Bush cool with Islamic country protecting our ports

Hat tip to my friend Kanaka Girl for passing this on to me. From Fox News:

A company in the United Arab Emirates is poised to take over significant operations at six American ports as part of a corporate sale, leaving a country with ties to the Sept. 11 hijackers with influence over a maritime industry considered vulnerable to terrorism.

The Bush administration considers the UAE an important ally in the fight against terrorism since the suicide hijackings and is not objecting to Dubai Ports World's purchase of London-based Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co.

The $6.8 billion sale is expected to be approved Monday. The British company is the fourth largest ports company in the world and its sale would affect commercial U.S. port operations in New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, New Orleans, Miami and Philadelphia.

DP World said it won approval from a secretive U.S. government panel that considers security risks of foreign companies buying or investing in American industry.
...
The State Department describes the UAE as a vital partner in the fight against terrorism. But the UAE, a loose federation of seven emirates on the Saudi peninsula, was an important operational and financial base for the hijackers who carried out the attacks against New York and Washington, the FBI concluded.

Sen. Charles Schumer, a Democrat whose district includes the New York port, urged the administration to consider the sale carefully.

"America's busiest ports are vital to our economy and to the international economy, and that is why they remain top terrorist targets," Schumer said. "Just as we would not outsource military operations or law enforcement duties, we should be very careful before we outsource such sensitive homeland security duties."

God Allah help me, but I (gulp!) agree with Chuck the Schmuck on this one! Granted, his motives are likely more related to BDS than actual security concerns, but nonetheless, he is right to be disturbed by this development.

Color me with the "politically incorrect" crayon, but I am aghast that the security of our own country is being outsourced to a country that has a citizenry largely unsupportive of our efforts to destroy Islamofascism and keep it out of our back yard! Am I the only insensitive bastard here who finds this move incredulously idiotic? What's next, letting a Syrian company guard our nuclear reactors?

Do you need further reasons to oppose this deal? OK, how about this one?

Flynn and others said even under foreign control, U.S. ports will continue to be run by unionized American employees. "You're not going have a bunch of UAE citizens working the docks," Flynn said. "They're longshoremen, vested in high-paying jobs. Most of them are Archie Bunker-kind of Americans."

Great. Just freakin' wonderful. Turn our nation's security over to a country who served as a prominent base to 9/11 hijackers and to a group of functional economic illiterates!