Dan,

Your posts on the ports situation are bordering on intellectually dishonest. You've analyzed the issue completely in a vacuum- not once have you considered this in conjunction with the rest of Bush's policies on the war on terrorism.

He's being a hypocrite. Be honest and call him on it.

I am a true blue (or red) conservative, and I am delighted that the process ran like it should have. I am disgusted with the Democrats attempt to use nativism to turn this into an issue based on misleading soundbites.

Robert Schwartz, why do you think it's Democrats doing it?

Back when the issue was giving the panama canal to the red chinese, it was a Republican issue. Why isn't a Republican issue this time?

Why would the media pay attention to Democrats complaining when they've ignored Democrat complaints for 5+ years? It's Republicans who created the issue for the media, and the media quote a few Democrats since they're in line with Republican goals this time.

The media have turned against Bush because he's a lame duck now. The guys who're going to pick the next Republican presidential candidate are deciding who to pick, and they'll make him look good while they make Bush look bad.

Nothing to see here yet, move along, move along.

"This decision was not made by policy principals, but rather assistant secretarie or deputy assistant secretaries;"

"The Bushies did not have a high profile, there was no stovepiping from neoconservatives, and the interagency process seemed to work pretty well. This is, in other words, an exemple of how good government is supposed to operate. "

"Bureaucrats were telling politics what to do, rather than vice versa. This is exactly the kind of thing the Bush administration was not supposed to let happen"

Last I checked Assistant Secretaries, Deputy Assistant Secretaries, and much of their staff are political appointees, the glue to the republican constituencies, whether they be neocons, theocons, or $cons. In this case, it looks like a $con deal. Unfortunately, as we have learned with everything from Iraq to congressional earmarks, to the drug prescription plan, to the Abramoff/Delay issues, everything is for sale in DC.

It seems to me, that there is another story that has not surfaced here (yet?). Who did the Emiratis funnel money to in order to get, or ensure that they get, that deal?

Who, specifically, are those Assistant Secretaties and Deputy Assistant Secretaries? Where do they come from? Who are they tied to? Who were they making a favor for by pushing the deal through? Who out of the government was pushing it? What money or other consideration did they receive?

Darwin,

The Asst. Secretary from Treasury (Lowery) who led the CFIUS process is a career guy. The key people within the Coast Guard and CBP who looked at this are career people. There are some who were involved who are political appointees, but it's tough to generalize.

Also, I really don't think this is a liberal/conservative issue. Anyone who believes in good governance, and the civil service instead of the spoils system - liberal or conservative - should be happy with a process that works this way.

Firms flock to Abu Dhabi for largest arms bazaar in Mideast
U.A.E. buys $358 million worth of weaponry

By Agence France Presse (AFP)
Monday, February 14, 2005

...The U.A.E is due to take delivery in May of the first batch of 80 US-built F-16 Falcon fighters purchased in 2000 for $6.4 billion. Emiratis are being trained to fly the sophisticated, multi-role "Block 60" fighters both here and in Arizona.

The oil-rich Emirates, in the shadow of Iraq and Iran, with which it has a dispute over three Gulf islands, had purchased 30 French Mirage 2000-9 combat planes in 1998 as part of a self-reliance policy.

The $3.2 billion contract with France's Dassault included the modernization of 33 other Mirages....

...More than 50 countries are taking part in the seventh IDEX fair, where more than 900 exhibitors, including U.S. giants Boeing and Lockheed Martin, are displaying their wares.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

U.S. seeks to formalize military links with U.A.E.
Emirates to take delivery of first of 80 American F-16 Falcon fighters in May

By Lydia Georgi

Thursday, January 13, 2005
Lydia Georgi
Agence France Presse

ABU DHABI: The United States and the United Arab Emirates have held the first meeting of a Joint Military Commission (JMC) aimed at formalizing their growing defense cooperation, a senior Pentagon official said Wednesday. Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs Peter Rodman said the U.A.E. would take delivery of the first batch of 80 U.S.-built F-16 Falcon fighters in May and confirmed that an Emirati military air flight training center involving "outside" countries was now operational.
"I'm here for what we hope will be the first of a regular series of bilateral meetings with our friends in the U.A.E.," Rodman said after he led a team from the Pentagon, Centcom and State Department in two days of talks with Emirati military officials headed by newly named armed forces chief of staff General Hamad Mohammed Thani al-Rumaithi.

"We have these forums with other friends around the world ... to talk about cooperation, the strategic situation in the neighborhood, sometimes arms sales ... It's a way of formalizing interaction." Rodman said the JMC meeting was the first time Washington and Abu Dhabi had "started this formal institution of cooperation, and it's a good thing because it reflects the growth of our cooperation." Rodman further said the U.S. has "a variety of agreements, informal and formal," with the U.A.E. He would not elaborate on their "good, quiet cooperation" or talk about logistical accords dating back to the 1991 Gulf war during which U.S. aerial refuelling tankers and C-130 transporters used facilities in the Gulf country. "I don't want to get into the specifics, but we are very pleased at the (military) cooperation that we have," said Rodman, who also held talks with Defense Minister and Dubai Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashed al-Maktoum.

"There are a lot of arrangements that we're still discussing, and a lot of things have been done over the years that we are expanding like exercises and training, cooperation in the war on terrorism," he said. "There are technical agreements on some things ... Beyond that this has been under discussion between our governments - what do we want, if (it should be) something more formal. But it was not the focus of my discussion," he said.
"The United States is not interested in having permanent bases in this part of the world. What we want to have is relationships that could give us access in some emergency, access to a facility by mutual consent" he added. Rodman said the U.S. hopes to deliver the first batch of the sophisticated, multi-role "Block 60" fighters purchased by the U.A.E. in March 2000 at a cost of $6.4 billion in May. Emirati pilots are being trained to fly the F-16s both here and in Arizona. The U.S. official said an Air Warfare Center for military air flight training was now operational in Al-Dhafra air base in the emirate of Abu Dhabi and was meant to serve air force pilots from across the Gulf region, not just the U.A.E. "It's something we hope a lot of the Gulf countries will benefit from. A lot of outside countries are involved (in training pilots), including the United States," he said.
A U.S. Air Force official told AFP over a year ago, when the center was still being set up, that the effort involved Britain and France, in addition to the United States and the U.A.E. In the wake of the Gulf war to drive Iraq from Kuwait, the U.A.E. launched an ambitious defense program which included the purchase in 1994 of more than 400 Leclerc tanks from the French firm GIAT. The affluent emirates also purchased 30 French Mirage 2000-9 combat planes in 1998 as part of a self-reliance policy.

U.S. kicks off free trade talks with U.A.E.
Washington brushes off Saudi arabia's concerns

Compiled by Daily Star staff
Wednesday, March 09, 2005

The head of the U.S. team which kicked off talks on a free trade pact with Emirati counterparts on Tuesday brushed off Saudi concerns that such bilateral deals hinder Gulf economic integration, saying Riyadh's turn to sign up will come. "We in no way see this as threatening to the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council)," Assistant U.S. Trade Representative Catherine Novelli told reporters after a first round of talks in Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates capital.
"We strongly support the GCC. We've talked with the Saudis directly about that. We certainly do foresee down the road ... a region-wide free trade agreement (FTA) that would include Saudi Arabia and certainly would include a bilateral agreement with Saudi Arabia," she said.
Novelli said that the U.A.E.'s already soaring economy could get a further boost from
unfettered access to America's vast consumer market.
America shares the Emirates' vision that "open markets are the way to bring prosperity to all people," she said.
"The Emirates is clearly in a place where their vision of open markets and ours is almost in perfect alignment," Novelli added.
Currently, Washington enjoys a trade surplus with Abu Dhabi. In 2003, the U.S. sold goods worth $3.5 billion here - mainly weapons, aircraft and medical instruments - while importing oil, textiles and other goods valued at $1.1 billion.
The negotiations put the U.A.E. on course to become the second GCC member after Bahrain to conclude an FTA with the United States.
Similar talks with Oman are due to start shortly after the end of the first, three-day round with Abu Dhabi, and Novelli said Washington had had "very serious discussions with Qatar and Kuwait" on similar agreements.
This appears to leave Saudi Arabia out in the cold, and the oil giant made its displeasure clear during last December's GCC summit in Manama, arguing that bilateral free trade deals derail economic integration plans it agreed with its five GCC partners.
Contrary to previous GCC summits, the Manama gathering ended without referring to the bloc's plans for a monetary union this year, a common market in 2007 and a single currency by the beginning of 2010.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb
It also failed to state an intention on the part of member states to clear obstacles impeding a smooth implementation of a Gulf customs union launched in January 2003.
"We do not see this [FTAs] as in any way hindering integration, but actually [as] locking in very high levels of openness which can only help foster integration," Novelli said.
The U.S. official said eventual FTA negotiations with Saudi Arabia would have to await Riyadh's accession to the World Trade Organization, since the free trade pacts are "built on WTO obligations."
Novelli echoed a denial by her counterpart on the Emirati side that Washington had attached any political conditions to the proposed free trade pact with Abu Dhabi.
"My understanding is that the GCC has itself said that it does not support the secondary and tertiary boycott of Israel," Novelli said when asked if the U.S. side would urge the U.A.E. to ease off the boycott of Israel or agree to the opening of an Israeli trade office in Abu Dhabi.
"There is nothing in this agreement that talks about representational offices of other countries or any such thing as that. However, [how] the private sector develops its business is basically up to the private sector," she said.
U.A.E. Financial and Industrial Affairs Minister Mohammed Khalfan bin Kharbash, who co-chairs his country's negotiating team, said Monday the U.A.E. was not committing itself to any changes in foreign policy by entering into the free trade talks.
The statement followed reports that Washington would ask Abu Dhabi to drop the trade boycott of Israel.
Novelli could not set a timeline for the talks to bear fruit, but said the Americans were "ready to move as quickly as the Emiratis are ready to move." She hailed U.A.E. economic policies as "a good example of what open markets can do to create jobs, to create prosperity, to bring in investments, to enhance a base of technology." - AP, AFP

When the story first hit the MSM it was cast as a security transfer to the UAE. Since then the truth, that it's a commercial operations transfer, has surfaced. The Coast Guard hasn't been sold, it still belongs to the DoHS.

Interesting perspective. I don't think all the facts are in yet, though I'm leaning toward Dan's view.

I do think there are several open questions remaining, though. For example, I'm not sure that the Coast Guard's concerns were widely known or addressed. At yesterday's Commerce Committee hearing, the Deputy Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Michael Jackson, testified that his agency had not even heard of the Coast Guard report (let alone reviewed it) before reaching a decision on the application.

This is the kind of deep inside baseball that never becomes an issue unless/until politics intervenes. We'll need just a bit of time to know who the players are and what they were up to.

Dan,

You continue to assume that the merits of the sale have any relationship to the fuss over it.

The fuss is really about the American people having gotten close to, if not over, their limit of tolerance of federal and Bush administration failures in the information war, whose failure to fight back at all against the cartoon riot scheme of Islamic radicals seems to have been the triggering factor.

The UAE port sale was just the first vehicle that came along for the American people to vent their feelings once those had finally been ignited.

It may be that you do not believe the American people as an entity exists. You would certainly be in good company on this - the attitude is shared by the Bush administration.

But if you do not admit that a Jacksonian uprising can happen, you will always be caught flat-footed when it happens.

Taken into context, this sounds like it is a case of...

Live by the misleading soundbite.
Die by the misleading soundbite...

From the description of Jacksonian, I guess I'm one of them. Hence, I'm all for Jacksonian uprisings. When they are warranted.

And that just doesn't seem to be the case. This issue seems more an attempt to inflame my Jacksonian tendencies by misstating the problem.

"When the story first hit the MSM it was cast as a security transfer to the UAE. Since then the truth, that it's a commercial operations transfer, has surfaced. The Coast Guard hasn't been sold, it still belongs to the DoHS."

The things in the Jackson article highlight a lot of what is right in this country and what has lead us to be the nation that we are. Not that "Jeffersonianism" wasn't a big part as well.

1) This decision was not made by policy principals, but rather assistant secretarie or deputy assistant secretaries;

2) The CFIUS process worked. Some homeland security agencies, like the Coast Guard, raised concerns -- and those concerns were addressed in negotiations with DPW;

3) Neither Bush nor his cabinet played any role in the decision until the very end of the process.

I don't see the problem. Upper management is supposed to set the policies. Middle management is supposed to enforce the policies. Bush and his cabinet were not involved in the process because there was no overriding concern that needed the attention of the President of the US.

This seems like a straight-forward process that worked as it should in a non-political manner, until people started throwing around politics.

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