aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South

Saturday, February 25, 2006

Kristof on Dubai Ports World

This fuss about ports is really about Arabs:

Even if you believe in racial profiling, you have to look beyond the profile. Senators talk about Dubai in dark tones that suggest they’ve never been there. Dubai is the Disneyland of the Arab world - it’s the place people go to relax, to shop, to drink. It is staunchly pro-American and pro-business, and its vision of the Arab future is absolutely the opposite of Osama bin Laden’s. If we want to encourage Arab modernization, we should be approving this deal - not engaging in quasi-racist scaremongering. [...]

If Democrats want to improve national security, they can tackle it in a thousand ways. The biggest vulnerabilities in our ports could be addressed by increasing customs inspections abroad, by adding radiation detectors, by examining more containers or by making containers tamper-proof. And if the aim is to reduce the risk of nuclear terrorism, then how about more support for the Nunn-Lugar program to secure Russian nuclear materials?

Democrats have so many legitimate reasons to criticize President Bush - from ruining our nation’s finances to despoiling American wilderness - that it’s painful to see them scaremongering in just the way that Mr. Bush himself has.

RELATED: Pro-American and pro-business, maybe, but anti-gay for sure:

Twenty-six men arrested at what police in the United Arab Emirates called a “gay wedding” have been sentenced each to five years in prison.

The men were charged with homosexuality, a crime under Sharia law, although police acknowledged that non of the men were engaged in a sexual act when police raided the event.