I’m sure the Dubai company running US ports is a done deal. And it doesn’t bother me from a security standpoint at all. However, I expect this will further support Bush’s base that thinks he’s done swell against terrorists.

Why?

It’s because part of that base is more rooted in racism, xenophobia and isolationism than in actual security. The end result - the erosion of Bush’s support - could eventually improve national security by getting rid of our security’s biggest fence-hole, George Bush. But I still can’t join the chorus on this one. I can’t ever be convinced that all Japanese Americans are any greater a danger because of Pearl Harbor. And the same goes for Arabs and Muslims.

I oppose the deal, simply because I consider it another example of Bush cronyism. He’s okay with oil indistry guys and Middle East royalty, because he’s an oil guy and self-perceived royalty, too.

Why doesn’t the security issue resonate with me?

1) The UAE helped fund Al Qaida? Well, so did the US. In fact, Al Qaida only exists because of our seed money.

2) The UAE may prove more loyal to Arabs or Muslim extremists? Show me the proof. All I’ve seen from Middle East monarchies is that they care little about Arabs - even their own citizens - relative to the loyalty they feel to capitalism. They love their lucre too much to sell out to any other ideology or nationality.

3) Our port security sucks. The Dubai run ports can hardly be worse than the rest of them.

I fully understand the dangers the US faces. I’ve favored a strong national defense and a strong offensive capacity as part of that. But the war on terror has distorted the reality and perception of what that means to such a degree that much of the nation is willing to use elephants to crush both mice and ice (the ice of royalists sipping Bloody Americans) while failing to see that the worrisome rodents are the rats calling the shots, and that there are freaking rhinoceroses lurking around that could do far more damage to our national viability than 90% of the terrorists ever could.

I’m far more concerned with China, Russia and Pakistan than with the 350,000 people our NSA has identified as terrorist threats. Sure, there are some Islamicists like Bin Laden and Zawahiri that are truly dangerous. But I believe we can keep their numbers small with a rational foreign policy instead of the histrionics that have been planned and fanned by anti-humanists like Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al.

Sorry, I’m skipping this anti-Dubai bandwagon, because it plays right into the hands of the rats. The only potential positive I can see in this is that it may finally provide a full discussion of how lousy our port security as a whole is.

When the day comes that a nuke is detonated from some US port, who do we trust to properly identify its source? China, Russia, North Korea, Pakistan could do it today. But if it happened, who would Bush launch a counterstrike against? The real perp? Or some nation dripping in oil wealth that he can divvy up in concert with our real attackers?

I’m sure I’ll take heat for suggesting Bush could be that big a traitor. But that’s okay. I’m sure he is.