Infiltration

Think Progress comes up with a huge find: a letter, publicly available at the "Combating Terrorism Center" website of the US Army, from al-Qaeda officials to the UAE. It dates from May of 2002. It warns the UAE of the consequences of cooperating in the war on terror, and delivers this quote:

"You are well aware that we have infiltrated your security, censorship, and monetary agencies along with other agencies that should not be mentioned."

Now, this could just be boasting on the part of Al Qaeda, a threat to the royals to stop whatever support they're giving to the West. However, there can be no doubt that this letter suggests what we all know: it would be so much EASIER for al Qaeda to infiltrate the UAE, who operate in a morality-free fire zone (as Randi Rhodes put it yesterday) when it comes to doing business. Now giving a state-owned subsidiary of a country like this access to port security sources and methods puts you one step closer to giving those resources to Al Qaeda.

I think reasonable people can still disagree about the effects of this deal, but stuff like this is going to continue to come out for the next 45 days in a drip-drip-drip fashion. The result is horrible for those who defend this policy of putting corporate interests above national security.