This bothers me, because it just isn't right. But no one consulted me, and the consensus out there seems to be that it's okay to have a British company running our ports—as long as there aren't any sand niggers involved. Sigh. What a defeat for liberal ideals.

Now. Is there an American company out there that can even do this? Anyone? Bueller?

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Are there any legislators out there with anything between their ears? Morons, indeed.

Lewis' signature line reminds me of Archie Bunker's complaint that it was hard to get "American food, like hamburgers and spaghetti."

Memo to the GOP: you're slow-dancing with Chuck Schumer. Isn't there some kind of clue in there that emotion has trumped analysis?

UPDATE: Sean points out this article, in which former CIA officer Larry Johnson expresses concerns about how existing DPW ports are being run:

"When you look at three of the top world ports for smuggling, counterfeit and contraband activity, those are, by my count, Hong Kong, Dubai and Panama. Dubai Ports World controls two of the three" Johnson said, referring to Dubai and Hong Kong.

Of course, my understanding is that the same command strucuture will remain in place at P&O: the only difference is that dark-skinned people who well might be Muslims will be sitting in a boardroom, half a world away, providing oversight to P&O.

And if there are two "wild West-style" ports being run at present by DPW, how many others are they running with very little contraband going through? (As I recall, there are 21 others.)

Kenton E. Kelly—aka Dennis the Peasant—wrote a scathing commentary in Reason Online about how the hysteria over the DPW port deal does not make us look very good among pro-Western factions in the Middle East. Not at all. We are pissing off people whose help we need badly.

The rough draft for that article ran as a blog post that later got pulled off his site (which is fair enough; after all, he'd sold the piece to Reason Online). But the original gets quoted a fair amount by The Lounsbury—another curmudgeon in Dennis' mold—right here, with some brilliant commentary and amplification.

(In general, the best information about the DPW Ports deal is being covered very well both at Dennis the Peasant and at Lounsbury's place.

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Just as some people throw out the word "racist" too easily, others throw out the "how dare you call me a racist?" rejoinder as if it were a rhetorical molecule. Next thing you know, we're talking past each other again.

The UAE is our "friend," we are told, and to question that assertion, we are scolded, is to engage in reckless prejudice and life-threatening insult. Yes, well, some friends are more equal than others. To instinctively trust a longtime, stalwart Western democracy more than an Arab newcomer with a mixed record on combating terror, international crime, and Islamic extremism is not "Islamophobia." It's self-preservationist in a time of war.

We are at war, aren't we?

Yes. We are at war. That's why it's important for us to bank on our brains, and employ honest risk assessments, rather than using our "instincts."

The underlying argument—the one people aren't talking about much—has to do with how to spread classical liberalism, economic opportunity, and—yes, dammit—the best Western of values.

Is it better to partially engage, as we do with China, and co-opt potential opponents—and yet end up with dirty hands? Or do we apply the hardline stance we use in Cuba? Obviously, each situation is different: China is not Cuba, and neither is perfectly analogous to any Middle Eastern state.

But philosophically I lean toward engagement, as opposed to something that appears to flirt dangerously with "fuck you, you dirty Arab; come back when your entire society is perfect, and your track record squeaky clean (which, of course, ours in the U.S. is not)."

Most people who are intimately familiar with the UAE are supportive of this deal, and feel that the progress there is tremendous. But even if the UAE were as shady as Malkin asserts, isn't there an old saying about keeping one's friends close and one's enemies closer?

Color me yet-to-be-convinced that this is an awful idea. Though I'm still listening.

(Via Hackbarth, who likewise is still saying, "show me the security risks.")

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. . . the Port Deal Controversy.

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As usual, Malkin is able to make a cogent-sounding—yet somehow still unpersuasive—case for the DPW deal being an unwarranted risk. But at least we can't accuse her of not having enough information on it: go to her site, and you may drown in data. (Not all of it helpful, mind you: but it does contain facts, which we could all use more of.)

Via commenter Jack, though I should have realized Malkin would be a treasure-trove on this.

Contrariwise, Hackbarth has an update on senatorial self-importance in this arena.

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Sean basically has this one right: there aren't a lot of good solid arguments against the DPW running our ports. I'm also hearing a lot of "ick, Arabs" stuff that's pretty offensive.

Remember, folks: if we turn into a nation of bigots, the terrorists will abso-fuckin'-lutely have won.

UPDATE: David Foster of Photon Courier and Chicago Boyz is smarter than I am (which is offensive to me, but he doesn't seem to do it on purpose) and he responds in my comments:

Remember, ports are used for export as well as import (as hard as this is to remember sometimes) What happens if we need this export capacity in support of a major military operation?...and the government in question disapproves of the operation and decides to shut down the ports? We will have just lost a huge % of our total outbound freight capacity, until we can take control and reorganize things.

This is not a theoretical objection. Already, during the current Iraq war, a European company refused to supply JDAM missile parts on grounds that its country was a neutral in that war.

At a bare minimum, the company and the government should be required to post a surety bond, forfeitable in event of nonperformance as described above, of such magnitude that its loss would bankrupt the company and take a major chunk of of the hide of the government.

And Yolanda adds:

The UAE has not done much to vociferously support America in front of its citizens, nor does it forcefully condemn acts of terrorism perpetrated by its citizens.

She suggests that deals of this magnitude should be reserved for more reliable partners in the War on Terror.

I'm still wondering, however, what the real risks are here: presumably for the DPW to stop running the ports for some reason (because we're defending those nasty Jews again, say) would cost them money they couldn't afford to lose. I'm still more concerned about our dependence on foreign oil than I am about this particular deal.

But let's keep talking.

UPDATE 2: Marshall Manson weighs in over at On Tap. He'd like us all to take a chill pill, too.

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. . . that my readers are simply a subset of Goldstein's, but for both of you who didn't follow me over from Protein Wisdom, I want to point out that his coverage of the NSA/wiretapping non-scandal is simply nonpareil (that means I like it). He may have done more digging on this than anyone out there.

Just go to his main page, and scroll.

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Via Malkin:

Democrat Rep. Jim McDermott of Seattle, who leaked the contents of an illegally recorded cell phone conversation between former House speaker Newt Gingrich and Rep. John A. Boehner, is complaining about the NSA's warrantless surveillance progam.

Her commentary is brief: "chutzpah." Yup. Here's the audio.

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. . . I won't read unless I feel a burning desire—and can get it on inter-library loan. Like Michael Moore, he won't see a dime of my money.

UPDATE: Against my better judgment, I've fixed the link.

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Matt of Froggy Ruminations:

The idea that the US should put its fingers in its own ears and repeat, “I can’t hear you, I can’t hear you!” when terrorists communicate with their agents in the US is one of the most ridiculous and silly ideas that I have ever heard.

Via Goldstein, who quotes a few intel experts at length here. A must-read.

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According to Scott Ott, the President has just started a national "Do Not Wiretap" list.

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Jeff at Protein Wisdom sums up the situation:

If we are to believe the subtext of The New York Times / Kerry / CBS missing explosives story—which argues, however obliquely, that US troops under the command of the Bushies allowed high-grade explosives to be pilfered by terrorists from beneath their noses—we must accept at least two conditional assumptions upon which the Times / Kerry / CBS News axis pins its hopes—first, that an initial cursory search by the 2nd Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division overlooked (or, at the very least, missed the IAEA seals labeling) the explosives that were in fact still there at the facility; and second, that between this time (April 10) and the time “a special U.S. exploitation team looking for weapons of mass destruction searched all 32 bunkers and 87 buildings” and found nothing (May 27), hostiles were able to remove the explosives from the facility while many US forces remained in the general area (and where the roads were closed)—managing not only to avoid detection by US forces on the ground, but managing likewise to thwart surveillance by satellites and spy planes, loading the explosives on a large number of heavy trucks and disappearing unnoticed. Couple these two conditional assumptions with the Times / Kerry / CBS News’ cabal’s omission, in its recent reporting, of two reports from early April of 2003 suggesting the 3ID had already investigated the Al Qakaa facility, and we’re now left with yet another narrative nodal point where—if we are to believe the Times / Kerry / CBS version of events—we must assume US military command incompetence is ascendent.

...Or (and hereÂ’s the possibility the NYT / Kerry / CBS collective doesnÂ’t want to acknowledge) another explanation is, the explosives had already been either removed or destroyed before US troops arrived.

Granted, this second possibility isn’t so sexy—no stealth super terrorists to embarrass the dundering US military and its evil, arrogant Commander in Chimp by filching materials needed to detonate a nuclear weapon out from under our imperialist noses—but from the standpoint of plausibility (and, I almost hasten to add, terrestrial physics) ...well, I’ll let you decide which of the two scenarios is more likely.

Get over there for the links, updates, and other coverage of this issue—as well as pictures of John Edwards with bunnies and pages from Martha Stewart's prison diary. It's your basic one-stop shopping for info and entertainment.

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Via Protein Wisdom, George Stephanopoulos and Condi Rice get into a spirited discussion about whether Iraq's aluminum tubes really were destined for nuclear weapons. Goldstein suggests that their debate reflects the philosophical divide between those who don't support the war and those of us who do: that we honestly believe the situation called for erring on the side of caution—with caution defined as "most likely to be in the best interests of the United States."

Commenter Sharkman then suggests that the correct response from Condi was this:

“Look, you diminutive semi-gay-hair-dresser-looking (not that there’s anything wrong with that) snot-nosed pundit!  The only thing you and your kind ever have to do is talk, talk, talk, but in MY world, in which I am an extremely POWERFUL WOMAN, ACTION must be taken!  And so ACTION IS TAKEN, sometimes on the basis of information that is not 100% perfect.  Now shut your cute little mouth and bring mama another espressso.  Can you do anything about this hair . . . ?”

Apparently, it's supposed to be read in an Aretha Franklin voice, the premise being (I believe) that in a more enlightened time Aretha would have had Dr. Rice's amazing education and experience and could have been NSA. Of course, foreign policy's gain would have been art's loss. So it goes.

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Can we stop arguing about this now? The situation on Annie Jacobsen's flight 327 was just whacked. Not normal. She was not being paranoid; she's been a good citizen by speaking up.

All of you who wanted for Annie to be the problem are just going to have to deal.

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I missed Lileks on Friday, but I'm making up for it now. He discusses what it's like to be his age—my age—with Vietnam potent only in an iconic way:

It was a Symbol and a Warning – a reminder of American failings, not American failure. It was a template, too; every war was seen through the terms of Vietnam, which for us meant THE DRAFT, the ultimate mellow-harsher. Most of my reflexive anti-militarism of the early 80s came not from any deep-seated conviction about the ethics of force, but from a desire to stay in coffeehouses smoking cigarettes and reading books as long as I wanted to. It was selfish and cowardly, but I had a vast body of literature and philosophy to help me convince myself otherwise. As the 80s wore on Vietnam receded in my mind, replaced by fear of nuclear war. That prospect had been a specific terror since I was ten, and I knew it intimately. That one I felt in my gut. Vietnam was a hand-me-down.

Revisiting Vietnam in 2004 seems about as useful as debating the Phillippines war while the troop ships are sending Doughboys to the trenches in France. We have more pressing issues, I think. The news today noted that the men arrested at the Albany mosque were fingered by some documents found at Al-Ansar sites in Iraq, of all places. Iraq! Imagine that. I would sleep better if I could snort sure, itÂ’s a plant and tell myself that itÂ’s all made up, itÂ’s all a joke, a phony show designed to make us look the other way while a cackling cabal of Masons and Zionists figure out how much arsenic they can put in the water next year. (Arsenic: the fluoride of the left.) But no. I am one of those sad little pinheads who think itÂ’s really one war, one foe, with a thousand fronts. And I want us to win.

I do wonder sometimes how much easier life would be if I were like most of my friends, if I could convince myself we weren't locked in a mortal struggle with people who want us to die—not because of anything we did, but because of what we are. But it's not about what's convenient to believe. It's about what's true.

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McQ of QandO gives us the story on what Kerry was doing during the time he now feels Bush should have sprung into action, donning his tights and cape, ready to fight evil.

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Via James, the financial districts in Washington D.C.; Newark, New Jersey; and New York City are now on a heightened state of alert, according to AP. Specifically:

* The Citicorp building and the New York Stock Exchange in New York City.

* The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank buildings in Washington.

* The Prudential building in Newark.

"The preferred means of attack would be car or truck bombs," Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said in a briefing with journalists. That would be a primary means of attack."

Scary stuff. Let's hope and pray this kind of warning makes the difference in a situation like this. Pray the plans are foiled, and pray that if the attacks do happen, that as few people die as possible, and as few are hurt as possible.

And I'll be praying that those responsible be brought to justice, but everyone's spirituality works differently on that point.

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Via Photon Courier comes this amazing article by Per Ahlmark, the former Deputy Prime Minister of Sweden. Money quote:

The images many Europeans hold of America and Israel create the political climate for some very ugly bias. You have the Great Satan and the Small Satan. America wants to dominate the world—exactly the allegations made in traditional anti-Semitic rhetoric about the Jews. Indeed, modern anti-Zionist rhetoric portrays Israel's goal as domination of the whole Middle East. Such ideas are reflected in opinions polls in which Europeans claim that Israel and the US are the true dangers to world peace.

Ian Buruma, the British writer, claims that this European rage against America and Israel has to do with guilt and fear. The two world wars led to such catastrophic carnage that "never again" was interpreted as "welfare at home, non-intervention abroad." The problem with this concept is that it could only survive under the protection of American might.

Extreme anti-Americanism and anti-Zionism are actually merging. The so-called peace poster "Hitler Had Two Sons: Bush and Sharon," displayed in European anti-war rallies, combines trivialization of Nazism with demonization of both the victims of Nazism and those who defeated Nazism.

Much of this grows from a subconscious European guilt related to the Holocaust. Now the Holocaust's victims—and their children and grandchildren—are supposedly doing to others what was done to them. By equating the murderer and the victim, we wash our hands.

This pattern of anti-Zionism and anti-Americanism returns again and again. "The ugly Israeli" and "the ugly American" seem to be of the same family. "The ugly Jew" becomes the instrumental part of this defamation when so-called neoconservatives are blamed both for American militarism and Israeli brutalities and then selectively named: Wolfowitz, Perle, Abrams, Kristol, etc. This is a new version of the old myth that Jews rule the US.

Earlier this year, the editor of Die Zeit, Josef Joffe, put his finger on the issue: like Jews, Americans are said to be selfish and arrogant. Like Jews, they are in thrall to a fundamentalist religion that renders them self-righteous and dangerous. Like Jews, Americans are money-grabbing capitalists, for whom the highest value is the cash nexus. "America and Israel are the outsiders—just as Jews have been all the way into the 21st century," Joffe says.

The links between anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism, and anti-Americanism are all too real. Unless Europe's leaders roundly condemn this unholy triple alliance, it will poison Middle East politics and transatlantic relations alike.

That was amazing. I was beginning to wonder if any Europeans really got it—at least, outside the UK.

RTWT.

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There are all kinds of sub-issues related to the Sandy Berger story. I still don't have clarity on the down-his-pants (or in-his-socks) vs. in-his-pockets issue, and I'm not sure I care about that: he concealed this material in his clothing, and that's that. He claims that only the handwritten notes were in his jacket and pants (and possibly socks), but we'll see. I'm a good deal more concerned with the two events he claims were accidents: removing top-secret documents, and destroying top-secret documents.

This guy was National Security Advisor. One would think that he can handle the basics of the job—like preserving the integrity of classified documents, and knowing what he's putting into his leather portfolio.

Clearly, he's either incompetent, or covering up for Clinton.

But even if this is all the result of carelessness, it's an egregious lapse. Clinton should be embarrassed that this guy, who cannot handle the basic requirements of his job, was his National Security Advisor. Instead, he's laughing it off, which may say something about how seriously he takes the security issues facing this country to this day.

My newspaper-reading friends tell me you still have to dig to find mentions of this story in either the LA Times or the NY Times, which is outrageous.

Stephen Green had a good opening volley on the story, and is covering it well; be sure to scroll around on his main page after reading this entry.

The Irish Lass has a nice roundup; once more, you might take the time to do some scrolling, since she's all over this.

Prof. Reynolds remarks:

[T]he decision to charge someone, even someone admittedly guilty, is always a matter of discretion, and criminal charges against a former National Security Adviser are a rather big deal. It's easy to understand why the Justice Department might be reluctant to bring such charges even if it's satisfied that all the elements of the crime are present.

To which Dr. Joyner replies:

Quite true. I'd like to get a better explanation of exactly what Berger was trying to accomplish and let this one percolate a bit more before deciding what punishment, if any, is appropriate. Berger gave many years in the public service and, so far as I'm aware, this is the first time he's even been accused of anything remotely sinister. Even aside from the baffling issue of why, I would be interested in knowing--if it's knowable--what harm Berger's theft caused.

There has to be a consequence for this type of behavior, though. If a former National Security Advisor-- invested with so must trust that it never even occurs to anyone that he needs to be monitored while in a room with highly classified material--can plead "oops" on something so blatant, I don't know how we can ever hold a soldier accountable again.

As usual, you'll also want to go to James for the best links to hard news sources on this issue.

Byron York, writing in National Review Online, has two major points. To begin with, he feels there's no way this was accidental:

It appears that some of the evidence in the case casts doubt on Berger's explanation. First, Berger has reportedly conceded that he knowingly hid his handwritten notes in his jacket and pants in order to sneak them out of the Archives . . . Berger's admission that he hid the notes in his clothing is a clear sign of intent to conceal his actions.

Second, although Berger said he reviewed thousands of pages, he apparently homed in on a single document: the so-called "after-action report" on the Clinton administration's handling of the millennium plot of 1999/2000. Berger is said to have taken multiple copies of the same paper. He is also said to have taken those copies on at least two different days. There have been no reports that he took any other documents, which suggests that his choice of papers was quite specific, and not the result of simple carelessness.

Third, it appears that Berger's "inadvertent" actions clearly aroused the suspicion of the professional staff at the Archives. Staff members there are said to have seen Berger concealing the papers; they became so concerned that they set up what was in effect a small sting operation to catch him. And sure enough, Berger took some more. Those witnesses went to their superiors, who ultimately went to the Justice Department . . . . The documents Berger took — each copy of the millennium report is said to be in the range of 15 to 30 pages — were highly secret. They were classified at what is known as the "code word" level, which is the government's highest tier of secrecy. Any person who is authorized to remove such documents from a special secure room is required to do so in a locked case that is handcuffed to his or her wrist.

York finds Berger's focused pilferage highly interesting, since it appears that the Clinton administration's handling of the millennium plot has been the subject of a lot of debate and considerable criticism:

The report was the result of a review done by Richard Clarke, then the White House counterterrorism chief, of efforts by the Clinton administration to stop terrorist plots at the turn of the year 2000. At several points in the September 11 commission hearings, Democrats pointed to the millennium case as an example of how a proper counterterrorism program should be run. But sources say the report suggests just the opposite. Clarke apparently concluded that the millennium plot was foiled by luck — a border agent in Washington State who happened to notice a nervous, sweating man who turned out to have explosives in his car — and not by the Clinton administration's savvy anti-terrorism work. The report also contains a number of recommendations to lessen the nation's vulnerability to terrorism, but few were actually implemented.

The after-action review became the topic of public discussion in April when Attorney General John Ashcroft mentioned it in his public testimony before the September 11 commission. "This millennium after-action review declares that the United States barely missed major terrorist attacks in 1999 and cites luck as playing a major role," Ashcroft testified. "It is clear from the review that actions taken in the millennium period should not be the operating model for the U.S. government."

In May, a government official told National Review Online that the report contains a "scathing indictment of the last administration's actions." The source said the report portrayed the Clinton administration's actions as "exactly how things shouldn't be run." In addition, Clarke was highly critical of the handling of the millennium plot in his book, Against All Enemies.

It is not clear how many copies of the report exist. Nor is it clear why Berger was so focused on the document. If he simply wanted a copy, it seems that taking just one would have been sufficient. But it also seems that Berger should have known that he could not round up all the known copies of the document, since there were apparently other copies in other secure places. Whatever the case, the report was ultimately given to the September 11 Commission.

What a clumsy, stupid thing to do. If the intention was what York is implying—to cover up the Clinton Administration's incompetence and lassitude regarding national security—Berger should have the book thrown at him. He is, essentially, Clinton's Rosemary Woods.

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