Swanky Conservative

I’m reading up on the decision of Dubai Ports World to back out of a deal managing terminals in six US ports and I came across a story in the usually spot-on Financial Times. This time they seem to be a bit sensationalistic with their headline, “Arab ally senses Bush no longer has control in Washington” and they got a bit sloppy in their details, labeling New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg a Republican:

“There’s a Republican initiative right now that says, ‘Get us the hell out of here’,” said Frank Lautenberg, a Republican senator from the port state of New Jersey.

Umm, no. Lautenberg is about as strong of a Democrat as it gets. Given how topsy-turvy and political as this fiasco has been, I can understand the confusion. I think we’ve blown a strategic opportunity to make a stronger alliance in the Middle East and I think we’ve set back the clock some.

We have short-term memories and even shorter-term vision in this nation. The majority of the world has memories and vision longer than ours and is likely scratching its head wondering what the hell were those damn Americans thinking. In most cases, I could give a rat’s ass what the world thinks of us. I don’t really care now, except this decision was made on fear, speculation and a disturbing lack of sense and reality.

With regards to Iraq, we had intel that said there were weapons of mass destruction there. It was historical fact that Saddam had and used chemical weapons and he was working on a nuclear weapons program. What happened to those just prior to our invasion, I don’t know. But we had the intel. This time, we don’t even have intel saying a Dubai corporation managing terminals will lead to disaster. Just speculation and supposition.

Update: The Anchoress sums up this whole fiasco better than anyone.