Oh, and I forgot to mention that I’m not at all convinced that this deal is bad or anything, it’s just that I’ve not been able to find info on the questions I have about it. If there is a compelling reason this deal is a good thing, I’m OK with it. The only argument I’ve seen is that you’re an ignorant xenophobe if you don’t approve, and that doesn’t cut it. I want to know about the positive aspects of this deal. Please slay my ignorance; I’m listening…
How is it that the Democrats are any way to blame here? The House and Senate had veto-proof majorities to kill this, and last time I checked it would be mathematically impossible for this to happen without heavy Republican support.
The law doesn’t allow for us to kill the deal simply because there aren’t any positive aspects that can be found. Generally, our government likes to foster free trade unless there is a compelling negative reason not to.
I can’t give a bunch of cites right now as I am lacking in time to search, but it’s not that this deal is better than anything. It’s just pretty much the same as everything else.
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These ports were being run by a british firm that was bought by the Dubai company. They were already being run by a foreign group. A good number of ports are already run by foreign companies. So far this looks like a non-issue.
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Port security is handled by the coast guard and the department of homeland security, not by the Dubai firm. That means any security concerns rest in our hands.
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A majority workers are going to come from the lovely unions of the good ole US of A. As for your concerns about employee treatment, do you think that a union is going to be silent about mistreatment of employees?
I hope that gives you at least a primer of why this issue is a non-starter for a majority of people in this thread. There are some cites already in this thread and a GD thread to peruse if you want further reading.
How is a government subsidized company free trade?
It wouldn’t be free trade for them, but it would be for us. If the good citizens of Dubai want to tax themselves for our benefit, why should we stop them?
But just to be clear, government owned doesn’t necessarily mean government subsidized. Are you sure there are subsidies involved?
Well, I agree that the testimony of the expert I cited has been thoroughly demolished by that detailed, point-by-point rebuttal.
Buahahahahahahahaha!!!
No really, that’s a rebuttal-free response.
When you say that should mean something, you’re joking, right?
So, where in this thread did I make that case?
Oh, my bad: I didn’t. That might explain it, don’t you reckon?
Well, I admit it (again…sigh): I didn’t make that case there, either. As I was saying upthread:
And
Excuse me for the shouting, but:
I didn’t ‘make a case’ against the deal itself because I recognized that I was too ignorant on the specifics of port security to know whether such a deal risked our security or not.
That’s been a constant of mine now, through several pages of port-security threads. I’ve hammered so much on that basic reality that I’m tired of hearing myself say it, but evidently I haven’t said it enough, because you still haven’t heard it.
So I apologize for my lack of persuasiveness, but part of the Fight Against Ignorance is to admit our ignorance where it exists, and to admit that in certain areas, an hour or three of reading up on an issue is still going to leave us massively ignorant.
This is one of them.
I haven’t tried to persuade people that the deal is bad because I don’t know, and I’d probably have to work in a port-related field for months or years to have a solid grounding for making a case one way or the other.
But I do know that nobody’s standing up and saying, “my department reviewed this, and we found there’s no plausible way that this deal ‘could affect the national security of the United States’, in the statutory language, so no 45-day investigation was needed.” And a non-wingnut Congressional Republican says no review was done.
I don’t see anyone disagreeing with me over that last point.
I acknowledge that a lot of people here do feel they can make a determination on whether this deal is safe from a security standpoint, even though they’re no more expert than I am, and I think it’s a sad day for the Dope that this is so.
If that’s your majority, John, I don’t mind being in the minority. Meantime, you haven’t busted my position, because you clearly haven’t understood it.
No, I’m not, and I concede that Gov owned doesn’t mean Gov subsidized. But if a company is backed by the huge pool of govt. money, how can our non-gov’t backed companies compete? We had a flap with France a few years ago over their rapeseed subsidies. Why, exactly, is this not a point of contention? Why are we unconcerned that we’re selling off our infrastructure by the pound?
But all I hear is the whole Arabs/security thing, and not much about the real economic breakdown of what this deal means. That’s part of my concern. The other part is that if others own our infrasturucture, what’s going to happen when the chips are down?
I think that the conflating of Arabs and terrorists by Americans (in general) long predates Bush’s presidency. The events of 9/11 worsened that situation, of course. Certainly Bush tried to blur the distinction between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda, but I don’t see how you extrapolate Saddam Hussein to all Arabs, and I don’t see any significant evidence that Amercans have done that. If you have some, I’d like to see it.
I would have raised the same issue if you had said “evil Moslem”-- I think there is even a stronger case to be made against that. Bush has, in fact, gone out of his way to make the point that Moslem ≠ terrorist. I doubt that we would have seen him enter a Mosque during his presidency had it not been for the events of 9/11/01.
Lots of conservatives have disagreed with Bush on lots of things: The war in Iraq (Pat Buchanan, Brent Scowcroft), The Patriot act (Bob Barr), and the ballooning deficit (the Cato Institute).
And like almost everyone else I agree with the OP. The deal was fine and Chuck Shumer and a lot of other congresscritters–including a lot of Republicans–are scaremongering assholes.
That’s nice, but irrelevant to my point. None of these organizations or individuals are “our conservative brethren jumping in to humorously express agreement with Diogenes.” More to the point, they might not find it so incomprehensible that they agree with DtC if they weren’t in such lockstep with Bush. But thanks for the observation.
Frankly, I’m not about to repeat the arguments here that have been made in the other threads. The concerns you are raising are based on these premises:
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That the Dubai government is a threat to the US. It’s not.
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That a government owned entity is more of a threat than a privately owned entity. It’s not.
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That the Port Terminal Operators play a significant role in port securty, They don’t.
75% of all containers enter the country thru terminals with foreign-owned operations. The US has been getting out of this business for decades. If you insist on domestic ownership of these terminals you will bring our country’s economy to a standstill.
I don’t have anything against other countries and they certainly have the right to do business as they see fit, but if economic conditions are such that we cannot compete in our own country for ownership of our own country’s resources and infrastructure, we are in deep, deep doo-doo.
I realize that this means we have to look at our lifestyles and make painful choices if we want to have any chance to compete. But where will this end? Will we end up one big Calcutta just so we can compete? Is this the endgame?
Remember, all these companies do is lift one big box and move it from one place to another. I’m sure there’s lots of high tech gadgets involved, but this isn’t exactly the wave of the future.
It’s more likely that Calcutta will turn into America than the other way around. There’s a debate going on in GD about globalization, so you might want to pop in there and see whats going on.
Okay, how about government control of the terminals? If it’s a money loser, I’d rather not have some private entity who might be motivated to cut corners involved anyways.
And a couple bolded words just don’t resolve concerns about security. They don’t.
Is it a money loser, or just something that smaller countries like Singapore and the UAE are more naturally interested in? These countires live and die by trade (maybe not the UAE right now, but they’re looking to the future, when the oil runs out, and they’re just another tiny spec of land).
Personally, I don’t see a security issue with foreign ownership. But to the extent that there is one, I’d rather see if we can upgrade the security system rather then turn the business over to the government. I’m not a big fan of nationalizing industries.
You’re right, of couse, but anyone who is really interested in the details can go back to to the GD threads and weigh the evidence presented there. If they’re still unconvinced, so be it. I don’t want to rehash it here.
[QUOTE=John Mace]
Frankly, I’m not about to repeat the arguments here that have been made in the other threads. The concerns you are raising are based on these premises:
Never said it was, nor did I rely on it as a premise.
Ditto.
I did say that, it’s true, and you’re a liar.
We’re about to get the chance to find out, aren’t we? Because a pretty hefty chunk of the cargo entering this country goes through the P&O/DPW ports, and DPW has agreed to domestic ownership of those port operations. That might not “bring our country’s economy to a standstill,” but it ought to throw a real monkeywrench in the gears, right? Slow imports and exports to a crawl, cause shortages of imported goods in this just-in-time world, and so forth.
Let me know when it happens, because I bet this is one of those things whose effects are so immeasurable that nobody’s ever gonna bother to measure it. 
Now if I were demanding an instant turnover of port operations to U.S.-controlled entities, well sure, that would bollix things up like none of us have ever seen. But I presume you aren’t saying that, because only a real assclown would raise such a strawman. And despite your recent tendency to spin my arguments into things they’re not, I really don’t think you’re an assclown.
By the standards of the administration, I would call them a sleeper cell.
It is silly to ignore that American policy is not inflenced by the economic power of that entity. IMO it is a long term threat.
That is correct, but one can see that “how significant that role is” was not clearly defined. (first they said 6 ports then it was revealed it was 21)
I did read your cite and I don’t see where it could become a standstill. In any case I do agree with most of what Diogenes said; but the Republican rank-and file, convinced by years of fear mongering propaganda (by the Bush administration), are a big part of the revolt against Bush.
Damn, you found me out! Look, we’ve been over this again and again. I’m not going to rehash it here. If you want to think it’s true, fine.
Define “hefty chunk”. Keep in mind that P&O only operates 24 out of the 829 terminals in those 6 ports. I think a lot people assume that they operate the whole port. And, of course, those 6 ports aren’t the only ports in the US. I don’t have the numbers, but I’d be surprised if that represents even 5% of the US capacity. Plus, all the good stuff comes from China nowadays anyway, and that all comes in on the west coast!
I mostly agree with Diogenes, but the OP is not correct by blaming mostly the Democrats. I wouldn’t be surprised if the same group of people that think Saddam was responsible for 9/11 are the same group that are equating everything Arab with lack of security, Democrats are here only learning the political lessons from the Republicans. Let us not forget that if the Democrats had been the only ones protesting NOTHING would have happened but in this case the constituency of the Republicans got congress to act like a good Patriot Act-Terra warrior-Fear mongerer was supposed to act. The idea is now taking hold with many conservatives that this administration can not be trusted anymore.
I do think this was just a perfect political storm supported by the following elements that I don’t necessarily agree with:
-It was a Harriet Myers moment. This deal smelled like cronies business together with being politically clueless, the fact that the deal was going through with many in the administration not knowing what was included did not help. When one realizes that in big business the minions are following the guidelines that the ones in power set before hand, then the leaders now saying that they did not know is only half true.
-9/11 changed everything according to the propaganda of the same administration, so the idea that we could do business as usual came as insulting from the administration.
Almost baseless ideas, but they are politically silly to ignore, it was the bed the administration did build all these years and now they are being forced to use it “properly”.
IMHO these are better reasons why this deal deserved to be rejected:
*-The Danish cartoon flap, IMO that really soured many in the USA to the idea that even moderated :dubious: non-democratic Arab states could be trusted with business, the UAE pulled Danish products from their shelves, and only because of cartoons! Even if security would not be involved, we are at risk that economic problems (not only in the ports) would happen in the future if the religion of the sheiks tell them to dump on America.
-This could have been the perfect time to demand more democratic openings in UAE in exchange to doing business in the USA, when I remember that the right told us that the war in Iraq would pressure those states to become democratic or to open to democracy then ignoring the lack of progress from places like the UAE is silly. Especially when the catapulted propaganda keeps saying that freedom is on the march.*
Well, I demand better and you will notice that xenophobia is the least of my concerns.