The reaction by too many regarding the Dubai Ports World buy out of British Company P&O has been very sad and hard to watch. The liberals, who have been throwing mud against the wall since 2000 to see what will stick against Bush, are expected to reach down and use whatever they can to try and win back the power they so desperately crave.

But there is a component on the right which has worried
me more than 100 DPW contracts: the Chicken Hawks. The term ‘Chicken Hawk’ refers to people who sound brave when sending others into battle, but don’t have the spine to fight the battle themselves. You can be a veteran and have evolved to a Chicken Hawk. While not quite an accurate comparison, simply look at Mad Murtha who was once brave and willing to take on this country’s enemies, but now thinks of nothing but defeat.

No, in the DPW acquisition of P&O we have seen a strange and bad alliance. A desperate left willing to do and say anything to win votes, and a frightened, skittish right afraid of anything Arab or, now, un-American. The comments by Rep Jerry Lewis yesterday, as the spineless Congress voted to protect the masses from the evil Arab Company, showed many have decided it was best to follow the Lou Dobbs formula: fereignors are bad.

What has me saddened is how this is playing in our military, and which is why the reasoning of the right is probably more damaging to America’s image than that from the left. Many on the right, like me, backed the regime change in Iraq. We backed sending our fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, sons and daughters into a basket case region of the world to clean it up and try and set it right. In Afghanistan our troops have had to reach out to the locals, many who tolerated if not supported Al Qaeda and the Taliban, to build a free society. Our military trained these people, armed them, and then went and fought side by side with them. All the time never sure if these people were what they said they were, or an under cover assasin.

In Iraq the support was all from the middle and right side of the political spectrum – the left wanted no part of it. So we are the ones who sent our neighbors and family members to Iraq to sacrifice life and limb (and many did) to repeat the process. They went into the middle of the turmoil that brought us 9-11 and again reached out to the people, and worked side by side with them. Fought side by side with them. Died side by side with them.

The military doesn’t expect us keyboard warriors to do what they do, they simply hope they are respected and honored for their efforts. But what kind of honor are we bestowing to chicken out when it is our turn to do the most modest of acts: reach out and work with Americans who will now get their paychecks from The UAE bank instead of the UK bank?

The military folks, who risked everything to build bridges of respect and community, must be wondering what kind of cowards we are back here in the US? People are pissing their pants because a country and company, both of which have worked for years with us in the torrent that is the Middle East, is buying some stock in London. And we are falling apart in a panic over it.

People see xenophobia and arab-phobia in this, and there is an undercurrent of that. Many have finally shed all pretense and have raced ahead of this mob mentality of irrational fear to claim if only they were not arabs! And some are still trying to say Arabs are really worth distrusting.

Lou Dobbs likes to ask dissenters to his America Uber Alles tirades what about the 70% of the people who are afraid (or trying to get Bush) in the polls. My first response is at one time majorities in this country backed slavery and racism. So it is not the numbers that matter, it is what is driving the numbers that matters. Fear is driving these numbers, which is always bad. When fear hits a mob you end up with groups like the KKK – which was an organization and a mob think all centered around fear of others who were different. Sorry, but that is a fact of the KKK. So when you see even minor valid comparisons it is good time to do a real hard re-assessment of ones positions.

I know my readership is going to tank again, as it always does when I am blunt, honest and coldly calculating in my comments. Especilly on this subject. People don’t like to face the possibility they are wrong, or cowards. But while the Chicken Hawks run around fearing the Arab Owners of DPW, I fear what the cowards in Congress are leading us to. They blame Bush for not stopping the mob mentality, as they simultaneously use the mob fear to shore up their chances of re-election. In my mind I would not want to be re-elected to lead a country running on fear and lashing out like this. I would put it all on the line – like our soldiers do right now, every day, in the Middle East. So stop blaming Bush because you ‘leaders’ are afraid to get out and face this head on.

The Chicken Hawks are driven by a fear of the “Un-Americans”. The usual suspects who see fit to yank families from their homes and jobs and march them to the borders because they do not have ‘their papers’ in order worry me. Yes, I am talking about illegal immigration – another excuse used to behave poorly. These people equate someone trying to make a living and raise a family, but not registered properly with the government, as some kind of evil parasite that must be excised. Sounds like a tax cheater to me. If we were to have punishments that fit the crimes, all those who’s tax forms were not in order would get uprooted and marched off too! But this is not about law and punishment – it is about fear.

Where is this mob fear going? There was once another nation in Europe who rounded up undesirables based on tissue thin legal grounds. And while the Chicken Hawks out to purge our schools of illegal alien children strut around showing their bravery, I wonder how they would respond when Mexico and the other countries close our borders to stop us from dumping millions of jobless, homeless people on their streets? Will they then use that as an excuse to place the unwanted into detention camps? What does it take to be ‘American enough’ to pass muster with these folks? Who decides? Lou Dobbs?

The Chicken Hawks really bother me (can’t you tell?). They are not showing a lot of self control and very little logic. When it was their turn to stand tall and brave and reach out to people in the middle east they have responded with panic, accusations and now attempts to close the doors on our allies. All those sacrifices and true acts of courage on the battle field and in the subsequent rebuilding of Muslim nations were apparently for nothing. America was supposed to stand tall, reach out and say: let’s give this brave new world a try. Well, at least that is what I hoped she would do.

We failed. We were once the land of The Free and The Brave. Now it looks more like The Frightened and The Scared. How can anyone who backed the Iraq war look our troops in the eye now and say it was too hard for us to rub elbows with Arab businessmen? We just did not have the spine.