Good… Bush isn’t a xenophobe

Today in my Political Science Class, PS 103 International Relations, Dr Bullert was talking about the political tsunami that has been going on in regards to the Dubai-based company take over of many of our nations sea ports. It has been a bi-partisan uproar against the president and this port deal. Although President Bush had no idea about this deal until it was passed, he still supports the decision and has even threatened use of his veto power on any legislation that could be passed through congress trying to halt the deal. Dr Bullert seemed to be totally against President Bush, even though mainly he is a highly conservative. This mirrors much of congress. I did not agree with his position at all. I tried to speak up and bring up some other points of view in class, but was not able to due to the fact that another student brought up some different points before I was able to and Dr Bullert moved on very quickly. I had listened to an NPR report earlier that morning, on the drive to school, that had given me a different perspective. Much of the facts seem to be left behind in the worry over this corporate take-over, but there is an interesting resource that can be read with many of the Q & A about this deal. It would seem to me that there is a political hype over security, when there is really not much of an issue. With management and the majority of the workers continuing to be the same people, I do not see what kind of security risk this poses. They will not be running the ports or handling the security. It would seem that they would have the same sort of security risk of allowing Muslims become workers at a port (i.e. seeing how security works, and implementing some sort of attack). This just does not make sense to me. It also seems to be a case of xenophobia. For America to allow the members of one nation to run our ports, but not allow another nation to do the exact same is not a correct stance. If members of congress want to attack globalization and the free flow of trade companies I would listen to that… but not just because they are Muslims or from an Arab country.