U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said the Bush administration should put on hold a deal to stop state-controlled Dubai Ports World of the United Arab Emirates from managing sea ports in New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, New Orleans, Miami and Philadelphia.
Now, aside from this being offensive to Arabs and Muslims due to inferred ties to "terrorist" and all that, isn't it the epitome of ironic? Of absurdity even?
While millions of travelers, individuals who for the most part could possibly do limited real damage , are hassled daily in airport "security" checks with metal detectors, pat-downs, removal of clothing and shoes, chemical swabs and even interrogation... the folks higher up are about to hand over 6 whole ports to a nation that they themselves have identified, albeit with lots of ring-around-the-posey language and actions, as "the enemy".
There are no words that can explain this. An attempt on my part was left in Haitham's comment stream:
the offensive nature of the debate aside for a moment, the true absurdity lies within the contrast of all this with the Department for Homeland Security, at who’s behest little old ladies are patted down, passed though metal detectors and who knows what else just to get into the country, meanwhile, their bosses are selling off major parts of the country’s economic infrastructure to foreign nations (regardless of diplomatic relations and status of regard for those nations, to put it nicely.It is absurd. With one hand they are stoking the fires of xenophobic nationalism, and with the other they are selling the farm to their competitors. Nothing good can come of this. At least in the short term. In the long run it will all level out of course. In historic perspective, America is due for a civilization-wide collapse anyways.
