With
Friends Like These
By Sheila Samples
16 March, 2006
Countercurrents.org
"They're blowin' this town all to hell" —
Bo Hopkins in Sam Peckinpah's "The Wild Bunch"(1969)
Senator
John Warner (R-Va.) has the unexpected problem of a foreign state-owned
company taking over operations at U.S. ports all figured out. The dour,
self-righteous chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee announced
from the Senate floor on March 9 that Dubai Ports World (DPW), one of
seven emirates that make up the United Arab Emirates (UAE), "has
decided to transfer fully U.S. operation of P&O Ports North America
to a United States entity."
For Rove-Cheney watchers,
that immediately begs the question -- what U.S. entity? What does "transfer
fully" mean? But, alas, Warner said details about that part of
the scam "weren't immediately available." For Warner watchers,
especially those of us who have looked at him from every possible angle
while scratching our heads, another question springs to mind -- What
could Liz Taylor possibly have been thinking back in December 1976 when
she took this cranky, cheerless man for a spin on her seventh time around?
Before we get too giddy...it's
been suggested that DPW hire a "front company" to run port
operations. You know, like defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld did when
the Congress told him he couldn't have the Total Information Awareness
(TIA) data-mining program. Rumsfeld said okay, and took the program
into the shadows, out of Congressional oversight and gave it a new name
-- Terrorist Information Awareness program. Then, with Congress and
the American public appeased, TIA continued business as usual, and is
going full-bore today.
Several US companies have
been mentioned to serve as a U.S. front for DPW, such as SSA Marine
Ports Company and Maher Terminals. CNN also suggested CSX World Terminals,
but failed to mention that Dubai purchased a major portion of CSX from
the Carlyle Group in 2005 and, oh yes, CNN suggested almost as an afterthought
that perhaps the best qualified of all "entities" is Halliburton.
If you're a Halliburton watcher, you know what that's all about, and
it has little to do with qualifications...
Who's in charge here?
It looks like it's back to
the shadows for a port-control strategy session. If you believe either
the Bush regime or the UAE will politely back off because of the nuisance
of an unhappy American citizenry, you just haven't been watching these
guys in action for the past five years. There's too much money and power
involved. They'll figure it out. That session ought to be easy. Bush
says he's a "strategist" because, he explained, "I create...er..strategy."
Can't argue with that. He also claims to be a problem-solver because
he solves...er...problems; he says he's a leader because he...er...leads,
and brags that he's a war president because he...er...ohhh, never mind.
It should be obvious by now
that George Bush has no control over the machinations of the government
he claims to lead. He admittedly knew nothing about the secretive deal
pushed through by the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United
States (CFIUS) to put six additional U.S. ports, or 24 container terminals,
under the control of an Islamic regime that provided -- as Cheney says
-- "safe haven" to those who -- as Bush says -- "are
lurking, plotting, planning to kill us" until the story broke in
the media. White House aides also said that Bush knew nothing about
the UAE decision to withdraw until Warner (was Liz drunk?) announced
it. Bush's belated threat to veto any amendment to derail the deal didn't
scare anybody, least of all Congress, and Warner's success at taking
the deal off the table saved Bush the embarrassment of being steamrolled
by his own party.
They would have us believe
that the deal "just happened." Nobody knew. In addition to
Bush taking the Abu Ghraib defense, AP's Ted Bridis
writes that "...Homeland Security Secretary Michael
Chertoff, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and even Treasury Secretary
John Snow, who was plucked from CSX World Terminals for the Treasury
job and oversees the government committee that approved the deal, all
say they did not know about the purchase until after it was finalized."
Bridis adds, "The work was done mostly by assistant secretaries."
So, who's in control here?
Disregard what Israel PM Ariel Sharon allegedly told Shimon Peres, his
Minister of Foreign Affairs, a month after the 9-11 attack -- "I
want to tell you something very clear, don't worry about American pressure
on Israel," Sharon said. "We, the Jewish people control America,
and the Americans know it."
Yeah? Well, I want to tell
you Americans don't know Jack about who controls this country. Israel
may be our partner in crime; may be sucking us dry; prodding us to fight
its battles -- but the United Arab Emirates, "entities" like
the Carlyle Group and Halliburton, and the administration globalization
gurus are in control and, as Sam Peckinpah so aptly put it -- they're
blowin' this town all to hell.
Port watch
The critical news about the
UAE is what the media, the Congress, and the administration are NOT
telling the people. In addition to its multi-million-dollar order for
Boeing jets, and a $6.4 billion deal to buy 80 F-16E/F multi-role fighters
which will make Abu Dhabi the leading air power in the Gulf, Dubai firms
have several lucrative contracts with the Pentagon, which might explain
Rumsfeld's tight-lipped, purple-veined fury after a recent congressional
hearing as he stood there beside a dreamily nodding Joe Lieberman (?-CT)
and deflected media questions to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
Gen. Peter Pace, and U.S. Central Commander Gen. John Abizaid.
The spectacle of this nation's
top military brass lobbying Congress to give a foreign government control
over a crucial part of our infrastructure, our military operations and
security is appalling. Making the rounds of recent Sunday talk shows,
Pace said, "Since 9-11, Dubai is as good a partner and friend as
we've had." Pace told a Pentagon briefing on Feb. 21 that the Arab
Emirates were "very,
very solid partners in the alliance."
Abizaid was not nearly so
diplomatic. He lashed
out at the public and the Congress --"The UAE is absolutely
vital to our interests," Abizaid said angrily, and added that the
furor over the port control was "nothing but Arab and Muslim bashing
that is totally unnecessary." Abizaid should know. He's been bashing,
smashing and blowing apart Arabs and Muslims for years...
The tantrum Republicans and
Democrats are throwing on center stage is very effective at covering
the activity teeming in the shadows. Time Magazine's Daren Fonda writes
that another
Dubai company shows no signs of backing off its Navy contract
in the Middle East. Britain sold Inchcape Shipping Services (ISS) to
"a Dubai government investment vehicle for $285 million."
According to Fonda, ISS "provides services to clients ranging from
cruiseship operators to oil tankers to commercial cargo vessels."
ISS operates out of more than a dozen U.S. port cities, the article
states, "including Houston, Miami and New Orleans."
In a June 2005 release, ISS
announced it will provide all logistics requirements of U.S. Navy and
Coast Guard ships in ports throughout the Middle East. The release also
notes that ISS may asked to provide services for U.S. military training
exercises and "contingency operations inland." ISS will "partner"
for these services with Halliburton's Kellogg, Brown & Root (KBR),
which has been awarded billions (and billions) of dollars in no-bid
contracts for Iraq reconstruction. KBR watchers might wonder if these
"contingency operations inland" have anything to do with its
recent no-bid contract to build a network of detainment camps in the
U.S.
Also under consideration
is the sale to Dubai International of (you guessed it) yet another British
company that makes precision parts used in engines for military aircraft
and tanks. The UAE purchased London's
Doncasters Group for $1.2 billion, which operates nine
factories, including military production facilities in Connecticut and
Georgia. According to Middle East Newsline, Doncasters' clients include
Boeing, General Electric, Honeywell and Pratt and Whitney...
What should concern Congress
and, as a minimum, tweak the curiosity of the media is the UAE's ties
to, and protection of, Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda, its recognition
of the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan, its thwarting
of a CIA attempt to kill bin Laden before 9-11, its massive money-laundering
network for terrorist activity, its funding ($23 milliion) for Neil
Bush's IGNITE! learning systems company, and its furnishing two hijackers
for the 9-11 attacks. The UAE's appalling record on human slavery should
be dragged out of the shadows for all to see. In June 2005, the U.S.
State Department reported that the UAE is a major destination for women
sex slaves, and it regularly imports, steals or buys children from other
countries to serve as camel jockeys to feed the gambling frenzy of oil-rich
sheiks.
Why the UAE will
win
We seem to be incapable of
wrapping our minds around the concept of "order" that our
increasingly totalitarianism government is inflicting upon us. Even
as we "high-five" our success at forcing Congress to back
out of the Dubai deal, we fail to notice that the power brokers on both
sides of this issue have not budged. And they will not. In its initial
statement, DPW said transferring operation of the ports hinged on its
not losing money on its $6.8 billion purchase of London's Peninsular
and Oriental Steam Navigation Co. Otherwise, it would have no alternative
but to promise to behave itself and continue to march.
Senate Majority Leader Bill
Frist agrees. On Sunday, Frist said if
no buyer is found and the Bush administration can't find
any security risks, the deal for DPW to manage and operate U.S. ports
could go through. "If everything that the president, the administration
has said, and that is that there is absolutely no threatening or jeopardy
to our security and safety of the American people ... I don't see how
the deal would have to be canceled," Frist told ABC's "This
Week."
There's no stopping them.
With friends like Frist scurrying around in the shadows, and a media
willing to distort facts and distract attention, this deal is a no-brainer.
Yesterday, an e-mail
surfaced from DP World telling managers in Miami that the
sale of U.S. assets "could take a while," and for them to
assume for now that "ownership...is not going to change."
CNN followed up with an opposite-speak report this morning that DP World
announced it would divest itself of all U.S. port assets. However, it
has hired both a financial advisor and a legal advisor, and the deal
will take some time -- possibly four to six months.
That's the good news. The
bad news is Bush watchers know what kind of mischief this grand strategist
is capable of in four to six months. Unless I am mistaken, we will be
far more worried about the insurgency in Iran than we are with the port
in Miami...
The UAE will win because
of the Free Trade Agreement we are determined to have in that part of
the world. It will win because, as Mike Whitney writes in Online
Journal, "The United Arab Emirates is situated at
the center of an oil-dependent world. This tiny state forms the promontory
that juts out into the famed Strait of Hormuz through which 40 percent
of the world's oil passes every day." Whitney says Iran is just
across that strait and, if we're going to attack Iran, we must have
boots on the ground in Dubai to keep the strait open and ward off the
resulting devastation to world oil supplies and financial markets.
It will win because the crony
alliance that comprises the Iron Triangle of the New World Order --
industry, government and military -- is a power elite that feeds
ravenously on the soft underbelly of war like maggots on
rotten meat. Until we realize just how precious freedom is, until we
work to take back that which was stolen, nothing will change. We must
do more than complain and cast worthless votes every few years.
Most Americans are critically
aware of the importance of security in the wake of 9-11. But with best
friends and partners like the United Arab Emirates, the Carlyle Group
and Halliburton controlling the house -- we have little time to worry
about enemies at the gate.
Sheila Samples is an Oklahoma writer and a former civilian
US Army Public Information Officer. She is a regular contributor for
a variety of Internet sites. Contact her at: [email protected]