How true, and how sad. Very well put.

Posted by: Joe White at March 13, 2006 04:37 AM | Permalink to this comment

A President whose spokesman gabbled mendacious nonsense about smoking guns and mushroom clouds -- as we were led into an invasion and occupation the costs and complications of which are as yet unmeasurable -- deserves political humiliation. At the very least.

Since 9/12/01, this President has peddled fear. Racial fear of the Arab Other most successfully.

And now it's bitten him on the ass. And us, I suppose. Well, you go to war with the President you have, not the President you wish you had.

Posted by: stickler at March 13, 2006 08:27 AM | Permalink to this comment

I would have to agree with the two previous comments above that the war hysteria emanating from the White House propaganda machine came back and bit Bush on the arse.
And of course, both sides of the aisles in the House of Representatives and the Senate were pandering to the lowest common denominator to curry favor with the voters in the upcoming 2006 elections. But that is the toxic political environment in which we currently live. And Bush planted the seeds of xenophobia four years ago in the propaganda campaign for the invasion of Iraq.
When I read a poll that stated around 66% of potential American voters really believed that there were WMD's in Iraq and clear ties to Al Queda terrorists, I was quite taken back. But in this instance where four out five American voters were against the Dubai ports deal, I was no longer surprised.
Prime Minister Lloyd George had the same problem after the end of the First World War. He had so effectively whipped up the war hysteria in his country, perhaps the first modern example, that he had to maintain a hard line during the peace negotiations in Paris in 1919, which resulted in the vindictive reparations that made Germans feel so humiliated and Adolf Hilter used so effectively in his rise to power in the Weimar era.
Of course, the Dubai deal would have been a win/win situation for all parties involved, if the lingering fumes of the war hysteria had evaporated. And China continues to operate the port facilities in Long Beach, California.
All in all, the incident doesn't say much for a representative and informed citizenry in the information age. Passions, such as fear and retribution, seem to be still the favorite buttons that politicians love to push for their own agenda of remaining gainfully employed.

Posted by: George Hoffman at March 13, 2006 03:01 PM | Permalink to this comment

Funny, I don't recall President Bush ever stating that this is a war against Arabs. I do recall it being stated as a war against Islamic Fascism which was hijacked by what Bush termed the noble Muslim religion but never recall hearing that this a war against Arabs since so many Islamic Jihadists have killed more Arabs (muslim and non-muslim) over the past five years than has the US Armed forces.

I also recall numerous articles written by US journalists who attributed a quote "Saddam is an imminent threat" to President Bush when the quote was made by Prime Minister Tony Blair. Actually, if journalists at the NY Times, for example, knew how to comprehend they would have read Bush's actual 2003 speech and reported the actual quote "we cannot wait until Saddam BECOMES an imminent threat".

Stickler, it is so obvious that you have unknowingly been Oprahfreyed by obtuse journalists.

The Marxists Democrat politicians I can understand would behave exactly in the fashion they behaved because there no longer exists the party of Liberalism in today's Democrat Party but those Republican politicians who cowered to this disgusting opportunism will not be re-elected by Republicans.

See Sticker, the difference between those in today's Democrat Party is that they will do nothing to politicians like Schumer or Clinton but Republicans will stand up to politicans like Peter King.

Islamophobia? No wonder Europe now lives under sharia law, Europeans are so steeped in secular Marxsim that you cannot recognize your own state of dhimmitude.

Listen up dead Europe all you have left is to hide your pigs, censor your free speech, honor the honor-killings, hang your gays, and cover your females otherwise you will be deemed Islamophobic.

Posted by: syn at March 13, 2006 03:07 PM | Permalink to this comment

No connection between Al Queda and Iraq? Well, there was the first WTC bombing however more importantly, about 50 thousand from 2 million documents kept by Saddam have been translated which establishes connection between not only Al Queda but also numerous other Islamic Fascist groups.

Of course the absence of something does not prove it never existed, it just by not be in the place one expected it to be but if one is wondering why 66% of the American populace believed Saddam had WMDs is perhaps due to the fact that every Democratic country on the planet including the totalitarian United Nations believed Saddam was acquiring WMDs and that 1998 Iraqi Liberation Act passed by the US Congress and signed by former President Clinton which encouraged the editors at the NY Times to write during 1998-2000 five op-ed pieces declaring that Saddam Hussein was heavy into WMD's, a threat to the world and he must be removed. Of course, all this change when the Other party was elected into the White House and for some reason the editors at the NY Times began their assault by criminalizing an entire political party which they believed to be a bigger threat than Saddam Hussein.

If I were an editor at the NY Times and Joe Wilson approached me with a 'story' the first question I would have asked about Joe Wilson's credibility would have been "now why would the White House send a former diplomat to do the CIA's job. Are there no CIA agents in Niger, or anywhere in Africa to do the job?"

Joe Wilson's (non-covert CIA Valerie Plame's husband) 'Bush Lied" meme was set-up as a decoy for a great many problems existing inside the Washington Beltway and many of the answers stolen from the National Archives are hidden somewhere down Sandy Berger's pants and behind Jamie Gorlick's wall hiding the truth about Clinton's Able Danger data mining program set-up to spy on people. Wonder how much information Able Danger collected on Clinton and Chinagate? Negroponte must know something.

Posted by: syn at March 13, 2006 03:32 PM | Permalink to this comment

Greg -- Take a moment out of having the vapors and consider this question, please: If the Saudi government owned an airport management company, would you advocate selling them the operation of Reagan National Airport? JFK? Miami International? Would you despise those who advocated against the sale?

If yes, why?

If not ... please explain.

Posted by: farmgirl at March 13, 2006 04:44 PM | Permalink to this comment

Gee Greg, doesn't US law mean anything anymore?

US laws ban the participation by US nationals and companies in unsanctioned foreign government trade boycotts, especially the Arab League's boycott of Israel.

The Department of Commerce has issued more than $26m in fines and turned down export licences to those found violating the law.

Is this just a selectively enforced law? Or am I missing something in reaching the conclusion that the deal violated it?

Posted by: Davebo at March 13, 2006 04:51 PM | Permalink to this comment

Gee Greg, doesn't US law mean anything anymore?

US laws ban the participation by US nationals and companies in unsanctioned foreign government trade boycotts, especially the Arab League's boycott of Israel.

The Department of Commerce has issued more than $26m in fines and turned down export licences to those found violating the law.

Is this just a selectively enforced law? Or am I missing something in reaching the conclusion that the deal violated it?

Posted by: Davebo at March 13, 2006 04:53 PM | Permalink to this comment

Typical - In my 60+ years, I've realized it is always the liberals that first state "There goes the neighborhood" when a minority moves in. And they make this statement without any knowledge of the family.

Posted by: JG at March 13, 2006 07:40 PM | Permalink to this comment

Point, davebo, buts its not like the congressmen in question (on both sides of the aisle) ever said, or, IIRC, even implied, that if UAE dropped the boycott theyd be copacetic with the deal. The boycott was just one more talking point, ISTM.

Posted by: liberalhawk at March 13, 2006 08:32 PM | Permalink to this comment

I think you are a touch overcontemptuous of the American people in this instance, Greg, even though I share your contempt for our political class. This issue was not entirely, even primarily, Arab-bashing on the part of the enraged folk out in the countryside; it was a prairie fire who's tinder had been building up for several years. We've seen immigration visa's issued to Mohammad Atta six months after his tragic death, Ray Charles frisked at airport gates, the Miers pick for SCOTUS, Katrina, etc. How are people supposed to react when we hear the fox is being asked to guard the henhouse gate? Even the most vociferous defender of this deal would have to admit it would be easier for al Qaida operatives to infiltrate/bribe a UAE flunky than one from Norway. I hope in a few months when cooler heads prevail we will see who stood up for the unpopular position, despite Bush's ham fisted execution, and who went running for the tall grass. I think this will reflect well on McCain and poorly on the Dems.

Posted by: wks at March 13, 2006 10:09 PM | Permalink to this comment

"Islamic Jihadists have killed more Arabs (muslim and non-muslim) over the past five years than has the US Armed forces.

Sym old bot, do you have some kind of link for that?

Estimates for how many arabs have been killed by islamic jihadists?

Estimates for how many arabs have been killed by US forces?

Note that the latter estimates are classified, officially the US armed forces aren't even counting at all.

Posted by: J Thomas at March 14, 2006 12:29 AM | Permalink to this comment

I'm with wks on the prairie fire theory, even though I don't think it'll end up reflecting badly on the Dems. And I'm sick of arguments like syn's, that all start with the little Ronald Reagan head shake and then "There they go again..."

The fact is, President Bush has held a political lock on FP, by virtue of being a war president who has, so far, prevented another 9-11 on our soil. This administration took an (at best) massive intelligence failure and applied it to a pre-packaged enmity toward Saddam, mixed in the arrogance that assumed the war could be done on the cheap, failed to anticipate or prepare for setbacks, and still clings to illusury "progress" to maintain support. This debacle has been as big a failure as Johnson's in Vietnam, and as big a blow to our international position as the South Vietnamese collapse. (The main difference is that Congress hasn't rebelled yet and sealed the failure. They'll probably wait for a Democratic president to undercut, just like the Democratics needed to undercut a Republican in the 70s).

But this whole catastrophe is still just a bungled battle in a larger war, and as long as the war stays comfortably overseas, people who oppose it's conduct have gotten relatively little traction.

So in that context, the pissing and moaning about Dubai is admirable. People like Chuck Schumer have made an attempt, where some leverage exists, to get breathing room for a meaningful debate on how to conduct the war. As the GOP has been proving since the Contract with America, political debates are not parlour games. They are not fought, or won, primarily on intellectual arguments. They're won with catch phrases and memes and ridicule and all the other crap that goes on in a democracy. And Ed Rollins was one the biggest practitioners. He can go to hell.

Posted by: Matt Chanoff at March 14, 2006 04:39 AM | Permalink to this comment

I'd be interested to see Greg describe the great respect he had for Sens. Schumer and Clinton before the Dubai ports affair.

I also think some of the commenters here should think again about whether the American public needs guidance from the administration to be suspicious of Arabs. You don't have to believe public attitudes are right -- in this case I thought they led Congress to take an unwise and unfair position -- but it is no more than common sense to recognize they exist as more than the product of the White House spin machine.

Posted by: Zathras at March 14, 2006 04:55 AM | Permalink to this comment

As usual, Greg is engaging in partisan intellectual dishonesty here.

the extraordinary grassroots opposition to the Dubai deal is a direct result of Bush's deliberate campaign of anti-Arab and anti-Muslim sentiments. Bush's declaration that "we have to fight them over there so we don't have to fight them over here" is not only absolutely racist, it demonstrates a complete lack of respect for the lives of the people of the Middle East.

Regardless of the merits of the Dubai deal itself, opposition to it was absolutely required for our homeland security. The Bush regime, and the GOP congress, had been virtually ignoring port security issues for the past four years --- placing a higher priority on the wiretapping the phones of Americans with no connections to terrorists than on keeping nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons from entering this country on container ships. This controversy has focussed the nation on the incompentence and mendacity of the GOP on national security issues, and that is all to the good.

Posted by: p.lukasiak at March 14, 2006 01:10 PM | Permalink to this comment

lukasiak, as usual, you're full of sh*t.

Bush has done everything, EVERYTHING, he could to keep this from becoming and anti-Arab, and anti-Muslim crusade. What he cannot do is prevent the crude nature of the Muslim "street" from displaying itself on the nightly news.

DPW happened the way it happened because it occurred right on the heels of the Cartoon Jihad. That's what Greg is missing, and that's what lukasiak is ignoring in his enthusiasm to peddle Bush as the Young Hitler. Americans watched as Islamic fanatics demonstrated and threatened the public peace in Europe over cartoons. When the Administration, quite clumsily I might add, presented the DPW deal to congress as a fait accomplis, senators like Clinton and Schumer decided that it was time to play the Arab-bashing card for points. The Pubbies climbed on board out of rank fear from the public backlash in an election year.

It didn't matter that DPW had a pretty clean record on running container ship operations, or that the deal was part of a much larger deal between P&O and DPW. Nor did it matter that these same liberals never breathed a word when the Chicoms bought the port of Long Beach NOR, I might add, have they said a word about the Saudi operation in Manhattan.

Hypocrisy, you see, is the homage vice pays virtue.

So Greg is dead on, here, but for rather incomplete reasons. And lukasiak, as usual, needs to wipe the spittle off his keyboard as he tries to work in the wiretapping issue into the ports deal. Cute, lukie, let's see if you can give Chimpy McBushhitler Nixon's five o'clock shadow.

Ah, lefties. Paying the Islamic Fascists so they can be beheaded last.

Posted by: section9 at March 14, 2006 02:08 PM | Permalink to this comment

Gee, why are all these dumb intolerant cowboy Americans so Islamophobic? Its not like Moslems have been murdering thousands of people in suicide bombings using everything from jet airliners to cars? Its not like massive numbers of Moslems around committ violent demonstrations because some cartoons in a Danish newspapter are said to poke fun at the Prophet Mohammed? Its not like Moslems kill or vow to kill those who criticize Islam. Its not like Moslem Demonstators again around the world, regularly chant, "Death to America, Death to Israel". Its not like Moslem countries elect leaders that proclaim Israel must be destroy. It not like America's Arab "friends" like the UAE participate in the Arab Boycott of Israel, peddle Nazi-like anti-Semitic smears & finance suicide bomb attacks against Israel. Yes, it must all be this strange unreasoning hatred of Moslems on part of these gun-slinging, simple minded Yanks who are far below the intelligent sophistication of the French-speaking European elities who know that as long as they are willing once again to sacrific the Jews, there are no reasons why Europe cannot enjoy Peace in Our Time with the Islamists.

Posted by: David All at March 14, 2006 05:21 PM | Permalink to this comment

For a good article about the UAE's funding of Hamas, go read "Sanctimony and Silence" by Andrew C. McCarthy at http://benadorassociates.com/article/19385 . For an article on the latest Islamist anti-Semitic atrocity, the brutal tortue murder of Ilan Halimi, read article by Nina Poller of the Wall Street Journal at http://www.benadorassociates.com/article/19361

Posted by: David All at March 14, 2006 10:41 PM | Permalink to this comment

Phobias are unreasonable fears. There is tons of empirical evidence to justify a reasonable fear of Muslims, nothing "phobic" about it. I'm extremely surprised to see a multi-culti trope like that used on this blog especially followed up with sanctimonious doctrinaire EUnuch style elitist disdain for the common sense displayed by the American electorate.

Americans know we should not have authoritarian state-owned entities managing any part of our national security infrastructure. It doesn't matter if they're Chinese or Arab kleptocrats they need to be kept at arm's reach.

Add to that UAE support for Hamas suicide bombers, their boycott of Israel and their hobnobbing with UBL as recently as 1999 (resulting in our missing an assassination attempt) along with their likely passing on to him notice of his compromised location resulting in his abandoning it, and the exponentially increased likelihood of their operations being jihadi infiltrated compared to companies from other places...

All I can do is roll my eyes.

Posted by: Will Myers at March 15, 2006 09:23 PM | Permalink to this comment

The Marxists Democrat politicians I can understand would behave exactly in the fashion they behaved...

I read to this line and realised it was time to go to the next comment. Life is too short....

Posted by: J Thomas at March 16, 2006 02:07 PM | Permalink to this comment