Discuss: UAE to buy British port assests in America
Written by Mike on February 20th, 2006This hasn’t been discussed on this blog so I thought I would bring it up.
Executives at Dubai Ports World are intensifying a public relations effort this week as lawmakers ratchet up protests against the Bush administration over allowing the United Arab Emirates-owned firm to run six U.S. ports.
The government in Dubai will lobby port officials along the East Coast, and DP World’s chief operating officer — American shipping executive Edward H. Bilkey — is expected to travel to Washington this week for meetings on Capitol Hill and elsewhere.
Michael Seymour, president of the North American arm of Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation (P&O), the company DP World wishes to buy in order to run the six ports, said in a statement that the London-based P&O “is itself a foreign-owned terminal operator that has long worked with U.S. government officials in charge of security at the ports to meet all U.S. government standards, as do other foreign companies that currently operate ports in the United States.”
So where do consevatives stand on this? Do we oppose this propsed sale because the government of Dubai might use this company to allow terrorists into our country? Do we applaud the sale because it is an expression of capitalism in the Middle East that will lead to more freedom for the people there? How secure will our ports be if this deal goes through? Is this deal bad politics simply because it gives the Chuck Schumers of the world ammo to attack the GOP?
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PM
Maybe we should give them control of airports, too. Oh and Amtrak.
/sarcasm
Actually, they may do a better job with Amtrak…
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PM
The only person who could save Amtrak would be Dagny Taggert. (note: you must have read Atlas Shrugged to get it)
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AM
Dubai World Ports is a pretty good company, they probably would do a good job of running both the airports and Amtrak.
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AM
Do we applaud the sale because it is an expression of capitalism in the Middle East that will lead to more freedom for the people there?
There is no shortage of capitalism in the Middle East. The Saudi Oil Billionares can attest to that. Have the fortunes made by them led to “more freedom for the people there?” Far from it. Most use the money for huge yachts or planes. A significant number use the money to actually fund terrorism. As far as I know, none have used the money to help their people and there hasn’t been any more freedom as a result of the billions of dollars in commerce.
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AM
Who is John Galt? When we turned control of the Panama Canal back to the Panamanians who immediately turned it over to the Chinese I raised major flags. That was different because the Chinese have realised that the way to fight us or to compete with us is to make more money than us.
This deal is frightening because the world of Islam is patient and has a long memory. If this deal goes through there may be 15-20 years of capitalist endeavors with no incidents. But it is the threat of that single person working in the ports turning a blind eye. That is a risk we can not afford to take.