Would you let a convicted pedophile baby-sit your only child? Unless you’re a drooling invalid, chances are you’d keep interviewing. So why is the Bush administration dead set on allowing the United Arab Emirates to take over America’s port security in six major cities including Philadelphia? With only five percent of all cargo containers entering America being screened, the security of America’s ports are arguably our biggest security threat. It is reprehensible, and certainly asinine, to give the UAE – a country that supplied two of the 9/11 hijackers – control of our port security.
While the UAE is technically our ally in the “war on terror,” it is incredibly reckless for the White House to outsource our national security to a nation with past ties to al Qaeda.
Astoundingly, President Bush has threatened to veto any bill blocking the final sale of the ports to the UAE, stating that the United States is sending “mixed signals” to the Muslim world. Mixed signals? I think not.
For the first time in nearly six years, American citizens have tossed partisanship into the wind and unilaterally decided to fight this port acquisition.
Bush, in his 2000 campaign for presidency, ran on the platform that he would be a “uniter, not a divider.” It’s nice to see that he has finally gotten around to it.
Rodger Thomas Holst is a senior majoring in literature.