Port Nonsense

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by Griff

When I found myself agreeing with Hillary I knew I had to review my position. I don't care if foreign companies run our ports but I'm disturbed that foreign government owned companies are running them. I'm cool with the profit motive but gov operations tend to be driven by other motivations. Unfortunately, this is also Hillary's position so I must be missing something.

That's ok, I have the same problem when I find myself agreeing with Bush. Fortunately, such occasions are rare. The problem with governments is that they can change faster than companies. Consider the point of view of countries having US as a partner. There are many countries who would have been glad to deal with the Clinton or GHB adminstration who would not touch the GWB adminstration. If the US were running their ports, they might find themselves as a transhipment point for any number of quasi-legal initiatives and covert operations.

If the UAE were to undergo some radical shift, we might end up with the Muslim Brotherhood running a US port. GWB seems to think that letting the UAE in is a sign of trust will keep that from happening. It's hard to reconcile that naive opinion with Guantanamo Bay, torture, secrecy, wiretapping, etc. The administration seems to be talking out of both sides of it's mouth when it comes to the war on terror. On one hand, they demand lack of transparency, diminished rights, disgregard for international conventions, and on the other hand they go out of their way to streamline a deal that at first glance appears to be counter intuitive.

Either the adminstration is even stupider than most people expect, or there is something here that noone, not even Congress is being told. Since most of the unilateral decisions coming from the current occupant of the White House have turned out to be colossal cluster f**ks, this does not fill me with confidence.