The dirty little secret behind the UAE port security flap
Politicians and the media are loudly decrying the Bush administration's proposal to turn over port security to a firm owned by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) - a country with ties to terrorists. They are talking tough about national security - but almost no one is talking about what may have fueled the administration's decision to push forward with this deal: the desire to move forward Big Money's "free" trade agenda.
There is no better proof that our government takes its orders from corporate interests than these kinds of moves. That's what this UAE deal is all about - the mixture of the right-wing's goal of privatizing all government services (even post 9/11 port security!) with the political Establishment's desire to make sure Tom-Friedman-style "free" trade orthodoxy supersedes everything. This is where the culture of corruption meets national security policy - and, more specifically, where the unbridled corruption of on-the-take politicians are weakening America's security.
The fact that no politicians and almost no media wants to even explore this simple fact is telling. Here we have a major U.S. security scandal with the same country we are simultaneously negotiating a free trade pact with, and no one in Washington is saying a thing. The silence tells you all you need to know about a political/media establishment that is so totally owned by Big Money interests they won't even talk about what's potentially at the heart of a burgeoning national security scandal.
Here's a blast from the past:
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.
Here's the kicker from Americablog:
Bush didn't even know about the deal with the UAE that's he is now defending
Kinda sums up the whole Bush administration. Now the White House says Bush didn't even know about the UAE port security deal til it was a done deal. But he's going to defend it -- even to the point of a veto:
President Bush was unaware of the pending sale of shipping operations at six major U.S. seaports to a state-owned business in the United Arab Emirates until the deal already had been approved by his administration, the White House said Wednesday.
If this is White House spin to make Bush look better, they're wrong. It makes him look even worse and more out of touch. They've screwed up again.
Lemme see if I got this: Big Money wants to give away - pardon me, sell, they never give nothin' away - our National Security and Bush has to go along or they'll take away the shiny toy they bought him - the United States of America. They're so sure of their ownership of him that they they don't even bother to tell him! (Note: I don't believe that part but it may be true.) The CIA, who will happily blow away whole neighborhoods of common folk if there's the teensiest chance to get #862 in the line of Osama's No.2s & 3s, won't (more likely told not to) target Osama himself because they might get four or five of the Chimp's daddy's business partners. Is that about it? Am I missing anything? Of course I am, but I'm sure there'll be more later.
If the UAE, Dubai's Royal Family, the Carlyle Group, whoever, wants to open a chain of Al Qonvenience stores, that's one thing. Fine. Let 'em. But this port deal is absurd. Like Fixer says, after four years of Bush doing his best to turn the people of this country into stone pussies with fear of
We ain't heard anywhere near the last of this amazing fuck-up. Get Bush's keys away from him. He's in no condition to keep driving this country. This could be the cliff we've been waiting for. Do we stop this bastard and his madness, or do we argue who gets to be Thelma and who gets to be Louise?
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