Borderline national security policy

David Limbaugh:

President Bush is in trouble with much of his base for approving the sale of a British shipping firm that runs commercial container operations at six major U.S. ports to a United Arab Emirates (UAE) company. I believe the main reason he is under fire from the right is that he has a nagging credibility problem concerning his inscrutable immigration policy.

To be sure, Bush is under fire from the left as well, but their opposition has little to do with national security concerns and everything to do with partisan politics.

Most conservatives, I think, see Bush as enormously committed to America's national security and the Global War on Terror (GWOT). But many find themselves scratching their heads over his perceived "open borders" policy. Why, they wonder, is he so genuinely clear-sighted about the evil of terrorists and the global threat they pose to the point of fashioning his legacy-making foreign policy doctrine around an unprecedented preemption strategy, yet seemingly oblivious to the potential threat in our back, front and side yards? Why the disconnect?

Actually, to call it a disconnect is a major understatement. It's more like a gargantuan gap in an otherwise fully coherent policy. If his driving ambition is to make America safer from our terrorist enemies, why does he risk sabotaging that objective by making us more vulnerable right at home?

Frankly, I'm not sure the president has a blind spot on immigration, because I'm not sure I even understand what his policy is. But if in fact his borders policy can be reconciled with his general policy against terrorists, he hasn't yet made that case to the American people, much less to his base.

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There is more.

The fundamental problem with border security is the lack of commitment to the rule of law on immigration enforcement. This is a bipartisan failure.

While this failure has been ongoing for decades, there is little to no evidence of similar failures when it comes to port security. The Coast Guard and Customs forces have done a good enough job that there has not been a serious attempt by terrorist to exploit our ports.

This is not just luck. The terrorist do not attack defended positions unless they are desperate as in the recent failed attack in Saudia Arabia on an oil facility. While the Democrats have made a lot of noise about port security since 9-11, it has been mostly in bad faith and as a means of spending money on their constituency groups, rather than any real national security threats at the ports.

Before the Dubai World Ports deal their bogus arguments on port security have never gotten any traction. I think that as more becomes known about this deal their arguments will falter again.