OK, a Serious Question

The U.S. supports Israel, right?

And now it's obvious that relations with the UAE are a lot closer than I would have thought:

Dubai Port's top American executive, chief operating officer Edward H. Bilkey, said the company will do whatever the Bush administration asks to enhance shipping security and ensure the sale goes through. Bilkey said Wednesday he will work in Washington to persuade skeptical lawmakers they should endorse the deal; Senate oversight hearings already are scheduled.

"We're disappointed," Bilkey told the AP in an interview. "We're going to do our best to persuade them that they jumped the gun. The UAE is a very solid friend, as President Bush has said."

Can one country truly be allies with two places that are diametrically opposed? Because everyone in the lefty blogosphere and their uncle has been pointing out that the UAE doesn't even *recognize* Israel.

So I'm walking around, wondering if we're living out the plot of some book where all of the characters in it are too stupid to see that the villains are going to take over and kill all the stupid trusting Americans, just like in "Mars Attacks", and feeling crazier and crazier because of it, and then, I run across this article in Tikun Olam:

Everyone who'’s been screaming about how much of a security risk Dubai Ports World is should consider that if we entrust U.S. Navy ships to DPW, especially in the aftermath of the Cole bombing, then they must be trustworthy (and fully vetted for potential security weaknesses).

Great, just great. Nothing like something that actually looks reasonable to make me feel even more stupid.

So here's my serious question - is this whole deal as bad as it looks, or are we all just panicking without any real reason? Maybe this isn't so much a serious security risk as it is just a deal between really rich people who like to make each other even more rich. I can no longer tell.

I did mention over on skippy, though, that the thing that really surprises me is that DPW isn't Haliburton.