Posted on 02/25/2006 3:00:55 AM PST by Cannoneer No. 4
February 24, 2006: The recent controversy over the acquisition of the British firm Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, by Dubai Ports World, a state-run company in the United Arab Emirates, has been largely a matter of heat opposed to light. This is largely because of a number of myths that have quickly circulated throughout the blogosphere. These myths have led to a lot of controversy that has cast one of the strongest American allies in the Persian Gulf in a poor light that is undeserved.
First, a look at the United Arab Emirates is in order. This is a country that has been a long-standing ally of the United States since 1971. The UAE was part of the coalition to liberate Kuwait in 1991, and also has supported the United States in the war on terror (including, among other things, providing access to a deep-water berth that can accommodate aircraft carriers, use of a training facility for air-to-air training facility, airfields, and logistics support). It is a country that has proven largely inhospitable to al-Qaeda (instead, the focus is on business), sent forces to Afghanistan to protect the construction of a hospital that they donated and built, and also has sent humanitarian assistance to Iraq while also providing a location for training Iraqi police. In 2002, the UAE also captured a major al-Qaeda figure, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who was involved in the attack on the USS Cole in 2000, and handed him over to the United States despite threats from the terrorist organization. After Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005, the UAE donated $100 million for the relief efforts. Both Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and General Peter Pace have described the relationship the United States has with United Arab Emirates as "very close" and "superb". It would be interesting to know what sort of information Michelle Malkin has that would override the judgment of Rumsfeld and Pace. Her characterization of the United Arab Emirates as "demonstrably unreliable" is not just factually challenged, it is slap in the face to the strongest ally the United States has in the Persian Gulf.
One of the other things that has been ignored in the anti-UAE diatribes from Malkin is the fact that the United Arab Emirates is a Middle Eastern country where religious tolerance is the rule. The UAE's constitution guarantees freedom of religion (albeit it declares Islam as the official religion), and largely permits religious freedom. In 2003, the UAE shut down the Zayed Center for Coordination and Follow-up, which was publishing material that promoted anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial.
Second, nothing will really change at the ports, particularly with regards to security. Security will remain the province of the United States Coast Guard and the Department of Homeland Security. In another fact ignored by the scare campaign, the UAE has the only port in the Middle East that is part of the Container Security Initiative. Dubai Ports World has also agreed to mandatory participation in other programs to improve security and to prevent the illegal shipment of nuclear materials, and will also provide documents on internal operations on demand and has agreed to cooperate in future investigations. The deal was also scrutinized by the intelligence community, which found no problems. The only thing that changes hands is who owns the company that will handle the day-to-day operations (often performed by American longshoremen – usually unionized). Dubai Ports World also bought out the port operations of CSX in 2004 – with no real issues.
Third, several claims have been made regarding connections to 9/11, specifically the fact that two of the hijackers were from the UAE. First, none of the critics have any proof that either the government of the UAE or Dubai Ports World was involved in the attack. By the standard of these critics, the United Kingdom would be held responsible for Richard Reid, or Germany would be responsible for the Hamburg cell that planned the attack. Second, the United Arab Emirates have stepped up efforts to make money laundering less easy after Dubai was used as a financial conduit for the attacks (again, there is no proof that the UAE or DPW were active participants in the laundering). It should also be noted that at least two Americans have worked with al-Qaeda (Johnny Walker Lindh and Jose Padilla) as well.
The last thing to consider is that in the day and age of the Internet, this debate is not staying inside the United States. Past irresponsible comments (like those by Senator Richard Durbin concerning Guantanamo Bay) have spread across the world very quickly. The scurrilous comments directed at the United Arab Emirates by Michelle Malkin have the potential to assist al-Qaeda recruiting in that country, and thus do more damage than the port deal would have done.
"It's really about the things that are not being said.Like:
"My company does business with the UAE and I stand to make a lot of money if the port deal goes through."
"I have a lot of stock in DP World and I stand to make a lot of money if the port deal goes through.""
suddenly, when i asked them to post the "anti-arab" statements by malkin, they became very quiet.
i think you are right.
maybe FR should require people to divulge their dubai and uae investments before posting on this thread!
Why is it drivel? Are you saying none of it is true?
Distorted and one-sided.
Bull$hit
Some are saying the sucess of the UAE is because of capitalism, I'm saying one must account for the reality of an influx of oil money in the UAE and that is the main reason for the UAE's success.
Those who say the UAE's success is because of capitalism (ignoring the influx of oil money) would also have to say the success of Chavez's Venezuela is because of socialism (also ignoring the influx of oil money). Sure the UAE exhibits characteristics of capitalism and Venezuela socialism, but what has made the real difference is oil money. In both cases oil money is greasing the countries ecomomies, the effect of oil money masks the effects of the their respective economic systems.
If you took oil money out of the equation those Saudi "capitalists" would be just like their nomadic ancestors who carried their wealth on camelback, and Chavez's Venezuela would be an absolute ecomomic failure like Zimbabwe.
So? Oil money is another name for capital. What you do with money decides whether it is capitalism or not. In both your examples I think the state has claimed the oil industry. It seems that the UAE is investing to make more money (capitalism). This is resulting in a very nice standard of living. Chavez is following another path of bad ideas which is producing more poverty.
This is way different than starting out with nothing like the US did and earning capital through hard work, before oil was even discovered. The US did not have the advantage of a huge supply of unearned capital to work with.
If you say the UAE has money because of capitalism, you would also have to say Venezuela has money because of socialism, when neither is the case, the reality is they won the oil money lottery. The poor in Venezuela have more now than they did before Chavez, would you say that is because of socialism? No, it is because oil money is greasing their economy to the point the poor have more, their standard of living has went up, which is why Chavez is so popular amoung the lower class there.
The US was capitalistic from the begining and unlike the nomadic ME countries was wealthy before oil.
If oil had not been discovered in the ME would the UAE have become a "capitalistic" country?? I highly doubt it as they had not embraced capitalism up to that point.
So, if the UAE got oil money, don't you think the US got money from generous natural resources, too, especially lots of land, in the beginning? Capitalism is not about hard work, it is about investing money to make a profit. That is why it is called capitalism instead of laborism.
If that is true how did capitalism get started? Where did the initial money come from??
Capitalism is not about "investing existing money" it is about investing one's ability and hard work to produce something that never existed before, ie new wealth, or capital. Capitalism is about producing goods that never existed before and exchanging them for money, or profit.
Capitalism is not speculating in the futures markets, that is just churning existing capital, and it is not winning a class action law suit, these are just examples of a couple of capitalism's parasites.
Natural resources are meaningless and worthless without applying human ability and hard work to turn them into something that never existed before and something desirable to other human beings. Capitalism says you get to keep what you worked for, ie profit. Profit is the motivator to invest one's ability and hard work. That is the difference between capitalism and economic systems in which the motivator is the good of your fellow man. The US did not "get money from generous natural resources in the beginning", its citizens busted their butts investing ability and hard work to create new wealth using those natural resources, no one handed it to us. And we didn't rip off an existing industry built through someone else's ability and hard work, no, we earned it for ourselves.
Have you by chance read Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged? That book shows how true hands off capitalism works more than any other source I know of. I highly recommend it.
I am not sure that anyone used the term capitalism before Karl Marx wrote Das Kapital. He, of course, drew a line between the capitalists who invested their money in the means of production and thereby claimed profits and the workers who he thought provided all of the value and were entitled to all of the yield of an enterprise.
You are arguing something different and it is getting to be semantics. The problem with the hard work argument is that lots of people work hard who never get rich. Preindustrial Europe and colonial America were societies of artisans and sole proprietors with yoemen farmers, too. They developed a bourgeoise who devised ways of pooling money and sharing risk to embark on bigger ventures, especially trading. They departed from medieval strictures against usury which Islam still preaches. This, strictly speaking, was the birth of capitalism. And, for all intents and purposes there was very little money in those days.
I prefer the term free enterprise to describe my own economic beliefs, because it is free of the Marxist tinge.
I get the Any Rand newsletter, by the way. I doubt she would make the Arabs won the oil lottery argument you began with. So what? Like any other lottery winners the questions are what use are they making of their money and why does the government wrongly take so much of it?
She always referred to her philosophy as "objectivism" and economic system of choice as "Laissez-faire" capitalism, which simply means hands off capitalism.
No, I have not read that one. I guess she was a great friend of Alan Grnspan. Thanks for the term. I couldn't think of objectivism.
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