Can not this delineation be made?
The United States is now potentially a ship without a port authority.
The sale by British corporation Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company (POSNC) of their interest in providing security for six major American ports to the United Arab Emirates's state-owned Dubai Ports World (DPW) has raised hackles on both sides of the aisle, and calls to at least delay the transaction pending further review.
(In going forward, we will ignore the Democrat flank of this bipartisan charge, for it has become impossible to take anything they say seriously, nor unsuspect of pruriently political motivation. Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer? Puh-leazzze.)
Conservatives are split on the issue, with an unslight lean towards allowing the deal to be consummated. The Wall Street Journal and commentator Tony Snow have all already come out in favor of this transfer, with radio uber-host Rush Limbaugh "undecided", but definitely teetering towards aural approval.
And, this being America, they are free to be as wrong as they want to be. And they are certainly exercising that right here.
We understand completely that since September 11th, 2001, the United Arab Emirates has been incredibly, though understandably discreetly, helpful in the War on Terror, and President George W. Bush wanting to throw them a bone as recompense is certainly an understandable notion.
But not this osseous selection, and not to this particular pooch. The dog in this hunt has not, shall we say, fully come to heel on the issue of global terrorism.
Prior to the latest day that will live in infamy, the Emirates were a terrorist money laundry machine. Millions of Islamist dollars were safely housed in, and washed through to their detonative destinations, the UAE's banking systems in the years leading up to the slaughter in question.
In addition, they themselves directed millions of the petro-coin culled from their fruitful fields to those practiced in the worldwide art of Infidel eradication, from Al Qaeda to Hezbollah to Hamas (who to this day still receive UAE money).
They were also one of only three nations to have officially recognized the Taliban as the government of Afghanistan, yet to this day still find it impossible to do the same for Israel, or acknowledge even its right to exist.
So we should be excused if we find their sudden change of heart on this issue to be less than fully reassuring.
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has had a similar recent cardiovascular turn, but would we be comfortable turning over port security to a state run company based in Islamabad? Hardly.
Which brings us to Rules 1-3 of real estate: location, location, location.
In a War in which we have seen the devastating potentiality of persons numbering but one or a mere few, we simply can not be sure that people of this diminutive count in the harbor assurance corporate midst will not prove to be dupable to the Islamists' powers of persuasion, to egregious subsequent domestic result.
Certainly, anyone within any company, whether of the UAE, the UK, the US or anywhere else, is monetarily flippable or potentially infiltratable. But the POSNC is located in Europe, surrounded by Scotland, Ireland and France.
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Weak And Malodorous, But Not a Security Threat |
Now much of a derogatory nature can be and has been said about France, all genuinely warranted and earned, but is anyone seriously concerned about large numbers of the general populace in the Land of Brie or any other of these neighboring nations swaying POSNC in unfavorable directions?
The DPW, however, is located in the heart of the Muslim world, on the eastern border of Saudi Arabia and a short hop across the Persian Gulf from Iran, neither possessing clean hands at yesterday's close of business, and this makes them much more accessible, and thereby infinitely more potentially susceptible to being pressured, by large numbers of Islamofascists wishing to avail themselves of easier fulminative access to our safe harbors.
As well as very much in danger of the structural blackmail that only proximity can bring, the likes of which will not be seen with a European company.
So while DPW may very well receive a top to bottom CIA clean bill of health today, are we absolutely sure that this will be the case tomorrow? In a week? A month?
We simply do not know, nor can we. And that is precisely the point.
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By All Means, Go Right Ahead |
In matters as grave as this, one must err on the side of caution. We can trade with them as equals to no end. They can own non-security related items within our confines, such as farms and Blockbuster Video chains, without limit.
But to place the security responsibility for the 14 million containers a day that come through U.S. ports in a nation this closely removed from aiding and abetting the enemy, and that is surrounded by those with whom they were so recently in league, is asking just a bit too much.
Hire a corporation in Ireland, Canada or New Jersey to handle the ports, and find another way to thank the UAE for all of their good work of late in the War to save them from, in large part, themselves.
