posted February 25, 2006
The issue of United States port control has rendered one of the finest ethical, intellectual conundrums of the decade. The Top 25 ingredients of the riddle go something like this:
1) The United States is embroiled in a war on terror.
2) One of our named allies in the "war on terror" is the United Arab Emirates. They have proposed a seven billion dollar transaction that would transfer the right to operate several key American ports.
3) The United Arab Emirates recognized the Taliban in its official foreign policy.
4) Two of the 9-11 hijackers were citizens of the United Arab Emirates.
6) The United Arab Emirates benefits from United States security forces in their region.
7) The United Arab Emirates is regularly accused of human rights violations.
8) The United Arab Emirates is an oil-rich nation. Last I checked, we use oil.
9) The ports utilize extensive union labor, often reportedly at exceptional wages. Other countries have reportedly refused to invest in our ports due to the union stranglehold.
10) The United Arab Emirates, in its country, bans unions and strikes.
11) The United Arab Emirates has a strong, experienced international port industry.
12) American citizens have learned for the first time that China, surprisingly, is also in the American port ownership business.
13) The United Arab Emirates funded the Edward Said chair in Middle East Studies at Columbia University, filled by an apologetic of Palestinian violence.
14) The United Arab Emirates broke relations with Egypt when an Israeli peace treaty was signed in 1979, and the UAE does not officially recognize Israel.
15) Saudi Arabia doesn't officially recognize Israel either, and is among the largest donors to Palestinian causes. Should this change our policies with regard to the Saudis as well?
16) Many Americans are unaware how the port system actually works, the hierarchy of security and the actual implication of the owner/operator agreements that drive our port operations. This has created a firestorm of controversy based partly on our need, as Americans, to study and understand the issues of the day.
17) Many Americans believe the port issue amounts to outsourcing key infrastructure to hostile Arab governments. This is hardly an accurate representation, however it does reflect genuine, legitimate concern on the part of the American citizenry.
18) Supporters of the transfer cite rampant racism as the reason the United Arab Emirates might potentially be blocked from domestic U.S. port operation.
19) Democrats are reportedly using this issue as a political jumpstart to show attention to anti-Arab fervor, after trying to convince Americans that the war on terror is a fable. Are the formerly multi-culturalist Democrats trying to whip the public into a frenzy, using the United Arab Emirates as an innocent scapegoat to gain some national security credentials?
20) Are Republicans guilty of their big business pedigree, willing to allow the United Arab Emirates control of our ports while creating a potential Trojan horse venue in the process?
21) Has the Bush Administration failed by not requiring the United Arab Emirates to follow strict domestic data warehousing and reporting requirements?
22) Is the United Arab Emirates trying to avoid the jurisdiction of our courts system by not wanting their records kept on our soil?
23) Are we proposing to punish a critical ally in a difficult part of the world because of skin color and guilt by association?
24) These seven billion dollars, where are they coming from? Are they sitting in a UAE bank waiting for transfer? Will they come from a bond market, opening the opportunity for some frightening investors to piggyback on this scary deal?
25) The United Arab Emirates also controls a port at Vancouver, Canada. Should we tell the Canadians to send them packing?
It is quite possible the transfer of port operation to the United Arab Emirates firm is little more than a benign transaction. It is equally possible that the above twenty five ingredients, some of them nonsense or at least ill-informed misrepresentation, should serve as catalyst to a full examination of our ports and related security. For many claims that support the UAE, there are balanced counterclaims to generate legitimate concern.
The United Arab Emirates is, like all Arab nations, saddled with the precarious necessity to balance business with a serious religious undercurrent we Americans just do not understand. I know I don't. I can't contemplate living in a region, for example, where Alabama's economy depends on the opium trade and Kentucky is subject to being overthrown while Florida is scaring the world with its nuclear arms ambitions that could potentially erase my Missouri friends from the map. Americans are comfortable in our geography, and our nation was founded on bedrock of hopeful religious tolerance that does not exist in much of the Middle East. When a cartoonist in Denmark can set an entire region on alert, do questions arise as to just how much we can invite this culture into the infrastructure of our own?
I do not pretend to have the answer on the port issue. I am only outlining some of the many complicated, often opposing puzzles that should be taken very seriously before this transaction is allowed to proceed.
Unfortunately, many of these complex arguments are fundamental Middle East affairs that have existed for centuries. I am a Republican that wants to support this administration when its decisions are reasonable. I do not want to follow a course of obtuse racism and deny the United Arab Emirates a business opportunity in our free nation.
I am also unwilling to import a roster of societal consequences that could result from this beast of foreign entanglements.
Perhaps it is best to reward the United Arab Emirates for their assistance in our war on terror, and build an even stronger relationship by extending the distinct honor of a friend's trust.
Perhaps it is also best to require our ports to remain under American operational control as well as American security. This would also require serving eminent domain papers on China and any others who control property related to our port operations.
This intellectual nightmare is indicative of national security issues we must confront as sovereign nation. Are we still a sovereign nation? Did we export our willingness to act like one? There is far more to this scenario than racial emotion, and anyone who can make a clear decision on this long term decision – this early in the discourse – possesses a much greater level of clairvoyance than me.
Jason M. Kibby
Ringgold
ringgold@gmail.com
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