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From: "Laura Cody" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
The Bush isle of Thanatos
By Kathleen Parker
Kathleen Parker
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | The Greeks and Sigmund Freud had a
name for what may ail President George W. Bush: Thanatos. The death
wish.
Thanatos was the Greek personification of death, which Freud later
expanded to describe man's "death instinct," or the unconscious wish
to abandon life's struggles and return to a state of quiet repose.
That would be the grave, as Freud envisioned man's endpoint. But for
Bush, perhaps the metaphor extends only as far as a nice, quiet ranch
in Crawford, Texas, where, as Yeats once put it, "peace comes dropping
slow."
How else to explain this administration's inexorable march toward
political death?
The final throes of Bush's journey toward self-destruction may have
found expression with the apparent sale of operational rights to six
of our nation's largest ports to a company owned by the United Arab
Emirates (UAE). Approved by the Bush administration against all
reason, the $6.8 billion sale includes the ports of New York, New
Jersey, Baltimore, New Orleans, Miami and Philadelphia.
Despite bipartisan condemnation, the Bush administration has defended
the sale to Dubai Ports World as not only safe, but prudent. The UAE,
which incidentally served as a financial and operational base for the
Sept. 11 hijackers, is an important ally in the fight against terror,
we're told.
Of course they are. And Colombia is an important ally in the war
against drugs. And Mexico is an important ally in the fight against
illegal immigration. Perhaps, given that much of our illegal drug
supply and immigrant population come from Colombia and Mexico,
respectively, we should reconsider our strategy.
Meanwhile, is this our new bombs-to-butter ploy in the Middle East?
Instead of blocking the sale, which might have suggested American
distrust of Arabs and/or Muslim nations, we give them the keys to our
houses. Clever.
In the parallel universe we affectionately call Planet Earth, insanity
seems the better word.
Let's assume that the UAE is, indeed, a power player in the game
against terrorists. There's reason to hope, as supporters of the sale
have suggested, that the UAE has a vested interest in port security.
It's a business deal, after all, and what's good for jihad isn't
necessarily good for business.
Plus, as others have noted, the ports themselves are unionized and
staffed by "Archie Bunker-kind of Americans," in the words of Stephen
E. Flynn, of the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations. Which is
to say, Baltimore's waterfront isn't suddenly going to be swarming
with red-checkered keffiyehs.
Irresistible footnote: Notice that we love stereotypical racist white
guys like Bunker when we imagine terrorists invading our port cities.
In other words, political correctness is a luxury of deadbolts, full
stomachs and anthrax-free air.
Speaking seriously for a moment, it's hardly reasonable to condemn or
fear an entire nation or a federation of emirates on the basis of
a few random acts by a tiny percentage of the world's 1.25 billion
Muslims. When weird Christians misbehave, we don't expect the world to
stop doing business with Alabama.
But, politically, handing over our ports to a part of the world where
the U.S. is not currently beloved is tantamount to taking arsenic to
treat acne. It is particularly grotesque in the midst of the cartoon
melee now consuming parts of the Middle East, which has cast in stark
relief the philosophical chasm between much of the Muslim world and
our own.
Again, it bears repeating that not all Muslims are burning flags,
embassies and effigies in protest of a few drawings of the Prophet
Muhammad. But just as clearly, Americans are in no mood to enhance the
chances that some of these jihad-minded fellows might find easier
access to our cities once ports already considered vulnerable are in
foreign hands.
Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley aptly summarized sentiments on both
sides of the political aisle when he said, "... President's Bush's
decision to turn over the operations of any American port is reckless.
It is outrageous and it is irresponsible. We are not going to turn
over the port of Baltimore to a foreign government. It's not going to
happen."
Granting a fantastically elastic benefit of the doubt, perhaps the
president was merely seeking a novel way to bridge our divided nation.
For the first time in a long while, Democrats and Republicans from
Democratic Sen. Hillary Clinton to Republican New York Gov. George
Pataki are united, this time in opposition to the sale of our ports
to a foreign entity.
In the more likely event that Thanatos truly is at the helm of our
ship of state at this titanic moment, we can't afford to let Bush's
death instinct subsume the national imperative to survive.
Survival now depends on fitter minds.
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