Senator Schumer has a Bill
27 February 2006 11:52 am by Taylor Marsh
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to the matters at hand…
Senator Schumer has a Bill
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| Congress should provide oversight on the port deal. House fact sheet |
Since then, with no consistent
political strategy to woo the Pashtun population away from bin Laden, the army
has steadily lost ground. The political agents, who ran the tribal
agencies with a mixture of bribery and pressure, have been replaced by arrogant
generals ignorant of local conditions. Today the extremists rule over North
and South Waziristan and other tribal agencies, while the 70,000 Pakistani troops
stationed there are boxed up in outposts, too frightened to patrol the mountains.
More than 100 pro-government tribal elders have been assassinated by extremists
for divulging information to the U.S. or Pakistani secret services. … (snip)
… Getting those results won't be easy. Bin Laden has fighters and
sympathizers down the length and breadth of Pakistan's Pashtun belt.
No Pakistani Pashtun has reason to betray bin Laden, despite the $27
million reward for his head. Thanks to the drug trade in Afghanistan
and the suitcases full of cash still arriving from backers in the Arabian Gulf,
neither al Qaeda nor the local Pashtuns are short money. The Pakistani army's
failure to offer Pashtuns a greater political role in the national framework
has not inspired any loyalty among the tribesmen. And misguided U.S. interventions,
such as the January missile strike that killed women and children, do the rest.
Washington's recent decision to start pulling U.S. troops out of Afghanistan
this year has only reinforced al Qaeda's belief that it is winning. After
nearly five years of avoiding capture or death, every single day that bin Laden
stays alive is a day that inspires the extremists who protect him and join his
ranks.
He's
Welcome In Pakistan
Will someone please explain to me why we should forget that the
UAE aided Osama?
It's not a minor point in the port deal.
President Bush has used 9/11 in every speech since, well,
9/11. Now, I'm not suggesting we nakedly propagandize the tragedy like
our president, but again, someone tell me why Dubai's ties to 9/11 aren't
relevant.
As for the progressive intellectuals not liking this fight, well,
no wonder we've lost so many elections lately. The American people get it even
if the progressive intelligentsia doesn't. Maybe we should care more about average
Americans than the upper crust crowd, after all, they can't get us elected,
but regular folks can.
I'd also like Terror
Guy to tell us what the UAE will do to stop infiltration within their own
company from extremists within their own country. Can they give us a guarantee?
Or maybe they can offer specific steps they will take to keep terrorists out.
What are their screening processes for employees? As Senator Biden asked yesterday,
are the classified port documents to which they will be privy just lying in
open access on computers back in Dubai? Who has access to those computers? I'm
also a little curious why Bush and the Republicans want to allow DP World to keep certain documents outside the U.S.
And let's get real, if DP World were JP World, as in Jordan Ports
World, this brouhaha would go bye-bye. King Abdullah I trust, the Dubai sheiks
who let bin Laden escape, laundered his money, while also aiding A.Q. Khan spread
nukes, not so much.
Democrats seem to understand the issue, with most Republicans
continuing down the back the boss road regardless of American feelings and passionate
sentiments. Evidently, winning the ring of the Republican king is more important
than doing the people's business these days.
It's widely known that we let bin Laden get away in Tora Bora,
but long before that debacle went down, Osama bin Laden had friends throughout
the Arab and Muslim world. One of those friends was the UAE.
Thomas Kean, a former Republican governor
of New Jersey who led the bipartisan probe of the Sept. 11 attacks, said the
deal was a big mistake because of past connections between the 2001 hijackers
and the UAE.“It shouldn't have happened, it never
should have happened,” Kean said in a telephone interview with
The Associated Press.The quicker the Bush administration can get out of
the deal, the better, he said. “There's no question that two
of the 9/11 hijackers came from there and money was laundered through there,”
Kean said.
Adviser
says White House set on ports deal
Again, why shouldn't the facts surrounding 9/11 matter here? This
isn't about prejudice and racism, but it is about being politically correct
with a government-owned country that also happened to help bin Laden get away.
Someone tell me why this all of a sudden doesn't matter. Because
President Bush is the one to suggest the deal? There is absolutely no reason
I or any other American should trust George W. Bush. He hasn't earned it.
Osama was the mastermind behind 9/11, but we preemptively invaded
Iraq instead. Sure, Democrats voted for the war, but every single one of the
Democrats have looked straight at Bush's incompetence on the war and called
the venture a disaster in leadership, at the very least. Now look at Iraq, which
Bush won't even admit is on the brink. Remember Katrina? Now comes a port deal
with a country actually tied, not just tangentially, but deeply, even complicit
with 9/11 money laundering, but President Bush and the Republicans who control
Congress want us to all of a suddenly forget this damnable detail.
Not just any Muslim or Arab country helped bin Laden escape. Jordan
didn't. However, the UAE did. If the rulers want to come out and apologize for
their complicity, admit it and explain it, I'll be glad to listen. But I'm not
willing to just turn the other cheek to the UAE sheiks.
During the faux port deal investigation, not one person on CFIUS
talked with the 9/11 Committee. Why not?
… The Sept. 11 commission's report
released last year also raised concerns UAE officials were directly associating
with bin Laden as recently as 1999. The report states U.S. intelligence
believed that bin Laden was visiting an area in the Afghan desert in February
1999 near a hunting camp used by UAE officials, and that the U.S. military planned
a missile strike. Intelligence from local tribal sources indicated “bin
Laden regularly went from his adjacent camp to the larger camp where he visited
the Emiratis,” the report said. “National technical intelligence confirmed
the location and description of the larger camp and showed the nearby presence
of an official aircraft of the United Arab Emirates. But the location of bin
Laden's quarters could not be pinned down so precisely,” the report said.
The missile attack was never launched, and bin Laden moved on, the report said.
A month later, top White House counterterrorism official Richard Clarke “called
a UAE official to express his concerns about possible associations between Emirati
officials and bin Laden,” the report said. … 9/11
Commission Ties U.A.E. to Bin Laden
The bases in Dubai are important. The very recent shift in the
UAE attitude about all things terrorist is welcome, for sure. There is also
no doubt whatsoever that we need to cultivate this relationship. However, it
doesn't erase very recent history of Dubai's 9/11 involvement, which is too
recent for many of us. It also doesn't mean we should handle port management
over to them.
Osama bin Laden lies in wait in Pakistan, amassing loyal subjects,
with only “The
Spider Cell” on his tale, which was reported by Brian Ross,
and I recounted. The emails flooded in over this unit, because no one and I
mean no one else made a mention, with the Moderate
Voice picking it up, as well others.
The Spider Cell is not enough. The point being is what might have been if the
UAE hadn't tipped off bin Laden and allowed him to escape again. Because many
believe that's exactly what happened, after all, bin Laden was with a UAE prince
at the time we wanted to strike.
Senator Schumer, representing one of the states hit on 9/11, will
introduce legislation to make Congress part of the port deal. It's called oversight.
We should support it.
SCHUMER: Well, I’m not sure we have
a truce. Our legislation, which is bipartisan, five Democrats, five
Republicans — we’ll introduce it today on the floor of
the Senate — says do the 45-day review that’s necessary,
but it also says give Congress, not just the president, the findings and let
Congress have an opportunity — 30 days — to disapprove the deal.
That’s what’s needed, because the president has already decided.
He said he’s for it. So he has the verdict already, and now he’s
having the trial. ThinkProgress
What Senator Schumer and his allies from both parties are trying
to do is open the decision to someone besides the
president, who now has sole authority over the deal, which is a mistake.
If people don't realize that Bush needs oversight on his policies by now, we
must have entered political Disneyland.
