Sowing Seeds

This past week New York Times columnists Thomas Friedman and Nicholas Kristof weighed in on the Dubai Ports World deal. They are not joining the frenzy of opposition.

From Friedman:

As a country, we must not go down this road of global ethnic profiling - looking for Arabs under our beds the way we once looked for commies. If we do - if America, the world's beacon of pluralism and tolerance, goes down that road - we will take the rest of the world with us. We will sow the wind and we will reap the whirlwind.

If there were a real security issue here, I'd join the critics. But the security arrangement is bogus and, I would add, borderline racist. Many U.S. ports are run today by foreign companies, but the U.S. Coast Guard still controls all aspects of port security, entry, and exits; the U.S. Customs Service is still in charge of inspecting the containers...The port operator simply oversees the coming and going of ships...in the most cost effective manner.

From Kristof:

[Former] Secretary of State Cordell Hull used to say that "when goods do not cross borders, armies do." If we want to promote global markets, as an avenue to peace, we have to practice what we preach.

...It was counterproductive for Republicans to get so hysterical about national security that they justified locking up hundreds of Muslims after 9/11. And, it's just as wrong for the Democrats to get hysterical today.

Democrats have so many legitimate reasons to criticize President Bush - from ruining our nation's finances to despoiling American wilderness - that it's painful to see them scaremongering in just the way that Mr. Bush himself has.

I have to say, I agree with Friedman and Kristoff. What many people fail to take into account is that this "war on terrorism" is just as much about ideas as it is about military might. We want to encourage modernization in the Arab world. We want to encourage an environment where every Arab can experience positive, personal growth and opportunity. We want the moderates of this region to win the war of ideas over the Muslim radicals.

The United Arab Emirates is an ally in a part of the world where we need all of the allies we can muster. By letting this Dubai deal go through, we help plant the seeds of hope in a part of the world where centuries of hoplessness have taken a devestating toll.