what am i missing here? for those who know about the city of dubai or saw recent interviews with its ruler?

Question

this city has grown tremendously in the past 5 years and this guy is doing things that seem impossible (manmade islands in the design of the world, erecting a building twice the height of the empire state building and creating 70km of beachfront property from desert land)..i just wonder how this is all possible in such a short time with a major war going on.....we have microsoft, and ibm, and media orgs like cnn, reuters, ap, and mbc over there...no problem with that but in interviews with the sheik he said " i want my people to be #1" and when asked what he wanted to be #1 at he said education, health, economy.....not once does he mention anything about warfare, military, or govt....this is an oil based city with seemingly unlimited resources and the sheik admits to putting his own money up for the projects...with the vast, fast and seemingly unreal growth of this city should we not worry about possible future attacks? or is this truly a peaceful city with good intentions?

robert s - very nice

mybusiness2 - you know when i saw the size of this city i thought the same thing about them being attacked

Answer 1

Yes I saw the interview on 60 Minutes, and was not completely taken by surprise, mainly because I'd already seen shorter programs about this place...Reading a bit about it now on Internet, I notice Dubai is the name of one of the seven United Arab Emirates, as well as the name of its main city, which I supposed most of the grandeur is located.

Unless I'm confused this is the place that offered to build an airport for the US Army at some point during start of current Iraq war, in order to facilitate the US a place as they were being asked to leave Saudi Arabia.

Their wealth is so large, that is Biblical in many ways if we are to compare it with many stories in the Bible. If centuries from now this place were to cease existing, it would be very difficult to prove its unique way of life, its grandiosity. It seems like a for-real Disney World!

Regarding your last question, I'm not sure if I understand it. Do you mean their inhabitants attacking us in the US? What occurs to me though is that terrorists might want to attack Dubai due to its endless wealth, western habits, and the corruption which is not only insipient now, but seeming to take root already.

Answer 2

Dubai is merely one of seven emirates in the UAE (Abu Dhabi is the capital and may be even richer than Dubai). Although rich in oil, the whole UAE is only around 32k sq. mi and only about 5 million people. The UAE did contribute forces during the Gulf War and I'll bet they were (are) well-equipped.

Their main concern is diversifying from oil and avoiding internal unrest. They don't really have the space or population to become a major military player, so they are going the economic route instead. I don't think there is much danger in their becoming an Islamic state (a la Taliban Afghanistan) as this would inhibit the ability to become a global financial center.

So, no worries about future attacks, but you could end up working for them someday. Why go through the hassle of trying to build a nuclear arsenal when you could buy up whole chunks of the global economy?