After years of beating Democrats over the head on issues of Security, the Republicans are getting a taste of their own bludgeoning. As of this writing, the purchase of operations at six major US ports has been officially killed. The government of Dubai has said that they will turn over all US Port operations included in the purchase of P&O Ports to a "United States entity." Ironically, I don't necessarily agree with it.
As I said before, I think the sinking of this deal is not a good idea. It doesn't make sense economically, and security really isn't the issue. But, as we all know, perception doesn't often equate with reality. Democrats have found an issue they can hammer the Republicans on. Sure, getting the measure killed in committee by an overwhelming margin blunts the impact a bit, but the baseline sentiment, that the current Administration has gone off the reservation on their core issue, remains. The Republicans should brace themselves. I don't blame the Democrats and Republicans should have seen this coming.
Before anyone accuses the Democrats, however, of getting a bit whacky, as the New York Times and Boston Globe the other day apparently did, the junior senators from New York and New Jersey introduced a bill - S.2334 - to ban all companies owned by foreign governments from controlling port operations in the United States. This is a sensible measure, and would not affect operations at most ports in the country, some 80% of which are controlled by foreign entities.
As mentioned in a previous post, however, whoever controls the ports does not control security at said ports. This still rests with the Department of Homeland Security, which currently is able to inspect only one in every twenty shipping containers, and which often relies on the inspection at the other end to ferret out suspicious cargo. For the obvious reasons of manpower and budget, priority is given to those that originate in suspect locales, as well as any that raise a red flag for one reason or another. Your average container originating in, say, London or Tokyo, is not going to be inspected. So to say that ownership of terminal operations by Dubai Ports World would undercut security is not terribly accurate. If the bad guys wanted smuggle something in, they could easily do so in any number of overseas ports, using any number of shipping companies.
No, perception doesn't often equate with reality.
No comments:
Post a Comment