[Preechr]

I believe you. I have no reason to question what you posted. As I had said, I'd been working a lot with no time to keep up with the news, and I thought the numbers discrepancy was confusion due to the deal involving more than just American ports.

I still don't understand where the security risks you are concerned about lie in Dubai owning, NOT operating ports in America. The only thing I can be concerned about in this issue, really, is that the Bushies should have known this would be a PR nightmare and could easily have made steps to smooth this over before it exploded. Crap like this is just what we do when we want to give money to a country that is too rich for us to be able to call it "aid." It's just payola.

And, it wasn't my intention to "slam" Israel. I was making a comparison. I suppose when I pulled an example off the top of my head, I picked a bad one. If you say it's a lie, I guess it must be so... it's not my lie. I don't really care enough about the history of Israel to have an opinion on it, honestly. I'm more concerned about where it's going, and that's why I support Israel and the democratization of the Middle East.

You still didn't give me the answer I wanted most from you: Do you think Arabs will eventually be able to modernize?