Ports and emirs and fear and politics

I hate to admit it, but Bush is correct about the port ownership thing. However, the position is also completely untenable in the climate of fear that he has so carefully created.

The specific port issue is a molehill. Most of our ports are run by foreign companies. The work is done mainly by Americans. The foreign owners mainly sit back and collect profits.

It's important to remember that Al Qaeda is primarily concerned not with the destruction of the USA but with overthrowing the Arab monarchies and replacing them with theocracies. The emirs who own the port company, in the interest of saving their own skins, would have nothing to do with terrorists. The UAE, as Bush points out, is an ally, and they have close cultural relations with the US as well. It's also among the more modern and cosmopolitan places in the Arab world. There's no reason to suspect ill will.

But of course, none of this matters because we fear Arabs, and our nerves are kept tightly strung by the Bush-Rove method. Bush just looks like a two-faced fool (tool?) trying to help his wealthy Arab buddies. (Remember the scenes from Farenheit 911 of Bush Sr. with his oil-sheik friends?)

Why don't they just source it out to Halliburton in a no-bid contract?