There's been lots of excitement in the media over the controversy surrounding the sale of control of our ports to the United Arab Emirates. Quite frankly we don't know whether this is a good idea or a bad one but we do know that not many arguments that have been raised against it make very much sense. People are all aflutter because the ports will be run by Arabs, but Saudi Arabia has been quietly administering nine of our ports without complaint from Chuck Schumer and other political opportunists in the Democratic party.
There is also much ululation about the fact that two of the 9/11 terrorists were from the U.A.E., but why does that mean we shouldn't allow the U.A.E. to do business with the U.S.? Timothy McVeigh was from New York state. Should New York be regarded as a threat to our national well-being? Okay, perhaps that's a bad question, but the point is that it's silly to condemn the country of origin of a terrorist. Jose Padilla is an American, after all. What should we conclude from that?
Our primary anxiety about the deal is that the Bush administration seems curiously, indeed recklessly, insoucient about protecting our borders, and the ports imbroglio just seems to be another example of their disregard for who controls access to our interior. That concern aside, however, we just don't see much in the way of argument being offered by the opponents to the deal. In fact, it seems like the Democrats just see it as an opportunity to grab some desperately needed national security cred from the president. The sudden concern for keeping all Arabs at arm's length is a bit laughable coming from the people who wax indignant over ethnic profiling at airports and the president's NSA eavesdropping program on al-Qaeda phone calls.