Making ourselves safe from lucrative contracts

Backslaps all around, guys! Everybody is a winner in the Dubai Ports Scandalette! The Democrat got to look all tough and make their National Security bones by slinging the President's Alpo of Demagoguery right back at him. Many Republicans who unlike President Bush have to think about reelection got the chance to distance themselves a little from the lame-duck-in-chief. As for Bush, while you can't say that he came out ahead, he certainly got his hide saved just in time by the Dubai authorities, who defused the situation by selling P&O on to an American firm. It was probably a wise business decision -- why do business with a country that fears and mistrusts you so intensely, right? Why indeed...

- Last year, the Emirates Group -- UAE's airline -- ordered $9.7 billion (that's "billion" with a "b") worth of aircraft from Boeing, a US company. The key word here is "ordered." 42 Boeing 777s take awhile to deliver.

- Dubai established a $15 billion aerospace consortium last year, and part of their plan is to buy 50 more aircraft over the next four years. The main competitors for those orders are Boeing ... and the French company Airbus.

Like I said, the key word is "ordered" (or, in the second instance, "orders"). The gaggle of xenophobic fucktards in Congress has just asserted its authority to unilaterally veto and/or void international contracts involving the UAE. Presumably the emirs over there will regard themselves as having at least as much authority over such contracts.

I live in St. Louis, where Boeing is a major employer. I wonder how many people in my area are going to end up sitting on the couch and waiting for the unemployment check to arrive because of this fiasco. And I wonder who they're going to blame.

- And, of course, the US Navy docked about 650 ships in the UAE last year. I wonder how many they'll be allowed to dock next year? After all, if we don't trust the UAE in our ports, why should they trust us in theirs? I wonder how much more it will cost the US to re-route its naval traffic to other destinations. I wonder just how interested in giving the US basing rights on one shore of the Strait of Hormuz the UAE will be if the idiots in Washington do, in fact, decide to take on Iran across the water?

That's Knappster, by the way. He's been pretty much right-on on this issue all along in my opinion. I don't doubt that he'll be right about the fallout. Now maybe the cuts on Dubai's side won't come today, and maybe they won't come tomorrow. But one would have to be very naive not to think that Dubai is going to rethink it's priorites or it's conception of us as friend or foe in the wake of this incident. It will come back to bite us.