http://webnewsroom.blogspot.com/2006/02/re-portgate.html
For once, Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) is right about something. I guess it just goes to show that even a blind bird catches a worm once in a while.
What Schumer is right about is his opposition to the deal that would allow Dubai Ports World, a company based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), to gain control of six major American ports through its purchase of London-based Peninsular and Oriental Staem Navigation Company, which currently runs the ports: New York, Newark, Philadelphia, Baltimore, New Orleans, and Miami.
The obvious question is, aren't there any American companies capable of running these ports? And the more important question is, Are we serious about the War on Terror? We have left our borders wide open for anyone (including terrorists) to come through and now we are turning control of six major ports over to a country that sponsors terrorism.
The deal has been approved by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, but Schumer, along with Senators Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) and Representaties Vito Fossella (R-NY), Christopher Shays (R-Ct.), and Mark Foley (R-Fla.), is trying to stop the transaction. REpresentaigve Peter King (R-NY), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, has urged the Bush Administration to reconsider.
New York City Council members of both parties have spoken out against the deal. "On its face, this looks like insanity to me," the Republican minority leader of the City Council, James Oddo, said. The chairman of the Council's Public Safety Committee, Democrat Peter Vallone, said that the deal "raises some legitimate concerns."
The Bush administration considers the UAE a key ally in the War on Terror, but the UAE has been a sponsor of terrorism. It was the home of Marwan al-Shehi, one of the 19 hijackers who killed 3,000 people on September 11, 2001. Other hijackers travelled through the UAE. The UAE was an important financial base for the September 11 hijackers. The country is a transit point for Al Qaeda. It has been a financier of Al Qaeda. It continues to regard the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan and is militantly anti-Israel. The CIA has identified the UAE as a major center for drug running and money laundering. It also has close ties to Iran.
The UAE is a federation of seven Arab emirates on the Arabian peninsula.
As Rep. Foley has said, "If our ports are the most vulnerable targets for terrorism and if we are at war, as the president says, we should be overly critical of handing over the management of our ports to any foreign countries, post 9/11."
What happens if nuclear materials pass through one of these ports? How will the UAE direct its employees to deal with that? The threat to our national security is clear.
That is why these Senators and Representatives are right to speak out against the transfer of control of our ports to UAE control, just as Red Chinese control of the Panama Canal poses a threat to our national security.
Can we afford to turn control of key ports over to a company controlled by a terrorist-sponsoring government?
"The obvious question is, aren't there any American companies capable of running these ports?"
That is the question to be answered. I find it hard to believe the most prosperous nation in the world cannot run its own ports.
I think it's time to begin operation of an underlying "organization" which will handle our country's various problems for the good. In this case--promoting and closing out the deal for American companies to run the ports. Surely this is attainable.