WhereTheSailorsCan'tComeInVille
On this 'Look Marge -The Arabs Are Running Our Ports!' deal, I was all set to do a whole lotta gloating, especially given the fact that it looks to be what some might call a cheap-jack money laundering operation:
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): The oil-rich United Arab Emirates is a major investor in The Carlyle Group, the private equity investment firm where President Bush's father once served as senior adviser and is a who's who of former high-level government officials. Just last year, Dubai International Capital, a government-backed buyout firm, invested in an $8 billion Carlyle fund.
Another family connection, the president's brother, Neil Bush, has reportedly received funding for his educational software company from the UAE investors. A call to his company was not returned......
But as I went-a-googling on this issue, I come across the following, which was a bit of a surprise, to put it mildly:
"Dubai Ports World has taken over the running of a cargo terminal in Vancouver, and the sale seems to have raised no alarms in Ottawa......"
Geez, Louise!
A scant couple of months ago I headed down to a swanky restaurant perched on the Vancouver waterfront with my wife and friends from out of town that we were trying to impress.
Imagine our surprise when we discovered that our own harbour is being held hostage behind barbwire-topped security fences, guards, surveillance cameras and goddess knows what else.
At the time I asked - Why?
Why are we willingly partaking in all of this 'Fortress North America' balderdash for no good reason at all?
Now, I guess we know the reason, and it's not a particularly good one.
Apparently it's so that we, too, can lay out the Large that is being sent to Dubai so that it then can be sent directly to the Carlyle Group.
Wow.
That sure is some kinda Neandercon BigTent NAFTA-assisted DeeLuxe-type Dealmaking.
Clearly, we are living once again in the gilded-age, and we're lovin' every minute of it.
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Update: Longtime reader and Quebec correspondent, eteba, uses the comments to inform us that Halifax and Montreal are two more of our ports that are sending money to the Bush Family Robinson by way of Dubai. And, apparently, one impetus for all of this is something called 'CSI' which is not a TV show, but rather a multinational 'Container Security Initiative' foisted on the world, by, guess who? - US Customs and Border Protection czar Robert Bonner. So now we know that it is only a matter of time before the Twig announces to the world......'You're doin' a heckuva job Bonnie!'.
Why am I making such a fuss about this? Well, again, according to people who actually know something about stuff like this, and one of the reasons that the noted leftwing commie pinko rag known as the 'The Economist' magazine, recently ranked Vancouver as the world's #1 city to live in is precisely because we are a large metropolitan area that is NOT, I repeat, NOT, perceived to be a major terrorist target.
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