Port knock-down-drag-out

Just a few more thoughts on the port perplex-a-fest.

The detractors who want to block the deal 'just because' give credence to this viewpoint:

Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., said much of the criticism has an anti- Arab bias. "We are at war against terrorists, not any religion or ethnicity. Some politicians seem to have forgotten that. ...

DP World is no more run by terrorists than the Bin Laden Group, which just gave Al Gore an undisclosed amount of money to give a speech in Saudi Arabia where he proceeded to say things like this about the United States:

"thoughtless" U.S. visa policies towards Arabs were playing into al Qaeda's hands

If you're feeling frisky, look back over your average message board and see what happens when someone mocks "the religion of peace". The left generally goes ballistic and accuses the poster of xenophobia, quickly pointing out how the bulk of Islam is peaceful.

But bring along the port story and some of those same people now stand ready to arbitrarily stop an Arab company from getting a contract because, well, they're Arabs and because we're fighting a war on terror. Okey dokey.

Yet the reaction from the Bush camp has been strange and surprising as well. We've seen the first real veto threat in 5 years, with all the tough talk coming over an issue that President Bush admitted he wasn't paying much attention to a few weeks ago (although Captain Ed doesn't see that as a major problem).

Treasury Secretary Snow, the former CEO of a company with an expansive port and container operation, gives us the impression he wasn't the least bit interested in one of the largest port deals in history. Weird. Why not?

Chances are a stealthy answer exists for the administration's behavior, most probably wrapped around whatever deal was made with UAE as to their continued assistance to the Navy and other GWoT help, which we desperately need.

Yet despite all this scrutiny the containers will continue to flood our ports and fan out across the fruited plains with few of their insides ever seeing a Customs Agent. It's the engine of global trade, and the currently-applied risk management strategy will not change, even if an American port company gets the contract.

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Mea Culpa time. In earlier essays reference was made to Mr. David Sanborn having been previously employed at CSX. I believe that might be incorrect. Richard D.(Dick) Sanborn was a former CSX executive, but he passed away in 2004.

MORE 2/27/06

The 45 day re-review is more like a union-management "cooling off period". They hope everyone will forget by then, and Rove and company understand there will probably be some new goofy story dominating the headlines and this thing will slip through.

My position all along was to let Congress review this deal, and not only this deal but ALL port or other transportation infrastructure deals involving companies owned by foreign nations.

Perhaps we need legislation to mandate that all companies operating in America and involved in security-senstive industries such as ports, railroads and airlines be American-owned, or at a minimum operated through an American-based subsidiary company accountable to persons here. Occasional independent government review would be handy as well, such as using a Surface Transportation Board type concept.

A SAVAGE ON THE LOOSE 2/28/06

Was listening to Michael Savage on the radio today. My mood has to be just right to stomach "Dr. Savage", but at times I do agree. He's certainly no Bush kool aid drinker, and certainly has no patience for the ports deal. I share some of his concern, but he's overboard (pardon the pun) on others.

The bothersome thing is a possibility that DP World's access to classified terminal security plans could fall into the hands of the average martyr jihadist, or Ahmadinejad, or Bin Laden. I caught a Coast Guard spokesman on one of the daytime radio shows today and he said everyone has security clearances, yada, yada, but was kinda vague on access to those terminal security plans.

But let's remember a couple of things here. First, if AQ wanted to get a nuke-filled container into America they could already do it without DP World by just using an innocuous steamship company and shipping it from anywhere but the ME. Remember, the 9/11 hijackers used our own airlines so we wouldn't suspect. Besides, everything with a bill of lading from the ME is already suspect. Two, nukes exploding in America is generally bad for business. For everyone.

One fact remains--this issue would be nearly moot if we had failsafe scanning technologies here or shipboard.