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February 23, 2006

Laura Ingraham - Laura Talks to Jim Glassman About the Ports

by Ferdinand T Cat

Today on Laura Ingraham's show she had a long discussion with Jim Glassman about this column in which he said some pretty nasty things about people who oppose the sale of six U.S. ports to Dubai of the United Arab Emirates. Despite Laura's initial anger, the conversation ended on a fairly friendly note.

Laura came out against the port sale from the beginning, but Glassman raised several points that caused her to reconsider her opposition. In particular, UAE has been a staunch supporter of the U.S. effort in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Dubai's home port is one of the Navy's safe harbors in the Persian Gulf. To her credit (and this is why I like her) Laura kept an open mind and conceded one of Glassman's points: we want the UAE to be our friend.

The Bush administration has done a terrible job of selling the American public on this sale, and that is causing a backlash in Congress. But President Bush has a serious problem in dealing with the UAE, as the Seattle Times points out in the article cited above.

The United Arab Emirates is a U.S. military partner in the global war on terrorism, but the relationship is so politically sensitive in the UAE that the Pentagon does not openly discuss details.

In other words, we have a good relationship with the UAE's government, but not its people. The UAE is actually composed of seven autonomous regions (one of which is Dubai). The rulers of the regions form a Supreme Council that decides issues affecting the country as a whole. The UAE has a high standard of living and a low unemployment rate, but almost three-fourths of the adult labor force consists of foreign nationals. So, total unemployment is 3%, but unemployment among citizens is 15%. The Emirate of Dubai is committed to being a part of the Western world, which means we can probably trust them, but that 15% represents a fertile ground for anti-Western sentiment.

So maybe we want to do everything we can to help the pro-Western government of Dubai, and maybe the President did a lousy job of handling this sale, but it's easy to understand why Bush held back: Dubai doesn't want its disgruntled underclass to get upset.

I've mined this topic for humor, but I have mixed feelings about the actual sale. I want to see more cooperation between Islamic nations and the West, but the stability of Dubai rests on the shaky pillars of a foreign work force and an entrenched monarchy. The news coming out now is that the Bush Administration has all sorts of secret deals with Dubai, and that's why they thought the sale was safe. Nonetheless, the necessity of keeping those arrangements secret is the red flag on the deal: Dubai doesn't want its citizens to know about the cozy relationship with the West. Maybe instead of trying to comfort the American people about Dubai, we need to comfort the UAE people about America. I only wish I knew how to do that.

Respectfully submitted,

Ferdinand T. Cat


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Comments

Ferdy, another thought i've had on this, that perhaps you could improve on..... are there any industries in the US that are restricted to US companies? seeing as many people complain that foreign companies shouldn't be doing this type off thing, arab or not. I would tend to agree though, that the administration hasn't done a good job of presenting this, but when have they ever done that? anyhoo, just seems to me more conservatives should be concerned about the "free market" aspect of this.


Posted by: maggie katzen at February 23, 2006 9:10 PM

Most countries have farm subsidies so that in time of war they aren't dependent on foreign food.

I don't have an answer yet, but I think it's interesting that most of the informed debate on this topic is between different factions of the Right.


Posted by: Ferdy [TypeKey Profile Page] at February 24, 2006 7:20 AM

HTML is not allowed in comments; however, if you put in a raw URL (http://www.somewhere.com/page.html) it will automatically be converted to a link.. Also, it is likely your comment will not appear unless you refresh the page manually after posting it.

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