Reply #7: Since 9/11, Americans have been conditioned to see ALL Arabs as evil.

[mikeytherat]

Additionally, Americans have been conditioned that anything "tied to" anything even vaguely Arabic, is nothing but a front for terrorism. Now, Bush is giving the keys to our ports to the Arabs.

Yes, this is an utterly simplistic and naive look at the situation, but this viewpoint is available all around us in abundance. Hell, as Americans we're pros at this, and you can usually find it reflected in our media - like when Rocky fights the Russkies, or in Back to Future, when the evil Libyans want to get a nuclear weapon! Can you imagine at the height of American anti-Russian fever, when Rocky fights the evil Russian, and we were bogged down in a war with some breakaway republic, the President decided to sell our port security to the Russians? The reaction would be the same.

We've been conditioned that Arabs are bad, and now we're gonna let Arabs run our ports. Simplistic and a bit racist, sure, but that's the spin, and I can't believe BushCo wouldn't assume this would piss off a lot of people.

mikey_the_rat