Posted on 03/01/2006 9:55:01 PM PST by Stajack
In light of the rampant speculation and rumor surrounding the port debate, Brit Hume dispatched Jim Angle to the Port of Baltimore on a fact finding mission. Mr. Angle interviewed a longshoreman with almost 30 years of service, a management executive with the current terminal operator (P&O Ports), as well as customs officials. The following is a summary of the findings of the Foxnews investigative report.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Then they better be prepared to fire the Chinese out of the California ports.
Exactly! More crap from RINO and backstabber Tom "Perfect Together" Kean.
"Its a sheikdom run by a bunch of leaders who don't respect women and have no desire to see their people have free speech and engage in political dissent. "
Obviously, you have never been to Dubai.
Israeli shipping company supports UAE port deal. To be on CNN later today.
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1588559/posts
Probably because that is a dumbass idea.
I don't believe any rational thinking person has a problem with govt to govt dealings that happen over in the ME. When Americas best interests are at stake, I ahve no problem making arrangement swith foriegn entities. My conservative point of view is simple. What happens in the ME, should stay in the ME. No good reason to ship any more problems over here. Lets keep America for Americans.
"friend" is an attribute of HUMANS, not STATES. We aren't hiring them to be our friends. We are hiring them to manage the day-to-day of the Ports...something they have proven very efficient at. Efficiency is something we need at out ports. The Soviet Union wasn't our friend in the 1940s, but we may not have been able to succeed without them.
Wrong. Look it up. It pertains to both individuals and states. Friend is a noun: can be replaced with a pronoun, and refer to an entity, quality, state, action, or concept
Btw, the Soviet Union was never hired by anyone in America "to manage the day-to-day of the Ports", as you say.
Why is UAE not our "friend" then? What are they not doing for us that they should be doing for us, in your opinion?
When I look at the historic record of the UAE and its relations with the USA, I don't see sufficient reasoning to call them friend. And even if they were a good friend like Great Britain, Australia and Israel are, that would still be no reason to allow them or any foreign entity the right to manage commercial terminal activities as it relates to US ports of entry. As I pointed out, the UAE until very recently has had a hostile relationship with America. I see no good reason they be granted open access to operational parts of our critical infrastructure.
Because they are wealthy, and they are good at it. They are driven by the promise of profit and we have a lot to gain from doing business with them, and they have lot to gain by doing business with us. Please don't misunderstand me...I am not yet convinced that we have more to gain from the deal than what we have to lose from the deal...and I HATE the idea of a government-owned "company" even being given the opportunity to do business with the U.S. I think there are plenty of concerns that need to be looked at without invoking the "all Arabs are out to get us" argument. We need to deal with them, we will never eliminate them.
I saw the report from the port that was played on Fox News (Hannity & Cholmes) the other night. It opened my eyes as to the facts on how our ports operate. It blows a huge hole in the lie that "only 5 percent of the incoming containers are inspected". I'm much more comfortable with the idea that our ports are in good hands regardless of who the corporate entities are.
In one week I went from - "What the heck is Bush thinking?" to - believing now that this is really not a big deal, though I feel the Whitehouse should of been better prepared for the media blitzkreig.
That is a weak arguemnt.
>>>>I think there are plenty of concerns that need to be looked at without invoking the "all Arabs are out to get us" argument. We need to deal with them, we will never eliminate them.
Been closely following the events in the ME since the 1960`s and I am fairly well versed in the history of ME affairs. That is by-product of growing up around NYCity Jews. For me, the events of the last 60 years were highlighted by the 9-11 attacks. By all accounts, half the Islamic world hates America and the other half aren't thrilled with us either. What I see today, is a population of 350 million people in the ME, comprised with a large contingent of Islamic jihadists and islamofascists who hate western civilization, the US and of course, Israel. Now that we are in the midst of the terrorist world fighting these religious fanatics, in Afghanistan and Iraq, we need to stay put and kill as many of these US hating terrorists as we can, before they kill us. You want to open the US to foreign entities that have a history of extreme hostility to the American people and our very way of life. Again, I don't want any foreign entity from having any management control or access to the daily operations of critical aspects of US infrastructure on our homeland. Period.
I agree with you that the Bush folks should have seen this coming. Time and again, good Bush initiatives have been sabotaged by an inferior communications apparatus. it's the exact opposite of the Clinton regime (all style, no substance).
Those two "reasons" did not comprise my entire argument. As long as the ME has a valuable commodity that we "need", we will continue to have to deal with them as their "crack-whores". Cutting them off entirely sounds good, and I wish we had that ability. But they have something we need almost as bad as we need oxygen. Nothing would do my soul more good than to watch the whole region revert back to goatherding. Until then, we will have to continue to nurture our unsavory "alliance".
HEAD'S UP! For anyone who hasn't seen it yet, the video of the Foxnews investigative report has been reposted on Foxnews.com. Just go to prime time shows and then to "Special Report". More than likely the video will be available there until Friday morning.
Assuming you mean UAE since that is one of the two "foreign entities" that are the subjects of the deal, perhaps you can tell me about this "history of extreme hostility"? The other "foreign entity" involved is the UK, which I know has a well documented "history of extreme hostility toward the American people and their very way of life".
BTW, I never said I wanted to "open the US to foreign entities that have a history of extreme hostility to the American people and our very way of life". And I am not necessarily for the UAE deal going through, as I clearly stated in previous posts.
Now, we can agree to disagree. There is no alternative. We hold diametric viewpoints on this issue.
Your argument has an absolutist, "friend or foe" foundation. But any study of history will show that dynamics between nations have always involved shades of gray, AND ALWAYS WILL. For your absolutist doctrine to hold true, we should move our Navy and Air Force assets out of the Dubai ports, shouldn't we? And if so, where will we rebase them, since the whole region is full of "America haters"? As it stands now we have a serious footprint in Dubai, LESS THAN FIFTY MILES FROM THE NAVAL FLEET OF OUR MOST SERIOUS ADVERSARY, IRAN. I have a strong hunch that this factor weigh heavily in Bush's calculations. But he can't admit that, now can he?
It seems to me that managing our international ports would actually be a very good role for the Federal Government, with some Constitutional basis. If they were smart, the Feds would dump all the other extra-Constitional crap that they do and actually focus on a preventing foreign invasion. As you can see, I am hobbled by a Jeckyl and Hyde syndrome on this whole issue.
The other thing is, the people who work there now, will be working under the new company, including the management at these ports.
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