Paranoia about Dubai ports deal is needless

[AlamoDemoc]

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/dcf9cd5e-a27e-11da-9096-0000779e2340.html

Paranoia about Dubai ports deal is needless
Published: February 21 2006 02:00 | Last updated: February 21 2006 02:00

The current furore in Washington about the takeover of P&O, the UK-based ports operator, by Dubai Ports World says more about the United States Congress than the United Arab Emirates. The bluster about national security conceals one of the uglier faces of US protectionism - the one with the slightly racist tinge.

<snip>

First, the deal has been vetted by an inter-agency committee. And ports, in any case, are in one of the most highly regulated sectors in the US. What matters is how they are managed, not who owns them.

<sniop>

Second, leading Dubai companies such as DP World bring with them certain advantages. They habitually: spend money to make money; headhunt the best professionals (in DP World that includes top Americans); and produce high rates of growth. The ambitious new $15bn aerospace enterprise Dubai announced this week will be built around that formula.

Third, the honourable senators might get this purchase in perspective by pondering the extent to which the Gulf allies they so distrust already own vast quantities of US assets, as well as dollar assets held offshore. For Abu Dhabi alone, a 1 percentage point move in US interest rates now means more than a $10 per barrel swing in the price of oil. Do the math.

[stepnw1f]

1. took ya long enough.... lol (nt)

[bbinacan]

2. Am I missing an

inside joke here? I'm fairly new to DU. Can you fill me in? Thanks.

[flyarm]

3. vetted?? vetted???????? you are joking right????????

First, the deal has been vetted by an inter-agency committee. And ports, in any case, are in one of the most highly regulated sectors in the US. What matters is how they are managed, not who owns them.

guess you missed Lou Dobbs tonight..of 15,000 purchases vetted by this group..only 1 has ever been turned down...and being Snow has a major conflict and is basically owned by the uae..i should now feel all warm and fuzzy???

well no darlin...2 of those fuckers killed my co-workers..,.,

and they funded 9/11 and they have hidden the banking of terrorists and the bin ladens...no siree..i want those fuckers in prison...not running ports in my backyard!

you open your back yard to these fuckers....not mine!!

fly

[Sarah Ibarruri]

4. Oh goody!! An article written by Karl Rove under a pseudonym?

(Seriously, I haven't been confronted by so many bullshit words since GW last opened his rat mouth).

[FormerRepublican]

5. Raise the conversation with me when soldiers are dying in Iraq or...

...another Bush disaster zone because UAE hired a bunch of corporate cretins without background checks, and said cretins talked to their terrorist pals about all the big bombs that were on the Army shipping manifests for shipment to Iraq (or other Bush disaster zone).

It's not racist to say we shouldn't be stupid about our security. It doesn't seem to sink into people's brains that people who are citizens of another country don't have the same loyalty to the US as we do. Or perhaps we should start outsourcing nuclear silo maintenance to Dubai?

[ingac70]

6. If it pisses the freepers off, thats all that matters.

Don't you see? This is how the Repub regime will die!!

Rub it in to every RWinger you know. Act like its a big friggin deal.... it certainly helps that Bush friends will be getting rich out of this.

[Clara T]

7. Propaganda 101

For the unititiated the opening word is enough to throw the rest of the tripe in the ash heap.

The implication is of course that anyone silly enough to worry about this, or worse to actually do research about this and dig for facts as to why the deal is steeped in crime, corruption and dirty deals, is just being "paranoid".

Relax it's all good. Get back to the gladiator games of Empire and take your soma.

[NVMojo]

8. typical Rove style, call someone a name like unpatriotic or racist

this is bullshit.

[Demeter]

9. Heard Some Fool On NPR Claim There Was No Danger

and all I could think was: If Bush wants it, it's bad for America.

And frankly, even if there is no danger, inherent or implied, Bush has just stepped on the last nerve for a lot of people. Wouldn't it be ironic if the whole shooting match went down for something that wasn't a serious problem? It would put the failure of Monicagate in the shade, for certain.

[alarimer]

10. Vetted? You mean like Michael Brown was vetted?

"Heckuva job".

More like Fox guarding the henhouse kind of vetting. All those people on the committee probably had some financial ties to the company or maybe Bush or Cheney do. So it is an automatic okay in any case.

I do not trust these people to "vet" these kinds of decisions because their primary interest is, first and foremost, lining their own pockets. I firmly believe they do not care if another 9/11 happens and it will most likely happen through the ports. Or actually, they do care, because it will enable them to unleash a complete totalitarian state.