Archive for: February 23, 2006

Six of One or Half Dozen of the Other

Insult and injury are part of the present geopolitical landscape. Not many apologies are being offered up by anyone and even if they were, would it make much difference, would it avert a war or the next act of terrorism? Let’s see.

Denmark’s Jyllands-Posten newspaper issued an apology and whisked it off to the Jordanian news agency Petra for publishing cartoons that supposedly were insulting to the prophet Muhammad. The arguments about the poor taste of the cartoonist notwithstanding, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Denmark’s prime minister says he and his government cannot apologize for the country since the newspaper is independent and not an agency of the government. To most people this makes sense but Islam is not most people.

Back on February 11th, I was very troubled to learn that a government-run United Arab Emirate (UAE) company called Dubai Ports World (DPW) had bought out a UK-owned ports group called the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, giving it control of roughly 30 percent of the terminals at U.S. seaports in New York, Miami, Philadelphia, New Jersey, Baltimore and New Orleans.