Yes. Please take a minute to compose yourselves. You did read the title of this post correctly and this is the reliably left-leaning Abhi writing this post (and not someone who has infiltrated our North Dakota bunker and is holding me at gunpoint). On Tuesday, President Bush forcefully defended his administration’s decision to allow a sale which would turn over the control of operations at major American ports to a company based in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, and controlled by that government. Here is one news report following the decision:
U.S. lawmakers formally asked the Bush administration Thursday to reconsider its approval of a sale giving a company in the United Arab Emirates control over significant operations at six major American ports.
The lawmakers, including four senators and three House members, sharply criticized the UAE as inconsistent in its support of U.S. anti-terrorism efforts.
They also said the country was a key transfer point for shipments of nuclear components sent to Iran, North Korea and Libya and was one of only three nations that had recognized the Taliban as Afghanistan’s legitimate government…The Associated Press reported Saturday that government-owned Dubai Ports World had won approval for the $6.8 billion deal from a secretive U.S. panel that considers security risks of foreign companies buying or investing in American industry. [Link]
Here is Bush’s strong response today, where he actually threatened to veto any bill that curbs this sale (note: he has NEVER vetoed anything):
He called on opponents to explain why they opposed a Middle Eastern firm taking over when they did not oppose a British company being in control.
“I am trying to conduct foreign policy now by saying to the people of the world, ‘We’ll treat you fairly’,” he said.
“It would send a terrible signal to friends and allies not to let this transaction go through,” he told reporters. [Link]
For the rest of this post I am going to go out on a limb and trust in two things. I will leave it up to individual readers to decide whether to go out on this limb with me or not:
- I will trust that the “secretive U.S. panel” mentioned above has adequately considered and addressed the security risks involved in this deal.
- I will trust that there isn’t some larger Machiavellian plot behind this whole thing that will make the President’s friends rich at the expense of others.
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p> Here is what bothers me. Imagine if after the terrorist attack against the federal building in Oklahoma, Congress announced that it would no longer allow certain key U.S. operations to be handled by Irish companies. McVeigh after all, was of Irish ancestry. Or what if British companies were denied if the shoe bomber, Richard Reed, had been successful? If people feel this way because the U.A.E. is a country of brown-skinned Arabs, then it is not unreasonable to think that they may one day feel this way about brown-skinned Indians. Amitabh Pal at The Progressive has picked up on this as well:
There has been a good amount of hyperbole about a Middle Eastern corporation’s buyout of a company that runs operations in several ports around the United States.The takeover of the British Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company by Dubai Ports World, a United Arab Emirates government enterprise, has inspired strong reaction that, sadly, has sometimes had a tinge of anti-Arab sentiment.
“How are they going to safeguard against things like infiltration by al-Qaeda or someone else, how are they going to guard against corruption?” asked Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., the chair of the House Homeland Security Committee. The outrage seems to be bipartisan. Democratic Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Robert Menendez are co-sponsoring legislation that will bar the control of port operations by foreign governments if President Bush doesn’t stop by March 2 Dubai Ports World from completing its takeover.
Now, I’m not naïve. The United Arab Emirates served as a financial transfer point for the operation. (This is at least partly due to the fact that UAE has become a major money laundering center due to lax oversight.) But Hamburg was a major plotting center for the terrorists, too. Can anyone imagine a similar outcry if a German state-owned firm had acquired Peninsular and Oriental?
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p>Let’s address the prime concern here. The most oft-cited concern is, “what if someone high up in this company, an Arab U.A.E. citizen, is sympathetic to Al Qaeda and leaks important tactical details of a port’s operations to terrorists.” Fact: Two of the 9/11 hijackers were U.A.E. citizens and Al Qaeda money has been laundered through that country’s banks. There is further precedence for having such paranoid thoughts. NPR’s All Things Considered noted that the most relevant comparison to this fear would be Israel’s Operation Thunderbolt (a.k.a Operation Entebbe). In this operation IDF Special Forces Commandos successfully stormed and rescued hostages on Air France Flight 139, which was diverted to an airport in Uganda by terrorists. The important fact here is one of the key reasons why the Israelis succeeded:
One of the reasons that the raid was well planned was that the building in which the hostages were being held was built by an Israeli construction firm. Israeli firms were often involved in building projects in Africa during the 1960s and 1970s. The firm which built the airport terminal still had the blueprints, and supplied them to the government of Israel. In addition many of the released hostages were able to accurately describe the interior of the building, the number of hijackers, the involvement of Ugandan troops and many other important details.
While planning the military operation, the Israeli army built a partial replica of the airport building with the help of some Israeli civilians who had helped build the airport terminal. It has been claimed by researchers that after arriving at the military base to begin work on the replica building (not being aware beforehand what they were to do) the civilian Israeli contractors were invited to dinner with the commander of the base. At the dinner, it was indicated to them that, upon completion of the replica, and in the best interest of national security, they would be held guests of the military for a remaining few days. During the entire operation an extremely high level of security was maintained. [Link]
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p>I contend that even if documents detailing the operations at these ports were to fall in to the hands of Al Qaeda, we should have safeguards in place that would make such a blunder irrelevant. Even though the company that wants to buy these ports is Arab run, most of the workers will be American. Law enforcement from the Department of Homeland Security MUST have safeguards in place so that even the blueprints and knowledge of the workings of our ports won’t be good enough to enable an attack against America. It is Congress that has failed if our ports are left unprotected and not a company from Dubai.
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p>One other thing to consider (and this isn’t as big a stretch as it may seem at first) is the possibility that, in the long term, selling to the U.A.E. may make us less susceptible to a terrorist attack. The whole reason that the U.A.E. is buying up foreign businesses with its oil money is because their leaders know that their present economy is unsustainable. When the oil runs out, the U.A.E. will become a country with zero economic prospects, ripe for instability. THAT is the reason why it is diversifying its economy NOW. Given the lessons of 20th century history, I would rather have a stable Arab government that is economically entangled with us, than a poor one that might blame us for its troubles.
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p>One final point. Over email Manish mentioned to me another analogy to this situation. Look at what is happening with Indian tycoon Laxmi Mittal in his bid to buy the French steel company Arcelor:
The European Union (EU) has reacted to reports of opposition to steel tycoon Laxmi Mittal’s takeover bid of Europe’s largest steelmaker, Arcelor.
The EU said it was against racial discrimination and the issue should be treated only on commercial considerations.
“The EU is of a clear view that nationality in such cases is not relevant and it should be decided according to the laws in place and commercial merits,” said David O’Sullivan, European Commission Director General-Trade.
However, he made it clear that the EU would be concerned if there were any violations of competition rules and the takeover created a monopoly kind of situation.
Mittal is facing bitter resistance in his takeover bid of the French company, Arcelor. The latest opposition comes from Luxembourg, which is looking at a law to fight Mittal’s bid. [Link]
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p>Conventional wisdom has it that the white European powers that be don’t want a brown man taking control of such a key French company.
And so I side firmly with the Bush administration on this one. What both the Democrats and the Republicans in Congress are doing right now is playing upon the xenophobia of voters with the belief that it will pay-off in November (unfortunately it probably will pay off). The key to this is to build adequate safe-guards into the operations at our ports. It is both the President’s and Congress‘ responsibility to fix our broken port system and not lay the blame on a foreign company.
Interestingly, I just talked about the same thing on my blog. This is the only time that I can recall where I’ve agreed with him.
Abhi,
I support Bush on this issue.
haha. i’m getting emails from my liberal friends who are rilly suspicioius of brown folk now!
Pakistan sold it’s state owned Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL)to UAE’s Etisalat ignoring Singapore’s SingTel.And look at the result! Etisalat failed to pay and the privatisation process went haywire causing loss of billions to Pak Government.
The question is do UAE’s ruling sheiks have sufficient managerial expertise to run large companies efficiently? It will be dud investment to buy large companies with the help of skyrocketing oil prices if they lack managerial and technical skills. UAE’s airlines runs well due to cheap and competitive Indian and Pakistani Labour and imported managerial skills.
Obviously Sheiks won’t be allowed to import labour from the subcontinent to run US ports.
I kind of don’t have an opportunity one way or the other along the parameter you’re discussing Abhi, but you lost me here:
# I will trust that there isnÂ’t some larger Machiavellian plot behind this whole thing that will make the PresidentÂ’s friends rich at the expense of others.
Uh. . .hmmm.
Sigh.
Politics is ultimately a theatre of speculation. We know very little about what could be behind this confusingly rare display of progressive racial politics by the Bush admin. I’m with them (i can’t believe i said that) on this one and thoroughly disgusted by any objection to a UAE firm controlling American ports in the same way that I was 2 weeks ago about the unbelievably xenophobic reaction to Mittal’s takeover bid. Seema Sirohi on Outlook wrote a somewhat, ok, maybe borderline, interesting article on Outlook tying the danish cartoon controversy and the Mittal issue.
If only this were remotely a consistent principle it might seem a credible statement here.
im with bush on this one, too.
dailyKOS does a very accurate round-up of the whole issue here
I kind of don’t have an opportunity one way or the other along the parameter you’re discussing Abhi, but you lost me here:
I will trust that there isnÂ’t some larger Machiavellian plot behind this whole thing that will make the PresidentÂ’s friends rich at the expense of others.
Uh. . .hmmm.
Sigh.
the Bush Family have very good relations with another Arab Clan…The Sauds of Saudi Arabia..They are Business partners for a long time. Bush Jr’s failed business were financed directly and indirectly with the Saud money…
Bush by his own logic should have no problem allowing the airport security work done by the TSA to be outsourced to some Arab/Middle Eastern owned company. Why is that not acceptable, but port security where less than 5% of the millions of shipping containers are inspected is ok to be outsourced ? To me the very idea of having a foreign nation, ragardless of which one it is, in charge of national security related work is just plain dangerous. Is the White House planning to have its Secret Service run by the Chinese next ?
This is going to cost Bush dearly. It is good to see that for once the Dems & Repubs are agreeing on something.
More parallels: A U.S. shell company tried to prevent Jet Airways from starting a direct U.S.-India route by claiming it had terrorist connections.
Terrorism has become the default smear for desi American political candidates.
It is rumoured that Dawood Ibrahim is a shareholder of Jet Airways and a finacier of Naresh Goyal. A former minister referred to Naresh Goyal as the “so called owner of Jet Airways” in Lok Sabha. Naresh Goyal is always on the defensive when enquired about the shareholding pattern of Jet Airways. He has failed to explain why a gulf based entity controls a large chunk of Jet Airways shares and who are the people behind that entity.
When challenged Naresh Goyal promptly gave up his fight to operate in the Indo-US routes. This explains why Sahara has a flight connecting US to India but Jet hasn’t.
Unfortunately the man has acquired Sahara(due to Sahara’s failed real estate and finacial services ventures)getting a backdoor entry.
There are so many things wrong with this reasoning that it would take all day to list them. (Why would anyone raise an outcry if an Irish construction firm was hired because McVeigh was Irish-American? The militia he was trained in was not from Ireland, but homegrown; and anyway, they kicked him out and he worked independently of them. The comparison doesn’t hold.)
However, since I have very little time, let’s just clear up the two assumptions:
Both assumptions are addressed in this New York Times article:
No oversight! So much for Homeland Security putting safeguards in place. It’s like Bush trusting corporations to independently monitor the pollutants their plants emit.
(And how is it if the ports are left unprotected it would be the fault of congress, and not the administration?)
And as for no. 2:
Haliburton, pt. 2. Patronage rools! Is anyone else’s palms being greased from this?
I’d be more seduced by Bush’s oh-so-conciliatory words to brown peoples across America if this process weren’t handled so covertly, and without the pretense that there is nothing financially to gain from the players involved.
The federal government’s role in securing strategic US ports is of paramount importance. That much is undeniable. Much of the responsibility for funding security initiatives belongs to DHS and TSA. But the funding has beel too little and too slow in materializing.
However, securing US ports is not the sole responsibility of the feds — this where I diverge from Abhi’s comments. Port security actually depends on the cooperation and join efforts of the feds, state and local governments, and just as important, private companies. The transportation business operates on razor-thin profit margins and private companies do not have the wherewithal to pay for enhanced security measures. So much of the financial burden has fallen on the feds, but even federal taxpayer dollars have only covered about 15% of the total funding requested by seaport authorities, private companies and other entities [GAO report here].
Although private companies such as Dubai Ports World may or may not have the resources required to secure ports they own/manage — and the money may be a long time coming from the feds — these companies do have to cooperate with government at all levels in order to secure US ports.
This gets to the main question I’m concerned about — what do we know about Dubai Ports World? What is their track record in investing resources in port security? How cooperative are they in working with other stakeholders? These are issues that are independent of DPW being owned by possible suspicious brown Arabs. I see it more as a question of their corporate responsibility and commitment to port security. Although the folks working at DPW ports in the US may be US nationals, they will still have to operate under policies, procedures and a corporate culture driven by the UAE nationals who run DPW.
So Abhi, to your first assumption above — I guess I can only go out on that limb if the “secretive panel” has done its due diligence on DPW. I hope the panel is convinced that DPW will do a more than adequate job of working with DHS, TSA, Coast Guard, state and local governments and other actors in securing ports under their domain. I wonder who runs this panel and whose interests it really represents?
It was UAE’s sheiks that gave shelter to Dawood Ibrahim till 9/11 happened and they quickly sent Dawood to ISI’s lap fearing loss of reputation in the western world.
Outsourcing management of the ports to anyone may well be problematic in the absence of sufficient investment in and operational/regulatory attention to security. That might be more true on the margins in this case because Dubai Ports World is a government-owned enterprise rather than a private enterprise.
While Abhi suggests that “we should have safeguards in place that would make such a blunder irrelevant,” I’m not so sure that’s the case — from all indications, we’ve been living on the edge with port security for years. (Not just because of Congress — Chuck Schumer and others in Congress have been talking about this issue practically every week — but also because the administration hasn’t made it a priority. If they really wanted something, after all, they’d get it through Congress.)
Like airport security, perhaps port security should be a federal government responsibility, in the first instance — even if that requires coordination with state/local governments and private corporations, we should feel confident that the federal government is setting the rules. Maybe that should have been true all along, but if the current controversy finally gets some attention to the issue, then that’s not altogether bad.
Far from being reassured or impressed by Bush’s newfound concern for treating brown people “fairly,” the fact that he deploys that concern so selectively — i.e., not when people less powerful than his Gulf state pals are involved — should make all of us that much more outraged. (Witness the administration’s reaction to the UN report on Guantanamo last week.)
The Jet Airways and desi political candidate examples don’t strike me as particularly close analogies — those charges are on their face more wacky, and they are being levelled in contexts in which the background concerns about security aren’t quite the same.
There is a vast difference between an airline company and a company hired to run the security of a port/airport. And it is also about context, or are people so blinded by their PC blinkers ? Would the Pentagon or CIA want say their catering services contracted out to a Chinese or Russian owned company ? In the context of a national security situation, those details do matter. This I hope marks the end of the Bush era. His own conservative party members are turning on him. They at least realize that this issue will cost them in 2008, if he wins now. Maybe that’s why the libs seem to support him now…
Dawood left Dxb for Karachi long before 9/11, once the India-UAE extradition treaty was signed in the late 90s.
Great post Abhi…I’m with you on this one and I’m not too surprised with Bush’s approval of the whole deal. The US and UAE have been honeymooning since the first Gulf War and signed a Defense Cooperation Agreement in 1994. The US has an air force base at Al Dhafra near Abu Dhabi and the Marines are often resting up in Dubai. The UAE has also faced harsh critcism in the past from neighboring kingdoms for these cozy relations and the Taliban had publicly threatened the UAE with bombs and such in the 90s and then again after 9/11 I think, when the military bases were again in full swing.
Other than setting up a nest egg for when the oil runs out, I think the UAE might also be trying hard to supplant the Saudis as THE monarchy to know in the Persian Gulf. Ideological and terretorial tensions between Saudi on one end and the UAE on the other have led to some shifting of allegiences among the Gulf states. Seems like countries like Qatar and Kuwait are much more interested in taking the UAE’s example when it comes to evolving economically and even socially. This doesn’t sit well with the Saudis who have historically been head honchos in that region. Many of these changes are all but invisible to our eyes in N. America but shit is surely going down over there and I’m rooting for the UAE because they are the least volatile of the lot.
NPR is doing great reporting this morning.
They are just cargo handlers with federal oversight. They are already Chinese, Danish companies operating on both the coasts. All the employees are Americans.
It is election politics.
Exactly what I thought when I saw the discussion of this story while at the Gym. on Lou (the crusader) Dobb’s show. Xenophobia is the one word that immediately came to my mind.
So I too am in agreement with Bush administration here.
The so-called inclusive Democratic party should rather focus attention on the fact that there is no worker exploitation goes on. But this is one issue that the Dems are going to get some mileage on as the whole “wire-tapping” thing has totally fizzled out.
Huh. Extradition treaty with UAE! Explains why they arrested Anees and safely deposited him in Pakistan.
Isn’t this at the very least a slap in the face to the NY victims of 9/11?
Abhi,
Please donÂ’t gouge out your eyes, but it looks like that you are in agreement with Bill OÂ’Reilly:
“Now with all due respect to Senator Graham, whom we do respect, we could find no evidence the UAE government wants to destroy Israel — none. In fact, the Emirates, along with Jordan, is America’s best Arab state ally in the War on Terror. That company allows U.S. planes to base on its soil. It’s a tremendous help in intelligence gathering. So let’s cut through all the bull and grandstanding. If the Bush administration fires the Emirates company without cause, it spits in the eye of a strong Mideast ally. I hope everybody understands how dreadful that would be.”
If this were a Saudi company, I would share the objections voiced by Peter King and Hillary Clinton. As impolite as it is to say, if there is a group deserving of group prejudice, they would be it. But the same cannot be said of the UAE – they are about as pro-American as an Arab regime can be. The charge that Dubai has been a transit point for illicit money and arms trading can be leveled at Los Angeles or New York as well. The UAE has taken tremendous steps to bring in transparency in financial dealings, since it wants to be the Hong Kong of the Middle East.
That the UAE recognized the Taliban is moot – that regime no longer governs in Afghanistan. Besides, their support for the Taliban was far more mild in comparison to the aid that Pakistan gave that brutal regime.
The fact is, most of the actual workers at these ports will be American. As far as managers go, there is a good chance they might be Dubai-based Indians – Arabs are a minority within the UAE.
Khaleejdesi – “what could be behind this confusingly rare display of progressive racial politics by the Bush admin”.
Always one of the favorite charges of the left – Bush is a racist. Considering that he has bent over backwards to constantly say “Islam is peace”, that he amended federal law to allow black churches to receive federal money for their good works program, that he does not tighten border security with Mexico for fear of losing Hispanic votes, proposes a guest worker program for illegals – the racism charge is a hollow one. But hey, I guess some slogans just never go out of style.
I am all for free enterprise but then Dubai rulers track record is nothing to go by. I hope US will not have to wake upto these peopke after they get hit like Bombay did from people operating out of Dubai.
I wasn’t commenting on the nature of the efforts made by the UAE and Indian govt.s relating to the transfer of wanted persons from either country under this treaty. I was simply stating that after the treaty was signed it became too dangerous for a big fish like Dawood to be seen in Dxb, he left much before 9/11.
Why was Anees not handed over despite India having an extradition treaty with UAE ?
Interesting Pakistan/India-related point (the quote in the body of this post doesn’t mention Pakistan by name):
Maybe this is why Dubya seems so insistent on these particular brown portwallahs.
Taking a stab, it seems that the Ibrahim family has a stronger unofficial treaty of criminal deportation with Pakistan and Pakistan has often had the support of many UAE locals. Indeed, the locals in the UAE are way more likely to support Pakistan rather than India when things come to a head between the two. If I’m not mistaken, Pakistani women can actually legally convert to UAE citizenship by marrying local Arabs…not something that extends to Muslims from other non-Arab countries. Basically, in the past when wanted persons have had strong ties with Pakistan and India both, the UAE has mostly (unjustly) siphoned the criminals back to Pakistan.
I think that stronger ties with the US will help in increasing pressure on the UAE govt. to put their foot down on such goings on. Like when Abu Salem was in the UAE and the authorities began actively pursuing him (more so than they did with the rest of the clan) due to Indian pressure that was backed wholeheartedly by the US. His escape to Lisbon was apparently due to him being tipped off by a local contact. This is a step up from being harboured and then released by the govt.
Oh aaaaaand…
Have a look at this here article from back in Jan 06:
I think this breaks my personal record of comment posting, yay for SM, I lowe you rascals!
Um, I just wanted to say that I was extremely tired when I wrote that comment and I meant opinion, not opportunity. Yeah.
This situation would be very similar to India handing over its Airport Security to a Pakistani Company.
From the Center for American Progress, in case folks are interested:
AK wrote “Outsourcing management of the ports to anyone may well be problematic in the absence of sufficient investment in and operational/regulatory attention to security.”
I agree. And I would add that the problem is not just ports, and not just middle eastern companies. Handing over any vital government function to a private corporation can be problematic, because the primary interest of a corporation is profit, rather than the public good or the interests of the American people. For example, witness the outsourcing of rebuilding and security in Iraq/Afghanistan to corporations like Halliburton.
(Outsourcing a vital government function to a corporation controlled by a foreign government must be done with even greater caution, because a foreign govt. will have motives that are even more mixed than those of a corporation, as others have noted.)
I hope that this controversy does not become mired in reflexive anti-Arab xenophobia, but instead becomes a debate on this administrationÂ’s tendency — done in the name of “smaller government,” but often with the effect of lining the pockets of their friends — toward privatizing government functions generally.
I’m not always a fan, but I think The Nation gets this one right. Specifically,
The focus here should be on privatization and the lack of a long-overdue focus on security — the focus on “Arab corporations” is a, yes racist, smokescreen but that hardly means that Bush is right on this one.
An excellent point. Take, for example, their outsourcing of combat, detention, and interrogation in Iraq. [link, link, and link] That worked out really well.
This is just xenophobia at its best.
Dubai Ports will just be inheriting the contracts that P&O have had for over 165 years. Nothing will really be changed – the security protocols remain the same. Ultimately security rests with the Coast Gard and Customs, and the corporations comply with their requests. The company is managed by a amalgamation of Americans, UAE nationals and Indians. Nobody pays 6.8 billion dollars to let a couple of terrorists in – they’re more concerned with rivaling Hutchinson Whampoa as the largest port operators. The Americans consider Dubai’s ports safe enough to be the most frequently visited by US Navy ships, so its not about security.
Besides, isn’t the idea to reward moderate Arab states and increase ties with them? No, lets just act like all of them are terrorists, stop them from advancing their commercial interests, and then expect them to give their full co-operation in the War on Terror. Both parties, democrats and republicans need to be shot over this reaction, as this could a larger public relations disaster for Americans in the Middle Eats than Gitmo.
And to say that “Oh 2 of the hijackers were from the UAE (Abu Dhabi not Dubai) and money was wired through there” is a poor excuse. For that matter, P&O contracts should have been canceled right after 7/7, since the UK is a much larger base of terrorism and fundamentalism in general and all German purchases should be scrutinized since a lot of the 9/11 hijackers were based in Hamburg.
I’m particularly disgusted by the media. If you were watching CNN, you’d think that Hamas was being handed control.
KXB, I prefer to think that O’Reilly is in agreement with me 🙂
But that simply begs the question of whether the security protocols were adequate/appropriate in the first place. It obviously doesn’t justify a reaction that may indeed be “xenophobic,” in part, certainly from the likes of Lou Dobbs/CNN. But I don’t think that it’s accurate or fair to tar everyone’s response with the xenophobic brush, or to suggest that xenophobia (or relatedly, “election year politics”) is the only thing motivating various responses. Many of the people who are getting exercised about this issue have been up in arms about port security for years while the media has ignored them.
Are you serious about that? If you are, I’d be interested in hearing more about why you think that might be so. It seems a hard argument to me.
For what it’s worth, at least in the “Middle Eats,” I think that Abhi’s appetite for ice might be a bigger PR disaster. With maybe DesiDancer’s PBJ&D sandwich coming in a close second 😉
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Good point. I think all P.O.V.s have some merit. At the very least, I hope the issue will induce everyday people to think about national security as a whole and not just’ “Arabs own WHAT“!!!
Frankly, I’ve visited SM every now and again and am rather surprised that
[violins playing]
would make such insightful folks view Bush as the icon of fair play. This Administration (& Party) has stoked the flames of fear and fostered such an “us against them” mentality that you should be appalled that those statements actually came out of his mouth.
Embarassed once again by the xenophobia of a left that makes it so difficult to support…
No such thing was implied. In this one instance I believe that Bush himself didn’t arrange this deal for sinister reasons. I believe him when he came out today and said he didn’t even personally know about this decision until after-the-fact. Agreeing with Bush on a single point does not imply that I agree with him on anything else. However, I reject blatant partisanship, the type which has made Washington grind to a halt. I try to write my posts on principle and not on partisanship.
In the list of contries with asymetrical laws UAE would be up there right after china Indian businessmen who want to sell anything to arabs in UAE have to get local partners. some local arabs have a full time profession of being a partner to few firms. The higher up politicaly you are the more $ you charge the foriegn companies to register. By law no one can operate any thing in UAEwithout a local partner. US may have managed to get good deals despite that but india hasnt. I will reserve judgement on this till i find what the US companies have to face when they operate in UAE. ie does US get a quid pro quo in business environment for US firms(not just a connected fella but any joe schmoe small business fella)
Hard to believe.
AK – If the Singaporeans had won the bid, I doubt we would have had this kind of reaction. People are just hearing “Arabs taking over ports” and reacting. Majority of the ports are already operated by foreign companies, including China, Singapore and Denmark, yet we heard nothing when all that happened.
Yes, security is inadequate, and hopefully this deal would improve badly needed funding.
As for this being a PR disaster – this reaction just tells Arabs “you’re second class global citizens” since no-one has problems with other foreign countries. This is spitting in the face of moderate Arabia, who want to increase ties and want a freer Middle East. Even though I’m not even Arab, but because our family has investments in Dubai, this makes me want to turn in my green card altogether. If you start losing the rational portion of the population, thats a disaster like no other.
Meanwhile, the FBI has been busy this week:
But back at the ports, they are told to look the other way it looks…
Abhi, you know I love you. And we agree on so much politically. But I stopped reading after this. You trust much, much, much, too much.
Richard Reid is a Briton so why weren’t we concered about P&O’s presence in the US then? …Not so subtle xenophobia.
BTW Chuck Schumer never met a TV news camera he didn’t like.
“Dubai is the most dynamic of the glittering city-states that run down the east of the Arabian peninsula. It long ago decided to invest its (relatively modest) endowment of oil in other ways of making a living. So far, it has done very well…” -Financial times
As most of you know very little about Dubai, and think of it as a place running amok with terrorists, I would like to point out that all they’re doing is putting their oil money in places that would give them healthy long-term returns.
A list of it’s current investments:
the world’s tallest tower: here the world’s tallest hotel: here the world’s largest aluminium factory worth $6 billion: here one of the world’s biggest international airline carriers: here a $15bn aerospace enterprise: here downtown dubai (an investment of $20bn): here
Dubai GDP rose by 16.6 % in 2004.
Successful diversification meant that the oil sector accounted for just 6% of Dubai’s GDP in 2004.
Currently $45 billion in real estate is under construction in Dubai, with another $45 billion in development
other than that:
80% of the country’s population is expatriates. alchohol is allowed. there’s no garb required for women to wear. tourism is one of their biggest industries. unlike most other countries in the arab world, a terrorist attack is yet to take place in the UAE.
if there’s anything that can be said about them, its that: they’re progressive money-spending nutcases.
terrorist, is hardly the word im looking for.
there’s no way they can get out of this. there really, isnt.
i mean it was a private transaction between P&O and DP WORLD. Assets have already been exchanged for money. March 2nd, the date that the deal goes through is more of a formality than anything else.
the only way the americans can get out of this is by introducing legislation which would not allow ports to be run by (note: NOT controlled/NOT owned) any foreign firms.