Posted on 02/26/2006 7:21:39 PM PST by Cornpone
President George W. Bush has declared that he would veto any congressional attempt to derail a contract allowing a Middle Eastern company to run six major U.S. seaports. His administration has approved the $6.8 billion deal between the London-based P&O (Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company) and Dubai Ports World—which is owned by the United Arab Emirates—to operate ports in Baltimore, Miami, Newark, New Orleans, New York and Philadelphia.
The opposition to the deal has been instant, vociferous, and unprecedentedly bipartisan. The resistance to the proposed transaction within his own party is likely to exceed the rebellion last fall over his nomination of Harriet Miers. Informed Washingtonians predict that Bush will be forced into yet another embarrassing retreat; the issue, it appears, is not “if” but “when,” and at what political cost to himself.
So far the critics have focused on the reliability of the UAE as an American “ally,” the extent to which Dubai Ports World could be used as a means of terrorist penetration of a highly vulnerable segment of the nation’s infrastructure, and the lack of transparency and procedural safeguards preceding the deal. Seven specific arguments have been advanced:
1. While nominally the paragon of Arab striving for modernity, Dubai and the rest of the Emirates are inhabited by people not only similar to their Muslim brethren elsewhere, but disproportionately inclined to Islamic terrorism. There are barely a million UAE citizens, but they included two of the 19 terrorists who carried out the 9/11 attacks—including Marwan al Shehhi, who—according to the FBI—flew United Airlines flight 175 into the second World Trade Center tower.
2. Several of the 9-11 hijackers and planners traveled through the UAE or stayed there while preparing the attack, and its banking system was used to move funds used in the operation. This has prompted critics to call the Emirates “an operational and financial base for the hijackers” who carried out the 9-11 attacks.
3. Only three countries in the world recognized the Taliban regime in Afghanistan: Saudi Arabia, Pakistan—and the UAE. Entrusting the running of America’s ports to a company owned by one of those three governments is inherently unsafe.
4. According to a bipartisan congressional letter of protest sent to the Administration last week, the UAE has been a key transfer point for illegal shipments of nuclear components to Iran and North Korea. If such shipments, many of them bulky, passed undetected, the UAE government is guilty either of gross negligence or of complicity.
5. The management structure, hiring policies, and external supervision of the company itself are flawed. “There are conditions, which shows they had concerns, but it’s all procedural and relies entirely on good faith,” according to Rep. Pete King, a Republican from New York and the House homeland security chief, but “there’s nothing those conditions . . . nothing that assures us they’re not hiring someone with bin Laden.”
6. The plan was not subjected to any proper evaluation by the Department of Homeland Security. Its administrators obediently rubber-stamped it, but its senior security analysts were surreptitious bypassed. They “were never told [about it] and they don’t like it now.”
7. The Dubai firm has unnaturally close ties to the White House. Treasury Secretary John Snow, whose department heads the federal panel that approved the deal, was chairman of the CSX rail firm that sold its own international port operations to Dubai Ports World for $1.15 billion in 2004—one year after Snow left for President Bush’s cabinet. David Sanborn, currently in charge of Dubai Ports World’s European and Latin American operations, “was tapped by Bush last month to head the U.S. Maritime Administration.”
To all that, the President responded with an ill-tempered challenge: “I want those who are questioning it to step up and explain why all of a sudden a Middle Eastern company is held to a different standard than a [British] company,” he told reporters. The idiocy of such thinking, rather than any specific security threat, is the real reason why this deal must be called off. It reflects his enduring ideological commitment to the fiction that there are good Muslims, who are our friends and allies and whose countries are every bit as “normal” as Great Britain, Canada, or Japan; and then there are some bad apples who have “hijacked a great religion.”
Bush’s logic in defending the right of a Middle Eastern company to enjoy the same access to America’s strategic infrastructure as a British company is the same logic that has granted millions of Muslims equal access to this country’s green cards and passports, thus creating the main terrorist threat that America faces today. It is the logic of globalization and anti-discriminationism. It is not merely flawed, it is evil, and it presents a mortal danger to our civilization.
Does Michael Moore want the US to stick its nose into foreign business dealings, like this sale of a British Company to a UAE company? Would he have been happier if the Singapore state-run company, PSA, had won the bidding?
What does Michael Moore think of the fact that Chinese companies (which are all directly or indirectly controlled/owned by their Communist government) already run many of our terminals.
Is Moore afraid to have the Arabs compete with the Chinese government company COSCO? Does he have rich "friends" at COSCO or other places in China, like Hillary does?
Doesn't Moore want the Arabs to get exemptions from US laws like the Chinese got?
Does Moore know that COSCO has been given exemptions from US laws which "discriminate" against foreign state-run shipping companies?
Does Moore want us to "repossess" the COSCO ships built by Clinton's guaranteed loans in Mobile, AL shipyards?
What does Moore think of Clinton's attempts to lease the Long Beach navy base to COSCO?
What does Moore think of the Clinton-arranged loan for a nuclear reactor which powers the shipyard which builds Chinese warships near Shanghai?
"They are a trojan horse..."
Yes, Ma'am, they do appear to be that.
Ignore the Barbarians at the gates! It's for your own good, trust me. Blackbird.
It doesn't matter if it's one port terminal, or one harbor slot, or 25 terminals.
The outrageous thing is that the UAE leadership remains wed to the Wahabi philosophy. NO attempt has been made (and never will) to reign in UAE's Maddras' schools which the former Sec.Navy said still teaches 80-percent of UAE citizens.
These govt. sanctioned Wahabi Maddras schools still preach that Muslims have a moral obligation to conduct Jihad against Americans and other infidels.
Yes, the UAE govt. "changed" after 9/11 and became more pro-Western, but that was out of self preservation. How long will that last if push comes to shove?
These UAE people are not so stupid as to give up their oil revenues (sales to the USA) or their business dealings (port deals) just because we are infidels (or whatever)
If I were a Jihadist/Wahabi terrorist, I'd take every single dollar and every bit of knowledge from the USA that I could, and save it for that time when the Islam nations truly confront the West.
FINAL THOUGHT: I have stuck by GWA on every issue since 2000 (I even sympathized with his awful Harriet Miers selection and GWB's awful border plan) but this port deal pushed me off the reservation.
Our borders are being over run, we are selling vital businesses to alQaeda sympathizers, and we are failing to profile like we should.
I can never support the Democratic Party but neither will I support the Republicans until new leadership comes along, or until GWB administration changes its ways.
I dont reject this port deal because I think our security will immediately be threatened.
In fact, I think Port World and the UAE will increase security at these six ports.
I reject this deal because it is wrong and immoral to sell such vital assets to a nation which continues to practice Wahabism, and which refuses to reign in its Maddras schools which by some accounts STILL teaches 80 percent of UAE students.
(Wahabism teaches that Muslims have a duty to conduct Jihad against the USA and other infidels)
Yes, we buy crude oil from these Arabs, but that is something essential to our way of life.
This port deal is entirely voluntary and, if passed, will come back to bite us in the butt.
Not to mention that this port deal will push the USA Senate and House into the hands of the Democrats.
But I am so disgusted at this point that I hardly care.
Yes, tomorrow I will care, because I still love and cherish the USA,
But my logical mind says, 'hey, what the heck does it matter, Democrat or Republican, if both sides would take us down the road to self destruction.
No one has a monopoly on the truth. The point is we are dealing with a complex situation. There are valid arguments on both sides. On balance, I favor the UAE port deal. Demonizing the UAE is not in our long term national security interests in the region. General Pace was not forced to make the statements he did about our relationship with the UAE. The deal has been vetted among 18 USG agencies to determine the security and other risks and approved. That's good enough for me.
I just think I've lived my life at the end of the golden age of humanity based on what I see unfolding. My life will end soon. Everyone here is free to entertain their fantasies of the future. I just happen to think they are fantasies and most don't see what's coming. It will be their challenge. I've had mine. Live well and live proud that you are an American whether in fact or in spirit.
Being an American means being optimistic about the future and being able to be masters of our own fate. I am probably older than you are and don't share your pessimism. I want a better life for my child, nieces, and nephews. I am not about to walk away from any of the challenges and will make whatever contribution I can to further the interests of our country.
Live well and live proud that you are an American whether in fact or in spirit.
I have for the past 63 years and have every intention of doing so until I depart this earth.
The Chinese-state company, COSCO, wants to help manage our terminals.
They're the shippers who carried smuggled arms into the US, and, later, got preferential treatment from the Clintons (our dual presidents).
Should we have intervened to make sure that PSA* - won the bidding for the British company P&O instead of allowing the British company to sell to DPW?
(*the Singapore government's company which has worked together with the Red Chinese on shipping/terminal deals)
Who should manage our terminals?
Should we pass a law that kicks the Chinese out of the terminal business on US soil?
Should our government go into the terminal business?
Should our government give tax-breaks to American companies that are willing to manage our terminals?
Should we move our terminals 20 miles off shore?
US
Should we pass a law that kicks the Chinese out of the terminal business on US soil?
YES, and any other Foreign interest, including "Our FReinds, the Sauds".
Should our government go into the terminal business?
Surely you jest?
Should our government give tax-breaks to American companies that are willing to manage our terminals?
I'm a Fair Tax advocate, so that's lost on me.
Should we move our terminals 20 miles off shore?
Physically impossible, but I'm not sure of your point. Blackbird.
Get over it. Terrorists are bad people and sometimes the good guys are not responsible for them.
On the other hand, we are talking about CHUMPCHANGE when it comes to shipping.
The Port of New York has hundreds of terminals of the sort UAE's company was going to buy. This is for 22 similar terminals at 6 different ports.
There's only $8 billion at stake. The total investment in terminals in the United States is at least a trillion dollars, or a thousand times as much.
You did know, of course, that UAE is running out of oil, and some of the constituent states ran out years ago. They are into "investment", necessarily in the West because that's where the good stuff is.
Osama Bin Laden seeks to overthrow the Saudi royal family. That is, Osama Bin Laden is against Wahabism.
On the other hand, OBL is clearly an Islamofascist, as is the Ba'ath party, as are the Ayatollahs who run Iran.
Keep your eye on the fascists in this one ~
Bingo! Of course not.
BlackbirdSST: Physically impossible, but I'm not sure of your point.
It doesn't seem impossible to those with who have vision
Yangshan deep-water port off Shanghai to begin operation
SHANGHAI, May 25(Xinhuanet)-- The first section of a deep-water port at Yangshan* Isles, east of Hangzhou Bay, will be completed and put into trial operation late this year.
*Yangshan, a group of small barrier islands 20 miles offshore. he Yangshan Islands boast a natural water depth of 49 feet, where fifth- and sixth-generation ships can come and go freely. The barrier islands create a sheltered bay and convenient, navigable approaches to what will become the new Shanghai Deepwater Port.
Something stinks here, and it's not the cartoons in Denmark.
Where have all the breathless defenders of the port deal gone?
What will we do then? Where does that leave our Ports?
Dubai is the most liberal of the Emirates, the others are much more ... shall we say, not. Let's do the deal right. Neither side is desperate.
And there in is the problem with this administration. They still don't understand the history of Islam and the fact that it is political and religion is the face it hides behind.
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