Shipping is global, but national security is not

Have you heard the one about the Trojan horse?

Maybe President Bush and his advisers had better bone up on their ancient history, because those who forget ancient history are apparently doomed to repeat it - or maybe become it.

Here's the scenario:

You are fighting a war on terrorism. That war focuses on Mideastern fundamentalists because they have shown a particular inclination and determination to bring death and destruction to your shores. In order to prevent terrorism you have instituted new security measures across the board, ranging from new restrictions on airline boardings to warrantless wiretaps to a color-coded alert system that tells us just how scared to be (green means "sleep tight"; red means "your worst nightmare").

In addition, you have waged war against the terrorists in the Middle East and elsewhere to try to root them out. Naturally this has stirred them up like hornets whose nest was poked through with a stick. Everyone understands that retaliation by the terrorists is just a matter of time. But meanwhile life goes on, and there is a steady stream of trade between nations that must continue unabated. Although your ports are where you are most vulnerable to penetration by terrorists, you understand that the ports cannot be closed. They must continue to operate efficiently in order to maintain the economy even while security measures are being taken.

So in order to keep those cargo containers moving, you have hired a couple of smart hornets from the Mideast to run the ports and have assured everyone that these particular hornets don't sting. Besides, even if they did sting, they have been "thoroughly vetted," so they won't sting too bad.

Can anyone say Threat Level Red?

Not President Bush.

He and a surprising number of other people are saying we should be glad that a pending sale will put the United Arab Emirates in charge of major shipping operations in New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, New Orleans, Miami and Philadelphia. Shipping is a global operation after all.

Maybe so, but national security is not.

And the idea of putting our ports of entry into the hands of a foreign government, any foreign government, is absurd. And when that foreign government has ties to al-Qaida and the Taliban, the terrorists who we are at war with, then it is beyond absurd. It is downright criminal.

The company that will run the port terminals, Dubai Ports World, is owned by the government of Dubai, one of the seven emirates that form the United Arab Emirates. Two of the September 11 hijackers came from the United Arab Emirates and hijacker money was also laundered through the country. Emirate royalty used to like to take their private jets over to Afghanistan in the good old days of the Taliban theocracy and go hunting with their pal, Osama bin Laden.

So if anyone thought I was a lackey of the "imperial" Bush presidency, forget about it. I am a lackey of American survival, and I will support any steps that will allow us to take another step forward into the blackness of eternity with our tiny beacon of liberty held high.

That means on most national security issues, I stand with the president. But when the president drinks too much chamomile tea and starts drifting off to lotus land, I do my best to slap him back to sanity just like Odysseus had to do when his men fell victim to the narcotic of apathy in the Greek myth.

Hey, Mr. President, WAKE UP!

You just put Iran in charge of our nuclear program!

You just put Mexico in charge of border security!

You just put the hornets in charge of the insect repellent!

ARE YOU KIDDING?

I bet the hornets are yucking it up pretty good right about now. I mean they don't have to do anything stupid. There's no need to call attention to themselves by blowing up a bomb in the port, for goodness' sake. They just bide their time, do their job and keep out of trouble. In five or 10 years, they will have lulled us into a false sense of security, and then they can strike.

Kind of funny really that they can get rich by running our biggest ports at the same time they are plotting where and when to sting us to do the most damage.

I know, I know. The president says these are good Arabs, thoroughly vetted. Nothing to fear from them.

And maybe the president is right about the sheiks and crown princes. They probably keep their hands clean. They probably do just want to make more money so they can privately enjoy more of the decadent pleasures of the West which they publicly condemn.

But if we are worried about sleeper cells of terrorists in the United States, why are we not terrified of sleeper cells of terrorists in Dubai? How hard would it be for al-Qaida to infiltrate Dubai Ports World with any one of the hundreds of university-educated time bombs they have recruited over the past 20 years? As a matter of fact they could pack Dubai Ports World full of walking time bombs and we would be none the wiser.

Which brings us back to that other story from Homer's "Odyssey," the story of how Odysseus and his men fooled the poor gullible people of Troy into opening their impenetrable fortress to the giant horse of wood called by Homer a "thing of guile" and known to history as the Trojan horse.

Consider the cry of a patriot of Troy, as recounted in another version of the story in Virgil's "Aeneid," as he warns his people not to accept the gift of the Greeks into their citadel:

. wretched countrymen! What fury reigns?

What more than madness has possess'd your brains?

His warning goes unheeded, and in a drunken celebration at their victory of the Greeks, the Trojans are slaughtered and their city destroyed by those who hid patiently within the wooden horse.

Just as Troy, we too have been given a warning. The cry has gone up loud and clear before the gates have fallen open and the Trojan horse taken into our midst. Despite the protests of President Bush and Rush Limbaugh and a host of other "globalists," it would plainly take a madman to even consider the idea of allowing Arabs to run the ports where we are most vulnerable.

The argument made by Bush is that Dubai Ports World would not be responsible for security at the port; they would just be handling the day-to-day oversight of ships entering and departing the port and leaving behind or picking up thousands of cargo containers a day.

Turns out the Coast Guard would actually be in charge of security, along with Customs. So that should make you feel safer, just like you would feel safer that the Nuclear Regulatory Commisson was keeping an eye on the security of our nuclear energy programs after we turned operational control over to Iran. No chance Iran would want to sneak a little plutonium out of the country, right?

And absolutely no reason to think that Arabs who pal around with bin Laden would have any reason to smuggle a container or two of chemicals or biological agents into the United States when the Coast Guard was busy chasing Cuban refugees one day.

Heck no.

The good news, if you an optimist, is that this story has brought to light a horror story of huge proportions. It turns out that 30 percent of America's ports are already controlled by foreign-based companies. APL Limited, for instance, which is controlled by the government of Singapore, operates port terminals in Los Angeles, Oakland, Seattle and Alaska.

What were we thinking?

All those deals need to be reconsidered, along with this one. It is absolutely unacceptable that national security should be considered of secondary importance to the gobalization of the shipping economy.

Everyone needs to speak up loud and clear and get the president to see the error of his ways. Otherwise, when the history of this country is written, it will end with a gagline just as Troy's did:

"Beware of Greeks bearing gifts."