The deal that touched a nerve

February 24, 2006

The Dubai Ports World controversy, whether the criticism has merit or not, has clearly become a pretty serious imbroglio for the Bush administration. For the NYT’s Tom Friedman and the WaPo’s David Ignatius, among others, White House critics are racist and oppose the UAE deal because of anti-Arab animus. There’s probably no point in denying the notion that acrimony towards the Middle East has fueled at least some of the reaction, but just as the Cheney-shoots-a-guy story played into an existing narrative, so too does the port story.

Dan Froomkin, while noting the significance of xenophobia, suggests today that there are
“all sorts of worrisome and problematic things lurking just below the surface” of this story.

* The nation’s serious, long-ignored vulnerabilities when it comes to port security.

* An enormous trade deficit that guarantees greater foreign ownership of U.S. assets of all kinds.

* The Bush White House’s long tradition of stonewalling, misleading or just plain ignoring Congress.

* The lack of public trust fueled by excessive executive secrecy. […]

* More evidence of a president who is consistently out of the loop.

* The perils of living in a period of politics by hysteria — even for its creator.

I think all of these elements are quite right. Each of the angles Froomkin mentioned have generated at least a little attention before last week, but the Dubai Ports World deal combined them in a way that a) the White House didn’t expect; and b) became politically serious for people in both parties. And if the initial poll numbers are accurate, all of the criticism of the deal is resonating well with the public.

Earlier, one astute commenter asked why this story has enough traction to hurt Bush while similar stories haven’t.

How can he survive (and continue to practice) indefinite detentions, torture, and warrantless domestic spying, and yet this is what takes him out? Is it the straw that finally broke the camel’s back?

The difference, I believe, is fear. When Bush looks up an enemy combatant at Gitmo without charges or a trial, the typical play-by-the-rules American believes the detention doesn’t affect him or her directly. The same applies to torture and warrantless-spying, because typical people believe they don’t have to worry about it.

But the ports are different. The fear is not only real that enemies may want to use ports to import untold dangers, but the fear is justified because of the administration’s poor record on port security.

Sprinkle in some economic insecurity (we’re outsourcing management of our own ports), an unpopular president who has been slow to offer a rationale for the deal, and some vague connections between 9/11 and the UAE, and it’s a recipe for some serious political headaches for the Bush gang.

It’s just a perfect opportunity to talk about how much has been spent on projects that have a questionable relation to (their stated purpose of) protecting us from terrorism (the Iraq war) when so little has been spent on measures that are much more clearly related to our security.

  • UAE terminal takeover extends to 21 PORTS!

    Posted by NJCher
    Added to homepage Fri Feb 24th 2006, 01:11 PM ET

    http://www.democraticunderground.com

    http://www.upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php?StoryID=20060223-051657-4981r

    WASHINGTON, Feb. 24 (UPI) — A United Arab Emirates government-owned company is poised to take over port terminal operations in 21 American ports, far more than the six widely reported.

    The Bush administration has approved the takeover of British-owned Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Co. to DP World, a deal set to go forward March 2 unless Congress intervenes.

    P&O is the parent company of P&O Ports North America, which leases terminals for the import and export and loading and unloading and security of cargo in 21 ports, 11 on the East Coast, ranging from Portland, Maine to Miami, Florida, and 10 on the Gulf Coast, from Gulfport, Miss., to Corpus Christi, Texas, according to the company’s Web site.

  • “The people have a right to know why the Democratic party is the better party for security.” – Swan

    Because we don’t walk hand in hand with the cousin of the men who plot to destroy our country ????

    Half the House of Saud are our enemies.

  • I think mostly, scared people’s heads are ready to explode because of the contradiction in the matter; these are not the goods they were bargaining for. Detention, torture and spying are all supposed to keep us really, really, safe! They have been so scared that they will even sacrifice civil rights to protect themselves… and then learn that the ports are wide open and up for anyone’s to grab? If you listen closely you can hear all the Bushy bubbles popping .

  • I’d also like to see some followup of what Secretary Snow knows about all of this. I know he’s denied knowledge, but the owned the damned company until a year or two ago, and he must know something. I’ve even heard he’s got multi-million dollar involvements in the deal. A story there somewhere. Even if it’s that he knew nothing!

  • Every Dem who is in command of at least three brain cells they can get to work together at the same time should be talking about all the things they think are wrong with how the Administration and the Repubs have handled security, right now.

    And hey, you don’t even have to say you got the idea from me. You can tell people that you got it from some expensive, brilliant Dem strategist, or that you thought it up yourself. But everybody should be doing it.

  • Weeks ago, I predicted that this ports management issue would become a political wildfire.

    OK, I’m just kidding. What I know about ports I learned from season 2 of The Wire, and they didn’t focus at all on who held the management contract of the place.

    I think that, in addition to the factors that Froomkin and CB cite, you have to include Congresspeople of both parties piling on top of this issue.

    This is possibly the first of many issues where Congresspeople run away from Bubble Boy and the stink of his poll numbers as fast as they can.

    And it’s newsworthy that this is happening, so there have been a lot of stories about the deal.

    But hey, Bubble Boy was one the who showed ’em how to demogouge a national security issue. He shouldn’t complain too much.

  • This is so interesting because the US owns shit all over the world. How do you think people living in Iraq felt when we de-nationalized all of their state industries, fired them and then gave the companies to US owned conglomerates?

    If we can get this excited about a port deal, imagine how resentful those in other countries must get over our oil companies and firms playing their hands in their backyards.

  • Losing rights is no problem. A war built upon lies is no problem. A Disaster caused by incompetence in New Orleans is no problem. But selling off the port operations to the UAE is?

    Whodathunkit? I sure as hell didn’t.

  • Here’s your first sentence: “Whether or not the Dubai deal itself is a security threat, the amount of concern that’s been displayed over it is emblamatic of a much broader array of security issues that the American public is very concerned about, but that have not been adequately addressed since 9/11. For examples, . . .”

    Then you list your examples.

    Then you say, “That’s why people are so upset about this situation.”

  • All those reasons are why this has become an issue – at least for me. Racism or fear of the Arabs is not one of them. That is way to simplistic which is why Friedman likes it of course.

    I think that this port situation also hits a nerve in the whole discomfort of “globalization.” Globalization has benefits but it also scares people because it throws people out of their comfort zone. It upsets the paradigms/norms and leaves people feeling less secure.

  • Joe Conasen, in Salon today, reminds us of how important it is to Bush that this deal goes through. If you don’t have access to Salon, I’ve posted a couple of paragraphs from his piece at my place.

  • All this does is underline how politically tone-deaf the WH has become.

    The Port safety isn’t really effected.

  • #13,you hit a key issue. The US is finding out through this port deal that what we did for decades overseas is coming back. Do think the media will explore the foreign ownership of say,the steel business as well as others.
    What will the reaction be when people find out how many of the assets here have already been sold?

  • The Bush administration reaps what it sows. At the same time as the DP World deal’s public unveiling, the Justice Department was arresting three Middle Eastern men in Toledo on suspicions of terror-related activity. They have sown fear, fear, fear amongst Americans for the last 4+ years and that fear, according to them, eminates from Middle Eastern, Islamic terrorists. What do they expect?

  • The whole War On Terror is about 50% true events and 50% a Republican propaganda construct. That’s the nature of the beast– it’s both ridiculous propaganda and a real problem, at the same time– so you just have to treat it as such.

    You have to have real policy, and you have to have your counter-message.

    You just acknowledge it and treat the problem according to what the nature of the problem calls for.

  • I don’t mean, of course, that things we hear about in the news aren’t true– but rather, that there’s so much hype, exaggeration and distortion going on that the concept of “the War onTerror” that most people experience becomes more than the objective events. To a very great degree, it’s a message that’s intentionally constructed.

    Take, for example, the manipulation of the DHS terror alerts. Tom Ridge has said that DHS was pressured into issuing terror alerts that they didn’t feel they had good reason for. Everyone was smart enough to notice that the alerts were coming at times when frightening people might boost the political fortunes of the GOP. The terror alerts are gone, because they were just too crassly obvious– they couldn’t pull off that BS forever– but the manipulators, the ones who decided to use them that way, have never been held to account.

    Dems should not lie there letting the proganda-end of this whole situation do its work unchallenged. They should talk back.

    Take that security issue and own it. Make it yours. Let’s beat the GOP on that issue in every election from now on.

  • Watching Bush today grandly spewing garbage about democracy in Iraq at the same time the country is on the verge of civil war perfectly proves the point that he is “out of the loop” and at the same time loopy.

  • I would love to see the Democrats in Congress push legislation along the lines of:

    The U.S. shall do no business or have any bases in countries that do not formally recognize Israel.

    Can you imagine Bush vetoing that one.

    Also:

    Has anyone ever asked anyone in this administration whether or not they support Democracy in UAE or Saudi Arabia? There support of “Democracy” seems to be very selective – they certainly don’t seem to support it in Palestine.

    Let’s blow the lid off of the Bush administration’s crock of B.S. foreign policy rhetoric.

  • . Everyone was smart enough to notice that the alerts were coming at times when frightening people might boost the political fortunes of the GOP. -swan

    At a time when the terror level should be high ( a critical Saudi refinery is attacked and the golden dome is blown up in Iraq) …Bush is telling us not to worry about security so he can push through a deal to make money for this friends.

    We need a Bush Alert terror level..which is highest when he is actively involved in being president, and lowest when he is clearing brush in Crawford (with exception of Katrina).

  • I also agree with Froomkin’s points… but this deal is largely fueled, as far as I can tell, by simple corruption. The admin denies it, but, come on, do they really expect us to believe their decision to support this purchase had NOTHING to do with UAE’s “donations” of $100 million to the Katrina effort (I wonder where THAT money actually went???) and $1 million to Bush’s dad’s presidential library fund?

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