Posted on 02/22/2006 3:53:16 PM PST by DoNotDivide
President Bush's announcement Tuesday that he would support the effort of a United Arab Emirates-owned company, Dubai Ports World, in its bid to take over a lease for part of the Port of New York and other major U.S. seaports — even to the point of vetoing legislation that would block the deal — is as regrettable as it is untenable.
President Bush has dug in his heels on a fight he surely cannot win. The only political figure of note who has fully supported his position publicly seems to be former President Jimmy Carter — a salutary reminder of the latter's dismal judgment on national-security matters. Meanwhile the list of elected officials, Republican (including the leadership of the Senate and House) and Democrat alike, making clear their adamant opposition grows.
This sentiment on Capitol Hill reflects the overwhelming, common-sense attitude of the vast majority of the American people. They are horrified at the prospect of entrusting the management of sensitive U.S. port facilities to a government that allowed most of the operational planning and financing of the 9/11 attacks to occur from its soil.
If this drama is allowed to play out fully, several things are predictable:
Legislation will be enacted by veto-proof margins in both the House and Senate to block the DP World takeover of the port terminal and other management contracts currently held by the British company, P & O.
If so, the president will be unlikely to cast his first veto in a futile attempt to block the legislation. The deal will, therefore, be aborted.
Relations with the UAE, which has been helpful in some aspects of the War for the Free World post-9/11 — the factor that seems to have trumped all others in the secretive deliberations of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) about the DP World takeover, will be damaged unnecessarily.
This will be particularly so in light of the fact that the congressional investigations of this transaction promised by people like Rep. Peter King and Sen. Susan Collins, the Republican chairmen respectively of the House and Senate Homeland Security Committees, will surely delve into the nature and conduct of Dubai Ports World. If the following response to a posting on the WarFooting.com blog last Thursday by a self-described, but anonymous, former employee of the UAE company is any guide, that won't be pretty:
The US and the West in general are making a serious mistake if they hand over control of 21 ports to an Arab company, owned by an Arab government.
As a former employee of the DP World I can offer a unique insight into the goings on of this company, and I'm afraid if you scrape beneath the surface, it's not all its cracked up to be.
Did you know that several times a year, staff receive a company memo informing them that, for that particular month, one day's salary will be deducted and given to a Palestine "charity"!!! Staff are allowed to refuse by informing Human Resources Department, but no one ever did — knowing that this would lead to being over-looked for promotions and/or not having your contract renewed. I recall one poor Indian dock-side labourer on [a] $500-a-month [salary] complaining that he couldn't afford to make the payment as he had his wife and three children back in India to feed. He promptly was fired!
They have a reputation and a track record of not honouring staff contracts for expatriates, and I know of several employees who didn't receive their end contract bonuses or whose personal effects were not repatriated back to their home country. I mean, what can you do when the company is owned by the government of UAE and Shari'a law applies?
The author goes on to remind us of some of the United Arab Emirates' unsavory behavior: "the UAE bans Israelis from visiting or working in their country, and maps of the world have Israel blackened out. Even a non-Israeli who has visited Israel and has an Israel visa in their passport, is denied entry into the UAE." He also observes DP World made much on their website about "one of its senior executives, Dave Sanborn, being nominated by US President George W. Bush to serve as Maritime Administrator, a key transportation appointment reporting directly to Norman Mineta, the Secretary of Transportation and Cabinet Member."
Some, like my friends at the Wall Street Journal's editorial page, take a libertarian view: The deal makes business sense and, hey, security is the U.S. government's job, not the company's. The truth of the matter is that the job of performing port security is already problematic; an arrangement that affords opportunities to put personnel and cargo in positions where they can do us harm and involves reading people into the government's port-security plans who may not be on our side amounts to what the lawyers call an "attractive nuisance." These are opportunities that are not likely to be passed up by terrorists who have operated from the UAE in the past.
These considerations argue for the president to do as he did with Harriet Miers — namely, recognize that a strategically and politically insupportable mistake has been made and cut his losses. The CFIUS process that put him in this untenable position — and that has been responsible for innumerable other bad decisions about national security-damaging foreign investments must be overhauled. And port security must be made a priority, not something we contract out to one-time, and possibly future, hosts to anti-American terror-wielding Islamofascists.
— Frank J. Gaffney Jr. is a contributor to NRO and the lead author of War Footing: Ten Steps America Must Take to Prevail in the War for the Free World .
Don't project. I've disagreed with Bush twice, Mexico and this. I'm usually called a Bushbot. Now I'm a knee-jerk basher. *rolling eyes*
I know! But knees are jerking out of alignment all over FR about this issue.
True story: and totally unrelated --- just as I typed the above I saw a freestyle skier wipe out on NBC. So I stopped typing to see what was happening. It turns out the skier had a knee reconstructed last July with an allograft and "it just couldn't take any more" when she landed last night.
Then I looked back here to finish my thought to you and saw the words ---
knees are jerking out of alignment all over
&&&&
One of life's coincidences!
I'd say that's a dumb question
?????????
The difference is that this isn't a mistake. Anyone with a rudimentary ability to use Google can find out the facts behind this and port operations in general.
The UAE will not be conducting port security at these ports, nor will they somehow gain access to classified security techniques and information. This is not a potential or actual breach of national security, and just because most FReepers have a problem with our ports being owned by foreign entities does not make it into a national security issue.
I agree we are at war with Islamofascism - now can you answer my question: do you think we are we at war with the UAE?
It's kinda hard to ignore the arrogant @sshole you are and Zeus-like posts (in your own delusional opinion), incessant inane vanities, and opuses every other month, yet you are amusing (in a train-wreck-over-a-cliff sort of way)....
But, I guess that's the best you could hope for from me to avoid having to defend yourself from having ZILCH, ZERO, NADA cred.
Border/port security, during war no less, will be a major part of the snap that America will experience one-day, making Sept. 11th (anyone remember 9/11/01?) look like a tea-party. Bush fails miserably on his Constitutional obligation to defend our nation here at home. He'd rather use cyber-space intel than stop the bastids from being here to begin with.
By "bastids" you mean the Royal Family of Dubai?
"For a person who admits she gets called a "gook" in her emails, Malkin is brain dead about the effects of spitting in the face of the UAE."
What in the world does that mean?! Are you suggesting that Miss Malkin be cowed into fawning to the UAE so that they won't call her names or worse threaten her? Yeah, that's a real good idea.
See if you can follow this:
ConAgra = United Arab Emirates
Farmer = America's DHS
Fields = America's Ports
Who *really* controls the Farm (Ports)?
Jihadists. Jihadists I consider bastards, to be kind.
We don't need to discontinue our relationships with Dubai or Communist China or Mexico in order to secure our borders/ports.
I'd humor you, except your analogy is in no way related to the real-life situation at these ports.
The UAE company will not have operational control over the ports. Period. It doesn't matter if they own them--they cannot control federal employees, and they cannot bypass federal law and union rules. I'm sorry if you can't understand the special situation that these ports are in, and I'm sorry if you look down upon DHS/Customs/Coast Guard personnel to the point where you think they'll somehow do a worse job thanks to a change in ownership.
Were these six ports to be compromised, it would be due to these federal employees, not the ownership of the ports by a foreign company. Period.
That's good to hear - now I'm sure you will let us know if you think the Royal Family of Dubai are Jihadists . . .
I'm suggesting that Malkin is short-sighted.
Well, staying with the Cold War analogy, you think this is the same as letting the U.S.S.R. load and unload our port terminals, and I think it is more like letting West Germany - we have to agree to disagree.
Fair enough. But if the UAE is going to operate those ports, and if you live close enough, I would be stocking up on iodine tablets, if you catch my drift.
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