Autonomy

The Dubai Ports deal saga... the US has handled this so badly. It beggars belief the way this has been blocked.

Its fine for 75% of US ports to be handled by foreign companies, but when it is an Arab owned company then, "NO we will not allow it".

Racist, xenophobic, nonspecific and against the free market.

Democrats and Republican's alike, a sorry mess.

The way that DP has handled this has been admirable and respectful, something the US admistration has appeard to be incapable of...

"It is just assuming that if a company is from the Middle East it is de facto disqualified from investing in the United States, and I think that is a terrible message to send," said Daniel Griswold, director of the Cato Institute's Centre for Trade Policy Studies.

BigDavyG

True
I await the response of our Democrat friends with interest - after all this is the kind of behaviour one would normally only expect from those nasty Republicans.

I also look forward to US arms makers halting all sales of weaponry to Saudi Arabia immediately

anotherlimey

I thought is was more than 75% - but that's irrelevant.

Absolutely disgusting to discriminate just because it's an Arab company; perhaps the politicians need to do some more homework on the UAE, they are far better than the Saudis IMO.

They mentioned on NPR this morning that Emirates Airways/Airlines was due to order some new Boeings soon, but that order will probably now go to Airbus.

elfman

The media here also handled this poorly - I don't think I've ever seen a news story so thoroughly misrepresented as this one: Reading the news media here you'd think that the Bush administration had personally sold control of American ports to Arabs for $6.8 billion, when that sum actually referred to the cost to takeover the whole of P&O - the value of the US ports operations has been quoted at less than 10% of that, and the time for Americans to complain about foreigners controlling these particular US ports was six years ago (during the Clinton administration), when the original P&O deal was done. You really had to dig around to find out that these ports were not being operated by US entities immediately prior to the Dubai deal.

I actually started to feel a bit sorry for Bush, because it's not like he engineered the deal, but he and his gang proceeded to handle the whole thing with their usual mix of incompetence and arrogance, and at the end of the day I'm tempted to cheer on anything that makes them look like the crooks and buffoons they are.

Shahlax

Excellent.

Sarah

Yep unbelievably racist.

Doesn't matter what they were going to do, how they were going to manage the ports, how many jobs wuold be lost/created.
The two main factors were; Are these people brown, and are they muslim?
Yes to both so see ya laters only non-muslim whites please.

BigDavyG

Not sure about that - xenophobic yes, sectarian probably, racist well maybe, but that's so far down the list that the decision had already been made long before they ever got to that criteria.

snowbunny

The Chinese run ports in California. Why isn't this a problem? They certainly aren't white. They certainly aren't American.

I don't think this is racially motivated so much as knee-jerk reaction against Muslim countries, period. Equally stupid, but a bit different.

However, Bush HAS caused a lot of his own comeuppance by sensitising and polarising Americans against Muslim countries. He can't do that on the one hand and then wonder why the *public* is upset about the thought of a Muslim country operating ports. If the public were not upset, the deal would have gone through.

BigDavyG

This has very little to do with the public, and a lot to do with the stupid f**kers who drive the media agenda in this country.

neil

This is essentially what the democrats have got hold of and why they're making a big deal of it. I was reading an article yesterday (can't remember where though) that said about the Republican backlash against Bush on this one because they weren't going to be "out-righted" by the Democrats. Thought that was quite funny.

snowbunny

The day I left for Europe I had to drive to Houston. I listened to a call-in show where nearly every caller was xenophobically against the deal based on Muslim = terrorist *and* the fact that the UAE allegedly did money laundering for the 9/11 hijackers, and some of them flew to the US from the UAE.

Bush has used 9/11 as an excuse for anything he wants. Now it's turnabout.

anotherlimey

Yep, the Ds are doing it because they'll chalk up a few points for it, but only because the public thinks they're correct.

BigDavyG

Of course there are nut-jobs out there, but...
Who do you think controls what callers get put on air ???

Its often those with the smallest minds and most extreme views who shout the loudest I'm afraid.

Autonomy

That is all true. However the UAE takes more US military ships than any other country in the world.

Obviously it is full of terrorists. Just because it is a Muslim country and an Arab country...

Because Timothy McVey is American and all that... makes me despair... really does...

snowbunny

The ties to Iraq and the 9/11 hijackers are more tenuous than their ties to the UAE! And yet Bush banged that drum hard.... 9/11 = Iraq, Iraq = 9/11....

The chickens are coming home to roost, rightly or wrongly.