Of leaks and ports and national security

dr. elsewhere here.
The Murray Waas article Joe links to in the previous post actually relies upon an important thematic subtext in presenting his exposure of Wayward Woodward's exposure to classified information. Considering that leak to Woodward, the leak of Plame’s identity, and Porter Goss’s recent complaints about misguided leaks, Waas highlights Senator Rockefeller’s concern about the administration’s tendency to play fast and loose with sensitive information, chucking national security sensitivities in deferment to their own, um, political sensitivities.

Senator Jay Rockefeller, ranking Democrat of the Senate Intelligence Committee, sent a letter last week to John Negroponte, Director of National Intelligence, about these highly questionable practices, expressly as they pertain to Woodward, and wondered if national security might have been compromised as a result. Waas quotes Michael Sheuer, former head of the bin Laden unit at the CIA, who says that Woodward’s disclosures absolutely did, in fact, provide “aid and comfort to the enemy.”

What does this have to do with the ports, you may well ask? Most of you already get this, but this issue with Dubai Ports World is just more evidence of how little the Bush administration really cares about national security and their dirty little war on terror (cf., Kerry made secured ports a campaign issue), except as propaganda sound-bites. The Bush/Rove focus is on PR, creating an image, manipulating opinions of US citizens (well, everyone, really), propaganda, all directed toward getting and staying in power. If a piece of information could conceivably help their image or agenda in some way, they will not hesitate to use it however they see fit. The most heinous case in point is of course the exposure of a counterspy in Pakistan during the 2004 Presidential election campaign in order to prove to the world (of voters) that they were actually DOING something to protect us. This blind action immediately rendered the undercover agent completely useless and of course jeopardized his life and that of his family and friends. Word has it that Plame’s exposure did much the same thing, but on a larger scale in terms of years invested and numbers of agents compromised. Concerning her assignment was monitoring black market WMD trafficking, just by the way. And oh, in Iran, by the way.

So here we have this administration that bullies us into an alterworld of fear and loathing of all things terroristy (the new word they’re pushing is “extremist;” where do YOU fit into that scheme?) now allowing the control of ports of entry into this country by a company run by a country whose royal family actually visited bin Laden. Among numbers of other questionable practices that pertain to our national security.

Of course this should be an issue, and of course we should be pitching huge hissy fits. If I hear one more pundit claim that the UAE are “strong allies in the war on terror,” or accuse this bi-partisan reaction as “racist,” or shrug the deal off as “just business,” I do believe I will blow a gasket. First of all, if the UAE can be counted as allies in this endless excuse for war, then why are we not applying the same criteria to Syria, who have actually provided us with considerable cooperation, yet we are constantly threatening them.

Second, this should go without saying, but how terribly odd for the racial profiling monsters of all this big, bad world to be telling us that WE are being racist here? They round up hundreds upon hundreds of innocent people simply because their names sound vaguely Middle Eastern, deport or detain them, and they have the unmitigated gall to call this resistance to their sweet money ports deal racism? When I felt concern about this was not when I knew the ports were to be run by Arabs, but when I began remembering and discovering more about the UAE’s actual history with regard to our own security issues.

Third, as if to comfort us, we’re informed that much if not most of our port operations are run by foreign companies, including China. My question is, just why is that? Though I do agree with Joe that we should nationalize our ports (among all other such commonwealth efforts), just for the sake of argument, if we keep them privatized, just why can we not keep their operations under OUR control? Some might counter that we want the best, and these companies are the best at this job. Well, that raises yet two more questions. One, since when did we lie down and allow other countries to be better at anything? When exactly did that happen? Not to wave the flag, but come on, we have enormous numbers of folks here who are unemployed.

Question two emerges from the suspicion that these countries have been contracted to do this work because it’s cheaper; someone is making more profits than they would if the work was being done by US citizens. Which raises the question that really drives this port purchase, and not so subtly, the whole issue of this administration’s negligence of our national security for their own gain: How can we justify doing anything so sensitive for reasons of economy, or should I say, profit?

And did I mention that last month President Bush appointed a top executive from this same Dubai company to head the Maritime Administration at our Department of Transportation, and no one can explain why it never went through all the proper channels?

Finally, this, highlighted by the feisty Josh Marshall over at talkingpointsmemo.com:
Bush at cabinet meeting: "And so people don't need to worry about security. This deal wouldn't go forward if we were concerned about the security for the United States of America."

Yeah; what he said.

dr. elsewhere