US Ports and the UAE

I caught a quick piece on Good Morning America about a proposal by the Bush administration to allow a company from the United Arab Emerates to run six US ports. Everyone is ticked at the President. Here's my initial take (based on 3 minutes of tv coverate). The Republicans would oppose anyone of Arab descent running anything in the US. If we went to war with Japan all over again, they'd probably re-incarcerate all the Japanese on US soil too. The Republicans haven't done enough to separate their image with that of a racist political party. They are more than willing to condemn an entire nation because of the acts of two of its citizens (um...anyone seen the murder rate in DC lately?).

The Democrats see this as a chance to make life in the Middle East so miserable for Bush that he has to pull out of Iraq. Never mind that we shouldn't have gone there in the first place (look up the Just War Doctrine to see what I mean), but now that we're there, most people think we should fix the situation...except the Democrats. They'd rather have peace now that peace for years to come. By embarassing Bush throughout the Middle East (and giving the Muslim fundamentalists yet another reason to protest and riot against the US), they see this as an opportunity to make Bush's goals in Iraq so impossible that he might as well pull out now and save US lives (though not US pride).

All in all, its about politics and race. That's two of the three forbidden topics (religion is the third, and I mentioned it ever so briefly as well). Of course, as time goes on there might actually be something/someone worth listening to in this debate. Right now its about getting your own way and posing for the cameras.