The Ports and Education in the UAE

As we all know the United States Ports being sold to the United Arab Emirates are a hot bone of contention in government today. I have been listening to Rush and Sean Hannity for the past couple of days and done some reading online as well. My position is that I trust the President, but there is one question that I have that has not been reported by the press. Is the government in the UAE teaching anti-western views in their public schools? We know that the government of Saudi Arabia supports an anti-western view to be taught in their public schools. For this reason and for this reason alone I would not let the Saudi government attain access to anything that could remotely affect our ports. So does the government of the UAE feel the same?

I have been to UEA, Dubai to be exact. I will say that it is a beautiful country as far as countries go in the desert. They are far ahead of their neighbors Oman and Yemen. The architecture is second to none and the people of that country enjoy a prospering free market economy. The UAE is probably the most like the U.S. of all the countries in the Middle East. There has been debate because some of the September 11 hijackers used the banking systems in the UAE to fund their activities in the build up to September 11, but should we not talk to the Swiss? We know that banking is their biggest commodity and that they give banking support to some of the worst people in the world. So what about them? Also people are talking about the UAE not being trust worthy because some of the 9/11 hijackers traveled to the U.S. via UAE. Well what about the place they stopped in between the U.S. and the UAE? I’m sure it wasn’t a non-stop flight.

The security of the ports will not be lessened by doing business with the UAE. Security will still be controlled by the Coast Guard and the work in the ports will still be done by United States workers. If anything, I believe there will be a higher amount of security as a by-product of the added attention. Although the UAE is a country that embraces a violent religion such as Islam, I believe that the government of the UAE puts this aside in the interest of money. Also, it is not like terrorists to be so public in their affairs. I believe that most of our country is acting in prejudice because the UAE is a Middle Eastern Nation. It is understandable though. The scars from 9/11 run deep, not to mention all the terrorist attacks before and after.

The bottom line is that I don’t believe that the government of UAE is willing to sacrifice what they have in the interest of terrorist agendas. Why spend the money? But, this is the position of the current government in place. If these people are still supporting the teachings of anti-western views then what will happen thirty years down the road? Children are very vulnerable in their younger years and very impressionable. If we look at the Palestinians we see the result of teaching a people anti-western views from the earliest years of their lives. Although I don’t believe that any future government of the UAE would risk or even be successful in an attack on the United States, doing business with a country that condones this kind of teaching is morally wrong. These teachings by a foreign government to their children undermines the efforts of the United States in the War on Terror and promotes the idea that the American government is more interested in establishing business relations than acknowledging the principles that the people of the United States stand behind. National Security and Moral Principles come first.