About the port brouhaha

As I mentioned below, I recently read the not really that impressive "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man," by John Perkins.

One wonders reading it if it itself might be part of a conspiracy; it's so inconclusive in its prescriptons, it does seem to misrepresent what I know to be the NSA's function (though with a name like "National Security Agency," one could imagine that it has black functions unknown to the rest of us, but you could say the same thing about the National Reconaissance Office), and the character who seduces Mr. Perkins seems drawn from fiction. (The New York Times said the same thing here, unbeknownst to me when I bought the book, because, well the article didn't come out when I bought it.)

But all that aside, it's a good frame with which to view the recent events in Iraq and now this port brouhaha.

That is to say, it's evident that there was some kind of quid pro quo going on between the UAE and the people in the Bush regime. But then you knew that, didn't you? Nothing- nothing- the Bush folks do is done without an eye to seeing that certain peole benefit who don't happen to be me or you.