It's not wrong. Wasn't it dsquared who came up with the bottom-line test for the administration -- name one of its policy initiatives, right- or wrong-headed, of which it hasn't made an utter mess of?
And apparently they did skip a required 45-day review period. Really, your 2 is what led me astray -- it's been a safe assumption for so long that anything that sounds okay, is a problem, and anything that sounds bad, is a nightmare. But not so much in this case, unless there's more I don't know about.
Why is it not so bad. I don't get it. Some of some ports' cargo handling is bad enough. They weren't going to be controlling all of all our ports, so why is some of some, as opposed to all of some, a significant improvement?
My knowledge of this is limited to William Langewiesche's little book / essay of a couple of years ago, but I think Mr B's right. "Any" is too much.
If you wanted to make the case that LB's conscientious librul repentance is the right mode of thought for the day, then you might emphasize, not how much, but who: you weren't complaining when the Brits and the Danes had control of the ports. What are you, racist?
I'm awfully hesitant to state an opinion on this, given the vigor with which it was pointed out to me that I don't have the right to have an opinion in the absence of better knowledge than I have, but here's my thinking.
As they stand, the ports are a sieve. Better they shouldn't be, but this deal isn't going to affect the chance of terrorism-related smuggling much; the policies we have now can't keep out entire containers full of illegal immigrants. And allowing a foreign-government-owned company to run cargo terminals isn't all that different from allowing foreign ships to dock.
I was worried by the idea that a foreign-government-owned company would (a) be setting port-wide security policies (yes, I know, the US gov't carries out direct security functions, but the operations of the port generally have security implications), which seemed to me to add an unnecessary degree of difficulty to the possibility of improving security standards, and (2) by the idea of allowing a foreign convernment control over a bottleneck that a really large percentage of the cargo coming to and leaving the East Coast must pass through; the half-formed, uneducated worry (can I get any more diffident here) I had was that, e.g., the shipping of oil might be impeded or slowed should it suit Dubai's interests.
I'm really not qualified to have an opinion here -- didn't even read the last thread -- but my thought is, at least it isn't being managed by Custer Battles.
BTW, could you possibly pick a worse name for your company than "Custer Battles"? "Buckner Groundballs"? "Titanic Icebergs"? "Michael Brown Emergency Management Consulting"?
Professor Bobbitt has three sentences that he wants his students to take from his constitutional law class, and one in particular frames his class: "Let the end be legitimate, let it be within the scope of the constitution, and all means which are appropriate, which are plainly adapted to that end, which are not prohibited, but consist with the letter and spirit of the constitution, are constitutional", from McCulloch v. Maryland (1819).
And anyway, that sentence has a lot of inadequately defined terms in it.
Also, that article was written by a bit of a fan. NTTAWWT.
"They weren't going to be controlling all of all our ports, so why is some of some, as opposed to all of some, a significant improvement?"
Ah, yes, "they."
7: "I'm awfully hesitant to state an opinion on this, given the vigor with which it was pointed out to me that I don't have the right to have an opinion in the absence of better knowledge than I have, but here's my thinking."
I don't know who pointed out such a thing to you, but it certainly wasn't me. You have the right to any opinion you like.
8: "BTW, could you possibly pick a worse name for your company than "Custer Battles"?"
Indeed. (Of course, it's the name of two guys; unfortunate confluence, though.)
12: "With the home office in Dubai, isn't management-level information on American ports that much closer to someone unfriendly to the U.S.?"
Might I point out that the last major suicide attack in the West was carried out by four guys from Leeds, and the last major suicide attack in the U.S. was masterminded by guys from Germany? But, strangely, there were no worries about infiltration of accountants via the British management, nor are we Viewing With Alarm our ports which are managed by Germans, or by Chinese companies.
If anything other than Dark-Skinned Peril, and straight-forward ignorance, is involved in this issue, I've yet to see it pointed out by anyone. I remain open to learning about specific grounds for other sorts of worry.
Xenophobes seem to think that there's a place called Foreign, and everyone there is a Foreigner, and they're all bad. (Consult Des von Bladet, a renegade from Blighty who now lives in Foreign and reads their quaint native newspapers written in their primitive Foreign languages).
Whereas free-trade xenophiles think exactly the opposite. Foreigners are all OK!
The UAE, like Saudi Arabia, strikes me as a more unsavory place than, e.g., Britain. A secretive feudal plutocracy with ties to the Taliban, the Wahhabi fundamentalists, and the Pakistan nuclear-export program.
Some reports say it's no big deal and nothing much is really at stake, but I'll wait and see. I don't apologize for mistrusting the UAE, though.
Atrios linked an article claiming that at one point the CIA didn't target Bin Laden because he was with the royal family of Abu Dhabi, who they didn't want to kill collaterally.
I find the linked article kind of odd (it looks like a couple of fragments stuck together), but if this is true, and the new company really is controlled by that same royal family, that's a cause for concern that goes a bit beyond Dark-Skinned Peril. Apologies if you've dealt with this already, as I mentioned I didn't read the other thread (and I basically share that reaction, Abu Dhabi had struck me as basically moderate).
Well, ok, foreigners. Sure, nobody minded too much when Dutch, British, or other foreign concerns managed some of our port facilities. I mind, now that I know.
I was born in what was then West Germany and didn't have US Citizenship until the mid-80's, shortly after which I was in the USAF and got a top secret clearance. Now, there was a relatively short list of countries-of-origin which were OK for naturalized persons to be from and still get a high clearance in the military. Was this wrong? Was it discriminatory in a bad way? Was it racist? I don't think so. I got no trouble trusting at least some of the NATO allies far further than anyone else with our security.
After 9/11 the federal government determined that airport security should not be contracted, even to US firms. That it was a government responsibility.
Port operations might easily be seen similarly. We are at war; the government could easily seize the ports. For government officials, or anyone, to suggest that all US ports should be US owned and operated is legitimate argument. Can anti-Arab racism motivate the same conclusions, sure.
But I think the fundamental issue is national security. I mean, a port is precisely where one draws the line between foreign and domestic. It makes sense to me that any country would want its ports, all of all of its ports, to be domestically run.
also, not that its exactly relevant to this issue, but gee whiz i'd love to see some of the Big Blogs, or even the MSM, start talking about how much we're spending on port security as compared to jets and submarines we won't use. the opportunity cost, it burns.
Gary, several people have pointed out legitimate reasons for concern. All stem from a reasonable presumption that a company based in the UAE is more likely to contain al Qaeda sympathizers or operatives. Here are three possible threats that could arise:
1) A manager based in UAE might find it easier to infiltrate a terrorist into the United States if the manager works for a company conducting port operations in the United States (this obviously is contingent on a host of other factors as well);
2) Managers in the UAE may now have easier access to security-related information about US ports that they did not have previously, and there is a risk that such information may be passed on to al Qaeda sympathizers in the UAE;
3) Managers in the UAE may find it easier to hire an operative who has already infiltrated the United States, evading security checks in the process, and thereby gain the operative access to sensitive or vulnerable areas that he might not otherwise be able to access.
yeah, that's what i meant. sorry, it gets me so crazy i can't express myself. bush has coasted on his tough on terra rep, spending next to nothing on securing ports, major urban public transit systems, and chemical facilities. thank god we're fighting them over there, so we don't have to fight them here.
"I was born in what was then West Germany and didn't have US Citizenship until the mid-80's, shortly after which I was in the USAF and got a top secret clearance."
i'm intrigued. i think this calls for Pseudonymous Story Hour. tinker tailor soldier mrbitch.
Hm, when Mr. B was at Ogged's going-away party he didn't wear lederhosen or anything like that.
According to the CIA the UAE is Abu Zaby / Abu Dhabi, 'Ajman, Al Fujayrah, Ash Shariqah, Dubayy / Dubai, and Umm al Qaywayn, and Ra's al Khaymah.
The UAE are "moderate" in the sense of "not anti-American". Some of them are fairly liberal in other respects, too. All these mini-states (plus Kuwait and Qatar) are protectorates of the US or Saudi Arabia and basically exist to receive oil rents.
From what I've seen, the political system is murky and entirely organized around passing out oil money to a few noble families. Whatever businesses there are reinvest oil money for the ruling groups.
It's hard to know exactly who controls what, as in Saudi Arabia, but while this makes it harder to assign blame precisely, it also makes it hard to be confident of what will happen.
Good trick, since there is no such thing. The UAE is a federation.
"Now, there was a relatively short list of countries-of-origin which were OK for naturalized persons to be from and still get a high clearance in the military. Was this wrong?"
29: Doing book-keeping, which is what this boils down to, isn't the same thing.
"For government officials, or anyone, to suggest that all US ports should be US owned and operated is legitimate argument."
Not so much. Do you have any idea how many different enterprises and corporations and endeavors are involved in the operation of a port? One might as well nationalize Newark.
I think a major part of the problem here is that most people have no idea whatever what they are referring to when they refer to a "port" and to "port operations."
34: "Gary, several people have pointed out legitimate reasons for concern."
Not that I've noticed.
"1) A manager based in UAE might find it easier to infiltrate a terrorist into the United States if the manager works for a company conducting port operations in the United States (this obviously is contingent on a host of other factors as well);"
How?
"2) 2) Managers in the UAE may now have easier access to security-related information about US ports that they did not have previously, and there is a risk that such information may be passed on to al Qaeda sympathizers in the UAE;"
They may. And pigs may fly out of my butt. The evidence for this potentially happening is?
I'll repeat again: the most recent Western suicide bombers were four guys from Leeds. How would it be easier for these mythical Dubai terrorists to infiltrate the security operations that the company doesn't run than it was for British-born suicide bombers to infiltrate the security operations that the British-owned company didn't run?
I think another big part of the confusion and ignorance here probably also lies in confusion over what's involved in a corporate headquarters of a global corporation being in one particular place or another. Short summary is that it's pretty much meaningless.
"3) Managers in the UAE may find it easier to hire an operative who has already infiltrated the United States, evading security checks in the process, and thereby gain the operative access to sensitive or vulnerable areas that he might not otherwise be able to access."
This is, I'm sure, completely plausible when you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.
This is complete fantasy. Nothing more. And specifically contradicted by previously cited facts, such as the minor point that the managing company has nothing to do with security.
Not to mention that Islamic terrorists don't particularly necessarily come from The Evil Mideast. What, after all, is the country with the largest Islamic population in the world?
If we're going to start banning companies based in countries with a major Islamic population, that have nothing to do with security from operating in the U.S., well, we're going to ban much of the world from operating in the U.S. And how grandly this will help us in convincing Muslims we're not prejudiced against them, and on a Crusade!
We'd have to start, of course, with banning people from Britain, and Germany, and the Philipines, and
India, and China, and....
What's that? There are millions of American Muslims, you say? Oh, no! American Muslims are BANNED!
See, I'm making "positive" statements now. I'm sure they're much less offensive than asking people to support their statements with actual facts and cites.
Okay, maybe not, but who am I to turn down a request?
Kevin has been excellent on this (unlike Josh Marshall, who's mostly been doing the irritating Andrew Sullivan e-mail from readers bit).
On the princes, remember that, as Gary notes, the UAE really is a confederation of autonomous emirates which differ a lot from each other. Some have oil, some don't (Dubai doesn't), and some are wealthier than others. For something to be relevant to this issue, it really would have to involve Dubai specifically.
"Gary, you really are the contrarian, aren't you?"
Eh. Whatever I say, it's contrary to someone, after all. What I don't do is worry about who happens to agree or disagree with me, but rather about whether they're right or wrong.
Although just to indulge in some lovely ad hominem and guilt by association, if you disagree with me on this one, you're right in line with Michelle Malkin, Powerline, Glenn Reynolds, Little Green Footballs, Roger Simon, Hugh Hewitt, Alexandra von Maltzan, Captain Ed, and the rest of the looney tunes.
I particularly enjoyed Tom Macguire's citing of 24 as an authority here. Which is pretty much exactly the level the objections are coming on.
But they've probably all got it right. After all, Chuck Schumer also agrees.
But, yeah, I wouldn't care if all these nutbars accidentally agreed with me, and I thought I was right. As I said, I don't make up my mind or reason through things because of who happens to agree or disagree with me.
This makes me all special and unique and unlike anyone else, of course. I am Very Brave.
"This perhaps better-sourced piece (yeah, it's a Freeper link, but the text may be accurate)"
Matt, you could just link to the damn Times of London piece, you know, instead of "perhaps" and "may"-ing over linking to a Freeper.
But this is about... oh, it's about the Scheuer account of the Predator non-strike on Osama. Well, um, that story was told years before Scheuer came out of the anonymous closet, after all, by multiple sources. There was some question involved there?
"some don't (Dubai doesn't),"
42: Well, not so much; it would be wrong to say Dubai has no oil at all. They've got more than the Beverly Hilbillies had. But they've famously diversified like mad.
Josh Marshall is a smart guy who brings forth valuable information with great frequency, but his style has been driving me absolutely mad for years.
Okay, gotta go watch South Park reruns I never saw cuz I don't have cable, now.
Generally cranky statement triggered by three other bloggers today having nothing whatever to do with this blog, all blogging about issues having nothing whatever to do with this ports issue, but hust because I see this same phenonenon every bleedin' day, and have since I started reading blogs in 2001: a huge problem that occurs when bloggers blog about stuff they basically don't know anything about, but because they read some article today, or last week, is that they have no frigging context of knowledge to place it in, and thus no goddamn idea whether what they're quoting/saying makes the least goddamn sense, or is remotely right or not. All they do is mindlessly reproduce what the article they read said, and then leap to conclusions (and usually elaborate theories) based on their reading, which turns out to be completely baseless, but they're too completely clueless to know.
God help people who blog about depleted uranium, but couldn't tell an alpha particle from a gamma ray if OMG, radio waves were passing through their body (it's radiation!) at that very moment. For instance. Or believe a story in Raw Story that the House Intelligence Committee is cancelling a hearing!!!! No matter that the hearing actually took place two weeks ago, which you'd know if you were actually paying attention non-randomly. Hell, just repeat stuff when you have no idea what you're talking about! You're educating people! Repeat rumors even when you say "now, I don't know if this is true...." It's responsible! Spread rumors! Be a freaking blogger! Show the Evial MSM how to do it!
That's what blogging is all about. Apparently.
Here endth the mad rant, and why people blogging about stuff they don't know anything about drives me crazy. Mad, I tell you, mad!
Nothing personal. (Hell, maybe they'll blog about Haiti and never have heard of Rene Preval; why the hell not?; [no one here could possibly figure out who I have in mind, of course, no siree; also, it's impossible to write sarcasm in, uh, writing, doncha know?])
Some of my grandparents came from Russia. (And also from Poland. Same grandparents, same place; it was the border that moved.)
So, me: no. Got a lot against Putin, though. Though, heaven knows, he'd never use a pipeline as a political weapon, thank heavens! (Which is part of what is so insane about worrying about where the CEO of a company managing non-security aspects of a U.S. port while, y'know, if you're worried about who can shut off a part of the world's oil supply, including ours [although only a small part of the U.S. oil supply actually comes from the Mideast -- something like ~12 percent or so, it's the Europeans and the Japanese that have the big worries there; we just worry about the price of a fungible commodity], maybe you'd like to worry about the point of origin of the frigging supply, instead, rather than starting at our end of it. Why worry about one and not the other? And if you can't control one, what's the point in worrying about controlling the other? It makes no sense whatever. I completely don't get it. Worried about someone cutting off our ports from getting oil? Geez, fortunately there could never be an oil embargo, so everything will just be fine if we make sure our ports are only staffed by good Aryans like John Walker Lindh and Richard Reid. Whatever, dude.)
"And let me just say, Gary, that I've been thoroughly enjoying all your comments here over the past couple of days."
Don't confuse me with compliments! You are plotting to lessen my completely justified sense of persecution and ill-treatment! Don't think I can't see right through your insidious little maneuver! I am too smart for you! And as we know, when I criticize someone's opinion, that is exactly the same as saying they have no right to have an opinion. Same exact thing! Do not defy my mighty opinion about your opinion! The awesome power of my words will defeat your puny compliments, because I have mighty Jiant Japanese Robot Words to back me up! With rocket elbows!
Ok, I'm not about to get into the actual port discussion because I haven't been following it and it doesn't bother me too much as long as it's not about security operations, but
American != racial classification.
If I were worried about port operations I'd worry about the British and French and Germans (none of these nationalities are currently racial classifications either, though they can be more restricted according to heredity than American). The fact that I did not so worry previously would be merely a reflection of my earlier lack of knowledge that such operations were run by foreign companies, and not a reflection of my view of such countries and their (non homogeneous) populations.
You know, what this whole thing most reminds me of is the furor over Kelo: a recent action that has little practical effect makes people realize that there is an existing state of affairs they don't like. They flip out and protest against the recent action, even though reversing it would have no effect on the underlying concern. In this case, it's the fact that foreign companies run our ports, and have for years. It's not just P&O -- COSCO is Chinese and Maersk is Danish. This doesn't bother me, but it clearly bothers some people. The problem is that this would still be the case even if this deal falls through, and it would be very hard to change it.
The thing that bothers me isn't that reaction, which I think is probably the main one on the left, but the reaction of those who are more concerned about the fact that this is an Emirati company specifically. I'm really hoping the deal goes through regardless; the last thing we need is more alienation.
Ye new story. Presumably someone here can link it tomorrow after they find it via Brad deLong or Kevin Drum.
I haven't blogged anything about port security in a long time because nothing very important has changed since I was writing stuff like this. Damn shame that the NYRB moves their articles behind the paywall after a few weeks, though.
"...eminds me of is the furor over Kelo: a recent action that has little practical effect makes people realize that there is an existing state of affairs they don't like. They flip out and protest against the recent action, even though reversing it would have no effect on the underlying concern."
Yep. That so few containers are inspected, that so few radiation detectors are out there, that so (relatively) few other various detection devices are installed, that we've not taken the money out of a couple of planned-for Virginia-class subs (~$2.6 billion apiece), say, and put it into port security -- that's what people should be concerned about regarding ports. Not with trying to profile management companies by nationality.
(I'm still moronically pissed at Pat Buchanan just being the same idiotically Pat Buchanan on Sunday for ranting about how we need to racially profile Ay-rabs, because, after all, we know that that's how to find terrorists -- way to protect us, Pat! No way we'll ever be attacked by terrorists who are pale-skinned, or Chechens, or Indonesians, or Filipinos, or British, or German, or Russian, or Uighur, or Hui, or Kazakh, or from the Ivory Ghost, or Ghana, or Tanzania, or Russia, or India, and on and on -- no, angry Muslim extremists all from the Middle East, and swarthy; we can spot terrorists by skin color, place of origin, and appearance, fer sure; and we should ban anyone from these countries from working near U.S. strategic assets, to be safe.)
49: "...a reflection of my earlier lack of knowledge that such operations were run by foreign companies...."
I'll also repeat for emphasis that the overwhelming majority of cargo ships bringing cargo to America are owned by foreign companies (and frequently the ownership is so masked by so many layers of holding companies that it's literally impossible for even the most dedicated and experienced best teams of U.S. task forces, with all the resources of U.S. law enforcement at their disposal, to figure out who really owns them, in the end), and that the overwhelming majority of the crew of said cargo ships are furriners.
What the hell is the point of worrying about the ethnic purity of the people working at the U.S. port if the ships and crew aren't properly ethnically pure? Not to mention that it turns out that studies have revealed that most shipping from overseas actually comes from foreign countries. I demand we put a stop to this at once! We must import critical goods only from ourselves! It's the only way to guarantee that such goods can't be cut off by foreigners!
Again: countries are not (usually) ethnicities. And companies often hire members of more than one nationality.
Also: ports are not ships.
And: customs/border patrol agents are not the people operating the vehicles they inspect. The point here seems to be that the management company does not perform the same tasks that representatves/agents of the US government normally perform.
(You know what, in the time that it took for my comment to show up after the error messages I got I edited the comment. So I'm going to post it a second time.)
Again: countries are not (usually) ethnicities. And companies often hire members of more than one nationality.
Also: ports are not ships. The fact that many ships are foreign owned and operated does not automatically entail anything about the ownership and operation of things not those ships.
And: customs/border patrol/Coast Guard agents are not the people operating the vehicles they inspect. The point here seems to be that the management company does not perform the same tasks that representatves/agents of the US government normally perform, not that ships are foreign owned and operated, so why not other things? What those other things are matters.
Good trick, since there is no such thing. The UAE is a federation.
That's not entirely accurate. It's a federation of emirates. The rulers of the seven emirates are what compose the Federal Supreme Council. The Council is who elects the President and Vice President, appoints legislators, and has final approval on federal legislation. So the families of those emirates are very much royal families.
As for being moderate, they're moderate relative to their neighbors. Not a high bar we're setting here. Women can actually obtain divorces and even keep custody of the chilldren, etc., but you're accessing the internet through a censored govt. monopoly and you've still got Sharia civil courts handing out floggings for things like marriage across religious lines.
With regard to the ports thing, Arab states in general don't seem all that concerned with our security issues. The Saudis fund the Wahabi's to the tunes of hundreds of millions, Pakistan won't let us conduct operations in their mountain regions to capture Al Qaeda, they give out nuclear technology like it's candy, etc. The UAE doesn't exactly have a stellar law enforcement record either. Their banking industry is a regional center for money laundering, and was used to funnel money by the 9-11 hiackers. The subsequent complaint from our Treasury is that UAE hasn't been all that cooperative in helping us track Al Qaeda accounts. They're also major destination in human trafficking for sexual exploitation, young boys for camel jockeys, etc. That doesn't directly affect the issue at hand, but it doesn't speak well of their general security practices. There's also the little matter of large numbers of their ruling families being personal guests of OBL.
Yes, there are other huge concerns with regard to port security we need to address. But outsourcing operations to countries like the UAE doesn't strike me as a step in the right direction.
gswift, I'm not going to argue that UAE is a Western democracy, but surely their status as a destination for human trafficking has very little to do with the company's ability to manage a port. It's like arguing that the U.S. sanctions torture, so Ford can't put a plant in Paris because the employees might start torturing the French.
In any case, I don't think anyone knows what port management is, really, and that's a source of most of the confusion. As near as I can tell, the function isn't security, and seems most akin to managing a large office building complex. Like saying that because foreign holders invest in a skyscraper, it's more likely to fall. And surely these companies are still going to employ Americans; some of the blogosphere is acting like this change over means all the British guys working at the docks are going to be replace by al-Qaeda trainees.
I'd be more worried about where the ships themselves were coming from.
After 9/11 I read what I could about al Qaeda and a lot of the clues traced back to Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and the UAE. Afghanistan was a base of operations, as the Sudan and Yemen sometimes were too, but Wahhabi fundamentalism came from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States and Pakistan's security forces had ties with al Qaeda. What especially was important was funding, because despite everything people think about spontaneous outrage, al Qaeda was an organization that could pay its bills.
For whatever reason, we haven't called these coundtries to account, except Pakistan to a very small degree, and none of them have given us unreserved cooperation. We're occasionally assured that they're all OK now, but it's strictly on a "trust me" basis. Saudi Arabia and the UAE in particular are archaic regimes with no transparency at all.
The people who actually were called to account were Iraq, N. Korea (verbally), Iran (verbally but heating up), with occasional mentions of Libya, Syria, Cuba, Colombia, and Venezuela. (Not a joke).
So anyway, this isn't a racial thing. If Gary wants to lump me with Malkin I'll lump him with..... some very, very bad person. Perhaps Godwin himself. Or maybe Mariah Carey.
The Gulf States have somewhat liberalized compared to the Saudis, but the reason that they're all "moderate" is just because they're not openly anti-American on the diplomatic front. But they seem to be the main ones exporting Wahhabi fundamentalism into the poorer, weaker areas of the Muslim world. (Al Qaeda was just a bonus).
I've been following the debate, and people are saying that this particular type of deal isn't really significant security-wise. That's on a trust-me basis again, but if it's true it might change my mind.
I think that the whole effort to link absolute free trade with the war against racism is absolutely bogus. The blind fanaticism of free-traders sometimes boggles me.
1) A manager based in UAE might find it easier to infiltrate a terrorist into the United States if the manager works for a company conducting port operations in the United States (this obviously is contingent on a host of other factors as well);"
How?
I'm not entirely sure how, Gary. The basic idea is that the managers of a company who use specialized skills and labors, especially involving international trade, might find it easier than others to infiltrate a person into this country. Obviously I don't know the details. But the possibility is a reason to take a closer look.
"2) Managers in the UAE may now have easier access to security-related information about US ports that they did not have previously, and there is a risk that such information may be passed on to al Qaeda sympathizers in the UAE;"
They may. And pigs may fly out of my butt. The evidence for this potentially happening is?
This is a blog. We're not doing a formal threat assessment. I don't know what the probability of this occurring is, and neither do you. Those of us who are concerned, though, want to take a closer look because we don't know.
I'll repeat again: the most recent Western suicide bombers were four guys from Leeds.
Which indicates the possibility that radicals already living here can pose a threat. It does NOT indicate that the threat from homegrown radicals is as large or as well-funded as the threat from radicals overseas. You're using a single instance of terrorism to assess comparative magnitude of threats everywhere, and that's clearly fallacious.
I think another big part of the confusion and ignorance here probably also lies in confusion over what's involved in a corporate headquarters of a global corporation being in one particular place or another. Short summary is that it's pretty much meaningless.
On the contrary, in a very interconnected world the global HQ, and the various offices scattered throughout the world, can easily access information and expertise from each other.
"3) Managers in the UAE may find it easier to hire an operative who has already infiltrated the United States, evading security checks in the process, and thereby gain the operative access to sensitive or vulnerable areas that he might not otherwise be able to access."
This is, I'm sure, completely plausible when you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.
Gosh, I'm sorry Gary. I didn't realize that you were privy to the background checks and procedures that DHS runs on port workers. Please, enlighten us, and tell us why these procedures are impervious to manipulation by the host company.
This is complete fantasy. Nothing more. And specifically contradicted by previously cited facts, such as the minor point that the managing company has nothing to do with security.
Just as a company working inside an airport will have expanded opportunities to evade security, though clearly will not have carte blanche to do so, so too, it seems to me, would a company that runs port operations. There's a spectrum of risk. You seem to be working from a false dichotomy in which companies either do or do not pose a security risk. It doesn't work that way.
Not to mention that Islamic terrorists don't particularly necessarily come from The Evil Mideast.
It's not about what is necessarily the case. Few things are.
If we're going to start banning companies based in countries with a major Islamic population, [...]
Everyone here has simply said that we should be careful.
While the management company does not itself handle the security questions, the management company is one of the main factors that the security company has to watch.
Our own intelligence services freely use legit corporation such as Bechtel as fronts for their operations. A large company can be 97% legit and still be a front for an intelligence service or a terrorist group. All you need is people in management (not even top management, necessarily) who are willing to function that way.
As near as I can tell, the function isn't security, and seems most akin to managing a large office building complex.
This point, which Gary has also been making by implication, that operating a port has absolutely nothing to do with security strikes me as off base. I work in a large office building with all sorts of post-9-11 security; I need my little card to get through the turnstiles, visitors need to show ID to get a temporary card, etc. None of the formal security poses any significant restraint on what people working in building management and operations can bring into and out of the building: security guards aren't inspecting cleaning supplies, there aren't turnstiles to walk through at the freight entrances, and so forth. This does not mean that I'm flip-flopping back again, but I really want to disagree with the idea that port operations can be neatly separated from security.
surely their status as a destination for human trafficking has very little to do with the company's ability to manage a port.
But it does. Imagine the law enforcement priorities and/or practices that allow people to rather freely traffic large numbers of human beings in and out of the country. Those are not the people we want running the access points into our country.
function isn't security, and seems most akin to managing a large office building complex.
This is where I think Gary goes wrong as well. Just because they don't directly supervise security doesn't mean their practices can't impact security operations. Imagine a telecom company that has shoddy record retrieval and no clear process in place to handle law enforcement requests. Imagine every time a law enforcement agency goes to them with a records request, it takes the company days to get back to them. It could severely impact the work of the law enforcement agency involved.
"The administration did not require Dubai Ports to keep copies of business records on U.S. soil, where they would be subject to court orders. It also did not require the company to designate an American citizen to accommodate U.S. government requests."
and
"Under the deal, the government asked Dubai Ports to operate American seaports with existing U.S. managers "to the extent possible." It promised to take "all reasonable steps" to assist the Homeland Security Department..."
If Treasury's experience with the UAE is any indicator, I think we can be fairly certain their idea of "all reasonable steps" is going to very different from ours. For starters, we now know that "all reasonable steps" does not include such things as keeping copies of business records on U.S. soil.
To me, the bigger question is why Bush is so very keen on ensuring this particular deal go through -- a question that hinges, I suspect, not on issues of security but on whose pockets get filled. Something tells me there is more to this story.
I have predicted a ten million dollar UAE golden handshake for Bush in 2009.
The UAE part is the weakest part of that speculation. Who will it really be? I don't know.
But Dubya's been scrimping by on a couple of hundred thousand a year for five years already, and his personal fortune is in the low seven figures, so he's going to be one needy dude once he steps down.
The first link in 51 shows up in my browser's window menu as, "Big Problem, Dubai Deal... Not."
(I, and I believe many left-leaning blog-readers have been worried/ragingly pissed about port security for a while. As have, as Gary notes, Democrats in Congress.)
Good trick, since there is no such thing. The UAE is a federation.
That's not entirely accurate.
Sure it is. There's nothing inaccurate about it. It's not elaborate; that is entirely different than "inaccurate."
It's a federation of emirates. The rulers of the seven emirates are what compose the Federal Supreme Council. The Council is who elects the President and Vice President, appoints legislators, and has final approval on federal legislation.
Yes, of course. As I'm perfectly familiair with.
So the families of those emirates are very much royal families.
And Queen Elizabeth II is very much a member of a royal family. None of these royal families is "the royal family of the UAE." "the" =/ "a." It's a crucial distinction in English. It is not the crucial distinction in English.
I could otherwise elaborate on the details of the structure government of the United Arab Emirates, and claim that therefore your description is "inaccurate," but I'd be wrong if I made such a claim.
"As for being moderate, they're moderate relative to their neighbors. Not a high bar we're setting here. Women can actually obtain divorces and even keep custody of the chilldren, etc., but you're accessing the internet through a censored govt. monopoly and you've still got Sharia civil courts handing out floggings for things like marriage across religious lines."
Indeed, it's U.S. law and custom that we approve of all the domestic policies of any country whose companies we allow to do business in the U.S. Why hadn't I realized the relevance of that before?
"The UAE doesn't exactly have a stellar law enforcement record either. Their banking industry is a regional center for money laundering, and was used to funnel money by the 9-11 hiackers."
And fortunately no terrorist money has flowed through the banking systems of the United States, Britain, Germany, or any non-Arab country, which is good, because if it had, we'd have to note that all such countries had "ties" to terrorists, and we'd have to forbid them from doing business in the U.S.
It's kind of like watching a spoiled-little-brat being deliberately picked on by adults. Wrong but enjoyable.
Posted by Ugh | Link to this comment | 02-22-06 2:50 PM
It's not wrong. Wasn't it dsquared who came up with the bottom-line test for the administration -- name one of its policy initiatives, right- or wrong-headed, of which it hasn't made an utter mess of?
This too, then.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 02-22-06 3:26 PM
ofPosted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 02-22-06 3:26 PM
And apparently they did skip a required 45-day review period. Really, your 2 is what led me astray -- it's been a safe assumption for so long that anything that sounds okay, is a problem, and anything that sounds bad, is a nightmare. But not so much in this case, unless there's more I don't know about.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 02-22-06 3:31 PM
Why is it not so bad. I don't get it. Some of some ports' cargo handling is bad enough. They weren't going to be controlling all of all our ports, so why is some of some, as opposed to all of some, a significant improvement?
Posted by Mr. B | Link to this comment | 02-22-06 3:41 PM
My knowledge of this is limited to William Langewiesche's little book / essay of a couple of years ago, but I think Mr B's right. "Any" is too much.
If you wanted to make the case that LB's conscientious librul repentance is the right mode of thought for the day, then you might emphasize, not how much, but who: you weren't complaining when the Brits and the Danes had control of the ports. What are you, racist?
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 02-22-06 3:47 PM
I'm awfully hesitant to state an opinion on this, given the vigor with which it was pointed out to me that I don't have the right to have an opinion in the absence of better knowledge than I have, but here's my thinking.
As they stand, the ports are a sieve. Better they shouldn't be, but this deal isn't going to affect the chance of terrorism-related smuggling much; the policies we have now can't keep out entire containers full of illegal immigrants. And allowing a foreign-government-owned company to run cargo terminals isn't all that different from allowing foreign ships to dock.
I was worried by the idea that a foreign-government-owned company would (a) be setting port-wide security policies (yes, I know, the US gov't carries out direct security functions, but the operations of the port generally have security implications), which seemed to me to add an unnecessary degree of difficulty to the possibility of improving security standards, and (2) by the idea of allowing a foreign convernment control over a bottleneck that a really large percentage of the cargo coming to and leaving the East Coast must pass through; the half-formed, uneducated worry (can I get any more diffident here) I had was that, e.g., the shipping of oil might be impeded or slowed should it suit Dubai's interests.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 02-22-06 4:22 PM
I'm really not qualified to have an opinion here -- didn't even read the last thread -- but my thought is, at least it isn't being managed by Custer Battles.
BTW, could you possibly pick a worse name for your company than "Custer Battles"? "Buckner Groundballs"? "Titanic Icebergs"? "Michael Brown Emergency Management Consulting"?
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 02-22-06 4:32 PM
"Muhammad Cartoons"
Posted by Ugh | Link to this comment | 02-22-06 4:42 PM
I could go into business with this guy.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 02-22-06 4:44 PM
I could go into business with this guy.
Interesting, but relevant? Also, what are the other two sentences?
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 02-22-06 4:48 PM
this deal isn't going to affect the chance of terrorism-related smuggling much
Are you sure? With the home office in Dubai, isn't management-level information on American ports that much closer to someone unfriendly to the U.S.?
Also, who told you you didn't know nuthin?
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 02-22-06 4:50 PM
11: "Bobbitt Weiner" = inauspicious
What other two sentences?
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 02-22-06 4:58 PM
However, public memory of the case has receded.
How true!
I hadn't even known about the Weird Al song.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 02-22-06 5:01 PM
What other two sentences?
Well, I count only one:
And anyway, that sentence has a lot of inadequately defined terms in it.
Also, that article was written by a bit of a fan. NTTAWWT.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 02-22-06 5:04 PM
Ah. Dunno anything about the chap, he was just the first hit for his name plus philosophy.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 02-22-06 5:06 PM
he was just the first hit
I think this is known as googlewit.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 02-22-06 5:08 PM
Nice coinage!
Does the link in 13 not bring back a flood of memories? Also, I like how every original contribution in posts 11-12 was a question.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 02-22-06 5:10 PM
I like how every original contribution in posts 11-12 was a question.
Anti-semite.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 02-22-06 5:12 PM
Does the link in 13 not bring back a flood of memories?
I was going to feign ignorance, but then I remembered I admitted being about the same age as you. So, yes.
Also, for a few minutes I was having trouble disentangling those memories from Buttafuoco memories.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 02-22-06 5:15 PM
"This article in the Christian Science Monitor (thanks to Brad DeLong) "
9:54 a.m.
"They weren't going to be controlling all of all our ports, so why is some of some, as opposed to all of some, a significant improvement?"
Ah, yes, "they."
7: "I'm awfully hesitant to state an opinion on this, given the vigor with which it was pointed out to me that I don't have the right to have an opinion in the absence of better knowledge than I have, but here's my thinking."
I don't know who pointed out such a thing to you, but it certainly wasn't me. You have the right to any opinion you like.
8: "BTW, could you possibly pick a worse name for your company than "Custer Battles"?"
Indeed. (Of course, it's the name of two guys; unfortunate confluence, though.)
12: "With the home office in Dubai, isn't management-level information on American ports that much closer to someone unfriendly to the U.S.?"
Might I point out that the last major suicide attack in the West was carried out by four guys from Leeds, and the last major suicide attack in the U.S. was masterminded by guys from Germany? But, strangely, there were no worries about infiltration of accountants via the British management, nor are we Viewing With Alarm our ports which are managed by Germans, or by Chinese companies.
If anything other than Dark-Skinned Peril, and straight-forward ignorance, is involved in this issue, I've yet to see it pointed out by anyone. I remain open to learning about specific grounds for other sorts of worry.
Posted by Gary Farber | Link to this comment | 02-22-06 5:15 PM
Might I point out that the last major suicide attack in the West was carried out by four guys from Leeds
You might, but we're living in the Age of 9/11, Gary! Wake up! Nobody cares about the West, it's U.S. and THEM!
nor are we Viewing With Alarm our ports which are managed by Germans, or by Chinese companies.
Oh, but we should be, we should be. Shifty-eyed foreigners of all types should be Run Out!
If anything other than Dark-Skinned Peril
Gary, I said that -- oh, right, but you don't read the comments UNLESS IT SUITS YOU!
I'm not really shouting at you, Gary, I'm just kidding.
And, I have to go now, so don't be mad if I don't reply to whatever, if anything, you say next.
Posted by slolern | Link to this comment | 02-22-06 5:19 PM
Xenophobes seem to think that there's a place called Foreign, and everyone there is a Foreigner, and they're all bad. (Consult Des von Bladet, a renegade from Blighty who now lives in Foreign and reads their quaint native newspapers written in their primitive Foreign languages).
Whereas free-trade xenophiles think exactly the opposite. Foreigners are all OK!
The UAE, like Saudi Arabia, strikes me as a more unsavory place than, e.g., Britain. A secretive feudal plutocracy with ties to the Taliban, the Wahhabi fundamentalists, and the Pakistan nuclear-export program.
Some reports say it's no big deal and nothing much is really at stake, but I'll wait and see. I don't apologize for mistrusting the UAE, though.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 02-22-06 5:23 PM
Atrios linked an article claiming that at one point the CIA didn't target Bin Laden because he was with the royal family of Abu Dhabi, who they didn't want to kill collaterally.
I find the linked article kind of odd (it looks like a couple of fragments stuck together), but if this is true, and the new company really is controlled by that same royal family, that's a cause for concern that goes a bit beyond Dark-Skinned Peril. Apologies if you've dealt with this already, as I mentioned I didn't read the other thread (and I basically share that reaction, Abu Dhabi had struck me as basically moderate).
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 02-22-06 5:38 PM
Abu Dhabi had struck me as basically moderate
On basically no information whatsoever, by Emerson's penultimate paragraph. I should go back to cock jokes.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 02-22-06 5:40 PM
Dubai != Abu Dhabi.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 02-22-06 5:47 PM
Whoops, I just made that up out of whole cloth somehow. Atrios has the royal family of the UAE. I am dumb.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 02-22-06 5:50 PM
So, how about those cocks?
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 02-22-06 5:52 PM
21- 'Ah, yes, "they."'
Well, ok, foreigners. Sure, nobody minded too much when Dutch, British, or other foreign concerns managed some of our port facilities. I mind, now that I know.
I was born in what was then West Germany and didn't have US Citizenship until the mid-80's, shortly after which I was in the USAF and got a top secret clearance. Now, there was a relatively short list of countries-of-origin which were OK for naturalized persons to be from and still get a high clearance in the military. Was this wrong? Was it discriminatory in a bad way? Was it racist? I don't think so. I got no trouble trusting at least some of the NATO allies far further than anyone else with our security.
After 9/11 the federal government determined that airport security should not be contracted, even to US firms. That it was a government responsibility.
Port operations might easily be seen similarly. We are at war; the government could easily seize the ports. For government officials, or anyone, to suggest that all US ports should be US owned and operated is legitimate argument. Can anti-Arab racism motivate the same conclusions, sure.
But I think the fundamental issue is national security. I mean, a port is precisely where one draws the line between foreign and domestic. It makes sense to me that any country would want its ports, all of all of its ports, to be domestically run.
Posted by Mr. B | Link to this comment | 02-22-06 6:09 PM
It makes sense to me that any country would want its ports, all of all of its ports, to be domestically run.
A country that feels this way is a country that I really, really don't want to live in (no offense intended to you personally, of course).
And LB, you get a lot of credit in my book for considering the evidence thoughtfully and changing your mind. Thank you.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 02-22-06 6:19 PM
Dubai != Abu Dhabi.
Dude, pass the doobie.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 02-22-06 7:02 PM
31 gets it exactly right.
also, not that its exactly relevant to this issue, but gee whiz i'd love to see some of the Big Blogs, or even the MSM, start talking about how much we're spending on port security as compared to jets and submarines we won't use. the opportunity cost, it burns.
Posted by matty | Link to this comment | 02-22-06 7:09 PM
32 - Do you mean how little we're spending on port security?
Posted by Mr. B | Link to this comment | 02-22-06 7:14 PM
Gary, several people have pointed out legitimate reasons for concern. All stem from a reasonable presumption that a company based in the UAE is more likely to contain al Qaeda sympathizers or operatives. Here are three possible threats that could arise:
1) A manager based in UAE might find it easier to infiltrate a terrorist into the United States if the manager works for a company conducting port operations in the United States (this obviously is contingent on a host of other factors as well);
2) Managers in the UAE may now have easier access to security-related information about US ports that they did not have previously, and there is a risk that such information may be passed on to al Qaeda sympathizers in the UAE;
3) Managers in the UAE may find it easier to hire an operative who has already infiltrated the United States, evading security checks in the process, and thereby gain the operative access to sensitive or vulnerable areas that he might not otherwise be able to access.
Posted by Andrew | Link to this comment | 02-22-06 7:19 PM
yeah, that's what i meant. sorry, it gets me so crazy i can't express myself. bush has coasted on his tough on terra rep, spending next to nothing on securing ports, major urban public transit systems, and chemical facilities. thank god we're fighting them over there, so we don't have to fight them here.
Posted by matty | Link to this comment | 02-22-06 7:20 PM
re: 29
"I was born in what was then West Germany and didn't have US Citizenship until the mid-80's, shortly after which I was in the USAF and got a top secret clearance."
i'm intrigued. i think this calls for Pseudonymous Story Hour. tinker tailor soldier mrbitch.
Posted by matty | Link to this comment | 02-22-06 7:23 PM
Hm, when Mr. B was at Ogged's going-away party he didn't wear lederhosen or anything like that.
According to the CIA the UAE is Abu Zaby / Abu Dhabi, 'Ajman, Al Fujayrah, Ash Shariqah, Dubayy / Dubai, and Umm al Qaywayn, and Ra's al Khaymah.
The UAE are "moderate" in the sense of "not anti-American". Some of them are fairly liberal in other respects, too. All these mini-states (plus Kuwait and Qatar) are protectorates of the US or Saudi Arabia and basically exist to receive oil rents.
From what I've seen, the political system is murky and entirely organized around passing out oil money to a few noble families. Whatever businesses there are reinvest oil money for the ruling groups.
It's hard to know exactly who controls what, as in Saudi Arabia, but while this makes it harder to assign blame precisely, it also makes it hard to be confident of what will happen.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 02-22-06 7:45 PM
27: "Atrios has the royal family of the UAE."
Good trick, since there is no such thing. The UAE is a federation.
"Now, there was a relatively short list of countries-of-origin which were OK for naturalized persons to be from and still get a high clearance in the military. Was this wrong?"
29: Doing book-keeping, which is what this boils down to, isn't the same thing.
"For government officials, or anyone, to suggest that all US ports should be US owned and operated is legitimate argument."
Not so much. Do you have any idea how many different enterprises and corporations and endeavors are involved in the operation of a port? One might as well nationalize Newark.
I think a major part of the problem here is that most people have no idea whatever what they are referring to when they refer to a "port" and to "port operations."
34: "Gary, several people have pointed out legitimate reasons for concern."
Not that I've noticed.
"1) A manager based in UAE might find it easier to infiltrate a terrorist into the United States if the manager works for a company conducting port operations in the United States (this obviously is contingent on a host of other factors as well);"
How?
"2) 2) Managers in the UAE may now have easier access to security-related information about US ports that they did not have previously, and there is a risk that such information may be passed on to al Qaeda sympathizers in the UAE;"
They may. And pigs may fly out of my butt. The evidence for this potentially happening is?
I'll repeat again: the most recent Western suicide bombers were four guys from Leeds. How would it be easier for these mythical Dubai terrorists to infiltrate the security operations that the company doesn't run than it was for British-born suicide bombers to infiltrate the security operations that the British-owned company didn't run?
I think another big part of the confusion and ignorance here probably also lies in confusion over what's involved in a corporate headquarters of a global corporation being in one particular place or another. Short summary is that it's pretty much meaningless.
"3) Managers in the UAE may find it easier to hire an operative who has already infiltrated the United States, evading security checks in the process, and thereby gain the operative access to sensitive or vulnerable areas that he might not otherwise be able to access."
This is, I'm sure, completely plausible when you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.
This is complete fantasy. Nothing more. And specifically contradicted by previously cited facts, such as the minor point that the managing company has nothing to do with security.
Not to mention that Islamic terrorists don't particularly necessarily come from The Evil Mideast. What, after all, is the country with the largest Islamic population in the world?
If we're going to start banning companies based in countries with a major Islamic population, that have nothing to do with security from operating in the U.S., well, we're going to ban much of the world from operating in the U.S. And how grandly this will help us in convincing Muslims we're not prejudiced against them, and on a Crusade!
We'd have to start, of course, with banning people from Britain, and Germany, and the Philipines, and
India, and China, and....
What's that? There are millions of American Muslims, you say? Oh, no! American Muslims are BANNED!
See, I'm making "positive" statements now. I'm sure they're much less offensive than asking people to support their statements with actual facts and cites.
Okay, maybe not, but who am I to turn down a request?
Posted by Gary Farber | Link to this comment | 02-22-06 8:41 PM
nationalize newark, eh?
hhmm....
Posted by matty | Link to this comment | 02-22-06 8:46 PM
Gary, you really are the contrarian, aren't you?
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 02-22-06 8:48 PM
This perhaps better-sourced piece (yeah, it's a Freeper link, but the text may be accurate) says "minor princes from the United Arab Emirates."
Anyway, I currently about agree with this.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 02-22-06 8:59 PM
Kevin has been excellent on this (unlike Josh Marshall, who's mostly been doing the irritating Andrew Sullivan e-mail from readers bit).
On the princes, remember that, as Gary notes, the UAE really is a confederation of autonomous emirates which differ a lot from each other. Some have oil, some don't (Dubai doesn't), and some are wealthier than others. For something to be relevant to this issue, it really would have to involve Dubai specifically.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 02-22-06 10:06 PM
"Gary, you really are the contrarian, aren't you?"
Eh. Whatever I say, it's contrary to someone, after all. What I don't do is worry about who happens to agree or disagree with me, but rather about whether they're right or wrong.
Although just to indulge in some lovely ad hominem and guilt by association, if you disagree with me on this one, you're right in line with Michelle Malkin, Powerline, Glenn Reynolds, Little Green Footballs, Roger Simon, Hugh Hewitt, Alexandra von Maltzan, Captain Ed, and the rest of the looney tunes.
I particularly enjoyed Tom Macguire's citing of 24 as an authority here. Which is pretty much exactly the level the objections are coming on.
But they've probably all got it right. After all, Chuck Schumer also agrees.
But, yeah, I wouldn't care if all these nutbars accidentally agreed with me, and I thought I was right. As I said, I don't make up my mind or reason through things because of who happens to agree or disagree with me.
This makes me all special and unique and unlike anyone else, of course. I am Very Brave.
Posted by Gary Farber | Link to this comment | 02-22-06 10:24 PM
"This perhaps better-sourced piece (yeah, it's a Freeper link, but the text may be accurate)"
Matt, you could just link to the damn Times of London piece, you know, instead of "perhaps" and "may"-ing over linking to a Freeper.
But this is about... oh, it's about the Scheuer account of the Predator non-strike on Osama. Well, um, that story was told years before Scheuer came out of the anonymous closet, after all, by multiple sources. There was some question involved there?
"some don't (Dubai doesn't),"
42: Well, not so much; it would be wrong to say Dubai has no oil at all. They've got more than the Beverly Hilbillies had. But they've famously diversified like mad.
Josh Marshall is a smart guy who brings forth valuable information with great frequency, but his style has been driving me absolutely mad for years.
Okay, gotta go watch South Park reruns I never saw cuz I don't have cable, now.
Generally cranky statement triggered by three other bloggers today having nothing whatever to do with this blog, all blogging about issues having nothing whatever to do with this ports issue, but hust because I see this same phenonenon every bleedin' day, and have since I started reading blogs in 2001: a huge problem that occurs when bloggers blog about stuff they basically don't know anything about, but because they read some article today, or last week, is that they have no frigging context of knowledge to place it in, and thus no goddamn idea whether what they're quoting/saying makes the least goddamn sense, or is remotely right or not. All they do is mindlessly reproduce what the article they read said, and then leap to conclusions (and usually elaborate theories) based on their reading, which turns out to be completely baseless, but they're too completely clueless to know.
God help people who blog about depleted uranium, but couldn't tell an alpha particle from a gamma ray if OMG, radio waves were passing through their body (it's radiation!) at that very moment. For instance. Or believe a story in Raw Story that the House Intelligence Committee is cancelling a hearing!!!! No matter that the hearing actually took place two weeks ago, which you'd know if you were actually paying attention non-randomly. Hell, just repeat stuff when you have no idea what you're talking about! You're educating people! Repeat rumors even when you say "now, I don't know if this is true...." It's responsible! Spread rumors! Be a freaking blogger! Show the Evial MSM how to do it!
That's what blogging is all about. Apparently.
Here endth the mad rant, and why people blogging about stuff they don't know anything about drives me crazy. Mad, I tell you, mad!
Nothing personal. (Hell, maybe they'll blog about Haiti and never have heard of Rene Preval; why the hell not?; [no one here could possibly figure out who I have in mind, of course, no siree; also, it's impossible to write sarcasm in, uh, writing, doncha know?])
Posted by Gary Farber | Link to this comment | 02-22-06 10:54 PM
Point taken about Dubai. And let me just say, Gary, that I've been thoroughly enjoying all your comments here over the past couple of days.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 02-22-06 11:05 PM
Next up, a pipeline from Russia controlled by a Russian corporation that is largely state-owned. Got something against Russians?
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 02-22-06 11:11 PM
"Got something against Russians?"
Some of my grandparents came from Russia. (And also from Poland. Same grandparents, same place; it was the border that moved.)
So, me: no. Got a lot against Putin, though. Though, heaven knows, he'd never use a pipeline as a political weapon, thank heavens! (Which is part of what is so insane about worrying about where the CEO of a company managing non-security aspects of a U.S. port while, y'know, if you're worried about who can shut off a part of the world's oil supply, including ours [although only a small part of the U.S. oil supply actually comes from the Mideast -- something like ~12 percent or so, it's the Europeans and the Japanese that have the big worries there; we just worry about the price of a fungible commodity], maybe you'd like to worry about the point of origin of the frigging supply, instead, rather than starting at our end of it. Why worry about one and not the other? And if you can't control one, what's the point in worrying about controlling the other? It makes no sense whatever. I completely don't get it. Worried about someone cutting off our ports from getting oil? Geez, fortunately there could never be an oil embargo, so everything will just be fine if we make sure our ports are only staffed by good Aryans like John Walker Lindh and Richard Reid. Whatever, dude.)
"And let me just say, Gary, that I've been thoroughly enjoying all your comments here over the past couple of days."
Don't confuse me with compliments! You are plotting to lessen my completely justified sense of persecution and ill-treatment! Don't think I can't see right through your insidious little maneuver! I am too smart for you! And as we know, when I criticize someone's opinion, that is exactly the same as saying they have no right to have an opinion. Same exact thing! Do not defy my mighty opinion about your opinion! The awesome power of my words will defeat your puny compliments, because I have mighty Jiant Japanese Robot Words to back me up! With rocket elbows!
Posted by Gary Farber | Link to this comment | 02-22-06 11:34 PM
Oh no! Spare me from the rocket elbows!
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 02-22-06 11:54 PM
Ok, I'm not about to get into the actual port discussion because I haven't been following it and it doesn't bother me too much as long as it's not about security operations, but
American != racial classification.
If I were worried about port operations I'd worry about the British and French and Germans (none of these nationalities are currently racial classifications either, though they can be more restricted according to heredity than American). The fact that I did not so worry previously would be merely a reflection of my earlier lack of knowledge that such operations were run by foreign companies, and not a reflection of my view of such countries and their (non homogeneous) populations.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 12:05 AM
You know, what this whole thing most reminds me of is the furor over Kelo: a recent action that has little practical effect makes people realize that there is an existing state of affairs they don't like. They flip out and protest against the recent action, even though reversing it would have no effect on the underlying concern. In this case, it's the fact that foreign companies run our ports, and have for years. It's not just P&O -- COSCO is Chinese and Maersk is Danish. This doesn't bother me, but it clearly bothers some people. The problem is that this would still be the case even if this deal falls through, and it would be very hard to change it.
The thing that bothers me isn't that reaction, which I think is probably the main one on the left, but the reaction of those who are more concerned about the fact that this is an Emirati company specifically. I'm really hoping the deal goes through regardless; the last thing we need is more alienation.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 12:18 AM
Ye new story. Presumably someone here can link it tomorrow after they find it via Brad deLong or Kevin Drum.
I haven't blogged anything about port security in a long time because nothing very important has changed since I was writing stuff like this. Damn shame that the NYRB moves their articles behind the paywall after a few weeks, though.
"...eminds me of is the furor over Kelo: a recent action that has little practical effect makes people realize that there is an existing state of affairs they don't like. They flip out and protest against the recent action, even though reversing it would have no effect on the underlying concern."
Yep. That so few containers are inspected, that so few radiation detectors are out there, that so (relatively) few other various detection devices are installed, that we've not taken the money out of a couple of planned-for Virginia-class subs (~$2.6 billion apiece), say, and put it into port security -- that's what people should be concerned about regarding ports. Not with trying to profile management companies by nationality.
(I'm still moronically pissed at Pat Buchanan just being the same idiotically Pat Buchanan on Sunday for ranting about how we need to racially profile Ay-rabs, because, after all, we know that that's how to find terrorists -- way to protect us, Pat! No way we'll ever be attacked by terrorists who are pale-skinned, or Chechens, or Indonesians, or Filipinos, or British, or German, or Russian, or Uighur, or Hui, or Kazakh, or from the Ivory Ghost, or Ghana, or Tanzania, or Russia, or India, and on and on -- no, angry Muslim extremists all from the Middle East, and swarthy; we can spot terrorists by skin color, place of origin, and appearance, fer sure; and we should ban anyone from these countries from working near U.S. strategic assets, to be safe.)
Posted by Gary Farber | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 1:31 AM
49: "...a reflection of my earlier lack of knowledge that such operations were run by foreign companies...."
I'll also repeat for emphasis that the overwhelming majority of cargo ships bringing cargo to America are owned by foreign companies (and frequently the ownership is so masked by so many layers of holding companies that it's literally impossible for even the most dedicated and experienced best teams of U.S. task forces, with all the resources of U.S. law enforcement at their disposal, to figure out who really owns them, in the end), and that the overwhelming majority of the crew of said cargo ships are furriners.
What the hell is the point of worrying about the ethnic purity of the people working at the U.S. port if the ships and crew aren't properly ethnically pure? Not to mention that it turns out that studies have revealed that most shipping from overseas actually comes from foreign countries. I demand we put a stop to this at once! We must import critical goods only from ourselves! It's the only way to guarantee that such goods can't be cut off by foreigners!
Hell, let's just nuke all those damn foreigners. It's the only way to be sure.
Posted by Gary Farber | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 1:41 AM
Again: countries are not (usually) ethnicities. And companies often hire members of more than one nationality.
Also: ports are not ships.
And: customs/border patrol agents are not the people operating the vehicles they inspect. The point here seems to be that the management company does not perform the same tasks that representatves/agents of the US government normally perform.
Furthermore: up is not down.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 2:05 AM
(You know what, in the time that it took for my comment to show up after the error messages I got I edited the comment. So I'm going to post it a second time.)
Again: countries are not (usually) ethnicities. And companies often hire members of more than one nationality.
Also: ports are not ships. The fact that many ships are foreign owned and operated does not automatically entail anything about the ownership and operation of things not those ships.
And: customs/border patrol/Coast Guard agents are not the people operating the vehicles they inspect. The point here seems to be that the management company does not perform the same tasks that representatves/agents of the US government normally perform, not that ships are foreign owned and operated, so why not other things? What those other things are matters.
Furthermore: up is not down.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 2:14 AM
Last link of the night. (I hope.)
Posted by Gary Farber | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 2:43 AM
"Atrios has the royal family of the UAE."
Good trick, since there is no such thing. The UAE is a federation.
That's not entirely accurate. It's a federation of emirates. The rulers of the seven emirates are what compose the Federal Supreme Council. The Council is who elects the President and Vice President, appoints legislators, and has final approval on federal legislation. So the families of those emirates are very much royal families.
As for being moderate, they're moderate relative to their neighbors. Not a high bar we're setting here. Women can actually obtain divorces and even keep custody of the chilldren, etc., but you're accessing the internet through a censored govt. monopoly and you've still got Sharia civil courts handing out floggings for things like marriage across religious lines.
With regard to the ports thing, Arab states in general don't seem all that concerned with our security issues. The Saudis fund the Wahabi's to the tunes of hundreds of millions, Pakistan won't let us conduct operations in their mountain regions to capture Al Qaeda, they give out nuclear technology like it's candy, etc. The UAE doesn't exactly have a stellar law enforcement record either. Their banking industry is a regional center for money laundering, and was used to funnel money by the 9-11 hiackers. The subsequent complaint from our Treasury is that UAE hasn't been all that cooperative in helping us track Al Qaeda accounts. They're also major destination in human trafficking for sexual exploitation, young boys for camel jockeys, etc. That doesn't directly affect the issue at hand, but it doesn't speak well of their general security practices. There's also the little matter of large numbers of their ruling families being personal guests of OBL.
Yes, there are other huge concerns with regard to port security we need to address. But outsourcing operations to countries like the UAE doesn't strike me as a step in the right direction.
Posted by gswift | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 6:08 AM
gswift, I'm not going to argue that UAE is a Western democracy, but surely their status as a destination for human trafficking has very little to do with the company's ability to manage a port. It's like arguing that the U.S. sanctions torture, so Ford can't put a plant in Paris because the employees might start torturing the French.
In any case, I don't think anyone knows what port management is, really, and that's a source of most of the confusion. As near as I can tell, the function isn't security, and seems most akin to managing a large office building complex. Like saying that because foreign holders invest in a skyscraper, it's more likely to fall. And surely these companies are still going to employ Americans; some of the blogosphere is acting like this change over means all the British guys working at the docks are going to be replace by al-Qaeda trainees.
I'd be more worried about where the ships themselves were coming from.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 6:43 AM
After 9/11 I read what I could about al Qaeda and a lot of the clues traced back to Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and the UAE. Afghanistan was a base of operations, as the Sudan and Yemen sometimes were too, but Wahhabi fundamentalism came from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States and Pakistan's security forces had ties with al Qaeda. What especially was important was funding, because despite everything people think about spontaneous outrage, al Qaeda was an organization that could pay its bills.
For whatever reason, we haven't called these coundtries to account, except Pakistan to a very small degree, and none of them have given us unreserved cooperation. We're occasionally assured that they're all OK now, but it's strictly on a "trust me" basis. Saudi Arabia and the UAE in particular are archaic regimes with no transparency at all.
The people who actually were called to account were Iraq, N. Korea (verbally), Iran (verbally but heating up), with occasional mentions of Libya, Syria, Cuba, Colombia, and Venezuela. (Not a joke).
So anyway, this isn't a racial thing. If Gary wants to lump me with Malkin I'll lump him with..... some very, very bad person. Perhaps Godwin himself. Or maybe Mariah Carey.
The Gulf States have somewhat liberalized compared to the Saudis, but the reason that they're all "moderate" is just because they're not openly anti-American on the diplomatic front. But they seem to be the main ones exporting Wahhabi fundamentalism into the poorer, weaker areas of the Muslim world. (Al Qaeda was just a bonus).
I've been following the debate, and people are saying that this particular type of deal isn't really significant security-wise. That's on a trust-me basis again, but if it's true it might change my mind.
I think that the whole effort to link absolute free trade with the war against racism is absolutely bogus. The blind fanaticism of free-traders sometimes boggles me.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 7:06 AM
the reason that they're all "moderate" is just because they're not openly anti-American
I believe Colbert's bullet-point encapsulated this nuance this by saying,
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 7:16 AM
1) A manager based in UAE might find it easier to infiltrate a terrorist into the United States if the manager works for a company conducting port operations in the United States (this obviously is contingent on a host of other factors as well);"
How?
I'm not entirely sure how, Gary. The basic idea is that the managers of a company who use specialized skills and labors, especially involving international trade, might find it easier than others to infiltrate a person into this country. Obviously I don't know the details. But the possibility is a reason to take a closer look.
"2) Managers in the UAE may now have easier access to security-related information about US ports that they did not have previously, and there is a risk that such information may be passed on to al Qaeda sympathizers in the UAE;"
They may. And pigs may fly out of my butt. The evidence for this potentially happening is?
This is a blog. We're not doing a formal threat assessment. I don't know what the probability of this occurring is, and neither do you. Those of us who are concerned, though, want to take a closer look because we don't know.
I'll repeat again: the most recent Western suicide bombers were four guys from Leeds.
Which indicates the possibility that radicals already living here can pose a threat. It does NOT indicate that the threat from homegrown radicals is as large or as well-funded as the threat from radicals overseas. You're using a single instance of terrorism to assess comparative magnitude of threats everywhere, and that's clearly fallacious.
I think another big part of the confusion and ignorance here probably also lies in confusion over what's involved in a corporate headquarters of a global corporation being in one particular place or another. Short summary is that it's pretty much meaningless.
On the contrary, in a very interconnected world the global HQ, and the various offices scattered throughout the world, can easily access information and expertise from each other.
"3) Managers in the UAE may find it easier to hire an operative who has already infiltrated the United States, evading security checks in the process, and thereby gain the operative access to sensitive or vulnerable areas that he might not otherwise be able to access."
This is, I'm sure, completely plausible when you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.
Gosh, I'm sorry Gary. I didn't realize that you were privy to the background checks and procedures that DHS runs on port workers. Please, enlighten us, and tell us why these procedures are impervious to manipulation by the host company.
This is complete fantasy. Nothing more. And specifically contradicted by previously cited facts, such as the minor point that the managing company has nothing to do with security.
Just as a company working inside an airport will have expanded opportunities to evade security, though clearly will not have carte blanche to do so, so too, it seems to me, would a company that runs port operations. There's a spectrum of risk. You seem to be working from a false dichotomy in which companies either do or do not pose a security risk. It doesn't work that way.
Not to mention that Islamic terrorists don't particularly necessarily come from The Evil Mideast.
It's not about what is necessarily the case. Few things are.
If we're going to start banning companies based in countries with a major Islamic population, [...]
Everyone here has simply said that we should be careful.
Posted by Andrew | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 7:23 AM
Damn it. This line wasn't italicized in the above, and should have been:
This is, I'm sure, completely plausible when you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.
Posted by Andrew | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 7:27 AM
While the management company does not itself handle the security questions, the management company is one of the main factors that the security company has to watch.
Our own intelligence services freely use legit corporation such as Bechtel as fronts for their operations. A large company can be 97% legit and still be a front for an intelligence service or a terrorist group. All you need is people in management (not even top management, necessarily) who are willing to function that way.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 7:39 AM
As near as I can tell, the function isn't security, and seems most akin to managing a large office building complex.
This point, which Gary has also been making by implication, that operating a port has absolutely nothing to do with security strikes me as off base. I work in a large office building with all sorts of post-9-11 security; I need my little card to get through the turnstiles, visitors need to show ID to get a temporary card, etc. None of the formal security poses any significant restraint on what people working in building management and operations can bring into and out of the building: security guards aren't inspecting cleaning supplies, there aren't turnstiles to walk through at the freight entrances, and so forth. This does not mean that I'm flip-flopping back again, but I really want to disagree with the idea that port operations can be neatly separated from security.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 7:59 AM
surely their status as a destination for human trafficking has very little to do with the company's ability to manage a port.
But it does. Imagine the law enforcement priorities and/or practices that allow people to rather freely traffic large numbers of human beings in and out of the country. Those are not the people we want running the access points into our country.
function isn't security, and seems most akin to managing a large office building complex.
This is where I think Gary goes wrong as well. Just because they don't directly supervise security doesn't mean their practices can't impact security operations. Imagine a telecom company that has shoddy record retrieval and no clear process in place to handle law enforcement requests. Imagine every time a law enforcement agency goes to them with a records request, it takes the company days to get back to them. It could severely impact the work of the law enforcement agency involved.
With that in mind, now let's look at these excerpts from a Guardian piece linked by Josh Marshall.
"The administration did not require Dubai Ports to keep copies of business records on U.S. soil, where they would be subject to court orders. It also did not require the company to designate an American citizen to accommodate U.S. government requests."
and
"Under the deal, the government asked Dubai Ports to operate American seaports with existing U.S. managers "to the extent possible." It promised to take "all reasonable steps" to assist the Homeland Security Department..."
If Treasury's experience with the UAE is any indicator, I think we can be fairly certain their idea of "all reasonable steps" is going to very different from ours. For starters, we now know that "all reasonable steps" does not include such things as keeping copies of business records on U.S. soil.
Posted by gswift | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 8:23 AM
To me, the bigger question is why Bush is so very keen on ensuring this particular deal go through -- a question that hinges, I suspect, not on issues of security but on whose pockets get filled. Something tells me there is more to this story.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 8:33 AM
64: You're reading my mind. I've got one more post up on this, saying essentially what's in your comment.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 8:49 AM
I have predicted a ten million dollar UAE golden handshake for Bush in 2009.
The UAE part is the weakest part of that speculation. Who will it really be? I don't know.
But Dubya's been scrimping by on a couple of hundred thousand a year for five years already, and his personal fortune is in the low seven figures, so he's going to be one needy dude once he steps down.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 9:11 AM
he's going to be one needy dude
In a just universe, that would be due to legal bills.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 9:13 AM
The first link in 51 shows up in my browser's window menu as, "Big Problem, Dubai Deal... Not."
(I, and I believe many left-leaning blog-readers have been worried/ragingly pissed about port security for a while. As have, as Gary notes, Democrats in Congress.)
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 9:23 AM
I could otherwise elaborate on the details of the structure government of the United Arab Emirates, and claim that therefore your description is "inaccurate," but I'd be wrong if I made such a claim.
"As for being moderate, they're moderate relative to their neighbors. Not a high bar we're setting here. Women can actually obtain divorces and even keep custody of the chilldren, etc., but you're accessing the internet through a censored govt. monopoly and you've still got Sharia civil courts handing out floggings for things like marriage across religious lines."
Indeed, it's U.S. law and custom that we approve of all the domestic policies of any country whose companies we allow to do business in the U.S. Why hadn't I realized the relevance of that before?
"The UAE doesn't exactly have a stellar law enforcement record either. Their banking industry is a regional center for money laundering, and was used to funnel money by the 9-11 hiackers."
And fortunately no terrorist money has flowed through the banking systems of the United States, Britain, Germany, or any non-Arab country, which is good, because if it had, we'd have to note that all such countries had "ties" to terrorists, and we'd have to forbid them from doing business in the U.S.
Posted by Gary Farber | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 11:50 AM
"With that in mind, now let's look at these excerpts from a Guardian piece linked by Josh Marshall."
It's not a Grauniad piece at all. It's an AP piece. Obviously.
Posted by Gary Farber | Link to this comment | 02-23-06 11:54 AM