Kicking David Brooks in the Teeth

I've come to the conclusion that conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks needs to clean his glasses. His world view is decidedly blurred by the thick haze of neocon propaganda radiating from Karl Rove's overheated spin machine and is further fogged by a lack of common sense and an impetuous attempt to defend the indefensible.

Let's see.

• First, whether or not the UAE port deal goes through or not, the fact is our ports are, five full years after 9/11, still extremely vulnerable. For that, we can once again thank the Bush Brigade, who have done nothing of any consequence to secure them. Turning over port operations to a company owned by the UAE will hardly improve that situation. But Brooks misses the point: the Dubai deal isn't about our security and never has been. It's about lucrative international corporate deals--security be damned.


• Second, King George himself wasn't even aware of the deal until the press reported it. Neither, evidently, was Rummy. Wouldn't you think that an administration concerned with our security would have made sure they knew what kind of deals were being discussed regarding the operation of our ports? Doesn't it raise even an itty bitty question in Brooks' mind as to why this happened in secret with no oversight from either the President or Congress? Where's that good ol' journalistic curiosity, Brooksie?


• Third, Brooks conveniently fails to mention DP World's ties to at least two administration officials, who appear to be in a position to garner more than a few bucks from this deal. Doesn't that raise a few questions about what's really going on? C'mon, Brooksie, you don't need an ear, nose and throat specialist to smell a fish.


• Fourth, the agreement may be in violation of federal law. Hardly a rare occurance with this regime, Brooks should be asking, "Why? Who and what did they have to hide this time?" Remember Brooks--journalism: who, what, when, where and why?


• Fifth, Brooks is hooked on the bogus line that American objection to this deal puts our relations with Arab allies in jeopardy. Excuse me, but I think shocking the awe out of Iraq pretty much destroyed our ability to be palsy-walsy with most Arabs.


• Sixth, Bush and Friends have been inciting fear of Arabs at every opportune moment in order to break the law, torture prisoners, falsely imprison people, subvert habeas corpus, racially profile, and spy on Americans. NOW, they want us to forget five years of non-stop, dire warnings to fear, fear, fear Arabs--and eagerly invite them to control our ports? Rove must be losing his touch.


• Seventh, nobody's talking about "nativist, isolationist mass hysteria" or "xenophobia". Slamming "isolationists" was one of Rove's lame new tactics introduced during Bushie's State of the Union address. The reaction from nearly everyone to Bush bashing away at 'isolationists' was, "What isolationists? Who the heck is talking about isolationism?" No one, of course, was or is. What we're talking about in the port fiasco is common sense. The UAE was home to two of the 9/11 bombers. They don't recognize Israel. They say nothing about radical anti-American clerics and ignore terrorists in their midst. Need I go on?


• The only "hysterical" one seems to be Brooks himself. His reasoning is as idiotic and flawed as the administration he frantically attempts to defend. Nobody's "kicking Arabs in the teeth" here, Brooksie; it's the administration we're kicking--hard--because they so richly deserve it.

Kicking Arabs in the Teeth
By David Brooks
The New York Times

It's come to my attention that many of the foreign goods we import into our country are made by foreigners who speak foreign languages and are foreign. It's come to my attention that many varieties of hummus and other vital bread schmears are made by Arabs, the group responsible for 9/11. Furthermore, it's come to my attention that the Chinese have a menacing death grip on America's pacifier, blankie, bunny and rattle supplies, and have thus established crushing domination of the entire non-pharmaceutical child sedative industry.

It's therefore time for Chuck Schumer, Hillary Clinton, Bill Frist and Peter King to work together to write the National Security Ethnic Profiling Save Our Children Act, which would prevent Muslims from buying port management firms, the Chinese from buying oil and mouth-toy companies, and the Norwegians from using their secret control of U.S fluoridation levels to sap our precious bodily fluids at the Winter Olympics.

In other words, what we need to protect our security and way of life is a broad-based, xenophobic Know Nothing campaign of dressed-up photo-op nativism to show foreigners we will no longer submit to their wily ways.

Never mind — the nativist, isolationist mass hysteria is already here.

This Dubai port deal has unleashed a kind of collective mania we haven't seen in decades. First seized by the radio hatemonger Michael Savage, it's been embraced by reactionaries of left and right, exploited by Empire State panderers, and enabled by a bipartisan horde of politicians who don't have the guts to stand in front of a xenophobic tsunami.

But let's be clear: the opposition to the acquisition by Dubai Ports World is completely bogus.

The deal would have no significant effect on port security. Regardless of who operates the ports, the Coast Guard still controls their physical security. The Customs Service still controls container security. The harbor patrols, the port authorities and the harbor police still do their jobs. Nearly every expert who actually knows something about port security says the ownership of the operating companies is the least of our concerns. "This kind of reaction is totally illogical," Philip Damas, research director of Drewry Shipping Consultants, told The Times. "The location of the headquarters of a company in the age of globalism is irrelevant."

Nor would the deal radically alter the workplace. If the Dubai holding company does acquire the operating firm, the American longshoremen would stay on the job, the American unions would still be there to organize them, and most or all of the management would probably stay, too.

Nor would the deal be particularly new in the world of global shipping. Dick Meyer of CBS News reports that Dubai Ports World already operates facilities in Australia, China, Korea and Germany. It's seeking to acquire facilities in 18 other countries — none of them caught up in an isolationist fever like the one we see here. Eighty percent of the facilities at the port of Los Angeles are run by foreign firms — somehow without national collapse — including one owned by the government of Singapore.

Nor is Dubai a bastion of Taliban radicalism. All Arabs may look alike to certain blowhard senators, but the United Arab Emirates is a modernizing, globalizing place. It was the first country in the region to sign the U.S. Container Security Initiative. It's signed agreements to bar the passage of nuclear material and to suppress terror financing. U.A.E. ports service U.S. military ships, and U.A.E. firms have made major investments in Chrysler and Time Warner, somehow without turning them into fundamentalist bastions.

In short, there is no evidence this deal will do any harm. But it is certain that the xenophobic hysteria will come back to harm the U.S.

The oil-rich nations of the Middle East have plenty of places to invest their money and don't need to do favors for nations that kick them in the teeth. Moreover, this is a region in the midst of traumatic democratic change. The strongest argument the fundamentalists have is that they are engaged in a holy war against the racist West, which imposes one set of harsh rules on Arabs and another set of rules on everybody else. Now comes a group of politicians to prove them gloriously right.

God must love Hamas and Moktada al-Sadr. He has given them the America First brigades of Capitol Hill. God must love the folks at Al Jazeera. They won't have to work to stoke resentments this week. All the garbage they need will be spewing forth from press conferences and photo ops on C-Span and CNN.

Photo credit: David Brooks (New York Times)

Related articles:

• Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall February 23, 2006 01:20 AM
• Think Progress � Administration Failed To Conduct Legally Required Investigation Before Approving UAE Port Deal
• MiamiHerald.com | 02/23/2006 | Ports still at risk of terror attack
• Bush Unaware of Ports Deal Before Approval - Yahoo! News
• Big Problem, Dubai Deal or Not - New York Times
• Republicans Split With Bush on Ports
• Turning the Tables - Howard Kurtz
• TomPaine.com - Fearmonger In Chief
• The Boy Who Cried Wolf- The Nation
• Port Problems Said To Dwarf New Fears

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