GOP Congress sells off America's national security to the United Arab Emirates

As Joe notes below, it only took Republican Senate Leader Bill Frist a matter of days to retract his criticism of Bush's plan to sell control over several key US ports to the United Arab Emirates. Frist was one of the most scathing in opposition to the plan to sell off US security to a middle eastern country with sketchy ties to terror. And now Frist is the first to cave to White House pressure.

And before I begin my tirade, let's not forget that Bush cut these guys a deal on security - they're NOT even having to provide the same standard guarantees that OTHER port operators in the US have to provide. Apparently, enabling the finances of the September 11 hijackers gets you special bennies with the Bush administration. Kind of like a coupon.

Not only do Republicans in Washington have no backbone whatsoever, they clearly have a pre September 11 mentality that simply does not enable them to understand the threats America faces in the new age. The Republican leadership in Washington, that controls the US Senate, the US House and the White House, believes that money comes before safety, that helping corporate interests is more important than keeping America safe.

Just look at Iraq. It's been one big corporate feeding frenzy from the beginning, and who has benefitted the most, Dick Cheney's energy company. And now that it's a choice between protecting America's ports from terrorists trying to sneak in nuclear bombs, a deal that even the US Department of Homeland Security objected to, George Bush steps in with his Republican congressional enablers and says there's suddenly no problem handing over the safety of our families, our children, our nation to a middle eastern country that had ties to, and financially enabled, the September 11 attacks.

Initially, it looked like the Republicans in Congress had finally found their spine. Rather than genuflect to the Bush White House as they've been doing the past five years, the Republicans who control the US House and the US Senate finally started acting like real Senators and real House members. They spoke up in opposition to the deal. They started to exercise a mind of their own, started to finally conduct oversight over the White House and the executive branch, started to question yet another of Bush's bizarre policies that undercut rather than enhance national security in an age of terror.

But with just a few days of White House pressure, the Republicans have now caved.

GOP Senator Bill Frist, who thinks he's going to be president after Bush's term is over, is now caving to big money, big oil, and big special Middle Eastern special interests. He'd rather line the pockets of the Emirates than protect the security of American citizens in the face of ongoing threats from Osama bin Laden.

If ever there was an issue that finally exposed the current Republican leadership for the shills they are, people who are simply out to funnel money to their friends, even when their friends have uncomfortably ties to the terrorists who attacked our country on September 11, George Bush and Bill Frist say to hell with our country, this is the issue that finally exposes how little the Republican leadership cares about Americans' safety and well-being.

Every American - Democrat, Republican and Independent - should be outraged at this betrayal of our national security during wartime. Our president, with the collusion of the Republican congressional leadership, is selling us out. If anything shows how badly the Republicans do not understand the lessons of September 11, this is it.

If you like what you're seeing. If you like that America is now selling control of its ports in New York, New Jersey, and beyond to a country that enabled the 9/11 terrorists, then vote this fall to continue the Republican control of Congress (and yes, the Republicans have the majority in the US Senate and the US House). But if you're an American who actually cares about your country, who is tired of the lies and the empty promises and the lectures about how you're just too stupid to understand that President Bush knows what's best, even when he seems to be getting worse by the day, then throw the bums out this November and vote Democratic.

It's time to stop these un-American traitors before their negligence, incompetence, and pandering to foreign interests leads to another September 11. If George Bush and Bill Frist aren't man enough to defend our country against the next 9/11, then we're going to need to force them to do their job by stopping this sale in its tracks, before we pay the ultimate price.