Friday

It is time for a wrap-up of the week’s good and less good news.

It is time for a wrap-up of the week’s good and less good news.

Dubai Ports World – Dubai waved the white flag and, apparently, will not operate terminals at American ports. But the United States is no closer to shielding and protecting American ports and other critical infrastructure from all foreign-government-owned entities. Hutchison Wampoa, a terminal operator owned by the Chinese Army, controls terminals at Long Beach, San Francisco and New Orleans, among other places. This cannot be good for us. We still believe Security Boards of Americans with security clearances, along the lines of those used by American defense companies with partial foreign ownership, should be attached to all critical infrastructure, including ports and power plants. A Security Board, acting as the interface with the U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Customs Service, would help ensure that information about how port security is designed and run by those agencies stays in American hands.

The USA Patriot Act – We were honored to be among those at the signing of the renewed USA Patriot Act this week. The original Patriot Act was a bipartisan decision to give counter-terrorism forces in the United States the same tools that were long been available to criminal investigators. It brought down the “wall” between law enforcement and intelligence and made it easier to track suspected terrorists. President Bush pointed out that, “Over the past four years … Federal, state, and local law enforcement have used the Patriot Act to break up terror cells in Ohio, New York, Oregon and Virginia. We’ve prosecuted terrorist operatives and supporters in California and Texas, New Jersey, Illinois, Washington, and North Carolina.”

The renewed version passed 89-10 in the Senate and 280-138 in the House. The large margins are evidence that Congress, at the end of the day, knows we are, in fact, at war.

U.S. Military Recruiters – According to a unanimous Supreme Court decision this week, military recruiters cannot be barred from college campuses because of the military’s position on homosexual soldiers if the institutions accept Federal money. Justice Roberts, wrote in the decision that the United States is at war and the Constitution gives Congress the power to “raise and support Armies…” and to “provide and maintain a Navy.” That brings the Supreme Court into line with Congress and the President on the fundamental issue of our day – our country is at war. Political analyst Michael Barone notes, “Meanwhile… Yale College has admitted as a student a former spokesman for the Taliban, which threw homosexuals into ditches and then had concrete walls bulldozed over them.”

Finally, thank you to the astute readers who reminded us that almost three years ago to the day (10 March 2003, JINSA Report #394) we wrote about explosions in Shiite mosques in Iraq by “terrorists wanting to foment war between Shi’ites and Sunnis, or to provoke Shi’ite counterattacks. The goal would be turmoil to keep Iraq from moving toward a peaceful, representative government… Gen. Abizaid… was asked whether there was a civil war going on in Iraq. Since one side was blowing things up and the other side was dying (he) wisely rejected the notion.” They didn’t succeed then, or yet.