D.P.W. deal dead? Wait and see.

Is the Dubai Ports World deal really dead? Some Democratic members of the Senate like Chuck Schumer of New York are skeptical and so am I. The latest rumor which will likely not be followed closely by our right wing media is that D.P.W. (owned by the United Arab Emirates) will transfer fully the operations of the ports to a soley U.S. owned company. Rumor has it that KBR (Kellogg, Brown & Root) a construction and engineering company of none other than Haliburton is the company being chosen. The problem with this possible deal is KBR's link to the U.A.E. through other interests. Haliburton is still reaping the benefits of their No Bid Contract with our federal government in Iraq. Haliburton got no bid contracts to help with Katrina recovery instead of hiring local workers to rebuild. I'm sure you are aware of how little "recovery" has actually been accomplished now more than six months after Katrina.

Haliburton is clearly war profiteering. Some estimates claim that Haliburton has over charged the U.S. people in excess of $1.7 billion. It is reported by Pratap Chatterjee, managing director of CorpWatch.org, "Haliburton has a subsidiary called Service Employees International. If you work for Haliburton of Houston, your contract is signed with a company in the Cayman Islands and it's a tax dodge." Haliburton, Vice President Cheney former CEO, is corrupt and bilking the American people according to reports like the one leveled by CorpWatch.org. It would be easy yet time consuming to do an extensive blog just on Haliburton as it relates to cronyism and corruption. Cronyism and corruption is now synonymous with the republican party. The republican controlled congress will not investigate or do any type of oversight of Haliburton.

For now we will just have to wait and see what comes of this "dead Ports deal." I think what will eventually happen is that D.P.W. will not actually totally divest itself from the company that ends up in charge of port operations. But since the deal is being labeled dead the republican controlled congress will try to use this "dead Ports deal" as a false example of how they stood up to their own republican President. My guess is that going through the back door the U.A.E. will
still end up in complete control of our Ports. Access to visas into the United States which could possibly lead to terrorists getting into our country is the big issue here. Terrorists could bring a nuclear weapon into the country and use it on us. After all, we can't repeat it enough, 2 of the 911 hijackers were from the U.A.E. Nearly all if not all of the money used to fund 911 came through the banks of the U.A.E. The U.A.E. was one of only three nations to recognize the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan. In 1999 Clinton had a chance to take out Osama bin laden but the CIA advised against the bombing because half of the U.A.E. royal family was visiting him at that time.

What really irks me is that today when speaking amongst newspaper reporters Bush said he worries about how this "dead Ports deal" will make us look to the Arab world. How convenient is this? Bush didn't care what the Arab world thought about the U.S. envading a sovereign Arab nation who posed no immediate threat to us, had no links to 911, had no weapons of mass destruction and killed hundreds of thousand innocent babies, children and women. Furthermore, Bush attacked John Kerry for "believing we should make decisions that pass the Worlds test." It is obvious that he don't care that 75% of the American people disapprove of the D.P.W. deal. Then again, most dictators don't care what their "proletariat" think or want. This deal stinks worse than McKay Bay in Tampa where we used to catch jelly fish when we were kids. Furthermore, for Bush to even contemplate the notion of selling our Ports to a Terrorist Nation like the U.A.E. seems incredulous like pre 911 thinking.

Democrats have proposed six separate pieces of legislation since 2002 to fund port security. The republican controlled congress have shot them down every time. Republican Rick Santorum voted against it six times. He also voted against a comprehensive bill that would have had real lobbyist reform on March 7, 2006 vote #35. Republicans Kyle (AZ) , Chaffe (RI), Tallen (MO), George Allen (VA) and Norm Coleman (MN) voted against the same six pieces of legislation proposed since 2002 by the Democrats 6, 5, 5, 4 and 5 times respectively.
Democrats keep trying to secure our ports and make our Nation more secure. The republicans keep getting in the way. Which party is strong on national security?