How about Svalbard?

I've been ruminating on "the ports deal" for a few days, withholding judgment until I had more facts. It turns out that facts were never quite necessary. Rather, as I'm learning, all I had to do is see what prominent Democrats are saying and then think the opposite.

OK, that oversimplifies it. Facts are necessary - very necessary - and that's my point: to today's Democrat, facts are unnecessary. Charles Krauthammer, fact-maven that he is, makes this clear:

Democrats loudly denounce any thought of racial profiling. But when that same Arab, attired in business suit and MBA, and with a good record running ports in 15 countries, buys P&O, Democrats howl at the very idea of allowing Arabs to run our ports. (Republicans are howling too, but they don't grandstand on the issue of racial profiling.)

On this, the Democrats are rank hypocrites. But even hypocrites can be right. There is a problem. And the problem is not just the obvious one that an Arab-run company, heavily staffed with Arab employees, is more likely to be infiltrated by terrorists who might want to smuggle an awful weapon into our ports. But that would probably require some cooperation from the operating company. And neither the company nor the government of the UAE, which has been pro-American and a reasonably good ally in the war on terror, has any such record.

The fact that some Republicans are up in arms as well indicates one of two things: either they are posturing, wanting to get on the politically expedient side of the issue, or they are sadly as reactionary (read: knee-jerk) as Democrats.

But I think nearly everyone, Krauthammer included, is missing the (even) bigger picture. The United States is hardly the sovereign nation we imagine it to be. It is interwoven into the fabric of the global economy to a degree most will never realize. Here are some examples to consider:

• Chinese microelectronics either embedded in or in support of American weaponry and defense. China is our friend, right?


• Building on the above, Wal-Mart is mostly a happy middle-American front on a Chinese back office. Think of the things you buy today, if not at Wal-Mart, still expecting Wal-Mart pricing. Could you survive financially if suddenly these items were all 30-100% more expensive, which is easily what they'd be if made without the benefit of cheap labor and preferential governmental treatment.
  
• Every dollar in your pocket (presuming there are some) is backed by something. What is it? It is not gold, nor is it silver. It is debt. And lately, it is largely not even American debt. It is Asian, Middle Eastern, and European debt. So, whereas there was a day you could conceivably exhange your dollars for something fungible, now if you were to attempt to do so, all you'd get is a bill from a foreign entity - perhaps a payment plan, if you've good credit.

Because of this fact of global interconnectedness, the sort of insulation some of us desire - at least through our words - is long gone. Hello? The United Nations itself sits in one of our most sensitive locales, New York City. Want to get serious about security at home? Put the UN on an island in the middle of the ocean - Bermuda, perhaps.

No, too nice a locale. How about Svalbard? The Norwegians, good socialists that they are, would love to be home to the UN and it would be a great way to develop frigid Svalbard.