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.
