Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Bush Reverses Himself on War on Terror
Right after the 9/11 attacks, President Bush and his administration said that we are in a long, perhaps neverending, war against terror. He keeps talking about it a lot. He invents color-coded systems to warn of terror and helps create ridiculousnesses like the one where just one wrong-way passenger can close a huge part of a major airport. He even came up with slogans such as "If you fund a terrorist, you are a terrorist.", a recursive statement which makes most of us into terrorists, including himself (the statement implies that anyone who gets gasoline at a gasoline station for his vehicle is a terrorist). Everybody has been harping on security a lot now, and Bush was said to have an advantage on security issues in the 2004 election.
Now it looks like Bush has done a big U-Turn. He wants to have approved a deal that would turn six of our largest ports over to a Dubaian company, even though hijacker money went through that country and two of the hijackers on 2001/9/11 were Dubaians. If he is talking security, why does he want this deal approved? Even Republicans in Congress are turning against him now. You can't have it both ways, Bush. You can't snoop on who Googles what or what we check out at libraries and at the same time turn our ports over to Middle Eastern companies with links to the 9/11 attack. The picture I get of Bush now is the one that Michael Moore paints: someone who hobnobs with the Arabs and oil companies.
Actually, John Nichols has what I think is the best answer: no company should be entrusted with our national security, no matter its nationality. The objectives of a port are to enable safe shipment of goods to and from foreign countries. He says the US Government should administer them. I agree with him. Reject the Dubai deal and put all the ports in the United States in the hands of the government of the United States of America.
Now it looks like Bush has done a big U-Turn. He wants to have approved a deal that would turn six of our largest ports over to a Dubaian company, even though hijacker money went through that country and two of the hijackers on 2001/9/11 were Dubaians. If he is talking security, why does he want this deal approved? Even Republicans in Congress are turning against him now. You can't have it both ways, Bush. You can't snoop on who Googles what or what we check out at libraries and at the same time turn our ports over to Middle Eastern companies with links to the 9/11 attack. The picture I get of Bush now is the one that Michael Moore paints: someone who hobnobs with the Arabs and oil companies.
Actually, John Nichols has what I think is the best answer: no company should be entrusted with our national security, no matter its nationality. The objectives of a port are to enable safe shipment of goods to and from foreign countries. He says the US Government should administer them. I agree with him. Reject the Dubai deal and put all the ports in the United States in the hands of the government of the United States of America.
