The only question I have is: Why not wait until November to do this deal, after the elections, when disingenuous people will not be trying to score points?
I don't want this Arab company controlling the cargo going in and out of our ports (yes, you are correct that they aren't handling security) but only 2% of the cargo coming in is being inspected. You don't think it would be very (almost too) easy for a terrorist or two or three to embed themselves into this company and use it as a way to smuggle arms, bombs (worse case), etc. into the country.
Why would they NOT see this as a grand opportunity? We should realize by now that they aren't stupid. We need to remember that no one thought 9/11 would/could happen either.
And for anyone wondering -- I have zero ribbons on my car. Just thought I'd throw that out there before the question is thrown at me.
I'm not so worried about this, other than the fact that no American company does this kind of business. Now, if Hutchison Whampoa had taken over, I'd be worried. You know, the PRC corp. that effectively controls both ends of the Panama Canal?
http://www.conservativeusa.org/p...a-
washtimes.htm
The only question I have is: Why not wait until November to do this deal, after the elections, when disingenuous people will not be trying to score points?
It is all politics with you. Some of us put our country above our party.
We do not target groups and punish them for sharing blood or religion with our enemies.
How about for sharing money and weapons with our enemies? Can we punish them for that? Because that is what the UAE was doing by supporting the Taliban and the 9/11 hijackers.
Jason is now the Pat Buchannan of the left?
Yes, the UAE was a transit point for the 9-11 attack, and money went through Dubai banks and so on, but I don't believe the government was complicit. By your logic, we shouldn't deal with Germany, since Atta & company based their operation out of Hamburg.
Some of us put our country above our party.
I can't wait for the day you do that.
Listen, the ports aren't safe NOW. There's nothing stopping the regular shipments coming in daily from the Middle East from having embedded terrorists or WMDs on them TODAY. Switching port operations from one foreign country to another is not going to increase or decrease the DHS & Coast Guard operations at these ports. See my blog for more.
What I was saying in my post is that it would be much easier for the administration had they waited to announce this. Not whether I approve or not.
Add me as a Malkin bedfellow, I just don't like the thought of having a middle eastern country in control (whether it be financial or total) of anything involving our national security. If they can't police their own banks (some money was funnel in UAE for 9/11) why would they bother to take the time to monitor the ports effectively.
Second, there must be a reason for this. The UAE must have something we want, and I believe it is connected to the War on Terror.
Yes, perhaps we could seize some assests of Al Qaeda money being laundered there. What really bugs me is this notion that economics supercedes security- that Dubai growing its economy- the same one in which we have found Al Qaeda money being laundered and 9/11 planning occurred, I must repeat- is more important than whether or not our ports are under scrutiny of a company HQ'ed in said country where Al Qaeda money is laundered and where a good deal of planning for 9/11 took place.
Here is what is really going on here... Really? That's it. There is not a great deal of transparency- if any- about this deal, and yet you and the author of the referenced post are going to lay it out for us, because you're privy to the underpinnings of it?
DPW is a state-sponsored company...a subsidiary of a state where (fill in the blank). And the President has authority under one provision of CFIUS to block certain types of investigations with regards to foreign acquisitions. Sounds like a winning deal to me!
Oops, not supposed to be italicized after "Here is what is really going on here."
If it's about free trade, when did we sign an FTA with Dubai so that we can go in and grow our economy there? To my knowledge, we do not have one.
Yes, four comments in a row. I take exception with your claim this is a case of "economic nationalism," i.e., that people are objecting solely to keep the UAE economy down. I don't think anyone besides you and Jimmy Carter (great company!) have given any consideration to that. To say that is what is driving people in their objections- some sort of economic prejudice- is either giving people too much credit or is incredibly distrusting of the motives and concerns of the average American (and since I've read about it on Blogging Tories as well, Canadian).
must...not...agree with....Jess....
lol. I'm too swamped right now for intelligent commentary, but interesting discussion. Anyone want to grade my papers and do my lesson plan so I can join it? 
Now that I have a minute - facts aside (that's how Bush usually works, after all), I don't think Bush is considering how this looks to the average American. He desperatly needs to back off if the Republicans are hoping to maintain their edge on the security issue in the 2006 election. I think that is part of why some Republicans are jumping ship on this one - I just don't see how this can become a winning issue with Bush.
McKain, although I agree, I think it's so much more than that.
"I don't think Bush is considering how this looks to the average American."
See, that's the thing with GWB; he doesn't stick his finger in the wind and make policy based on how it will poll. That would be Clinton; "Let's send troops to Somalia to help the relief effort because it looks good, but let's not send any armored vehicles to support them, because that would look bad."
Yes, I think you are on the money there G Rex. With Dubya's veto promise, there has to be something diplomatic going on here. However, it still looks horribly politically.
Bush's veto threat doesn't mean anything diplomatic is happening. It just means he's being stubborn. You think far too highly of his motives and far too little of the average American's objection to this deal, accusing them of little more than ethnic prejudice.
The President fails on national security with regards to border security. Why is it so hard to see that he is failing with regards to this? Or is illegal immigration also all about "economic nationalism" and "something diplomatic?"
G Rex- Banks are somewhat monitored by their respective governments (unless said gov't is completely inept, which is no better and is hardly an excuse), so giving UAE a pass on the laundering of Al Qaeda money is naive at best.
I think Dubya has failed on immigration, and I have yet to endorese this policy. I just don't see the knee-jerk reaction as being very helpful.
Jess, I wholly agree this is much more than what I wrote. I was just trying to look at it from an expediance point of view. I agree with your last post as well. I just don't see any logic to this thing at all. If there is some bigger picture as Ryan is suggesting,it would be ill-advised to keep it a secret, because to most of us here on the ground, it looks like we're making a bad situation (port security) even worse, and threatening to use his first veto to do it.
And I don't see why just rolling over and saying, "Okay, let's let a subsidiary of a state with ties to Al Qaeda take control of some of the largest ports in our country," is helpful.
Why do you dismiss objection to the deal as a "knee-jerk reaction," i.e., if you disagree, you have not thought about it/ are an idiot/ are prejudiced? That's so elitist, it makes my stomach churn. One can disagree and have thought about. You are not more informed or wiser because you agree. And for a self-proclaimed libertarian, you are being ridiculously supportive of a deal that had absolutely no transparency whatsoever.
30% of American ports are operated by foreign companies, btw. That means 70% are run by- GASP!- the non-existent American companies you referenced in your post! That's a lot of work for companies that don't exist to do.
Do you feel better knowing that Bush didn't even know about the deal until it appeared in a paper? Yeah, seems the vetting process was really, really tough. Had he known, he could've stopped certain investigations, but he didn't know, so Jesus only knows what might/ might not have been done. At least this explains why they can't tell us ANYTHING about the CFIUS process...because they know NOTHING about it. Ignorance must really be bliss.
McKain (I use that to differentiate from other Mikes!)- You're dead on about the bigger "diplomatic" reason for this. The fact is, there isn't, or at least, like the deal itself, it's so secret even the President doesn't know. If it really were beneficial to Americans, we'd hear about it. That we're not speaks volumes.
Come now, I don't like any company but a US company doing this job. It is our ports and we should have Americans running it. Let's just consider this, we go to war, with whomever, and our ports are run by a foreign company? What if they are sympathetic with the enemy?
It is just plain stupid in my opinion.
Jess, how much of business do those 30% do? most of it.
This company will be about as "in charge of our ports" as EgyptAir is in charge of our airports. EgyptAir may control some terminals, but that doesn't really change how the airport operates.
OK, so today we learned that the President didn't know about the deal but had made a deal with the UAE with regards to the ports earlier. This deal, it seems, exempted them from certain investigations for their cooperation with the War on Terror. I like the concept of cooperation, but I do not like the concept that their agreement meant they didn't have to undergo certain investigations. We don't know which they didn't have to submit to, which is very scary.
Ryan, you're a jerk. That was the easiest way I knew to say what I was trying to say, and you know that. They are privy to security information, and as I stated above, we have no idea what sort of security investigation was conducted, if at all. Very big differences between airports and the ports we're discussing. It's a false analogy. EgyptAir is not the only airline servicing any airport. This would be the only company servicing these ports. Further, we have no idea what, if any security investigations were conducted with regards to DPW, but airlines have secuirty requirements they must meet that have not been found to have been compromised for "cooperation," i.e., being bought off.
I included the 70% of ports being serviced by American companies information in to refute your misinformation- at this point, your lie- that no American companies exist that could do this work. The point was not how much work the 30% do, but that you stated no such American companies were in existence, and yet, they service 70% of our ports, which is impossible if they don't exist! Your snotty comments and ridiculously arrogant attitude don't refute that.
Interesting that possibly agreeing with HRC set off alarms for you, but agreeing with Jimmy Carter does not.
What I meant by "Jess, how much of business do those 30% do? most of it." was that it seems that the ports being used by DPW would be the largest of our ports, and I have not heard of an American company big enough to do the job. Delathought as words by a Delaware River pilot here: http://delathought.blogspot.com/...bai-
debate.html
He also poses a point that the biggest opponents of this were up for reelection of some kind, and politicans, a great many of them anyway, are Mayuhew's "single minded seekers of reelection."
That doesn't make them any less right, whatever their motivations.
Interesting that, besides Bill Frist (from what I've read/ heard), not a single Republican has yet to go along with it. And I still maintain it is much greater than that, but I suppose it makes it that much easier for you, to just assume no one could actually disagree without alterior motives, be they political or otherwise.
And again, it doesn't matter which ports are operated (which is what I meant by "have control of," which you knew, but chose to be a jerk about) by American companies. Additionally, these are companies that aren't being given much of a chance to expand, if that's the case. The fact is you claimed there were no such American companies, and there are. This is mere misinformation, at best- if not an outright lie you refuse to admit to having told. So funny watching you try to dance around it.
Interesting, you won't comment at all about the complete lack of transparency and apparent underhandedness in all this. Bush very possibly bought off the UAE and let DPW out of certain routine investigations. You keep commenting about things like the size of ports companies and playing your usual semantics games.
Oh, and something routine that DPW was allowed not to comply with, and that is the hiring of the longshoremen already working there. As much as I don't like unions, had it been an American- and possibly any other company- in this situation, they would've been required. So much for that little notion- that the workers would definitely remain the same. They don't have to, and my guess is that they probably will not.
Yes, there are transparency issues afoot, but that isn't exactly new to the Bush administration. They have handled this poorly, and may pay the price in this failing.
I haven't seen anything about the longshoremen.
This is not a security issue, and if you think it is, you must conceede that the ports can't get much less secure than they are now.
http://mullings.com/
Ryan, congrats on not stooping to the level of name calling and personal attacks. I also kind of like your last point about how security can't get much worse, though I think letting people from a country with a history of terrorist ties is the one way that could happen.
I'm not sure if it scares me more that Bush didn't know about this, or that he defended it without knowing about it. Its all quite mind boggling really. Of all the jobs in America to outsource, I don't think those so closely related to a major national security concern should be high on the list.
All I would like is answers. If there is a benefit, what is it? If they were (and it appears to be the case) exempted from certain investigations, which ones? It's not as simple as PR and it being "handled poorly." You can't argue that this deal is good if no end benefit is being shown.
Security is a large part of this issue in that a) we don't know what investigations DPW was exempted from, b) port security is very, very poor, and we can't afford to let it become any worse, and c) this company, while not responsible for security, would be privy to the security process and to security information as a necessity of their operations.
The longshoremen thing was something stated several times on various TV news programs I've watched, but from what I've read, it's most likely they will have to hire some out of necessity but will also be permitted to bring in others. That is still far different than the requirements on other companies, but very different than how I understood things as well.
I'm still not conceding that this is a good deal. We have no evidence whatsoever that it is.
McKain- I'm not even responding because you don't know the history behind the comments. I should've left them out, but I was not out of line in stating it. Of course, you have to lecture about behaviour because you either can't stand agreeing with me, or can't stand me period. I really don't care either way.
Jess - I didn't lecture you - in fact, I didn't even address you directly. I was just maintaining that name calling and personal attacks detract from blogging, and I continue to hold that position. I have no problem agreeing with you - this issue has made odd partners all around (Jimmy Carter and W.? Who would have thought). I also have nothing against you personally, except for your tendency to attack people in the heat of an argument (as unfortunatly I sometimes do as well in a more passive-agressive fasion). However, I am not the type of person to hold a grudge.
And for what its worth, I continue to agree with the points you are making on this topic.
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