Common Folk Using Common Sense

Trackbacked at Alpine Summit:

One of the biggest holes in our national security, besides our porous borders with Mexico and Canada, are the container ports. Through major ports on the East and West coasts come those big metal boxes. They’re then loaded onto 16-wheeler trucks and fanned out all over the country. You name it, they carry it - everything from all over the world. The United States has 95,000 miles of open shoreline with 361 ports. Annually, about 7,500 ships make about 51,000 port calls and unload more than 6 million shipping containers.

There are probably millions of these containers that come in from all over the world each year. It is next to impossible to look in each one and search it. It’s a huge security loophole. How hard would it be for an Islamic terrorist to sneak a dirty bomb into a shipping container and bring it over from somewhere in the Middle East? Not very hard. It’s so easy, it probably won’t be long before somebody tries it.

The Bush administration chose to allow an Arab-owned company, in a $6.8 billion sale, to take over the London-based Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co., which runs the ports in New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, New Orleans, Miami and Philadelphia. The name of the company is Dubai Ports World. It is owned by the United Arab Emirates.

The Department of Homeland Security was the lead agency in supporting the deal, based on past United Arab Emirates cooperation with a U.S.-led shipping container security initiative in Dubai. Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also said the U.S. military has close ties to the United Arab Emirates. “In everything that we have asked and work with them on, they have proven to be very, very solid partners,” Gen. Pace said.

Former CENTCOM commanding general Tommy Franks said Wednesday that the Bush administration was right to approve a deal for a United Arab Emirates-based company to run six major U.S. ports. “We have more U.S. Navy ships using the port in Dubai, Jebel Ali, than any other port outside the United States,” Franks said.

Senator joe Lieberman insisted that the Dubai deal did nothing to increase the vulnerabilities of an already under-protected U.S. ports system. “The truth is I worry more about the failure to invest enough in port security in America through the Homeland Security Department to detect dangerous items, WMD, coming in here than I worry right now about this, this sale,” he said.

Critics have cited the UAE’s history as an operational and financial base for the hijackers who carried out the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. In addition, they contend the UAE was an important transfer point for shipments of smuggled nuclear components sent to Iran, North Korea and Libya by a Pakistani scientist.

One long-term worry is that al Qaeda terrorists will attempt to smuggle a nuclear device into the United States through a port via a shipping container. Allowing a Middle Eastern company to manage key ports “would be like putting the fox in charge of the henhouse,” said one security official, who, like most other critics, spoke on the condition of anonymity. Another official said the problem is not the company but its location in a region rife with Islamic terrorism. “You have to be concerned about a firm from that part of the world managing the ports,” this official said. “They are more vulnerable to compromise and penetration by terrorists, even if they are just managing the port.”

Senator Rick Santorum told the Philadelphia Inquirer, “The very idea of allowing this state-owned company to control vital operational services of major American ports, including Philadelphia, is preposterous. Which is why, on Thursday, I sent a letter to President Bush imploring him to use every resource at his disposal to prevent this substantial security risk from taking place.”

Robert Menendez, Democratic Senator from New Jersey, had this to say: “No matter what steps the administration claims it has secretly taken, it is an unacceptable risk to turn control of our ports over to a foreign government, particularly one with a troubling history. We cannot depend on promises a foreign government has given the administration in secret to secure our ports.”

In addition to the six affected ports mentioned above, two others would also have part of their operations managed by DP World — on behalf of none other than the U.S. Army. Under a newly extended contract, the owner of P and O will manage the movement of heavy armor, helicopters and other military materiel through the Texas seaports of Beaumont and Corpus Christie. How much would our enemies like to be able to sabotage such shipments?

Now we find out that President Bush himself was unaware of the pending sale of shipping operations at six major U.S. seaports to a state-owned business in the United Arab Emirates until the deal already had been approved by his administration. Huh? Who is it in his administration that is making such deals without the President even knowing about it?

“I will fight harder than ever for this legislation, and if it is vetoed I will fight as hard as I can to override it,” said Rep. Pete King, R-N.Y., chairman of the Homeland Security Committee. King and Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer of New York said they will introduce emergency legislation to suspend the ports deal.

The Coast Guard is responsible for port security, tracking ships, crews and cargo and search vessels based on intelligence. “This transaction has been incorrectly reported as being about port security or port ownership,” National Security Council spokesman Frederick Jones said. “No. It is about managing port operations. Port security remains the shared responsibility of local port authorities, the Department of Homeland Security, the Transportation Department, the Coast Guard and others.”

Look folks, we’re at war right now. Call this World War III. It is an ongoing fight against worldwide terrorism, about 97% of which directly involves militant Islam. The United Arab Emirates are an Islamic country. It makes no difference whether this company is simply involved with the logistics of port activity, they are a country with historical ties to militant Islam.

Have the United Arab Emirates been able to divorce themselves from the influence of radical Islam, along with its hatred of all things American? I don’t know. It today the day to find out? You don’t just hand over something this important to the control of a company based on the soil of your enemy.

There is only one major world religion out there that has as one of its basic tenants the goal of world domination. That religion is Islam. There is only one religion out there with a sizable faction that has declared war on our country, and which is dedicated to the goal of killing as many of us as they possibly can. That religion is Islam. The United Arab Emirates is an Islamic country, with an Islamic government.

The primary method of screening is for our port security officials to look at the container manifests while those containers are at sea to determine which containers will be opened for further screening. What is being proposed here is to put a foreign government, an Islamic government, in virtual control over just how those manifests are prepared and how they will read - especially the manifests for containers being shipped from a port operated by an Islamic government to a port being operated by an Islamic government.

Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, the company selling the American ports operations to Dubai Ports World, is a private company. Peninsular is not owned by the government of Great Britain. Dubai Ports world is a state-owned company, owned by the United Arab Emirates. So, what we have here is a private company selling its rights to operate these six ports in the Untied States to a government, a 96% Muslim Islamic government.

So let’s focus on the differences between Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company and Dubai Ports World:

• Great Britain is not an Islamic Nation. The de facto state religion there is Anglican, the Church of England. The UAE IS an Islamic Nation.
• The 9/11 hijackers did not use Great Britain as an operational and financial base for the planning and funding of their attacks on the United States. The 9/11 hijackers did use the United Arab Emirates as an operational and financial base for the planning and funding of their attacks on the United States.
• None of the 9/11 hijackers came from Great Britain. Two of the 9/11 hijackers came from the United Arab Emirates.
• Great Britain did not recognize the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan. The United Arab Emirates did recognize the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan.
• Great Britain recognizes the government of Israel. The UAE does not recognize the government of Israel.
• Supporters of this move will tell you that there are already foreign companies already running most of American port operations. We’re not talking about a foreign company here. We’re talking about a foreign government.

There are many in the blogosphere that are ranting and raving about this. Some, people whose opinions I respect, think that there is nothing specifically bad with this deal. This is a case where I have to respectfully disagree with them. I think this is a bad deal for the US, and I think this way based on the facts I have read and not just some unbridled Islamophobia..

This has nothing to do with bigotry, but rather common sense. When it comes to national security, bigotry doesn’t enter into the equation. It’s all about cold, hard facts. If we turn over the port security to a company from the Middle East, will they defend it as vigorously as an American company would? Would there be one employee who might look the other way when an Islamic terrorist wants to put a little something extra in a shipping container? Who knows. This is simply a risk that many Americans don’t want to face.

national security, Islam, Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation, port, Dubai Ports World, United Arab Emirates

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