De Nieuwe Rijken

Het gaat allang niet meer om islam of christendom en ook niet om democratie versus dictatuur, patriottisme of landverraad speelt geen enkele rol van betekenis. Waar het om draait is geld en vriendjespolitiek en corruptie. De Bush familie en de Bin Laden familie onderhouden niet alleen vriendschappelijke betrekkingen maar hebben ook hechte financiele banden. En niet alleen deze families zijn onlosmakelijk met elkaar verbonden. De nieuwe rijken uit het oude Zuiden van de Verenigde Staten, die van beneden de Mason-Dixon lijn, zijn in zee gegaan met de moreel en financieel al even corrupte nieuwe rijken uit de Golfstaten en Saoedie-Arabie. De Amerikaanse auteur William Rivers Pitt schrijft in Truthout over de rel rond de verkoop van Amerikaanse havens aan de nieuwe rijken van de Verenigde Arabische Republieken: 'this UAE deal is also about standard issue straight-out-of-central-casting Bush administration cronyism. Two major players in the establishment of this deal were John Snow and David Sanborn. Snow, the Treasury Secretary, was chairman of the CSX railroad firm before joining the administration. In 2004, CSX sold its international port operations to Dubai Ports World, the UAE-backed company tapped to run our ports, for $1.15 billion. Sanborn used to run Dubai Ports World's European and Latin American operations. He was tapped last month by Bush to head the US Maritime Administration. Convenient, that. So there's some economics, some national security concern, and some good old fashioned insider horse trading going on here, but none of these alone or combined tells the whole story here. The administration has swallowed a 45-day "review" of this deal, so as to temporarily avoid the need for Bush to veto any legislation blocking it, and so as to avoid the very real possibility that his veto could be overridden in Congress. In the interim, we can take a look at what is truly motivating the noise surrounding this issue. The true basis of the scandal is based upon two things: politics, and the boomerang. The politics part is easy. Democrats, ever fretting over looking "weak" on national security, are going full hawk on this deal to make Bush and Congressional Republicans look weak on the issue of protecting America. Given the fact that very few Americans know much of anything about how our ports are managed - it bears noting that a large number of our ports are already managed by foreign countries like China and Singapore - it is a tactic that has some traction. There is also a legitimate security concern that cannot be overlooked. The deal, when originally announced, had Dubai Ports World taking control of six major ports. In point of fact, DP World will be taking control of 21 American ports: 11 on the East Coast from Portland, Maine to Miami, Florida, and 10 on the Gulf Coast, from Gulfport, Mississippi, to Corpus Christi, Texas. Calls to ensure that security will not be compromised in this process are well founded.' Lees verder: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022806Z.shtml