by Shavana Abruzzo
It’s a deal with the devil. A protective federal law – enacted in 1950 and amended 38 years later to allow the president to block any foreign acquisition, merger or takeover of a United States corporation or interest deemed a threat to national security – is being tossed overboard by the Bush administration in favor of outsourcing its operations at six American ports to an Arab nation with ties to terrorism. Call it ignorance, nonchalance or plain ol’ fashioned American political correctness, but the nod of approval to a recent $6.8 billion purchase of a British port company by the United Arab Emirates negates the vital Exon-Florio provision of the Defense Production Act, and essentially gives the small but commanding Arabian nation a free rein to America’s ever-vulnerable maritime industry. If the deal pushes onward and unblocked, the grim prospects for the rest of us will be a dime-a-dozen – from poisoned water supplies and handy suicide missions to a proliferation of other soft and hard target terrorist acts on America’s soil and off her shores. Supporters of the boggling sale, which would affect commercial ports in New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, New Orleans, Miami and Philadelphia, can crow from dusk to dawn that security procedures will remain intact because the terminal operator does not come in direct contact with the cargo. Woo-woo. The fact remains that the tiny country the size of Maine is a grossly misjudged ally of the United States. Its resume glitters with all that is not gold. Two 9-11 hijackers were citizens of the United Arab Emirates and 96 percent of its population is Muslim. The former acquainted the world with the mindset of Islamo-thugs. The latter familiarized the world with the mindset of their appeasers. Make no mistake, jihadists have their cornerstone of support in every nook and cranny of the Muslim world – from Great Britain and Denmark to Indonesia, the United Arab Emirates and beyond. Years prior to the World Trade Center terror attacks, this column wrote extensively about the vulnerability of the western world at the hands of its eastern counterpart. The west’s superiority complex has never sat well with the east’s comparative inferiority complex. So much so, that in recent centuries, the only significant new invention put forth by eastern Muslim nations, via their nationals and religious brethren, is an international bloodlust for terrorism. For reasons only a psychiatrist or Forrest Gump can deduce, living a virtuous Muslim life (as espoused till the cows come home by the devout and mainstream, alike) has done little to decontaminate modern-day Islam’s poisoned reputation. Make no mistake, the religious ideals and unbridled apathy of Muslim nations will not allow them to befriend the west – nor sincerely ally with it. Their actions on the world stage have proven that death and destruction are a popular antidote to their otherwise stillborn existence. The United Arab Emirates is a Muslim nation. Any “moderate” stance it may be credited with is undeserved because the terms “reasonable,” “judicious,” “fair” and “temperate” are not in the Muslim vocabulary when it comes to tolerating the perceived and imagined “evils” of the west. In the world of top-dollar deals, little makes sense. However, to grant a Muslim nation an “EZ-Pass” to the Free World’s ports – particularly during its defenseless period – is an exercise in insanity and extreme peril that we “infidels” may live to regret. E-mail “A Britisher’s View” at BritView@courierlife.net. All letters become the property of Courier-Life Publications and are subject to publication unless otherwise specified; please include your name, address and daytime telephone number for verification.
