So, let me get this straight:
The United Arab Emirates, a country with ties to the terrorists that bombed America on 9/11 and had been one of three countries in the world to recognize the Taliban regime would like to take over operations at six American ports through a corporate entity. The United States Coast Guard reviewing the proposed business deal says, according to the Washington Post, that "it could not rule out that the company's assets could be used for terrorist operations." Quoting from the report, "the breadth of the intelligence gaps also infer potential unknown threats against a large number of vulnerabilities." The intergovernmental review process, supposedly being conducted without the knowledge of the White House decides to bypass a 1992 law that requires a 45-day review of any foreign government-owned company's bid to buy a business "where the takeover could affect the national security of the United States."
Okay, bear with me:
Republican and Democrats in the Senate and House, upon hearing about this decision, demand that the deal be stopped or at least postponed. They are so concerned that the Republican Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist suggests passing legislation if the Administration will not act.
Here's where it gets interesting I think:
Within 20 minutes of hearing of this legislative possibility, the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, who we are now told was COMPLETELY unaware of this deal days earlier, gets up from his cushy couch in his private cabin aboard Air Force One and walks to the crowded press cabin at the back of the plane and threatens to veto the legislation -- something he has NEVER done before.
The President's response when questioned about the deal:
"Trust me."
So this sequence of events raises a few questions in my mind:
What am I missing?
What's the rush?
Who are all the interested parties in this $6.8 billion deal?
How much money did they raise for the Bush campaigns?
What did the president know about this deal and when did he know it?
Why should we trust this President who did not have any knowledge of the review until after it was over?
Why should we trust this Administration that tried to convince us that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction ready to use in attacks on us within minutes?
Why should we trust Michael Chertoff that this review was handled properly when he had three days to prepare for Hurricane Katrina and left people starving and dehydrated for three days more before rescuing them?
Why should we trust this Administration that had 4 1/2 years to improve port security and yet we still only check 5% of the cargo that comes into the country?
The government in Dubai and the United Arab Emirates may be an ally today, but I despise the Republican attempt to turn anyone who raises questions about this deal into a racist. They have no grounds to even raise the question after the way they have encouraged xenophobia to mislead Americans into attacking Iraq because it may have been involved with 9/11 when they knew it was not. Now we have a country that we know is connected to the 9/11 tragedy and we can't even ask questions?
If the UAE is our friend and ally, let them buy shopping malls, beach front property or Rockefeller Center like everybody else.