Who knows? They might actually get the idea that "you're either with us, or you're against us." How racist. What a tragedy this has turned out to be.

First Harriet, now Dubai; the Far Right is driving us right off a cliff.

Yes, the two great victories of the far Right: stopping a Christian conservative court nominee and giving Congress veto power over free trade deals.

Not to mention that they've been with us. If this costs the Navy important basing rights in the UAE, is the "Far Right" going to take responsibility for that, too?

Well, you know how stupid the far Right is: they thought the slogan was, if you're with us we're against you....

We won because a bunch of folks agreed with us. An argument was put forth, and it won the debate. This rankles the Buckley set to no end.

You can always win politically by playing the race card, it's just bad policy every time.

The Buckley set opposed the deal.

An "argument?" Is that what the kids are calling it these days?

You guys are pouting so much I could my coffee cup on your lower lip. The more I listen, the more I become convinced that your seething at the "far right" is psychological "transference" or "projection" away from the party that deserves the blame.

The fumbling of the Bush Administration blew this deal as much as any nasty racist "far righters" did.

1. You (OJ) are correct on the merits of the issue. So much so, that it didn't take much to convince me, and I'm pretty "far right."

2. The NSA surveilance issue could be viewed as a far more "iffy" proposition in the public mind (I could argue both ways), yet, Bush seems to have had few problems dealing with it.

Could it be that one of the reasons is that he at least briefed Congressional leadership? If he hadn't briefed Congress, he would have taken a much bigger hit on the surveillance.

The fact that this deal may have had some very positive Security components to it make the bumbling even more unseemly.
__

You guys post line after line about how the left is destroying themselves by calling the voters "stupid" - but do the same thing when YOUR issue doesn't get past the post.

It's a politician's job to make sure they have the votes to win an election or an issue. If a policy fails, they didn't do their job.

Put the blame where it is due.

Bruno:

The public supports the wire taps for the same reason it opposes the port deal--it's directed against Arabs. The difference is that one is good policy and one bad. Both are supported by racism though.

This is neither a "far right" problem nor is it racism. It is war.

Wars cannot be won without moral mobilzation. At the popular level, this requires a level of maipulation of the symbol system whereby the enemy is, in a word, demonized.

Civilians imagine many foolish things about war. One of the most foolish is that the national will to fight may be fine-tuned or even turned on and off as wished.

We did not bring about the Reformation of Shintoism by shrinking from the rousing of national will.

Lou:

You're calling for immoral mobilization. A war against the Arab race would be more evil than a victory of Islamicism.

Lou, well put: this is war. We didn't use a Tokyo salvage company to clean up the fiery remains of Pearl Harbor not because we were "racists," but because we were at war.

According to OJ and Laura Bush, Harriet didn't get to the Supreme Court because of "sexism" not because she was an utterly mediocre choice who would grow into another Anthony Kennedy. Those who lent aid-and-comfort to Bin Laden withdraw their bid to buy our ports because we're "racists" not because it's utterly inappropriate and morally confusing.

The condescension from the Rockefeller Republicans is pretty thick. It will only get worse as the Democrats disappear into irrelevancy and the Republican party's own fissures become more pronounced.

Those who lent aid-and-comfort to Bin Laden withdraw their bid to buy our ports because we're "racists" not because it's utterly inappropriate and morally confusing.

They were al Qaeda's banker BEFORE 9/11, not after.

Are they supposed to be psychic, and have "visions" about what their customers might do in the future ?
It's not like they taught the 9/11 highjackers how to fly - by your standard, shouldn't we have imprisoned the owners and instructors of the AMERICAN flight schools who abetted the 9/11 operatives ?
(As in fact we did with the doctor who unknowingly treated John Wilkes Booth after his attack on Lincoln).

After 9/11, the UAE has been helping us.
That deserves recognition.

Further, Dubai wasn't "buying" American ports, just taking over the contracts to operate them.

It will only get worse as the Democrats disappear into irrelevancy and the Republican party's own fissures become more pronounced.

That seems likely.

Posted by: Michael Herdegen at March 11, 2006 3:07 PM

When we were at war with Japan, we didn't mistake either China or the Philippines for the enemy.

the similar '80s hysteria over the the rising Japanese (Yellow) menace

Bleah. Now that you've reminded me of Michael Crichton's Rising Sun, I'm probably going to have to go liberate a used copy from somewhere and burn it to exorcise the demon...

www.brothersjudd.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/reviews.detail/book_id/716

http://www.brothersjudd.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/reviews.detail/book_id/716

Palmkroft:

It wasn't just sexism, it was mostly that she's an Evangelical so the neocons hate her.

Oppsition to Dubai is just racist.

OJ: You said "opposition to dubai is just racist," the people who turned the tide on this issue call it "profiling." The ACLU will welcome you with open arms.

They were al Qaeda's banker BEFORE 9/11, not after.

Are they supposed to be psychic, and have "visions" about what their customers might do in the future?

Well, given that before 9/11 Al-Qaeda(sp?) was responible for the murders of Americans in Somalia, the murder of US diplomats and hundreds of Africans in the East African embassy bombings and the murder of nearly a score of men in the U.S.S. Cole bombing, they might have had some inkling that their client would murder Americans in the future, too.

Personally, I think decent arguments can be made both for and against the ports deal. But the notion that it is inherently racist to question the wisdom of permitting a foreign government responsible for the education of two of the 9-11 hijackers to operate a port terminal almost within eyesight of the Twin Towers memorial is...uh....questionable, at best?

Palm:

Yes, the inability to distinguish between criminal profiling and treating all Arabs as criminals is racist.

C.:

Try to make one. There isn't a decent argument against. For instance, US banks dsid business with al WQaeda and its affiliates pre-911, so we'd have to ban American companies from running the ports. And as many of the al Qaeda terrorists to strike the past few years were raised and educated in Britain as anywhere, so we'd be safer transferring control from a British compoany to a Dubaian one. But, of course, this has nothing to do with al Qaeda or safety/security--it's just race.

Of course, Dubai got into this by buying a British company that is currently running a terminal. Britain has produced more suicide bombers than Dubai.

"Britain has produced more suicide bombers than Dubai"

No, Islam has produced the suicide bombers and Dubai contains more Muslims than Britain. Certainly not all Muslims are Suicide Bombers, but it would be helpful to properly describe the motivations accurately. Suicide bombers are not motivated by British values.

h:

Suicide bombers are certainly influenced more by Western ideas than by Islamic and they're more often born, raised &/or educated in Europe than in Dubai.

See how intellectual collapse follows the confounding of race and culture.

David: If China and the Phillipines had been Shintoist, we would have had to fight them.

Oj: I am certainly not calling for war against the "Arab race," for whom I wish nothing but the best. I know what the "best" means in this context, and I think that we all do.

Reformation: I had thought we had been in strong agreement about its importance. We should be aiming at Reformation of the spiritual jailhouse that is Islam.

For now, we are at war with an idea, not a race. Wars are won by will, not nuance.

Lou:

Quite. So whipping up sentiment against the port deal just because Dubai happens to be an Arab/Islamic nation is asinine, no?

Untrue OJ. The formative years of all the 9/11 terrorist was in Arab countries. None of the suicide bomber's in Iraq, Israel have connection with Western Countries that I know of.

Of course the 9/11 terrorist had to be familiar with US and Europe in order to carry out terrorist acts in those countries, but it was the devotion to Osama Bin Laden's view of Islam that inspired them.

Bin Laden was a Qutbist, and thereby Westernized.

The 7/07 bombers and Richard Reid were Brits.

Brits are more dangerous by any objective measure than Dubaians.

Qutbist...yeah that's deep OJ. He probably read a book in English also.

What unique British value, legal, moral, religious, political would inspire suicidal terrorism against innocents by the British people, that Osama and his followers would want to emulate. Because that is what you are trying to imply. You also avoid the rather obvious point I made that Suicide bombing against innocent citizens is regularly done in Israel, and Iraq. Not by westernized Arabs, but Arab, Arabs.

(Dubai is an undemocratic country by the way which is precisely the State of Affairs that Bush's policy is trying to undermine. Furthermore if language means anything they are not an ally of the US, but merely a neutral, which is prudent enough to aid us. "the shah always falls")

Europe is nihilist, so suicide bombers fit perfectly. Many of the bombers are in fact Brits.

Yes, Israel shouldn't let Arabs run its ports--it needs to be racist.

Dubai is an ally by any normal meaning of the word and is better at checking cargo than we are.

"Europe is nihilst..etc"

Then we should see non-arab Brits use suicide bombing as a tactic against innocent civilians.

Like Richard Reid?

Oj: Thus "Arab/Islamic nation" becomes a "slash" expression--even more confounded than a hyphenated one, we should say.

Not one more question should be asked: cross-examination is over, and nothing remains but to administer the coup-de-gras on closing.

Now the point has been admitted: "race" is being used as a synomym for culture. The tactic is supposed to be that those of us who may not agree with need or desirability of accommodating the Spiritual Jailhouse are going to get wobbly because we don't want to be known as "racists."

You have done your work much too well for that to work now, having gathered around yourself a circle of sharp minds who can separate the meanings of words.

We reformed Shinto once. Be ready to love the people of the Arab race enough to liberate them.

Lou:

Yes, if you choose to treat all Arab Muslims as if they were Islamicists thenm you are a racist. Islam is an ally, not an enemy. We will need its help to cleanse the Arab world of the Western ideology we exported to it that has contaminated Islam. The Dubais of the world are on our side, not our opponents' side.