In the context of this discussion, my opinion is certainly more "valuable" and "insightful" than any opinion that isn't based on facts. I know this sounds close-minded and arrogant, but hey -- sometimes the truth hurts.
This story has been a major topic of discussion for almost two weeks now, and for the first ten days most of the comments from government officials and people in the media were based on information that was patently false. If you think these opinions have any merit, then you can go bang your head against the wall trying to reason with people like that.
An interesting article in today's Baltimore SUN that is actual reporting of information:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bal-bz.longshoremen24feb24,0,5562593.story?coll=bal-home-headlines
Ports uproar finds no home at local dock
Longshoremen say safety, security issues far outweigh current political furor
By Meredith Cohn
Sun reporter
Originally published February 24, 2006
A steady line of cars pulled through the gate just before 1 p.m. yesterday. Longshoremen, many already wearing their orange safety vests, flashed their badges to guards and made their way over to the berth at Seagirt Marine Terminal where the MSC Zurich had docked.
Many of them have made this same trek for years, even decades. But one thing was different yesterday. The work they were used to doing in relative anonymity was suddenly news.
The company they work for, the British-owned cargo handling company Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Co., or P&O, is being bought by another stevedoring firm owned by the government of the United Arab Emirates.
A lot of U.S. lawmakers, governors and mayors say that's a security problem. But on the waterfront, there was a collective shrug.
There certainly are issues on the Baltimore waterfront, longshoremen say: safety issues from ill-kept equipment and security issues from holes in the system set up after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Sometimes, guards don't always take a good look at ID cards at the gate, or foreign crews are allowed unchecked off the ships or even out of the port, some said. Or U.S. Customs and Coast Guard officials tasked with flagging suspicious cargo go home before the ship is done being unloaded, some said.
The biggest problem, said the longshoremen, as well as a host of security experts, is the potential for a terrorist or drug smuggler or criminal of another stripe to stick something in a cargo container overseas.
But who signs their paychecks, the dockworkers said, doesn't have much to do with any of that.
"We can't do anything about it. If it's going to happen, it's going to happen," Joe Letts, a longshoreman for 33 years, said of potential security threats. "I don't see how changing the cargo handling company here adds any real risk factors."
None of the cargo handling companies that hire the longshoremen at the state's public terminals is U.S.-owned. Most longshoremen know that the two biggest are British and Japanese. These companies have contracts to operate the terminals for the Maryland Port Administration and supply the supervisors for the longshoremen.
At the port of Baltimore, P&O rents and manages the Seagirt Marine Terminal, where most container cargo is offloaded. Until April, it will also oversee movement of some of the of cars and construction and farm equipment - called roll on-roll off, or ro-ro, cargo - at Dundalk Marine Terminal. When cruises start up again this season, the company will oversee baggage handling in South Locust Point.
---snip---
The Sun does not allow long excerpts