more UAE corruption

Huffington Post reports:

Kemp was undaunted, and launched into an impassioned defense of the deal and of the United Arab Emerites, echoing a column he wrote taking to task those who have criticized it.

"It's the right thing to do," he said, calling the UAE a "valued ally" and reiterating the claim that canceling the deal would, as he put it in his column, "weaken our own national security and our chances for peace and liberation throughout the Middle East and Africa" (Shades of Andrea Mitchell, another die-hard member of the establishment, who suggested on Hardball that killing the ports deal could lead to rioting in the Muslim world).

What Kemp didn't say is that the UAE has invested millions in Free Market Global, an energy-trading company that he chairs. You think all those zeroes might have had some influence on his opinion? Maybe not. But I'm pretty sure that a disclosure of his financial connection to those he was so fulsomely praising would have had some influence on the opinions of those watching.

Especially if viewers learned that Gen. Tommy Franks, whom Kemp used as his debating trump card -- quoting both in print and on Meet the Press the General extolling the Emirates -- is on the advisory board of Free Market Global, and stands to profit from maintaining good relations with the oil-rich emirs.

I called Kemp to ask him why he hadn't mentioned this intersection of interests, but I haven't heard back, even though I said why I was calling. Or perhaps because I did.

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