Written by: Anonymous

Right now the United States has about 150,000 troops in harm's way trying to accomplish the incredibly difficult task of bringing democracy to unprepared Islamic populations. Despite the odds against success, the Bush administration believes the stakes are high enough and the options few enough that it's worth the gamble. Still, no one will deny now that this is by far the most difficult component of our defense strategy.

That's why I am just flabbergasted by our inability to do some of the simpler things at home that would also significantly improve our security. I am particularly astonished by the sale of our ports to the UAE, an Islamic country where a large proportion of the population sympathises with terrorism. Somehow the U.S. can muster the will to attempt dramatic transformations abroad at huge national expense, but we can't even make simple decisions at home like prohibiting our ports from being sold to countries filled with terrorists and terrorist sympathisers.

I know what the first counter argument is - we need the UAE's cooperation in tracking down terrorists in their own country and don't want to alienate them. But how effective can the UAE really be in eliminating the terrorist elements within their own country? Does anyone really think that the UAE will eliminate all the terrorists and sympathisers embedded in its population, and does anyone really think that none of these individuals are working for the huge firm that will be running America's ports? What is the worse outcome, to have less cooperation from the UAE in tracking down terrorists within the UAE, or to hand over America's ports to a country where over 80% of the people oppose our policies on terrorism.

I know some people would now point out that it is not just Middle Eastern countries where there are terrorists embedded in the population. After all a British company is currently running the ports and July 7th proved that there are more than enough terrorists within Britain. OK, fine then, how about this - let's have an American company run our ports. But that would be too easy, wouldn't it?