Terrorists Guard Us from Terrorists

There are a lot of silly things the government is doing. The Aging Administration is a great example of a useless government entity. The study of aging is clearly a necessity. It’s not like we experience it firsthand.

With the recent privately funded space program beginning to successfully launch men into space, it appears NASA will soon be obsolete. By far, however, the silliest government failure would be hiring Arabs to defend our ports.

Now, I’m not racist by any means, however, the company guarding our ports is run by one of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). This particular country has distinct ties to 9/11. According to MSNBC (and a number of other sources), the UAE wired money to several of the hijackers on several occasions within little more than one year before 9/11.

These were not small amounts either. On Sep. 18, 2000, an account in the UAE wired almost $70,000 to aliases used by the terrorists, according to MSNBC. This company is guarding the major U. S. ports. We live on a peninsula, shouldn’t we be the most concerned?

To me, this looks like another mistake on the part of the government. “How can we fight a war with open borders?” used to be the question everyone asked. I’m asking now, how can we defend ourselves when our ports are left unprotected?

Ok, so the goal of this whole outsourcing is to protect our ports. But we’re protecting them with high-risk people. Whether or not there is certainty that the UAE helped with 9/11, why are we taking the risk when there are plenty of unemployed Americans willing to take the job?

The argument, of course, is that the UAE has helped in the War on Terror. To steal a quote from the Wall Street Journal, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said, “The UAE is a good partner in the war on terrorism.”

The UAE is centrally located, on the coast of the Persian Gulf, which could make it a powerful ally. However, its surrounding nations include Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran. Clearly political pressure could easily be wielded against this small country to slide terrorists in under our noses.

Interestingly enough, the UAE, as its name would imply, is a group of emirates united under one ruler. This is remarkably similar to the U. S. model of a group of states (the English version of the Arabic word emirate) united under one government.

The name of the actual emirate providing the security is Dubai. Dubai’s government runs Dubai Ports World, an organization that competes to secure ports all over the world. In fact, the company was contracted to protect ours by none other than the President himself.

Even Republicans in congress thought this maneuver was ludicrous. To steal more from the WSJ, “In regards to selling American ports to the United Arab Emirates, not just NO—but HELL NO!” said Rep. Sue Myrick, of North Carolina (R).

In fact, port security leaves a lot to be desired. Another WSJ article enlightens us that only 5-10% of containers on container ships entering our ports are ever checked, and many are sealed with nothing more than plastic ties!

More importantly, most of our port security is on the ground at the port and little involves the ship directly other than the coast guard. A ship at sea could be overtaken by pirates and continue on it’s path with little notice from the ground port security. Then, containers full of nuclear weapons could be loaded onto shore unchecked.

I am more than a bit concerned. Being surrounded on three sides by water leaves little desire for error when it comes to port security. Maybe Jeb has better ideas for our ports.