Two more on the Ports Deal

The NYTimes and Dean Esmay, who has this:

The UAE is the home of the United States Air Force Base at Al Dhafra, and the UAE port of Jebel Ali is the most frequent port of call for U.S. Navy ships in the world outside the United States, with a reputation for being a great place for R&R for tired sailors. The USO even operates major facilities in the UAE. Indeed, it's one part of the region where American service members can generally walk the streets unafraid, casually shopping and touristing and making friends with the locals.

The United Arab Emirates is hardly a perfect nation. The Freedom House report on the UAE shows them to have a long way to go in terms of basic rights, and although there have been some important recent reforms the country clearly needs to reform even more before joining the modern world. But they have never once appeared on the State Department list of terror-sponsoring nations, and in the wake of 9/11 they instituted serious reforms to stop any financial or other activities that might help international terrorists. The UAE also has troops fighting alongside U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

I look at the issue this way: We can't really protect ourselves anyway. The UAE has a bigger interest in cooperating with us with this deal than without it, and those conducting our security ops are more likely to stay sharp dealing with them than they would with a British or German company. I'm aware of the arguments against it, but I'm not persuaded. As a political matter, it's probably better to play to the race card in November than not, but I don't think it's justified by the facts. Should we trust anybody to prevent another terrorist attack? Probably not, whether they're Arabs, Europeans or Americans.