3-09-06, 9:35 am

There is a remark attributed to Lenin that right-wingers throughout the world have used for generations to attack any trade or joint venture between capitalist states and socialist countries. The capitalist, Lenin was alleged to have said, would sell the rope that would be used to hang him.

Whether Lenin said it or not, the current outrage, which has reached even sections of the Republican Right, against turning over U.S. port maintenance to a 'state company' in the United Arab Emirates, shows its general validity. Like Milo Minderbinder in Joseph Heller’s classic novel, Catch-22, who did business with the German enemy and defended his acts on the principle that they were better at paying their bills than our allies, the administration initially defended the decision as good business in terms of market relations. Just as there are people on the left who think that it is the wave of the future or simply hip today to pontificate about something that they call 'market socialism,' so the Bush administration appears to be entering into the world of 'market national security' with this deal.

That is odd, because 'national security' has been the ruling class shibboleth for repressing civil liberties, from the McCarran Internal Security aimed at the CPUSA and the left in 1950 to the 'Patriot Act' aimed potentially at everyone in the name of fighting terrorism today. Historians looking at the cold war, the creation of the unified defense department, the CIA, the global alliance systems, nuclear arms race, internal spying on millions of Americans and trillions in military spending have long defined all this as the creation of a 'national security state' that served what Dwight Eisenhower called a 'military industrial complex' and C. Wright Mills defined more incisively as a 'permanent war economy.'

Yet a company headquartered in the desert estate of the Sultan of Dubai, in the Arabian Peninsula that is both Islam’s 'bible belt' and the stomping grounds of feudal lords was initially given the contract to service U.S. ports and still may get it, given the track record of the Bush administration. Transnational oil companies and U.S governments have long treated the emirs and kings of the region, particularly the Sauds and bin Ladens of Arabia, the way the bankers treated the Clampetts on the classic American sitcom of the 1960s, The Beverly Hillbillies. Instead of coming to Beverly Hills though and living their hillbilly life in a mansion while the bankers cater to them to get their money, the way the Clampetts did, the feudal lords who used their oil money to ally themselves with transnational corporations while they have directly financed rightwing religious fundamentalism and less directly those who have preached and practiced terrorist 'holy wars' against post feudal secular institutions and societies.

Most of those who have been upset by the deal (one would have to be either catatonic or masochistic not to be upset) have pointed to the obvious facts—the nature of the United Arab Emirates government, its previous support for the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and that the fact that it fits the profile of the places where most of the clerical fascist killers of Al Qaeda and similar groups have been nurtured—as the reasons for their angry objections. I would add that this is not because the UAE is a Muslim or an Arab state. Sadly, general prejudice against Muslims and Arabs explains in part the extent of the hostility to the deal, particularly among traditional administration supporters. We should remember that the UAE, like Northern Florida, the Georgia hill country, and the other traditional strong-holds and recruiting territories of the KKK in the US or Bavaria for the Nazis in the 1920s, has both the religious political culture and the 'friendly ruling circles' on which such individuals and groups thrive.

One should always remember, as an Irish Communist leader once said, 'there are Germans and Germans, Jews and Jews, Irish and Irish. In America there are Irish like William Z. Foster and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and Irish like Senator Joe McCarthy and the good old Irish American cop.' So also there are Arabs and Arabs, Muslims and Muslims, many who have contributed to human progress, and many others like the Sauds and the bin Ladens. Since this is one of our irregular Capitalism Gone Mad articles, we should look at possible theories that explain the administration’s action. First there is what literary scholars might term the postmodern culture of idiots theory. The administration may have confused the Sultan of Dubai with the old Doobie Brothers rock group. One of the Doobies has been prominent in Republican California circles and a rock and roll defender of free enterprise against socialism. The administration may have thought that turning U.S. ports over to good Republicans like the Doobie Brothers was in the best interests of 'national security.' Furthermore, since Doobie Brothers music isn’t exactly that popular anymore, the administration might have thought that playing their songs in the ports would reduce imports and the trade deficit.

Then there is the more traditional follow the money theory. Individuals associated with the administration may have been associated directly or indirectly with the UAE company or with companies and/or individuals associated with, having economic interests in, or receiving financial rewards from the company. Some connections of that kind have already been ascertained and in the tradition of Ockham’s Razor, the simplest explanation may be the best. As Charles Beard, the great early twentieth century U.S, progressive historian said shortly before his death, the economic interpretation of history doesn’t necessarily have all the answers, but it is 'firstest with the mostest.'

Then we might look at the geopolitical theory. The administration has just signed a deal with the government of India, encouraging it in effect to expand its nuclear capacity in ways that may be dangerous for South Asia. Some, myself included, think that this act is a neo conservative gambit aimed at intensifying a nuclear arms race between India and Pakistan that would undermine both countries and make them more dependant on the U.S government, along with establishing a beach-head for ending India’s policy of non-alignment and turning it into a military strategic ally of the U.S. against China. That geopolitical analysis is very serious, but given this administration, the line between the serious and the screwy is often blurred and sometimes non-existent.

So the administration may be planning to have the UAE company take over the ports, launch some terrorist attack against an anti-Republican city (Boston or San Francisco) in 2008 and then come forward with 'intelligence reports' to prove that the Clintons and the Kerrys were silent partners in the firm (and Howard Dean owned stock in it) to win a sweeping Republican victory in the 2008 elections and then invade the Persian Gulf, take over all of the oil, and redefine the whole areas as an autonomous Muslim region of Texas. Women would still wear veils and Muslim dietary laws would be enforced, but Dr. Pepper would become the official drink and there would be Halal barbecue joints established for both the locals and the military personnel in line with the administration’s faith-based initiatives.

Speaking about faith-based initiatives, there is also what I would call the market monotheism theory. In this theory, there is one universal God and his name is Market. He works mysteriously through an Invisible Hand that rewards his True Believers and punishes Infidels. He makes Surplus or Profit which True Believers Invest to make More Surplus and More Profit. Those who suffer unemployment, malnutrition, homelessness on this earth must understand that they will go to a better place, a heavenly suburb, where everyone will be buying and selling everything for ever in the afterlife if they follow the One God Market.

Those who do not will be left behind to suffer in the eternal damnation of government bureaucracy, high taxes smoke free environments, and unleaded gasoline. By supporting the awarding of the port contract to the UAE company, the Bush administration, as in all things, was following the One God Market and his last Prophet (not Moses, Jesus, or Mohammed, or even Adam Smith, but Milton Friedman) since Market is global and no longer a national religion of Americans.

To conclude on a somewhat more serious note, the administration has shown here as it has shown in virtually all of its policies that it has no interest in anything except the enrichment of corporations and the wealthy and the expansion of its own power. That is what its definition of 'national security' is all about. The UAE, like 'Saudi' Arabia, is not a country in any modern sense but a feudal family and holding company for oil. Its 'state company' like the transnational oil corporations is much more a part of the Bush administration’s and the U.S. ruling class’s 'nation' that is, those with whom they do business, rather than the American people, whom they consider their hired labor and their consumers.

Their beliefs and commitment to market capitalism, their need to flatter and bribe characters like the feudal lords of the Persian Gulf, whose stated beliefs and way of life would be considered both barbarous and lunatic by virtually all post sixteenth century adherents of the 'western civilization' they claim to defend, the geopolitical schemes of neo conservative policy planners, and the money to be made by administration insiders and supporters should all probably be factored into an explanation of a policy that even many Republicans who have long adopted a 'What Me Worry'? attitude toward administration policies have difficulty swallowing.

Finally, there is what liberals and conservatives in the past called the 'arrogance of power,' what a nineteenth century British conservative, Lord Acton (not the Emir of anything) meant when he said 'power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.' As this administration seeks to expand its power in an absolutist manner, its corruption, which already has gone beyond administration in U.S. history, also expands. The port deal, however spectacular, is only the most recent example of its escalating tyranny and corruption.



--Norman Markowitz can be reached at