The will of the people

I suppose I'd be remiss if I didn't say something about the "catch o' the day," DP World's decision to abandon its effort to take over terminal operations at six U.S. seaports. Yesterday, I heard and read this decision being hailed as "a victory for the will of the people," "a mutiny among Congressional Republicans," and "a reminder to President Bush that he works for us."

To which I can only reply (with apologies to Penn and Teller), "Bullshit," "Bullshit," and "Bullshit."

Since I'm admittedly a writer of limited means, I defer to these two excellent reports to sum up pretty much everything I might have had to say about this widely misrepresented and misinterpreted situation. From the New York Times:

Even if the battle over DP World is headed toward a resolution, our ports remain dangerously vulnerable to terrorist intrusions. Any politician who harangues about the United Arab Emirates without fighting for more money and more attention for overall port security is posturing for votes, not protecting the country...

No system will ever be airtight, but there is no excuse for being as far off the mark as the United States is now when it comes to port security. If the DP World debate distracts Congress from the larger issue, it will have only decreased overall homeland security.

And from the Washington Post:

[F]oreign firms remain deeply embedded in nearly every major port in the country. And transferring ownership of those operations to U.S. companies could cause serious problems in an industry in which nearly all of the shipping is controlled by foreign interests. An immense amount of capital from those foreigners will be required to expand the nation's port system in coming years as global commerce continues to burgeon...

[T]he majority of terminals at U.S. ports -- especially big ones such as Los Angeles and Long Beach in California, and New York and New Jersey -- are managed by companies from Singapore, Taiwan, Denmark, South Korea and other countries. And as President Bush pointed out in defending the Dubai Ports World deal, the port-management company targeted for takeover, Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co., is British.

Those of you who are regular visitors to this site know that I'd rather gnaw off a foot than concede a point or two to George the Younger. But whether it was by accident or not, the President was right about a couple of things in his initial defense of the DP World deal:

1) "Hey kids, that's the shipping business." If the American public had the capacity for rational or nuanced thought, it might still have protested the ports deal, but only as a springboard to an examination of the realities of the global shipping industry (a la the Post). If our elected Congressional representatives cared about anything other than their chances in the mid-term elections, they might have seized this opportunity to press for long-overdue security upgrades at our understaffed, underfunded ports, or rallied their alleged "mutiny" around the President's woeful failures to actually do anything concrete for 5 years that addresses true homeland port protection.

Instead, as expected, these larger issues will probably fade away, unexamined and unsolved, as politicians, pundits, and the people celebrate their small "victory" in the War on Terror.

2)"Rejecting this deal will send a bad message to our Arab allies." Yeah, I know this one generated a good, derisive chuckle, when viewed in the light of the President's own invasions, missile attacks, torture policies, prisoner executions, use of chemical and depleted uranium weapons, and current threats of strategic allied nuclear strikes on select Islamic nations. And until this moment, I believed it was possible for the average Islamic man, woman, or child, regardless of specific nationality, to separate the madness of our President from the basic "like-ability" of the common American citizen.

But the hysterical, knee-jerk reaction of Congress and the vast majority of U.S. citizens to the Dubai deal sends an insidious message to the entire Islamic community, intended or not. Our specific, targeted outrage at DP World exposes not only a national ignorance about the business of global commerce, but telegraphs a collective acceptance of the exaggerated message of cultural fear the Administration's been sellin' since the day those towers fell. This shrill, one-note cry from the masses now defines our united crusade not as one against small, radical groups of international criminals who advocate violent, murderous spectacle, but instead as one opposed to anything and anyone with the word "Arab" on the resume.

So be proud, America. Score one for homeland security! Because before DP World we were doing such a bang-up job of inspecting containers - and now that Dubai's out of the picture, no worries, mate.

And "Huzzah!" for your rebellion, elected Washington officials. Now that that bi-partisan moment of election theater is over, you can get back to the usual business of shamelessly acquiescing to Administration lying and lawbreaking, pre-emptive Iranian invasion planning, warrantless domestic spying, faith-based rejection of scientific fact on every issue from stem cells to global warming to women's reproductive rights, disaster unpreparedness, assaults on civil liberties, and the host of other White House missteps you've excused with a wink since 2001.

Besides, last I heard, Haliburton might end up taking control of the contested ports. Guess we can all breathe a sigh of relief now...