So you’re wondering about posts to the SDMB, that you tell us not to mention, then get pissy because the posts aren’t mentioned? Don’t worry folks, all is normal.
You know what’s the funniest part of this whole thing? DPW will enter into a business partnership with an American company to essentially run the ports anyway. It’s a proven company in shipping logistics. They don’t control any security at ports, but they know the politics they’re dealing with in something like this.
One way or another, they’re be just as involved in the ports as they would have in the original deal.
I’m kind of hoping Halliburton is the business partner. The entertainment quotient will increase tenfold, minimum, on these boards.
Damn right 
Maybe it’s just your particular small sample? At Kos with its diaries and all, one gets a fairly broad sample of what people on the left think is worth posting about.
With respect to this particular issue, I’d rather worry about whether Halliburton’s overcharging the government by $120M than worry about whether anyone’s ever sufficiently vetted the port contractor to determine whether terrorists might exploit them to get bombs/chemicals/etc. into the country. Give me small worries.
Man, are you a dumbass fuck. I specifically invited the people here to disagree with Bush if they wanted to agree with Diogenes more often. That has fuck to do with Bob “Dancing Bear” Barr, Pat Buchanan or any other conservative, if they’re not posting here. To quote Vacation: “Ain’t never seen anyone so shit-all stupid as you.”
May I venture a minority opinion? I think that this deal can still go through.
Scenario: DPW sells the US terminals in question to a US company. Even at firesale prices, these assets won’t be worth too much unless domestic concern can operate them efficiently. What to do?
The domestic firm could turn around and offer a management contract to DPW. Don’t even call it a joint venture: it’s simply an arrangement to link up foreign and domestic ports. Security concerns could be addressed with US nationals placed in key managerial positions.
Furthermore, said management contract could be part of the terms of the original sale.
The bad news is that such a deal may not require governmental vetting. But DPW seems pretty worldly to me and I suspect that they would cooperate with the relevant authorities if given the opportunity.
I think it’s too late.
The ironic thing is that the rest of the DPW deal is going to go thru, and they will add to their port operations throughout the world. Those ports will be shipping tons of stuff to the US, and if they want to ship some WMDs into the US, they’ll just go ahead and do it. (I think it’s highly unlikey this is going to happen, but it just points out the false sense of security that a rejection of this deal gives us.) Instead of having a partner we can work with to build an integrated, world-wide security system, we shut them out and we’re stuck with trying to “inspect-in” security at the point of entry. And one thing everyone seems to agree on is that you have to push the critical steps as far back into the system as possible.
I think the analogy between security and product quality is a good one. Anyone who’s worked with the quality end of products knows you don’t get quality by setting up incoming QC procedures-- that’s the method of last resort. You build in quality at every step in the process, and you work with your suppliers to the same thing, too.
So do I.
In software or hardware, the later you wait to get involved, the less efficient and more costly it gets. I see it all the time.
We both have said the same things in different ways … Paranoia and ignorance and xenophobia, fed by politicians (whether blatantly or surreptitiously trhough asociation is irrelevant), and now SUPPOSEDLY, it’s a real big surprise that Amurricans get frantic about handing our “sacred ports” over to the “foreign enemy”. I think not. They should have seen it coming.
cringe Well, you certainly put me in my place with that one.
Wow. Can I call things or what?.
Of course, Halliburton denies it, so we all know it’s fact.
Fiction writers couldn’t come up with more consistent conspiracy theories.
Obviously you know nothing about hispanic extended families. 
But I grant your point in any case…perhaps it IS a rather small sample size. Of course, I see mention of the evil Halliburton HERE an aweful lot as well…but again, perhaps this board is also a small sample size.
Hm. I’d think it would be better if they were CAUGHT overcharging $120 million as that would give the gubberment the excuse to bring the hammah down on dem. Of course, if you assume the gubberment (including dem Dems) is in ole Hal’s pocket then that kind of takes the sting out…
-XT
(Nods) One popular phrase is, “Multi-Layered defense”. This applies to homeland security, computer security, retail, etc.
When should we have seen this coming?
I’ll tell you when I think we should have seen it coming: in the thoroughgoing review of domestic security needs and vulnerabilities we didn’t have after 9/11.
What we got was the harass-airline-passengers program, the Afghan war, and then, at the beginning of 2002, the Axis of Evil speech: “look over there…it’s Saddam!!” :rolleyes:
That was where we were being taken, instead of through a discussion of our security needs at ports, chemical plants, airports, etc. That’s the time when we should have had an expert discussion of what risks foreign operation of port terminals presents to the United States, and what should be done to mitigate those risks, if they exist.
Along with what should be done to protect our nuclear and chemical plants (although Rove had already decided not to burden his buddies in the chemical industry with any of that, so we get an inkling of why this discussion never happened, Iraq or no Iraq), what to do about rail shipments of toxic chemicals through heavily populated areas, and whether there was a more sensible way to protect air traffic without making us all take off our shoes and belts, remove our change and keys, dig our laptops out of our carry-ons, etc. on the way to our planes.
We didn’t do that broad review, AFAICT, and if anything like it happened, it happened well out of sight, rather than out where everyone could see and comment. And so four years after 9/11, the proportion of people in this country who could have told you that foreign companies operated our ports was vanishingly small.
You can’t blame that on the public; this is the sort of issue that even most hard-core political junkies wouldn’t get to on their own. The ball was dropped at the top, and quite deliberately, IMHO.
Too true. 
Not that small. Maybe I just miss the Halliburton-bashing threads here, or roll my eyes straight past them because there isn’t that much more to say.
I find it amusing that through all of this nobody has noticed that the last US owned shipping line (SEALAND) was sold to A.P. Moller (MAERSK/Denmark) in 1999. Ans American President Lines (APL) is now owned by a cninese firm. So the next time we go to war, our troops and materiel will most likely be transported on non-US ships. So forget the ports issue-we don’t even have ships.
Excuse me, but I don’t get it. Won’t there always be port operators abroad who aren’t operating ports in the U.S., and won’t we have to find ways to integrate them into a world-wide security system anyway? And won’t DPW be part of that?
I can’t see that this particular kerfluffle is going to be The Big Slap In The Face That Turns The Arab World Against Us. (Abu Ghraib? No big deal. Bombing civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan? Yawn. Turn down a port deal? Kiiiillllllllll!!!)
To the extent that DPW is like any other business, the name of the game is to make money: they’ll move past this, and cooperate with us in other ways, because that’s where the money is.
True dat. But I think the analogy is less than perfect. If I’m running a business, a supplier chooses to have a business relationship with me, and I can make it clear, when I’m looking for suppliers, that I’m only going to accept suppliers with certain management practices.
Unless we’re going to stop accepting imports from ports that don’t want to operate according to our preferred practices (a realistic possibility, I’ll grant), the analogy breaks down.
But I agree that the goal should be a integrated system of security practices spanning the ports of the world.
What, did we sell off the U.S. Navy while my attention was elsewhere? 
You say a lot of things here that make complete sense. However, I certainly can blame the public, under the headings of willful ignorance and chronic stupidity. I can still have plenty of blame to lay some on the “leaders”. This is not an exclusive OR, not by a long shot. You have stupid, deliberately ignorant people, being led by dshonest bumbling incompetents, and this is what we get. I think it’s great fun to watch. Bush got slapped over it (and its probably the least important issue out there), the “people” are fucking themselves out of what probably would have been a decent deal with a competent company, but all the paranoia that was fostered and fed stopped anything postive from happening. Now if Halliburton does take over, there will be more screaming and bitching and moaning.
At the bottom line, the people voted for these numbskulls, swallowed all their nonsense, and both painted all disagreement as “helping the enemy”. Now it burns their asses because someone has painted their deal with the UAE as helping the enemy. It isn’t, but the irony is great fun to watch. Sooner or later, people do get what they deserve. You can’t bang the drum of fear, terror, hate, xenophobia, bigotry, ignorance etc etc etc and then expect it to stop on a moment’s notice. The idea that Bush thought he could simply get mad and threaten veto, is just the icing on the cake. After various speecifyings about protecting the people and the needs of the people, and uniting, this says he doesn’t care about what the vast majority want - it’s what he wants that matters. It’s the attitude of “I’ll tell you what you want, and I’ll veto what you really want if it conflcts with my plans”. Must be part of that unitary executive thing. Then he tries to say that anyone who opposes the deal is helping the enemy. What the fuck? Everything helps the enemy, if it doesn’t personally please him.
It’s great theatre. He needed a smackdown anyway. It’s about time.
I agree that it’s hardly an exclusive ‘or’, and I think much of what you say is true.
I agree with you that, in general, stupid, ignorant people - the “Bush is protecting us” crowd, oblivious to the abundant evidence that he’s clearly not doing so - are abundant, and are a big part of the problem.
But the responsibility for understanding a technical issue like the ports issue, and educating the public when needed, is pretty much in the hands of the exectuive branch and the appropriate congressional “oversight” :rolleyes: committees.
But these are probably the very same people who will be facing elections this year, and want to appear “strong on security”. Wave the flag. Pontificate over terra and freedom haters. Feed the fire a bit more. They can never admit that they were willing to let the port deal slide (until the irate people started calling). They have to fight the deal, under the heading of security now. They made the rock, they made the hard place, now they are stuck in between the two.
You stopped the port deal! You’re helping the enemy!
No! You are letting the enemy in! You’re helping the enemy!
No! You are!
No! You are!
Nyah nyah nyah!
All over the least important issue in years.
Years from now, I can just imagine some parents talking to their toddler…
Eat your damn vegetables! People are starving! You’re helping the enemy!