The President, the Arabs, and the Port Security Debacle

You know, considering how completely unprotected our ports ARE under Bush and in the wake of 9/11, it's very hard to entitle this post "port security". But just as I was about to post to ask WHY Mr. Bush - besides his great financial ties to the bin Ladens and the Saud Royal Family - would boldly promise to veto any attempts to quash the deal, comes this from David Sirota at Working for Change:

Politicians and the media are loudly decrying the Bush administration's proposal to turn over port security to a firm owned by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) - a country with ties to terrorists. They are talking tough about national security - but almost no one is talking about what may have fueled the administration's decision to push forward with this deal: the desire to move forward Big Money's "free" trade agenda. That's not conspiracy theory - the administration is pushing this deal at the very same time it is trying to finalize a corporate-written "free" trade agreement with the UAE.