Paul Krugman: Osama, Saddam and the Ports

Paul Krugman explains how the the administration is a victim of its own tangled web of deception:

Osama, Saddam and the Ports, by Paul Krugman, Commentary, NY Times: The storm of protest over the planned takeover of some U.S. port operations by Dubai Ports World doesn't make sense viewed in isolation. The Bush administration clearly made no serious effort to ensure that the deal didn't endanger national security. But that's nothing new — the administration has spent the past four and a half years refusing to do anything serious about protecting the nation's ports.

So why did this latest case of sloppiness and indifference finally catch the public's attention? Because this time the administration has become a victim of its own campaign of fearmongering and insinuation. Let's go back to the beginning. At 2:40 p.m. on Sept. 11, 2001, Donald Rumsfeld gave military commanders their marching orders. "Judge whether good enough hit S. H. [Saddam Hussein] @ same time — not only UBL [Osama bin Laden]," read an aide's handwritten notes about his instructions. ... "Hard to get a good case," the notes acknowledge. Nonetheless, they say: "Sweep it all up. Things related and not."

So it literally began on Day 1. When terrorists attacked the United States, the Bush administration immediately looked for ways it could exploit the atrocity to pursue ... a war with Iraq. But to exploit the atrocity, President Bush had to do two things. First, he had to create a climate of fear: Al Qaeda, a real but limited threat, metamorphosed into a vast, imaginary axis of evil threatening America. Second, he had to blur the distinctions between nasty people who actually attacked us and nasty people who didn't. The administration successfully linked Iraq and 9/11 in public perceptions through a campaign of constant insinuation and occasional outright lies. In the process, ... all Arabs were lumped together in the camp of evildoers. Osama, Saddam — what's the difference?

Now comes the ports deal. ... after all those declarations that we're engaged in a global war on terrorism, after all the terror alerts ... the administration can't suddenly change its theme song to "Don't Worry, Be Happy." ... This isn't just a Middle Eastern company; it's ... part of the authoritarian United Arab Emirates, one of only three countries that recognized the Taliban as the legitimate ruler of Afghanistan. ... [A]fter years of systematically suggesting that Arabs who didn't attack us are the same as Arabs who did, the administration can't suddenly turn around and say, "But these are good Arabs."

Finally, the ports affair plays ... into the public's awareness ... that Mr. Bush ... and his family have close personal and financial ties to Middle Eastern rulers. ... Mr. Bush shouldn't really be losing his credibility as a terrorism fighter over the ports deal, which ... may turn out to be O.K. Instead, Mr. Bush should have lost his credibility long ago over his diversion of U.S. resources away from the pursuit of Al Qaeda and into an unnecessary war in Iraq, his bungling of that war, and his adoption of a wrongful imprisonment and torture policy that has blackened America's reputation.

But there is, nonetheless, a kind of rough justice in Mr. Bush's current predicament. After 9/11, the American people granted him a degree of trust rarely, if ever, bestowed on our leaders. He abused that trust, and now he is facing a storm of skepticism about his actions — a storm that sweeps up everything, things related and not.

Previous (2/20) column: Paul Krugman: The Mensch Gap
Next (2/27) column: Paul Krugman:  Graduates Versus Oligarchs

Comments

[ilsm]

This is absolutely about security. Security depends on more than saying we are at war, it includes strategy and tactics which we see are sorely lacking in the Bush administration.

It also includes logistics which is also ignored by the administration.

It is about peace time logistics, military and commercial, and it is about logistics during an emergency.

Whether this company manages the piers and the petroleum terminals alone or the whole port, these things would tie up the whole port if mismanaged or sabotaged.

The military sealift command has ships and lighters to operate in places with no port facilities, but it has not enough to operate a major US port if it were shutdown.

Had anyone asked military sealift command or US Transportation command about this deal other than to talk to a powdered prince with a career to secure?

If they have not got the more glamorous fighting side right how do we expect them to have the detail work of getting beans, bullets and blood to the troops in order?

The ports are a national security issue and must not be administered by potential sabateurs.

[anon]

I beg to differ with ILSM.

One way of correcting our embarassingly large merchandise trade imbalance is to LET them sabatoge our ports. After all, our major exports (ex agriculture) software, entertainment, misc services and aircraft are unemcumbered by port congestion. We should outsource port security to the Chinese and Japanese since they are the obvious beneficiaries and have the most at stake to keep routes open.

Unfortunately, the P&O ports in question are less help in this respect, with the California & Northwestern gateways being the most important arteries for asian mercantilists.

[calmo]

This is absolutely not about security, but nuance. [This post is not nuanced enough about this, ilsm and I expect no compliance.]
Krugman slaps our faces awake again. Recall (let's skip the polite request and just order you about shall we?) that the media drove the WH message that to draw a distinction between Osama and Sadam was too nuanced. [A lot of people agreed and Kerry lost.] 'Axis of Evil', was something to consider rather than to deride.
So we have been cultivated to respond to 'meat' and ignore those subtle distinctions between 'sausage', 'hamburger' and 'ribs'.
It is another layered irony that W (my choice of person most likely to ignore nuance) can tell us that this sends a "Terrible Signal" --that we do not and cannot draw that distinction between good and bad Arabs.