Did We Blow the Dubai Ports Deal?

I wonder what the negative ramifications of not letting the deal to allow Dubai Ports World to operate in several US ports will be. There certainly was a tremendous amount of political grandstanding on this one. A threatened veto from a president who has never cast one lead to bipartisan outcry over the legal takeover of a British company by a company owned by a government in the United Arab Emirates. We all know the outcome and many have speculated on the future results of the outcome. Will we have a friend in the UAE anymore? Has this hurt our standing in the Arab world that is presently friendly to us? What will happen next and how will history judge this decision?

Personally, I think the deal would have been harmless had it gone through. Cargo that is sent to the United States ports comes from everywhere in the world and the real threat is to know where it has originated and where it progresses from on its way here. That is a reason that the argument that we don't inspect enough cargo in our ports is a bit weak. We likely inspect the vast majority of what we need to inspect, based on a container's point of origin and path of travel. Also, most terrorism experts agree that smuggling into the US via containers on ships is not the way terrorists would likely do it simply because of our inspection process. So why the fuss over DPW taking over a portion of the operation of several American ports? After all, they service our Navy ships around the world.

I think it is politics, and I think it is misinformed politics at that. We refuse to profile Arabs in this country under the auspices of protecting civil rights, yet we have back-handedly killed a deal with a friendly Arab government because they are...well, because they are Arab. Did this deal need a longer and more thorough investigation? Perhaps. But, all of the politicos and pundits who came out against it seem to want to retreat from the suggestion that their opposition basically amounted to profiling. Also, where are those who oppose this deal on other issues of national security? I cannot tell you, but my guess is that inspection of those outspoken critics' records would show a bit of inconsistency in the positions they've taken. I even heard that one US Senator or Representative suggested that the American people had nixed the deal because of their common sense, blah, blah, blah. Fine, but I have followed this story fairly closely and I can tell you that a vast majority of everyday Americans were mislead that this somehow would allow the Dubai company to run security at the ports, which is not true. I also can tell you that, like me, I am assuming that most everyday Americans are not experts in port operation. Lastly, I am going to go out on a limb and also suggest that very few Americans realize that China runs port operations in Los Angeles and Long Beach, California.

So, where does this lead? Well, one suggestion was to give Congress "oversight" in all deals involving "infrastructure critical to US national security", or something to that effect. Why, I ask, should we trust Congress to have sole veto over these deals? Do they really know more than us? If we do grant Congress that right, where will it stop? Just think eminent domain for a moment and you may realize how bad that idea could be. Also, why hasn't Congress addressed pressing national security needs, such as closing the porous borders, those who overstay visas, or those who (under the First Amendment) are allowed to spew anti-American rhetoric all day long for all who will listen. That could incite rage on the order of that recently seen in France or that seen in the Middle East over the cartoon flap. Sedition laws have been used in the past to quell such speech. Is it time that we consider doing that? If so, many in Congress will be the first to be silenced. These suggestions lose their appeal when thought of in those contexts, I suppose. But, if we are going to be truly safe, then perhaps we need to take extraordinary measures to be safe. Is it worth all of that? That is for each and every individual American to decide. Once you have decided, maybe it would be beneficial to communicate that decision to your elected officials and hold them accountable if they speak out of turn. Do we want safety at all costs? Or, do we feel the way Ben Franklin felt when he said, "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

History will judge this decision which seems to me to be mostly political and only slightly practical. We have turned away a company with great experience in running ports because of who they are. In turn, we have a suggestion by some of our elected officials that we may do this to others in the future, essentially leading us to a potentially isolationist position in a global economy. We have shown the world that we can only trust a particular section of its population on the terms that we set forth. The consequences of that will likely be subtle, but far-reaching. And, in the long run, we likely aren't any safer now than we were yesterday. Sound familiar? Hopefully we will make the correct choices in the future after serious and thorough investigation and constructive debate, not based on posturing all along the political continuum. And hopefully history will not judge us poorly on the outcome we have elicited on this particular deal.

I wonder what Ben Franklin thinks?