DoD doesn't want to upset a Middle Eastern country; other news on the UAE port deal
The Department of Defense points out that busting the port deal with the UAE could spoil America's pristine image in the Middle East, according to CNN.com:
The announcement came on the heels of comments from the second in command at the Pentagon, who said Thursday that people who publicly oppose allowing a Middle Eastern company to take over management of some U.S. ports could be threatening national security.
Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England told the Senate Armed Services Committee that blocking the deal could ostracize one of the United States' few Arab allies.
"The terrorists want our nation to become distrustful," England said. "They want us to become paranoid and isolationist, and my view is we cannot allow this to happen. It needs to be just the opposite."
It's a great point, but when have we cared about ostracizing an Arab state? If we applied that test to all foreign policy decisions, we'd have to pull all troops out of the Middle East and break our ties with Israel. I don't really see that happening any time soon...
Kevin at Dropout/Postgrad has a good point about xenophobia and anti-Arab sentiment shaping some peoples' opinions on this. You know I love PBS, and last night on the "McLaughlin Group," they were right on the money. Pat Buchanan - who is never concerned about being PC - came right out and said it: "We just don't trust Arabs with our ports." At least he has the balls to say it. They all pretty much agreed Hillary Clinton was guilty of demagoguery, and Buchanan said (as I have) that the deal just seems suspicious to "Bubba in Georgia." There's way more emotion than logic behind the opposition.
Perhaps UAE ownership of ports is a security threat. But the politicking on both sides - and the fact that this whole thing would be handled differently if Congress wasn't facing elections and Bush wasn't a lame duck - shows the problems with U.S. politics.
The NY Times reports that European business people don't understand the hoopla in the states.
Richard Dibley, a director in London's Planco Consulting, which advises port authorities, said he was "struck by how strange" the American reaction was, and added that it could be called "paranoia." He described the port and shipping business as "international, you don't get a business that is more so."
Another facet of this issue is the geopolitical value of having a good relationship with the UAE: The country lets us fly planes out of it, and it's less than 100 miles from Iran. There is a little bit about the U.S.-UAE military relationship in this AP article.
A better article about the challenge of reconciling free trade with security concerns is in the Financial Times.
The announcement came on the heels of comments from the second in command at the Pentagon, who said Thursday that people who publicly oppose allowing a Middle Eastern company to take over management of some U.S. ports could be threatening national security.
Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England told the Senate Armed Services Committee that blocking the deal could ostracize one of the United States' few Arab allies.
"The terrorists want our nation to become distrustful," England said. "They want us to become paranoid and isolationist, and my view is we cannot allow this to happen. It needs to be just the opposite."
It's a great point, but when have we cared about ostracizing an Arab state? If we applied that test to all foreign policy decisions, we'd have to pull all troops out of the Middle East and break our ties with Israel. I don't really see that happening any time soon...
Kevin at Dropout/Postgrad has a good point about xenophobia and anti-Arab sentiment shaping some peoples' opinions on this. You know I love PBS, and last night on the "McLaughlin Group," they were right on the money. Pat Buchanan - who is never concerned about being PC - came right out and said it: "We just don't trust Arabs with our ports." At least he has the balls to say it. They all pretty much agreed Hillary Clinton was guilty of demagoguery, and Buchanan said (as I have) that the deal just seems suspicious to "Bubba in Georgia." There's way more emotion than logic behind the opposition.
Perhaps UAE ownership of ports is a security threat. But the politicking on both sides - and the fact that this whole thing would be handled differently if Congress wasn't facing elections and Bush wasn't a lame duck - shows the problems with U.S. politics.
The NY Times reports that European business people don't understand the hoopla in the states.
Richard Dibley, a director in London's Planco Consulting, which advises port authorities, said he was "struck by how strange" the American reaction was, and added that it could be called "paranoia." He described the port and shipping business as "international, you don't get a business that is more so."
Another facet of this issue is the geopolitical value of having a good relationship with the UAE: The country lets us fly planes out of it, and it's less than 100 miles from Iran. There is a little bit about the U.S.-UAE military relationship in this AP article.
A better article about the challenge of reconciling free trade with security concerns is in the Financial Times.
posted by bp at
8:14 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home