UAE Port Deal

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Okay, but customs officers (not employed by this company) are still inspecting the cargo. And, more cargo absolutely should be inspected than is now, but that's not the responsibility of this company whether it's foreign or domestic. No matter who runs these ports, it should happen.

But, you still haven't convinced me that this (having the ports run by a foreign company) is a problem. Let's run through two scenarios.

o Someone smuggles a bomb onto a cargo ship that makes it into Philadelphia. That cargo is inspected by US customs officials and discovered. Proper procedure goes from there for getting rid of it, disarming it, or otherwise blunting its effects.

o The same bomb is smuggled into Philadelphia, only the customs officials do not inspect it. It continues on its way and is detonated inside the country, in Philadelphia or somewhere else.

Obviously we want the former over the latter. How does this company make the latter more likely than the former?

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Because, as the excerpt stated: "And the Coast Guard merely sets standards that ports are to follow and reviews their security plans. Meeting those standards each day is the job of the port operators: they are responsible for hiring security officers, guarding the cargo and overseeing its unloading."

OK, now just hypothetically speaking: if YOU were going to smuggle a bomb into some place, wouldn't it also be nice for you to have the authority to hire and assign the security officers who are going to watch it--and to be in charge of "guarding" it, and to be able to oversee its unloading?

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What happened to the inspecting? My main point is that I see no way, if a bomb were "snuck" past the inspectors, that the company handling loading/unloading or guarding of cargo makes any difference. As long as the cargo is inconspicuous, and I'd imagine anyone paying millions to sneak a bomb here would take steps to make sure that is the case, those people don't matter here.

I would also say that it's in this company's best interests to keep these particular ports safe. It is, after all, a company in the interest of making money.

Keep in mind too, these are all going to be American citizens or legal foreign workers. They're not pulling Muhammad and Abdul from the streets of Dubai to do their work.

So, going back to my scenarios. How does this Dubai-based company make any difference or in any way help "the enemy" to gain access to our cities?

[Nepa]

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What happened to the inspecting? My main point is that I see no way, if a bomb were "snuck" past the inspectors, that the company handling loading/unloading or guarding of cargo makes any difference. As long as the cargo is inconspicuous, and I'd imagine anyone paying millions to sneak a bomb here would take steps to make sure that is the case, those people don't matter here.


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Why are you going so far out of the way to defend a country that supports terrorism? You are either a terrorist or an a [censored] hole.

[EricOF]

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OK guys, there are 2.5 million people in the UAE. Despite being overwhelmingly Arab, they are actually not all terrorists. It would be both disgusting and terribly damaging to our current image war in the Middle East to disrupt this deal solely because the buyers are Arabs.

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Well, there's a greater proportion of persons with known links to 911 in UAE than there was in Iraq, right? If we can go to war over no link, surely we can kill a port deal with a country with some links.

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Do you honestly consider the country from which a terrorist is from a "link" which should trouble us more than a government which is actively supporting terrorism and threatening the United States? I don't recall us having to expel UAE from a neighboring nation after they invaded followed by 12 years of recalcitrance which included almost daily shooting at American planes, an attempted assassination of a former American President and breaking virtually every part of a ceasefire agreement.

Having said that, I'm still not sure that I like the deal either.

[MtSmalls]

There are any number of ways that the company "running the port operations" makes smuggling a weapon (or anything else) into the country easier.

DPW would be selecting the people in CHARGE. Lets not lose sight of the fact that DPW is wholly owned by the GOVERNMENT of Dubai. The Port Manager (what ever his title actually is) is going to know: Where the CG cutters are most of the time, when the easiest time to get a particular container in through customs is going to be, is going to be in a position to schedule container ships for certain days/times, is going to be the PEOPLE RESPONSIBLE FOR CHECKING THE MANIFESTS. Since less than 1 container in 20 is opened, and those are chosen not at random but by the information on the manifests, don't you think this is trouble??

Put it another way: Would you be comfortable if the government sold the TSA (responsible for Airport screening) to a company owned by the UAE??

[CORed]

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So the question is, can we trust the company to call the police?

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It does strike me that allowing a nuke to be detonated in the port you manage might be a wee bit bad for business.

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You all do realize that most of the container terminals in this country are run by foreign companies, right? Denmark, China, South Korea, Taiwan, etc.

I'd be willing to be that American-run container terminals are in the significant minority. I just checked. For the Port of Los Angeles, 7 out of 8 container terminals are run by foreign companies.

I'll grant you they are not Arab, Muslim, or Middle Eastern, but specifically addressing the point of letting foreign companies run our terminals --- we already do. The United States does not have a significant container steamship line, nor the terminals that go with it.

[Myrtle]

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You all do realize that most of the container terminals in this country are run by foreign companies, right? Denmark, China, South Korea, Taiwan, etc.

I'd be willing to be that American-run container terminals are in the significant minority. I just checked. For the Port of Los Angeles, 7 out of 8 container terminals are run by foreign companies.

I'll grant you they are not Arab, Muslim, or Middle Eastern, but specifically addressing the point of letting foreign companies run our terminals --- we already do. The United States does not have a significant container steamship line, nor the terminals that go with it.

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.....I don't think the issue is one of 'foreign companies", rather it's one of foreign companies that are wholly owned by foreign sovereign countries.

[Stu Pidasso]

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OK, now just hypothetically speaking: if YOU were going to smuggle a bomb into some place, wouldn't it also be nice for you to have the authority to hire and assign the security officers who are going to watch it--and to be in charge of "guarding" it, and to be able to oversee its unloading?

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Hi MMMMMMM,

The likely senario is american managers will be hiring the security guards. What do you think would happen if Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahayan calls up the american hiring manager and says, "Hire Mohammed Atta, hes a good man" and it turns out Mohammed Atta helps smuggle in a bomb. You guessed it, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahayan gets to do the nuetron dance along with his countrymen.

But as I said earlier, its all a mute point because the bomb goes off in the harbor anyways.

Stu

[Stu Pidasso]

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Put it another way: Would you be comfortable if the government sold the TSA (responsible for Airport screening) to a company owned by the UAE??

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Its a bad analogy becuase the US government isn't selling anything. Its the Brits who are selling and the Arabs who are buying.

Stu

[Thriller]

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You all do realize that most of the container terminals in this country are run by foreign companies, right? Denmark, China, South Korea, Taiwan, etc.

I'd be willing to be that American-run container terminals are in the significant minority. I just checked. For the Port of Los Angeles, 7 out of 8 container terminals are run by foreign companies.

I'll grant you they are not Arab, Muslim, or Middle Eastern, but specifically addressing the point of letting foreign companies run our terminals --- we already do. The United States does not have a significant container steamship line, nor the terminals that go with it.

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.....I don't think the issue is one of 'foreign companies", rather it's one of foreign companies that are wholly owned by foreign sovereign countries.

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So if P&O were owned by the British government, you'd have no problem with it? I was just addressing the point people were making about letting others "run" our ports.