As many probably know Bush has threatened to veto any bill that would block the Port transfer to the a company run by the United Arab Emirates. Well today I got one of Santorum’s campain E-Mail (yes I am on the email list for his campain, I did sign up for it, so it is not spam, it was requested, spam is unrequested) and in it he says
“That’s why I’m concerned any time it appears as if we’re not taking the terrorist threat seriously enough. As I write you,the control of six major U.S. seaports– including the Port of Philadelphia– could be outsourced to the United Arab Emirates, a nation that was implicated in the events of 9/11.”
and he goes on to say
“after learning of this troubling situation last week, I took immediate action to call for an investigation and a stop to this transfer of control of our ports:
Last Thursday, I requested that the President intervene and use his authority under the current law to prevent this sale;
I have requested that the U.S. Senate investigate the matter to determine if and how the application of the law needs to reflect the realities of a post-9/11 world, and;
I began discussions with a bipartisan group of Congressmen to determine what we could do if the administration doesn’t rescind the contract.”
so I think this kind of puts Mr Santorum and Bush at odds over this issue, I will admit I have not decided how I feel about it, but I don’t think we should let knee jerk reactions guide us here.
For those of you that would see the fill text of the email You can see it at Rick Santorum’s ReElection site
This could be intersting to watch how all this falls out.
Interesting debate for sure. On one hand, people don’t trust UAE because 2 hijackers came from there. Interestingly enough, just about all the other hijackers came from Saudi Arabia, including bin Laden, and we seem to be literally holding their hands. Also the deal is about loading and unloading cargo. Don’t worry, all the ports will still have the same incompetent security run by the US that check 5% of all the cargo containers. If anyone has a problem with non-US workers loading and unloading containers, you’re too late, P&O is British, they’re doing that already, so saying UAE can’t do it is borderlining on racism. Would that mean that no cop or air marshall can be middle eastern? How about a white Muslim? See what I’m getting at. I read a horrible quote from Bush today in response to this. How could he have misquoted, I think he just messed up on english. Funny though, if it weren’t so sad: “This deal wouldn’t go forward if we were concerned about the security for the United States of America”. Another sad thing is almost a threat from the president to the congress about vetoing bills. Shouldn’t these people sort of, you know, work together, like mature adults?