Awash in Greenbacks
Via Pajamas Media and Orrin Judd: Washington state business leaders (well, at least the free trade believers) are unhappy with the cancellation of the Dubai ports deal:
What happens when the Middle East is awash in greenbacks with few ways to invest them in U.S.A. enterprises? With what will we buy their oil?
Business leaders decry Dubai decision
By Dominic Gates
Seattle Times aerospace reporter
Local free-trade advocates had harsh words Friday for the political tempest that led a Dubai company to back off its bid to manage cargo terminals at six U.S. ports.
"It is a victory for the bad guys," said Bill Center, president of the Washington Council on International Trade. "I can't imagine anything Osama (bin Laden) would be happier about."
What happens when the Middle East is awash in greenbacks with few ways to invest them in U.S.A. enterprises? With what will we buy their oil?
posted by Micajah | 2:36 PM
2 Comments:
C'mon, now!
Imagine if President John Kerry had announced that he wanted to hand over the operations of major American ports to a company which is controlled by the goverment of Dubai, a country with ties to terrorism. (I'll be charitable: they've good good allies since 9/11)
Tom Delay, Denny Hastert, Frank "Bomb Mecca" Tancredo et al would scream bloody murder, that the "French poodle" Kerry was selling us out to the Arabs.
Odd as it is, turns out I agree with Tony Blankley amd Pat Buchanan. Which is sort of creepy to me... :)
Yeah, this was a strange situation. When I read that Jimmy Carter was on my side this time, I had to step back and give everything another close look!!
It's not hard to imagine how things might have been with JF'gK in the oval office. The GOP went after W hammer and tong over this ports issue. They couldn't have been any rougher on a Democrat (except in the choice of rhetorical flourishes -- and the D's had that base covered this time).
As described by Richard Benedetto in an article in USA Today:
The president's arguments— that security arrangements had been worked out to his satisfaction, that Dubai was a valued ally in the war on terrorism, that its ports were visited regularly by U.S. ships, and that rejecting the ports deal would send the wrong signal as we try to win friends in the Arab world—fell on deaf ears.
Overwhelmed by the furor, DP (Dubai Ports) World pulled out of the ports deal Thursday, a day after a House committee voted 62-2 to block it. The Senate voted 51-47 Thursday to clear the way for a similar vote. The pullout announcement came only hours after Republican congressional leaders told Bush they had the votes to override his veto.
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