I mean, think about it: Actually securing all our ports and stuff would require the expenditure of real money here at home, where it wouldn't be anywhere near as easy for it to be something-for-nothing diverted to the arms-and-oil magnates Dubya proudly calls his "base." That's why it hasn't been done.
Feeding-your-friendswise, it's been much more efficient to pour kabillions into the phony war and phony reconstruction in Iraq, a rathole beyond the reach of rational accounting practices.(F'rinstance, even after receiving news that virtually none of the money spent on "reconstruction" has benefited anyone but arms manufacturers, mercenaries. outright grafters and well-connected US contractors, Congress is still so terrified of looking unpatriotic that it keeps writing blank checks for $80-120 billion "special" war approprations ever few months. Yet, here at home, we inspect fewer than 5 percent of incoming shipping containers -- alleged prime habitat for nukes, bioweapons and anti-aircaft missiles -- for lack of less than $200 million.)
Now, perhaps it was just sheer, absentminded greed: "What? Families of Arab oil sheiks wanna buy our port contracts? Hey, they know who their friends are..." Never stopping to think that Wild West, anything-goes boomtown Dubai -- and in particular, Dubai's shipping industry -- is (according to the CIA Factbook and other reputable sources) a major "drug transshipment point," a hotbed for "money laundering," a major racketeering center, etc.. Just the kind of place terrorists find so useful! And so convenient for exceedingly angry, Saudi-connected Wahhabi Muslims who hate sin-rich Dubai almost as much as they hate the Great Satan. The kind of non-Iraqi guys who were on those 9/11 planes.
All this might seem problematical, if you thought about, it and perhaps the Bush folk just didn't think.
But then, maybe they
Maybe, being nominally Americans, as opposed to sole-loyalty citizens of My Capital 'Tis of Thee, they've actually worried a little about how to provide better homeland security -- without, of course, using up money they want to spend way over in Iraq, where we can't actually watch it being wasted.
And finally, somebody on Rove's staff got an idea: GIVE THE PORT BUSINESS TO THE ARABS! Make 'em think twice about killing a cash cow! Who wants to sacrifice anything as cushy as port shipping revenues (can you say "skim"?) by allowing their bin Laden cousins to blow off a little anti-infidel steam?
Yessir, next time Osama writes home for more cash and some suicide boyos to deliver a container full of radioactive botox to the Miami Port Authority terminal, our vigilant port contract holders in Dubai will suggest he do something useful, like dynamite a Swiss Yoplait factory or slip Pervez Musharaff a whopee cushion. Talk about pre-emption! This could be the greatest thing to happen to America's sense of security since Al Haig reassured us that he was "in charge." Whew!
And hey, if the Arab radicals just really, really need to blow us up again, and/or if there's unaccountable resistance to the election of Uncle Dick in 2008, well, at least the right people will be in the right places to ensure an efficient incident...
Yours in peace through superior fraud,
--- HistoryBuff
