Jersey-Waving on the Ports

It has certainly been interesting to watch some conservatives wave the GOP jersey on the sale of port operating leases to a company owned by the United Arab Emirates. Rush Limbaugh has been the most prominent of these, stretching himself into a pretzel to justify this Bush Administration blunder. He's not alone in the quixotic fight to justify the patently stupid.

Let me immediately dispense with arguments for this deal:

1. The UAE are our allies in the War on Terror.

So are the Russians. So are the French. So are the Saudis. So are the Yemenis. There are allies, and then there are allies. I wouldn't trust any of the above with day-to-day operations of our port facilities.

2. Those who oppose the UAE running our ports are racists and/or religious bigots.

I doubt many of us would take issue with Kuwaitis running the show, or even the Nation of Islam if it came down to that. Muhammed Ali can run 'em; fine by me. The Japanese could run them. The Taiwanese could run them. In short, I doubt there'd be much flap over anyone running these ports who had a decent amount of history of pro-American deeds and words (well, that probably excludes Farrakhan's bunch). UAE is much too close to terrorists (not to mention Osama bin Laden himself) to qualify. That would be true if the emirates were composed entirely of Methodist albinos.

3. Security won't be impacted by this transition.

Really? Why not let the Palestinians run the ports then? How about the Libyans? The Egyptians run Alexandria just fine, don't they? Surely they could run Baltimore. Let's get Hezbollah on the horn--they know how to get things done.

4. The UAE deserves to be rewarded for supporting us in the GWOT.

I'm sure they do. Right after the Australians, the Brits, the Poles, and other Coalition allies who risked life and limb to support our global efforts to destroy the terror masters. We can reward them in many other ways than handing over the keys to our ports.

5. The UAE has given us very favorable terms for port operations.

Wouldn't al Qaeda give us an even better deal to get access to the ports or knowledge of our security measures within them? Wouldn't they be willing to make it worth somebody's while---say, an emirate prince with ties to OBL---to obtain this information?

6. The Democrats just want to destroy Bush.

Yes, they do. That has no bearing whatsoever on whether or not Bush is right on this issue.

7. We're not protecting the ports well enough---we've got other things to worry about.

True. Having the UAE run port operations will not increase port security. Many of us feel it will undermine it.

8. We sold F-16s to UAE under the Clinton Administration.

We sell F-16s to many nations. We are not afraid of these nations flying F-16s. We can detect them and shoot them down long before they become a threat. The container housing terrorists or WMD is much, much harder to detect and eliminate.

9. We need to make friends in the Muslim world.

Sounds like a pro-Iraq War argument to me. We've made plenty of friends in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and in Lebanon. We need fewer friends in Saudi Arabia, since our "friends" there have a marked tendency to play lots of racquetball with Colin Powell and buy lots of ex-Congressmen so they can have a free hand to support terrorism globally.

The reality is that ultimately what we need is the Muslim world to stop sending maniacs to kill Americans. I frankly don't care who likes or dislikes America so long as they are not slaughtering our countrymen. That's not confined to the Muslim world, either---Canada can go French for all I care.

10. Jimmy Carter supports Bush.

And there's the best argument yet for scuttling this deal.

We are at war. There is simply no need to do this.