An interesting connection between a member of this admin and DPW, as reported by Reuters. This story is from last week, but it's the first I've heard of it.
Its not only the Arab part that has me worked up. I think its dumb to give control of your parts to any foreign government.
Nope, it is a state owned company. Runs like a private company, but controlled by the UAE government.
Now, I realize that you must let foreign businesses operate freely here if we expect them to let our companies operate freely overseas. But the ports are a part of the Critical National Infrastructure as defined by Congress. They are going to get involved in this. What's next? Contract out our naval shipbuilding to india?
I went outside to my car for a sec and listened to Limbaugh. He's trying to find a way to support this deal. He made some economic argument but I wrote him an email. Here's what I said---kinda went along with what you said: I heard your discussion about economic development and the more our economy is intertwined with Middle Eastern countries, the better. I agree. That's fine. If a Yemeni company, partly owned by the Yemeni government wants to open a Shiek N' Shake franchise in America, that's fine. Have Shiek N' Shake's all over the place. But Shiek N' Shake and having our economies tied together, having them learn our culture and that we're good people, and having them run our ports is two different things entirely. Not even the same league……not even the same sport here. Would you let the same UAE company win a bid for, design and build our Border Control security systems?: the ones we should build but won't for whatever reason. Or would you let a Chinese company owned by the government of China, build the system that runs our NORAD systems or our air traffic control systems? If not, why not? Because those are systems, just like our ports, that if used the wrong way, have vital national security implications.
I am a Republican and this one even leaves me scratching my head. How can you on one hand use 9-11 for wiretapping and claim what a security need it is then hand control of some of your major ports to the people who you are trying to protect against. I am as conservative as people come and usually support President Bush but i cant do it on this. This is wrong and smells of payback for some underhanded deal on something else. I am fed up with all politics of both parties.
