NRO on Dubai Ports World
Written by Mike on March 7th, 2006Barbra Lerner, writing for NRO has come out strongly against the proposed acquisition of Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company by Dubai Ports World. Why? Well in her own words:
Not to worry, proponents of the deal tell us: the UAE is a friendly country, and besides, in today’s global economy, this is a perfectly ordinary commercial transaction — a business deal, not a political one. As Daniel Henninger put it: “Presumably they are in the port management business for the money.”
It would be comforting if either of these claims were true. Alas, available evidence raises serious doubts about both. Let’s start with the friendliness claim. Proponents of the deal insist that, whatever hostilities may have existed in the past, the UAE rallied to our side after September 11, 2001. If so, the people living there didn’t seem to get the message. Zogby International pollsters asked a representative sampling of citizens of the UAE if their overall impression of the U.S. was favorable or unfavorable in 2002, after 9/11 had demonstrated our vulnerability to the world. Only 11 percent responded that their impression was favorable; 87 percent responded that it was unfavorable.
What the hell is she talking about? So what if the Arabs hate us? The French and the Germans hate us with an equal passion, should we not then do business with DHL which handles logistics all across America? Does it matter what the individual citizens of a nation think about us when it comes to business deals? We could outsource the running of these terminals to the Taliban and it terms of security it wouldn’t matter (for the record I am not suggesting this).
All the UAE and Dubai Ports World will be doing is collecting a check and sending a few managers (probably white Americans) to reorganize the current British company they have bought. So why would it matter what their citizens think of us personally?
Here is her next argument for why this deal should be scuttled:
We should reject the Dubai Ports deal, not just because it is risky to have a hostile country managing critical parts of our infrastructure, but because the claim that the UAE’s desire to do so is “just business” presents us with a mystery. At the very least, those who make this claim need to explain why the UAE agreed to pay P&O a 70-percent premium over existing share prices to buy the company. If P&O is really worth $6.8 billion, why didn’t any other international shipping company offer anything remotely like that (see also)? Apologists for the deal say the problem is that few privately-owned companies have pockets deep enough to pay that much. Maybe, but DPW is hardly the only deep-pocketed, government-owned international shipping giant, and none of the others made any attempt to outbid DPW either. Apparently, no one else thought they could pay that kind of money to manage our ports and still make a profit. Perhaps DPW knows something no other shipping company does. Then again, it may be that DPW has some other motives for wanting to take over the management of key American ports.
This makes zero sense, in fact just reading it gives me a headache. Ms. Lerner doesn’t come out and say it, but she hints that this is some elaborate scheme by the government of Dubai to infiltrate our port system at a cost of $6.8 billion. That is simply ludicrous thinking. Let’s pretend that the government of the UAE really does want to assist Al-Qaeda in their plot to topple the “Great Satan”, then let’s further pretend that the UAE is going to do so through DPW. Doing so would immediately “out” DPW as a terrorist organization and the UAE as a terrorist country. Not only would DPW lose all of its assets and investments around the world, the UAE would swiftly and easily be invaded. Does this make sense to anyone other than people who don’t have any conception of how international business is done? Why throw away $6.8 billion, plus DPW, plus your entire country when you could infiltrate the ports so much more cheaply and easily?
It is not unheard of to pay a 70% premium for a stock during an M&A deal, to suggest this in and of itself means some nefarious activity is taking place is nonsense. In addition, the fact that no other major ports company wanted to buy the contracts on our terminals doesn’t surprise me, the unions and litigation have deeply cut into their profitability. But bad business decisions (if this is in fact a bad decision, it won’t be known for years) don’t mean that terrorists are running the UAE and by extension DPW.
There is no indication that the UAE is anything but a progressive Arab nation that is investing its massive oil wealth abroad. If the US Navy trusts our fleet in their ports, if the US Coast Guard doesn’t see any dangers in transferring overall ownership of British company to Dubai, then why do so many conservatives oppose this deal? And why do they do it with such idiotic arguments?
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I love how liberals can use this phrase: “You are treating all arabs like criminals, we need to stop being biased towards them”, and then now act tough and say “we shouldnt hand over anything to arabs”. It’s really becoming comical.
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“I love how liberals can use this phrase: “You are treating all arabs like criminals, we need to stop being biased towards them”, and then now act tough and say “we shouldnt hand over anything to arabs”
Its a good thing that conservatives have never done anything hypocritical, such as promoting a return to morality while simultaneously several congressional leaders are under investigation for corruption and bribery scandals. If conservatives had ever once been hypocritical, then it wouldn’t be fair to tease liberals for it. But you would never make an unfair, biased attack, would you, “Rantings of an Infidel”?
Also, there is a key difference between assuming that every Arab on the street is a terrorist trying to kill you (what some of the “liberals” in question are criticizing) and letting a nation that actually HAS terrorist connections run our ports.
I’ll grant you that there is a significant amount of hypocrisy and stupidity among certain members of my political party (and those farther left than me), but the left is not alone in this.
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“Few actually act on it. Two citizens of the UAE were involved in a plot that killed 3,000 Americans, and lots of the money for this and other Al Qaeda operations came from Dubai.”
Two citizens of the United States were involved in an attack on the federal building in Oklahoma City, so what? The government and its people are not the same. The UAE is an arab nation, there WILL be Al-Qaeda there. But that does not mean the nation is loyal to Al-Qaeda, what sort of soft logic is this?
The money for Al-Qaeda flows through Dubai because it is one of the banking centers of the world. Money for Al-Qaeda flows through Switzerland too, so what? Today both Switzerland and Dubai have cracked down hard on all terrorist financial operations, this is mute point.
“Saying that the 2 9/11 hijackers had little relation to Dubai neglects a key point- before coming to the U.S., the two hijackers stopped in Dubai to GET MONEY FOR THE OPERATION (source: CNN). While the people themselves were not from Dubai, the MONEY behind the operation was. So saying that Dubai has no terrorist finance connection is a simply stupid comment.”
THEY GOT MONEY FROM ONE OF THE LARGEST BANKING CENTERS IN THE WORLD! NOOOOOOOOOOOO! Again, the government of Dubai did not fund Al-Qaeda. Private terrorist accounts that were kept in Dubai banks were used by these two before they came to the US. Since they were both citizens of the country is it that hard to believe that they could have opened and used bank accounts? Timothy McVeigh had a bank account in Oklahoma City, again what is your point?
“That doesn’t mean I want the Ayatollah in charge of a key entrance into America that already has inadequate security.”
DPW will not be in charge of any key entrance into America. They are buying a company that already runs these terminals, the security aspect of these ports won’t change in the slightest. All DPW will be doing is getting a damn check. You don’t seem to understand the finer points of this deal.
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“. . . and letting a nation that actually HAS terrorist connections run our ports.”
Firstly, the government of the UAE has no more terrorist “connections” than the British government. Secondly, they are no going to run our ports. Ports in this nation are run by the state or city port authority. Terminals within the ports are manned by American union dock workers, the management of the terminals is conducted by a company which coordinates logistics with trucking and rail companies. Security is overseen by the Coast Guard and the US Customs, both of which have a free hand to do whatever they want without informing anyone. The British firm that currently runs these terminals will continue to run them after this deal, it will merely pass the profits along to its new owners in Dubai, not London. The new managers of these terminals will be from DPW and they will mostly be American and British since they have experience here.
You need to get you facts straight on this deal. I am shocked at the sheer ignorance of the left when it comes to this deal, you guys really have no clue how the world works at all. No wonder you are wrong on just about everything.