of incentives.

this simply is a risk we should not take, most Americans see that, and crying racism won't obscure the real issue. It's just a foolish risk.

The argument that the U.A.E. cannot be trusted because the government and its rulers are autocratic just doesn’t make sense. For instance, what about all the other autocratic rulers various U.S. governments have dealt with over the last few decades? Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Russia, to name just three; all of whom have worst human rights records and more ties to various terrorist /criminal groups then the U.A.E. will ever have and all three of whom have extensive political and economic ties to the U.S.!! Sorry, using this argument as an excuse to drop the deal is just lame, nothing more/nothing less.