|
|
|
Valiant Dancer
Forum Goalie
USA
4826 Posts |
 Posted - 03/01/2006 : 07:18:32 [Permalink]
|
quote:
Originally posted by marfknox
Half wrote: quote:
I still don't see racism there. It seems, in fact, Clinton and Schumer were being careful to avoid it. Their expressed security concerns seem reasonable to me, and to the point.
If they were just fighting for the 45 day review, I'd agree. But Clinton, Boxer and Nelson are sponsoring a bill that would "block the sale and ban companies owned by foreign government from controlling U.S. port operations." (reference from the Coast Guard article posted by Dude.) I really do think they are willing to sacrifice a legitimate opportunity to strengthen relations with the Arab world (the only thing that is really going to end Islamic terrorism) for the sake of some short-term political gain, which they will get because of all the anti-Muslim sentiment currently among Americans.
Here is the main crux. We are talking about direct ownership of ports on US soil by foreign governments. This would also outlaw the ownership of the Port of San Franscisco by the Chinese government. It doesn't matter what foreign government we are talking about.
We aren't talking about ownership by an independant offshore company. We're talking about a foreign government. That is a valid concern. If a UAE company which was independantly held were the ones to be doing this deal, it wouldn't be such a problem. (The vetting thing would still be a problem.) Scope, Marf.
This isn't a sacrifice of an opportunity. This is making sure that foreign governments don't have influence in the running of domestic ports. If the government become hostile towards the US, they could do a lot of damage such as refusing shipments into the US for some commodities. And let's remember that one of the ports up for sale to the state run company is the New Orleans Port where the only port for supertankers for the import of foreign oil is. |
Cthulhu/Asmodeus when you're tired of voting for the lesser of two evils
Brother Cutlass of Reasoned Discussion |
| Edited by - Valiant Dancer on 03/01/2006 07:21:13 |
 |
|
|
ktesibios
SFN Regular
USA
505 Posts |
Posted - 03/01/2006 : 13:29:11 [Permalink]
|
So if an independently owned foreign-based company were to win the contract to operate a US port, and this company were later either nationalized by the government of its home country or that government were to acquire a controlling interest in its stock, we would have to replace them with another operator?
Just wondering. |
"The Republican agenda is to turn the United States into a third-world shithole." -P.Z.Myers |
|
|
|
Valiant Dancer
Forum Goalie
USA
4826 Posts |
Posted - 03/01/2006 : 14:07:05 [Permalink]
|
quote:
Originally posted by ktesibios
So if an independently owned foreign-based company were to win the contract to operate a US port, and this company were later either nationalized by the government of its home country or that government were to acquire a controlling interest in its stock, we would have to replace them with another operator?
Just wondering.
Under the legislation, yes. I also don't have a problem with it as it still prevents a foreign government from seriptiously aquiring US ports to avoid a vetting process by purchasing the legitamate company. |
Cthulhu/Asmodeus when you're tired of voting for the lesser of two evils
Brother Cutlass of Reasoned Discussion |
|
|
|
beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 03/01/2006 : 16:14:02 [Permalink]
|
quote:
Originally posted by ktesibios
So if an independently owned foreign-based company were to win the contract to operate a US port, and this company were later either nationalized by the government of its home country or that government were to acquire a controlling interest in its stock, we would have to replace them with another operator?
Just wondering.
Or invade their country or maybe assassinate their leaders.  |
|
|
|
Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 03/01/2006 : 16:51:06 [Permalink]
|
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/03/01/port.security/index.html
quote:
A review of a United Arab Emirates-owned company's plan to take over operations at key U.S. ports never looked into whether the company had ties to al Qaeda or other terrorists, a key Republican lawmaker told CNN on Wednesday.
Rep. Peter King of New York, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said officials from the Homeland Security and Treasury departments told him weeks ago that their 30-day review of the deal did not look into the question of links between DP World and al Qaeda.
.... boggles the mind.
|
Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
|
|
|
|
HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 03/01/2006 : 17:15:21 [Permalink]
|
Dude said: quote:
.... boggles the mind.
Inded it does. I wonder if they were instructed not to look into that question, or that was just more good old Bush-crony incompetence?
|
“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
|
|
|
marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 03/01/2006 : 18:02:36 [Permalink]
|
Halfmooner wrote: quote:
Anybody suspicious of the Dubai deal is just taking into account their distrust of Bush, which they learned through hard experience. If Bush were to say that the sky is blue, people would assume it was almost any other color -- and they'd probably be right.
Bush found out after the fact – which I've pointed out more than once has been standard procedure with these sort of business transactions. If the deal was in fact rushed through, Bush had nothing to do with it. The reason people are worried about the Dubai deal is because Dubai is part of the UAE instead of being a company that happens to be in a foreign country, and because the UAE is an Arab nation.
beskeptical wrote: quote:
And the racism charge is straight out of the Republican Talking Points memo everyone obviously got. And the racism charge is straight out of the Republican Talking Points memo everyone obviously got.
So NPR's Daniel Schorr and Counter Punch's Sharon Smith are now a talking heads for the Republican party?
Val wrote: quote:
Security is up to the individual ports and US customs rely on the port managers to inspect cargo. They will spot check from time to time but they and the Coast Guard lack the staffing to inspect every container. The Coast Guard is primarily concerned with port security in the manner of patrol of the harbors and excluding vessels from hostile nations. They usually do not board every vessel inbound to the US. If they could, there'd be a lot less Cubans in Florida.
Our security is bad, but as I said here once before, xenophobia is not a replacement for improved security. Also, this is why Dubai has to go through the security checks. Dubai may be owned by the UAE, but the company Dubai managing the ports is not the same as the UAE managing the ports.
quote:
A great majority of Muslims are peaceful. The UAE is in the middle of Wahhabist territory. Wahhabism is a radical subsect of Islam which terrorists are usually generated from. (Like radical Evangelical Fundamentalist Christians)
The question should be about who runs Dubai World Ports and whether that company is qualified to do the job. They don't get guilt by association with the fact that Wahhabism is prevalent in the geographic area that the UAE is in. The government of the UAE isn't run by radicals and the UAE has taken steps towards peace and cooperation with the USA which is why political analysts at NPR call the UAE a “moderate, friendly ally of the United States.” The UAE has a vested interest in not allowing terrorists to take advantage of Dubai's port management. You countered with, “Only because we pay them to.” So what if their motivations are money? That's the point – trade is a great way to make and keep friends.
There are radical Muslims in many countries around the world, including some Western nations as shown by terrorism like the bombing of public transit in Britain. If we have standards for security checks, let Dubai go through those checks and pass those standards. The rest should be up to US security forces.
And if that Port of SF is owned by the Chinese government and that didn't cause a stink, that's just further evidence that politicians on |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
|
|
|
|
HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 03/01/2006 : 18:56:06 [Permalink]
|
marfknox drew the conclusion: quote:
The reason people are worried about the Dubai deal is because Dubai is part of the UAE instead of being a company that happens to be in a foreign country, and because the UAE is an Arab nation.
Well, Arab nation or not, there's also the matters that, the UAE was one of the few countries on the planet that supported Afghanistan's Taliban regime, pre-9/11, that a couple of the 9/11 hijackers came from Dubai, that Dubai bankers handled the 9/11 hijackers' financing, and that no attempt was make to see if the Dubai Ports World company has an Al Qaeda connection.
|
“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
|
|
|
Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 03/01/2006 : 19:39:26 [Permalink]
|
marfknox said:
quote:
The reason people are worried about the Dubai deal is because Dubai is part of the UAE instead of being a company that happens to be in a foreign country, and because the UAE is an Arab nation.
DBP (Dubai Port World) is OWNED by the UAE government.
That was the initial flag for me. It is unacceptable to have a foreign government managing our ports. Especially one with ties to terrorism and the Taliban.
I'd object to any other government running our ports, even our western allies.
|
Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
|
|
|
|
marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 03/01/2006 : 19:52:23 [Permalink]
|
Dude wrote: quote:
(me)The reason people are worried about the Dubai deal is because Dubai is part of the UAE instead of being a company that happens to be in a foreign country, and because the UAE is an Arab nation.
DBP (Dubai Port World) is OWNED by the UAE government.
I know. That's why I wrote “Dubai is part of the UAE instead of being a company that happens to be in a foreign country”. Clunky wording on my part, I admit, but the point that Dubai World Ports the company is owned by the UAE has been made several times in this conversation.
quote:
That was the initial flag for me. It is unacceptable to have a foreign government managing our ports. Especially one with ties to terrorism and the Taliban.
I'd object to any other government running our ports, even our western allies.
Fair ‘nuff.
|
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
|
| Edited by - marfknox on 03/01/2006 21:15:03 |
|
|
|
Florduh
New Member
USA
8 Posts |
Posted - 03/01/2006 : 20:20:40 [Permalink]
|
If the events of 9/11 had included detonating a ship in an American port, this scenario would not have arisen. Can you imagine turning over any part of airport security to a muslim nation?
Muslims are our sworn enemy. Read the koran. Radical muslims are different only in that they announce that fact publicly. Muslim societies are objectively sub-standard when it comes to human rights. They are simply a culture with values totally alien to us. We as Americans are the most prominent infidels they have. We are their targets. My view is not racism because many different races, including Caucasian Americans, embrace Islam. Perhaps it is "religionism." Why must we be politically correct to the point of embracing a known enemy?
The president has shown that he has no interest in this country or its citizens, only an abiding interest in greed and power. He is our worst enemy. He wants to sell us out for his own short term gain. Almost all politicians seem to have that mindset, but this port security debacle is mind boggling in its implications.
I don't care what any given nation's official position on U.S. relations is on any given day. If the people of that nation are largely muslim, they simply cannot be trusted with our lives.
I am so sick of being fed a diet of muslim propaganda from our own people. Just read their holy book and you will know what their religion is about. If we don't want to fight our enemy, can't we at least recognize him?
- Florduh
|
I wanted to be born again, but my mother would have no part of it. |
|
|
|
marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 03/01/2006 : 22:01:08 [Permalink]
|
In response to Florduh:quote:
If the events of 9/11 had included detonating a ship in an American port, this scenario would not have arisen. Can you imagine turning over any part of airport security to a muslim nation?
As has been stated here, we're not talking about turning over port security to Dubai.
quote:
Muslims are our sworn enemy.
Who are you including in that “our”? In the context of what you wrote, you sound like you are saying Americans. Given that a good number of Americans are also Muslims, that statement makes no sense.
quote:
Read the koran.
Simply reading the Koran to understand modern day Muslims is like saying read the Bible to understand modern day Christians. In other words, it's naïve because the Koran has been interpreted in many different ways by different kinds of Muslims in different times, and also because modern Islamic culture and values are shaped by much more than how they interpret the Koran.
You want something to read to better understand the complexities of Muslim culture and values, try Foreign Affairs to start.
quote:
Radical muslims are different only in that they announce that fact publicly.
Gotcha, all Muslims are the sworn enemy of Americans, even the ones who are themselves Americans. And all those Muslims who speak out against terrorism are only doing so as a cover up their true plan to destroy America and presumably the rest of the Western and Eastern world that doesn't agree with their religious values.
quote:
Muslim societies are objectively sub-standard when it comes to human rights.
Objectively? So how exactly did you figure out what the objective standard of human rights was? Silly me, I thought the concept of “human rights” was a moral invention of mankind, and highly subjective.
quote:
They are simply a culture with values totally alien to us.
As were Japan, Korea, all of Southeast Asia, China, etc. And many of those culture retain values reflective of their cultural roots just like in the Western world we retain the relics of a Christian roots in the form of fundamentalists. (Even if most people in the West are Christian, it is arguable that since the Enlightenment, values espoused and practiced in the West have been more humanistic than traditionally religious.)
quote:
We as Americans are the most prominent infidels they have. We are their targets.
That's funny ‘cause Muslims terrorists are killing a lot more Muslims than they are non-Muslims.
quote:
My view is not racism because many different races, including Caucasian Americans, |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
|
|
|
|
Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 03/02/2006 : 00:05:43 [Permalink]
|
marfknox said:
quote:
As has been stated here, we're not talking about turning over port security to Dubai.
That is patently untrue.
You cannot "manage" a port without being inseparably linked into the security of that port.
Which is the problem, in a nutshell. It defies common sense to allow any foreign government access to the management of our ports because you must also allow them to be an intimate partner in the security of the port.
They may not run the security, but they will be fully aware of all the details (and have input into the security policies) in order to properly run the port.
|
Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
|
|
|
|
marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 03/02/2006 : 00:36:17 [Permalink]
|
The Economist makes this argument better than I can, so I'm just going to quote part of the article “Trouble on the waterfront” from the February 25th issue:
“Nobody denies that Dubai, though pro-western, is a notoriously porous place, with blind eyes reputedly turned to swhipments of drugs and arms. A.Q. Khan's Pakistani nuclear-smuggling network, for instance, was hidden behind a Dubai front. But that does not mean DP World is unfit. It is a globally respected firm with an American chief operating officer, Ted Bilkey, and an American-educated chairman… The company will not own the American ports and it has no incentive to run them badly… The employees will continue to be unionized (and presumably patriotic) American citizens. Any Arab employee whom DP World ships in will be subject to American visa approval, no easy matter nowadays.
“Alas, American's politicians seem to be in no mood to discuss this issue rationally. So much easier, and more popular, to base policy on the prejudice that every Arab is a potential terroris.” (Editing note: the stuff I skipped that is noted by the ellipses states facts I already brought up in this discussion, and I didn't want to be redundant.)
As much as I hate to say Bush is not wrong on something, I have to side with NPR and The Economist (two sources of news that lean left but who I've found always put intellectual merit above partisan interests) – Bush is not wrong on the Dubai issue.
Also, Hillary Clinton is gearing up to run for the presidency, so it is no wonder that she's one who is leading this attack. But Jimmy Carter and John McCain are both politicians known for their integrity and willingness to go against the grain. Both are intelligent and respectable, and both support Bush on the Dubai issue.
Jimmy Carter speaking to Wolf Blitzer on Feb. 20 http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0602/20/sitroom.01.html
quote:
BLITZER: Are you concerned at one of our top stories today about this Dubai-based company taking control of security at six major ports here in the United States?
CARTER: Well, I've been to Dubai, and I've seen the remarkable port facilities they have there, perhaps the best in the world. I'm not knocking the ones in the United States, of course. My presumption is, and my belief is, that the president and his secretary of state and the Defense Department and others have adequately cleared the Dubai government organization to manage these ports. I don't think there's any particular threat to our security.
Obviously, the Homeland Security would have to be involved directly with, and in a partnership with, the Dubai people as they clear folks to work in their ports, particularly in sensitive areas. So the overall threat to the United States and security, I don't think it exists. I'm sure the president's done a good job with his subordinates to make sure this is not a threat.
John McCain's accusations of hysteria and his criticism of the ban backed by Clinton are quoted in this article posted on NewsMax: http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/2/26/160040.shtml and McCain's calm reason is praised and talked about in this column by journalist Chuck Green: http://www.chieftain.com/editorial/1141208281/3
|
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
|
|
|
|
HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 03/02/2006 : 01:37:23 [Permalink]
|
marfknox, I think maybe your admitted hatred for Senator Clinton is getting the better of your reasoning on this one. Sure, your position is supported by former President Carter and Senator McCain. But political personalities' opinions are not the important thing, not Clinton, Carter, Bush, Schumer, or McCain, nor the Republicans who oppose the deal.
What is important is that the six ports are slated to be given over to the control of a foreign government that supported the Taliban, whose banks aided the 9/11 hijackers, and from which came some of the 9/11 hijackers themselves. Dubai Ports World admits it boycotts Israel, which should also raise some questions. The US agency charged with vetting the deal did not even inquire as to whether an Al Qaeda link existed. Our own Coast Guard raised red flags about the deal, but now has largely silenced. Bush threatens his very first veto, if legislation is passed to stop the deal. Something is very fishy with this deal. I smell corruption, and danger as well.
The quote from The Economist didn't comfort me:quote:
Nobody denies that Dubai, though pro-western, is a notoriously porous place, with blind eyes reputedly turned to swhipments of drugs and arms. A.Q. Khan's Pakistani nuclear-smuggling network, for instance, was hidden behind a Dubai front. But that does not mean DP World is unfit. It is a globally respected firm with an American chief operating officer, Ted Bilkey, and an American-educated chairman
[My bolding.]
This certainly stirs up nightmares of "blind eyes" from a "porous place" looking aside as Al Qaeda infiltrates American port management. What parts of the Dubai's "nuclear-smuggling network" are still intact? How many Al Qaeda operatives are working in normal jobs there for DWP, perhaps ready to be sent to the new facilities to oversee management? The elements in place, or at least known to have been in place, are scary. Is the "American-educated chairman" personally going to vouch for all his personnel? Can he? And since when is being educated in this country a validation of special loyalty to it?
V.I. Lenin was reputed to have said words to the effect, "When we are ready to hang the last of the Capitalists, one of them will sell us the rope." I think on that point he may have been correct. I see Bush as the ultimate cordage merchant.
Any part of this should cause a careful examination (I was going to write "re-examination," but that would imply that a study had already been undertaken) of the security issues implicit in this port takeover.
|
“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
|
|
 |
|
|
|
Topic Locked
