View Single Post
Old 02-21-2006, 05:37 AM   #14 (permalink)
ubertuber
spudly
 
ubertuber's Avatar
 
Location: Ellay
I admit that I haven't gotten a handle on all of the aspects of this yet, but I'd like to raise a few points.

From what I can tell, P&O is/was a British company.

- I think that weakens the whole "avoiding foreign control of our ports argument" considerably. In fact, it sort of makes it look racist, as in "avoid (scary arabic) foreign control of our ports". The congressional request at least cites issues specific to the UAE. The only part of that particular issue that would raise my concern is that DPW is essentially controlled by the same family that controls the UAE, meaning that it could be used in an expression of political power.

- If P&O is a British company, what can Bush do about it? Does the US have any authority to not approve of an acquisition of a foreign company? Granted, we could change the port contract, but that doesn't seem to be what people are asking about. Even if the port contract was taken from P&O/DPW, who would it go to?

According to what I heard on CNN last night, the security aspect of port operation will be overseen by the Dept. of Homeland Security - as it is now, and as it would be no matter which company had the ports contract. Given that the security of ports (especially regarding receiving) is dismal at best, and that there is no real plan to change that, what difference does this make?

While watching CNN last night, I saw James Carville, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton (through a written statement) all say that this is probably ok and that the Bush administration has probably exercised their due diligence. From what they said, the situation just doesn't LOOK good - but there's no hard evidence of impropriety.

If I've misunderstood or misrepresented the claims in this case, please let me know.
__________________
Cogito ergo spud -- I think, therefore I yam
ubertuber is offline  
 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76