Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Pull the Other One

Last night I was watching the news for a few minutes, and the story came on about more members of Congress protesting the sale of the company that controls the security of several US ports to a company based in the United Arab Emirates. There was the usual setup, some pictures of docks, someone talking in news-anchor-calm tones about what ports were involved, and then the cut to a clip of Michael Chertoff actually saying "you just have to trust us". Now, I'd read those words around the blogosphere, but I didn't realize that they were a direct quote.

Why in the world would I trust them? Because I elected them? No one I know elected Michael Certoff, and almost no one I know elected George Bush. Didn't 49% of the people in the U.S. who voted vote for someone who wasn't Bush? And you know what? That's no matter. People are people, and we make mistakes and do things with unpure motivations, like greed and vanity.

I don't have to trust anybody, especially not a group of men who think that having a UAE-owned company run security on U.S. ports is a good idea.

Update: Today on the radio I heard the annoucer specifically say that the UAE-owned company would not be in charge of port security, but I still don't care. I see myself heading into wingnut territory here, btu I cannot make myself believe anything other than this: The United Arab Emirates are NOT our friends, whther they "play by the rules" or not. They're waiting to strike when we're not looking. Again.

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