A Storm in the Port

I’m probably being a nervous Nellie on this, but I’m a skosh uncertain about having American ports operated by foreign companies, with foreign companies from the Middle East and the Arabian Peninsula being closer to the top than the bottom of the list of countries of concerns. For the record, I’m not a “Buy American” kind of guy; I love my Lexus, Sony TV, English tea, French wine and Indian technical assistance for my computer. But when it comes to operating our ports, airports, subways, trains, and other typical terrorist targets, my default position is to keep those operations in the hands of the home team. I’ll take my chances in the taxis.

The Bush administration, which has appropriated the marketing trademark “Security–R–Us”, has decided there is no security risk in having key ports operated by people from Dubai. That may be true, but I’m not certain enough to just roll over and let the president scratch me behind the ears. Some of my best friends have been to Dubai and they tell me the dhow-like Burj al-Arab Hotel is awesome and the kataifi with candied pumpkin and yogurt is to die for. But, the United Arab Emirates is just around the Arabian corner from Yemen, where the USS Cole had a very nasty port incident. That’s not a compelling argument; but it’s not an irrelevant observation.

Reasonable people can disagree on decisions like this, but two things strike me as beyond bizarre. First, the president is acting like no reasonable person could even question this deal. He summarily dismissed questions by declaring, “People don’t need to worry about security.” Okay. I’m going to look right past the fact that the UAE was one of the few countries to recognize the Taliban government in Afghanistan; that the 9-11 Commission identified the UAE as a “persistent counterterrorism problem”; and that there’s evidence of al-Qaeda moving money through UAE banks and operating out of the UAE. The president said he doesn’t understand why people weren’t upset when a British company was operating these ports. Maybe that’s because we haven’t had much terror come from England since they burned down the White House in 1814 (I’m ignoring the cultural terrorism unleashed by The Beatles in 1964).

Second, the president launched a preemptive strike against Reb leaders on the Hill by letting them know that he will veto their butts back into the Stone Age if they send him legislation that so much as slows down the port decision for a Looky Lou or two. When I heard that threat I assumed the president had approved the port contract; but he didn’t even know about it. That decision was delegated to some Assistant Associate Deputy Over/Under Secretary in the Treasury Department. The Treasury Department? Did they assign this to the IRS, the US Mint, or the Bureau of Engraving & Printing? Did they think Treasury still supervises the ATF, which enforces the law on projectile-projecting things like firearms and explosives? I’ve seen no indication yet that the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security or Justice (ATF’s new home) were involved.

I expect this president to oppose foreign leaders and the Dims on almost any issue, but when he opposes Reb leaders as well then he reveals himself as a man who thinks he has the only set of correct answers and will not countenance opposition from any quarter. He speaks against American isolationism while he practices presidential isolationism as a regular course of business. It’s almost inconceivable that, of all issues, this issue would extract a Bush threat to veto a bill for the first time since he entered office. Is it possible that the first veto from a president who uses 9-11 as a daily invocation could come in defense of the UAE operating American ports? Yes; all things are possible.

I am not suggesting that the U.S. should categorically refuse to do business with companies from the Middle East or companies operated by Muslims. That brush is too broad. But we should stow the veto threat, open the doors and windows to the decision-making process, let a little fresh air in the oval room, and make sure that we know what we’re doing here. In elementary school, it’s called a “time out”.