Dubai Ports: Shame on the Democrats!

DOBBS: President Bush's family and members of the Bush administration have long-standing business connections with the United Arab Emirates, and those connections are raising new concerns and questions tonight in some quarters about why the president is defying his very own party leadership and his party in defending the Dubai port deal.

Christine Romans reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): The oil-rich United Arab Emirates is a major investor in The Carlyle Group, the private equity investment firm where President Bush's father once served as senior adviser and is a who's who of former high-level government officials. Just last year, Dubai International Capital, a government-backed buyout firm, invested in an $8 billion Carlyle fund.

Another family connection, the president's brother, Neil Bush, has reportedly received funding for his educational software company from the UAE investors. A call to his company was not returned.

Then there is the cabinet connection. Treasury Secretary John Snow was chairman of railroad company CSX/. After he left the company for the White House, CSX sold its international port operations to Dubai Ports World for more than a billion dollars.

In Connecticut today, Snow told reporters he had no knowledge of that CSX sale. "I learned of this transaction probably the same way members of the Senate did, by reading about it in the newspapers." http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0602/22/ldt.01.html
Snow Snowed on Ports Deal? by Michelle Pilecki

OK, it's no secret that Treasury Secretary John Snow, whose former employer sold its ports business to the Dubai company creating such a political uproar now, was caught by as much surprise as his current boss and fellow secretary Donald Rumsfeld by the deal, according to Reuters.

"The people who vet these transactions aren't political people," Snow said."The people who vet these decisions are people who wake up every morning saying 'are the security interests of the United States in any way being jeopardized?'"

"We don't want people whose major interest is the security interest of the United States wearing a political hat," Snow said.

It's difficult to believe that any policy wonks would be so politically naive, but even allowing that, there's a followup question that nobody has asked Secretary Snow. With thanks to georgia10 at Daily Kos, we discover that Snow should have known about the Dubai Ports World proposal because by law he's supposed to chair the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. So where was he when the committee he chairs approved the deal?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nellie-b/snow-snowed-on-ports-deal_b_16261.html

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Liberal opposition to the Dubai Ports deal is not based on nationality/ethnicity.

The company is owned by the Dubai government, and that government has connections to Al-Qaida and strong sympathies with Islamic fundamentalism.

Here's one link:

Quote:

UAE royals in bed with bin Laden and Bush:

UAE royals, bin Laden's saviours

March 25, 2004 12:04 IST

The Central Intelligence Agency did not target Al Qaeda chief Osama bin laden once as he had the royal family of the United Arab Emirates with him in Afghanistan, the agency's director, George Tenet, told the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks on the United States on Thursday.

Had the CIA targeted bin Laden, half the royal family would have been wiped out as well, he said.

The 10-member bipartisan commission is investigating the events leading up to the September 11, 2001 attacks in the US.

Here's one from the CBS, explaining how an attack on Bin Laden was cancelled because he was visitng with the UAE Royal Family:

Quote:

Nov 2004

(CBS) "In a letter to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees earlier this year, Scheuer says his agents provided the U.S. government with about ten opportunities to capture bin Laden before Sept. 11, and that all of them were rejected.

One of the last proposals, which he described to the 9/11 Commission in a closed-door session, involved a cruise missile attack against a remote hunting camp in the Afghan desert, where bin Laden was believed to be socializing with members of the royal family from the United Arab Emirates."

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I am opposed to this port sale. Don't have much faith in Islam period. No such thing as a modern muslim. They declared war on us, not the other way around as many would have you believe (like the author of this thread, perhaps?).

Keep your eyes on Oakland, CA and Detroit.

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cjhsa wrote:

I am opposed to this port sale. Don't have much faith in Islam period. No such thing as a modern muslim. They declared war on us, not the other way around as many would have you believe (like the author of this thread, perhaps?).

Keep your eyes on Oakland, CA and Detroit.

The problem here is that we have a lot of morons like cjhsa who really do oppose the deal based on racial and ethnic prejudices.

However, there are real reasons to oppose this deal. We shouldn't let the Right Wing nutbars and thier racist rhetoric distract us from this fact.

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Eat me moron.

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cjhsa wrote:

Eat me moron.

Nice comma use.

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It will never cease to amaze me what idiots lurk here at A2K. We are are war - radical islam declared it on the U.S., not the other way around.

I personally don't want to live 1000 years in the past, nor worry about the proper use of commas, though I'm pretty good at it. ILZ - KMA.

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cjhsa wrote:

It will never cease to amaze me what idiots lurk here at A2K. We are are war - radical islam declared it on the U.S., not the other way around.

I personally don't want to live 1000 years in the past, nor worry about the proper use of commas, though I'm pretty good at it. ILZ - KMA.

You think "there is no such thing as a modern muslim." That's disgusting.

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cjhsa wrote:

Eat me moron.

oh Brad you're so.... forceful..

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Oh, and for realitys sake, America started dicking the Middle East over decades before Islamic terrorism even existed in it's current form.

But let's not talk about that! That might force you to realize that America isn't totally syuper-duper wicked awesome!

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Are you talking about the ones who run the oil refineries or the ones who fly planes into buildings?

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cjhsa wrote:

Are you talking about the ones who run the oil refineries or the ones who fly planes into buildings?

What?

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Hmmmm?

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cjhsa wrote:

Hmmmm?

Jesus Christ. You're completely retarded.

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Kudos to e_brown and drewdad

Suppressed gag reflex for IronZionLion.

Poor marks for the Bush Administration.

Democrats like Hillary and Chuckie Schummer may or may not be bigots but they are certainly cynical opportunists. In some way, that they have flown by the issue of bigotry at mach speed is all the more disconcerting. Of course, here comes IronZionLion to spew the talking points (Which by the way, are shared by members of the Right) "It's not about bigotry, it's about security!"

Pardon me but, bullshite!

There are numerous (and not all Jolly Englishman) foreign interests that have operational control over our ports. Suddenly Arabs want to join the game and a focus of Homeland security that has been wantonly ignored by Congress (our ports) shoves its way to the front burner.

There is no question that the UAE has significantly changed their ways since 9/11. Perhaps they haven't changed enough, but they have made significant changes. It's silly to expect an Arab country to do a 180 for us, but if they do a 120, we have to reward them.

Bush is absolutely right. This hubhub is sending a horrible message to moderate Arab nations. Unfortunately, it was the arrogance of his Administration (flowing from him) that enabled this crisis to develop. It's politically a good thing to allow this deal to go through. If it really doesn't present a security threat (and I don't believe it does), then there is no reason why the Administration could not have short-stopped this furor.

How many times do you need to get bit in the ass before you realize that you can't ignore that Doberman who runs free on your block?

Whether or not Bush has any respect for Congress, if he has respect for his agenda, he should not be minimizing the ability of opponents to derail it. Only an idiot or an arrogant horse's ass could not have anticipated the political fall out of this issue. The irrefutably proper course of action would have been to bring Congress into the decision. Sure there would have been the odd cynical opportunist who ranked their political futures above the interests of the nation, but they would have been the odd men and women out.

Bush's comment that [paraphrased] "Those who oppose this deal (read Congress) should realize their government has scrutinized it and found it OK." was the height of arrogance, AND political stupidity.

It angers and frustrates me that Bush and his administration will, so often, derail policy with which I agree because of their arrogance and stupidity. This is clearly such a case.

Having given Bush his share of the blame, I can't leave out the Democrats and their syncophants (e.g. IronZionLion). Sure W has opened a political door for you, but do you have to walk through? Are you so desirous of scoring political points that you will not only ignore the strategic interests of your nation (proven long ago) but also ignore the tenets to which you rhetorically cling with such passion?

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no, gwb is completely retarded..... cjhsa is a mental giant in comparison... of course who isn't?

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IronLionZion wrote:

cjhsa wrote:
Eat me moron.

Nice comma use.

IronLionZion wrote:

cjhsa wrote:
Eat me moron.

Nice comma use.

I love to abuse CJ any time I can, but in this case ... I think he has a more than valid point! My reaction to your comment to CJ is to FUK OFF! He is spot on, and your bullshit adds nothing to the discussion!!

Anon

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Thanks, I live for abuse.

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cjhsa wrote:

Thanks, I live for abuse.

i know a couple of girls you might enjoy meeting... high dollar but very skilled....

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Finn d'Abuzz wrote:

Kudos to e_brown and drewdad

Suppressed gag reflex for IronZionLion.

Poor marks for the Bush Administration.

Democrats like Hillary and Chuckie Schummer may or may not be bigots but they are certainly cynical opportunists. In some way, that they have flown by the issue of bigotry at mach speed is all the more disconcerting. Of course, here comes IronZionLion to spew the talking points (Which by the way, are shared by members of the Right) "It's not about bigotry, it's about security!"

Pardon me but, bullshite!

There are numerous (and not all Jolly Englishman) foreign interests that have operational control over our ports. Suddenly Arabs want to join the game and a focus of Homeland security that has been wantonly ignored by Congress (our ports) shoves its way to the front burner.

You're right. 80% of the hubub surrounding this is just thinly vieled racism - people like cjhsa oppose the deal simply because it involved an Arab country.

However, this shouldn't distract us from the fact that there are real reasons to oppose this deal. The UAE government was one of three governments to recognize the Taliban. The UAE government has personally met with Osma Bin Laden. The UAE government has links to Al-Qaida. The UAE government allows chairites to funnel money to terrorists and madrasas in Pakistan.

You'd have us sell our ports to this country? Yet, you're all for war against Iraq based partly on it's hilarious tenuous connections to terrorism?

That's completely ridiculous.

Quote:

There is no question that the UAE has significantly changed their ways since 9/11. Perhaps they haven't changed enough, but they have made significant changes. It's silly to expect an Arab country to do a 180 for us, but if they do a 120, we have to reward them.

"Hey, the were best buds with Osma Bin Laden untill it became political suicide to support him, and yeah, they supported the Taliban, but hey, they've changed."

Hilarious.

Quote:

Bush is absolutely right. This hubhub is sending a horrible message to moderate Arab nations. Unfortunately, it was the arrogance of his Administration (flowing from him) that enabled this crisis to develop. It's politically a good thing to allow this deal to go through. If it really doesn't present a security threat (and I don't believe it does), then there is no reason why the Administration could not have short-stopped this furor.

Both Bush and Clinton ignored the role countries like UAE and Saudi Arabia play in terrorism because a) they're leaders were co-operative, b) we need thier oil. That was a huge mistake. Blocking the ports deal will send a clear message that we are not going to tolerate this type of double-faced dealings.

Quote:

Having given Bush his share of the blame, I can't leave out the Democrats and their syncophants (e.g. IronZionLion).

I know this may shock you and others in the cesspool of partisan bickering that is A2K, but I'm not a Democrat. The Democrats are only slitghtly less retarded than thier Republican counterparts, as far as I'm concerned.

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Dubai Ports: Shame on the Democrats!

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