Guess who's been running the port of New Jersey

You may remember the furor that was the Dubai Ports World deal. That was when Bush ran full-face into his own campaign of fear.

The Bush Cargo Culture had spent the previous five years suggesting that any human with dark hair, a swarthy complexion and an accent that couldn't be identified was a prime suspect for a terrorist act. Then, Peninsular & Orient Steamship Lines sold everything to Dubai Ports World, headquartered in, you remember now, Dubai.

The problem was that P&O Ports was a part of the deal and that meant that the P&O port terminal facilities in six US ports were now being handed over to a bunch of murderous Arabs. It meant that all of P&O's terminals, worldwide, were being handed over to DPW. Most countries just shrugged. The US probably should have done the same thing. The threat from DPW ownership of the P&O terminal in New Jersey, for example, was next to non-existent.

That didn't stop the whole thing from boiling over. DPW is a state-owned company and that meant Bush was allowing Arab ownership of an arguably strategic facility. His own party turned on him creating an enchanting situation where his recent water-carriers in Congress turned on him.

There is a whole series of posts here which will provide details. The interesting part of this is that Bush, had he not spent the previous five years laying the groundwork for his own embarrassment, was actually quite right. There was nothing about the DPW deal that presented any kind of threat whatsoever. The truth be known, most citizens of Dubai would never have any reason to so much as visit one of those ports to work. It is a simple truth: Emiratis don't work. They import all of their labourers and over 80 percent of the population of Dubai are immigrants.

Anyway, that was all one year ago. By early March 2006, DPW had agreed to sell-off their newly acquired US operations to an American company. Everything quietened down.

Sort of.

It seems DPW still owns the terminal operations and the Port of New Jersey is demanding $84 million for "port improvements" from DPW, before the facilities can be sold. So... after all the gnashing of teeth, all the flailing of arms and all the rhetoric that flowed, the Arab state-owned company, Dubai Ports World, has been running the former P&O terminal in New Jersey anyway. And... no terrorists.

If you want the most delicious take on this you must pay a visit to Blue Gal where she describes the social habits of Dubai Emiratis in some eloquent detail.

Owning ports? No big deal.

Going shopping? If there is a shopping festival the good citizens of Dubai will go.

Dubai Ports Uproar - A Tempest in a 40 TEU Container

The whole Dubai ports uproar is bothering me if for no other reason that it has taken three days for the majority of the fixed-media to finally getting around to identifying what is really happening and they still aren't doing a good job of it.

The first reports that came out suggested that the United States was somehow out-sourcing the entire operation of six US ports to a United Arab Emirates state-controlled company, Dubai Ports World. I have to admit THAT got my attention. The very idea sent me spinning.

Those reports then percolated into reports of the out-sourcing of port security and ports control. That put me on guard. If it is one thing that would never be permitted by the US government, even under more peaceful times, it is the port security system and the port state control which is strictly a US government function operated by the US Coast Guard, the US Immigration and Naturalization Service and US Customs and Border Protection Service.

By this time enough US senators and congressional representatives had jumped onto the bandwagon to make it look like the Bush administration was selling New York, Baltimore, Miami, Philadelphia, New Orleans and New Jersey harbors to the highest bidder with no concern for security. Of course, it wasn't that way at all.

It took too long for the fixed-media to actually get all the facts out. DPW, in purchasing Peninsular & Orient Steam Navigation Company was also purchasing the terminals in various worldwide ports which P&O had been operating. And that's the point. It's terminal operations within those ports; not the ports themselves. Security and Port State Control isn't being handed over and any suggestion to the contrary is easily dismissed.

I'll admit that the optics are horrible. Bush has been at the vanguard of a body of Republicans who justify any and all acts, legal and illegal, in the name of combatting terrorism. How often have we heard that terrorists are "lurking"; that they will use any means to destroy America; that his first and most important job is to use any means to protect Americans? Too often, for my appetite, but that is beside the point.

On the surface this looks like Bush is faced with the dichotomy of defending a shady business deal to the detriment of national security, which he has so vociferously defended in the past. I just don't see it that way. As someone who is now fully involved in the global merchant marine, as both a ship's captain and an instructor, I see no change in security procedures or state control in US ports.

Bush may not be a good businessman, and he is perhaps the worst US president the modern world has ever known, but he is, above all else, an entrenched capitalist. Would he sell out the security of the US for a solid buck? Maybe, but that's not happening here.

If anything rang alarm bells in my head, (and still does), it was the sudden and passionate defence of this deal offered by Bush. His threat to veto any bill which stood in the way of this transfer of US-based terminals from publicly traded P&O to state-controlled DPW was shocking. I'm still trying to assess why he would suddenly unravel over this issue. The best I can do is offer a guess.

Bush may not have known the names of well-known world leaders when he came to power, but because of family business arrangements, he could probably have named every arab prince, sultan, emir and sheik with political control of the Middle East oil industry. He undoubtedly had a better relationship with Sheik Maktum bin Rashid al-Maktum of Dubai than he did with Canada's Jean Chretien. Dubai and the six other emirates, despite involvement with al Qaeda and some of the operatives of Osama bin Laden, have provided bases and logistical support to the US Navy and US Air Force. To suddenly have a spear tossed into what he perceives as an innocuous global business deal would raise immediate concerns as to the stability of military support for his forces in the Gulf region. (Although I still don't think that warranted the reaction we all saw.)

Perhaps there is some backdoor financial arrangement, although even there, I have doubts. In any case, since DPW is not a truly public company and the UAE banking system is not open to public scrutiny, we won't know until after 2008 when Bush is out of office.

The port security and port state control cards are nothing but jokers in the deck on this issue and the issue, as bad as certain aspects of the deal are, is no worse than China or any other state-owned company operating terminals in US ports. If it is, I had better get to work re-writing lesson plans.

Hoist with his own petard - Bush is imploding

Isoroku Yamamoto, the architect of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941, is credited with saying, soon after the attack, "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."

There is no evidence to support the claim that Yamamoto ever said or wrote those words. However, that is exactly what happened, and the sleeping giant was a united, technological power house with competent, rational and determined leadership.

When the World Trade Center towers were destroyed by al Qa'eda's religious fanatics on September 11th, 2001, they served only to open the door of a caged, fire-breathing dragon and poke it with a stick. The USA, this time was incompetently led, politically divided, facing a global technical challenge, reliant on others for raw materials and in possession of unmatched military might.

On September 11th, 2001, not only did Americans rally around their leaders, but the world rallied around the United States. Inasmuch as terrorism was not new to the world, the level of death and destruction, and the motive were appalling to all but the worst of humanity. The world would not only acknowledge whatever action the US took in response but most would actually assist. The US was the victim in this instance and no matter what events transpired, they deserved support in removing a clear and present danger.

The Bush administration took the goodwill offered by Americans and the world and began to abuse it immediately. The Dubai Ports uproar is, perhaps, the culmination of five years of Bush administration lying, deceit and politicization of a heinous, unforgivable act of terrorism.

Other countries affected by the Dubai Ports deal seem unfazed by the arrangement. On analysis, little changes. It's an ownership arrangement which has little to do with security or sovereignty. But in the US it strikes a nerve which has been on the surface since the morning after 9/11 and which has been relentlessly exploited by an administration which peddled an atmosphere of terror and then manipulated the paranoia and fear by demanding acceptance of outrageous executive behaviour. Domestic political opposition was labeled treasonous, dissent subversive and questions dangerous. The President was infallible.

Americans can be excused for being outraged by a seemingly innocuous trade deal. They have been force-fed a diet of war rhetoric which served to excuse the expansion of executive power and resulted in the presidential authorization of domestic spying, the suspension of rights, the torture of prisoners and the ruthless suppression of dissent. Everything was connected to 9/11, even if the connection could not be explained. Terrorist were lurking everywhere and America was in danger. Then they are expected to accept the Dubai Ports deal as though none of that meant anything.

This article by Paul Krugman, describes the confusion felt by many Americans over the US ports affair. Americans are now expected to accept precisely the opposite of what they have been forced to endure for the past four years.

Now comes the port deal. Mr. Bush assures us that "people don't need to worry about security." But after all those declarations that we're engaged in a global war on terrorism, after all the terror alerts declared whenever the national political debate seemed to be shifting to questions of cronyism, corruption and incompetence, the administration can't suddenly change its theme song to "Don't Worry, Be Happy."

The Bush administration is trying to suck and blow at the same time. Add to that the years of being told that Americans have to comply with the administrations demands for more latitude and that they can never become complacent; That the enemy wants Americans to become relaxed and lessen their vigilance. Then, from Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England comes this:

"The terrorists want our nation to become distrustful," England said. "They want us to become paranoid and isolationist, and my view is we cannot allow this to happen. It needs to be just the opposite."

"The opposite" of what has been the administration's unending stream of blather. Now, it appears they want it both ways. A week ago England's statement would have been called treasonous, subversive and dangerous. This latest attempt at spin is not only feeble, it asks Americans to ignore all that has been said in the preceding four years. In fact, what England was expressing is that criticism of any administration decision is not acceptable. It would be better for the administration if Americans would just shut up and take it.

Of course, the port deal highlights another deficiency in the Bush administration: due diligence. For an administration which has consistently flogged Americans with the need to be wary of everyone and to maintain their guard even when it seems like a bitter pill to swallow, the fact that there seemed to be less than severe scrutiny of this deal is contrary to everything the Bush administration has been saying and has the effect of raising the question as to how necessary all other forms of scrutiny by the administration actually were. If the ports deal is really that harmless, if a company owned by people who directly associated with America's number one enemy can freely do business in the US and if the diligence isn't required when dealing with a people who have been institutionally demonized, what else isn't true? And why were Americans being asked by their government to behave differently?

Associated with the lack of due diligence is the admitted lack of knowledge. Given the nature of the deal, when Bush, Rumsfeld and Snow announced that they had no knowledge of the Dubai Ports purchase they exposed themselves to the American public and the world. It is difficult to determine which condition is worse: Lying that they didn't know; or if they truly did not know.
Patricia Wilson's Reuters article spells out the danger if Bush really does not know. She looks at the past, right back to 9/11 where Bush has used the "I-didn't-know" defence of his actions and it's chilling. If it's true, and one can certainly accept that some of it is, then the US is led by a self-admitted boob.

"It's a disaster for him, I think," said Michael Hogan, professor of communication, arts and sciences at Pennsylvania State University. "It's never a good thing for a president to say he doesn't know something."

[...]

"Its really a strategy for shifting blame," said Dean Spiliotes, director of Research at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics. "But it is dangerous because the average person doesn't necessarily know that this is not something the president is typically going to involve himself in."

"It's a risk because it makes him look like they sort of dropped the ball."

The insertion of Karl Rove in this issue says even more about it. The Bush administration is under siege. To call up the smear-meister must mean that it is out of hand. Further, there was no strategy laid out in advance. Given the traction this has gained and the contradictions being tossed about like the balls in a McDonald's Playplace, Rove may not be able to pull this one from the fire. He is a strategist; not a tactician, and he too is faced with having to tell Americans that everything said in the past contradicts this deal.

It may be that this Dubai Ports deal, something which has not even appeared on the radar in Britain, Canada, Australia and many other affected countries, will be the undoing of the Bush administration. It may have finally caused the real sleeping giant to wake up. In the meantime the world can only watch and wince because this is very much like sitting on the hillside watching a train wreck.

Hat tip to Canadian Cynic for the Truthout.org link

And you thought the Dubai Ports deal was bad...

Let's see now. Istithmar is the investment arm of Dubai World. Dubai World is wholly owned by the Government of Dubai. Dubai World also owns Dubai Ports World and now, P&O Maritime Services.

In short, the Government of Dubai owns the works. They love to buy stuff.

You may remember there was something of an issue when Dubai Ports World, owned by Dubai World (on which the sun never sets), which owns Istithmar, the lot of which is wholly owned by the Government of Dubai, United Arab Emirates, purchased P&O Maritime and it looked like Arabs were going to be shipped over to operate six US port terminal facilities, including the P&O terminal in New York.

The Republicans in the US Congress went ape-shit and the deal was blocked. Well, sort of. DPW, subsidiary of DW, owned by the Dubai government, which also owns Istithmar, continued to operate the Port of New Jersey because New Jersey wouldn't let them sell it.

At the time of that information, it became obvious to anybody with a functioning synapse that these people with bad togas and funny headbands were more interested in the shopping aspect of acquisition. Got a port? I don't have one. Could I possibly buy it from you for more than its appraised value?

That sort of thing. Emiratis just really love to buy things.

Well, looky, looky what Blue Gal found!! And from the Toronto Star, no less.

The terrorists are now in a position to control the designer handbag Paris Hilton carries. Is there no end to this?

Signs of Intelligence (OK, that was just to get your attention)

Via the Canadian Cynic, George W Bush is reported not to have known the details of a Dubai company taking over some of the operations of US port facilities.

Bush was unaware of the deal until he heard reports of the congressional uproar, presidential adviser Dan Bartlett said.

The whole mess is as a result of Dubai Ports World buying Peninsular & Orient Steamship Lines. The deal comes with terminals and port facilities all over the world. There is some misconception that Dubai is taking over the entire port of, say, New York - and it isn't. It's taking over the P&O terminals including a cargo terminal and the P&O cruise ship terminal.

However, the offer to P&O shareholders by the Dubai Ports World corportation, a company in the private hands of Sultan Bin Sulayem of Dubai, was posted on December 20th, 2005. Surely the US Department of Homeland Security was advised in some small way that things were changing. Well, maybe not.

OK. Well then, how about when Bush announced the appointment of David C. Sanborn as Director of the US Maritime Administration. That should have twigged somebody. After all, the Maritime Administration is heavily involved in port security and manages the US strategic reserve fleet. That happened on January 23rd, 2006.

Why is that important? Well, David Sanborn would have to be fully checked out. He would also have to be security cleared. So, the Bush administration would have a good idea about what he was doing and who he presently works for.

Sanborn's present employer: Dubai Ports World. Oh yes, Sanborn is the Director of Operations for DPW's European and Latin American operations, so he was directly involved in both the takeover of P&O facilities and the transfer of management.

Yet, Bush says he didn't know anything about it until the congressional uproar.

Even I didn't think Bush was that stupid.

US Port Issue - CANADIAN Port Issue.

Thanks to sharp commenter Cee for this. Anyone who is watching the US shyte-storm over port terminal operations and the purchase by Dubai Ports World of P&O Steam Navigation need not look too much harder, nor should anyone get too smug about it being a purely American issue.

The British Columbia, Port of Vancouver's container and general cargo terminal, Centerm, formerly operated by P&O, has been taken over by state-owned Dubai Ports World after P&O sold their operations to DPW. (Confirmed by email)

There's more. P&O has a stevedoring concession for 17 ports on the Canadian west coast from Stewart to Victoria. Those too will now change hands and become a part of DPW.

So, do we start ragging on Harper for selling out the 2nd busiest port in North America to the UAE? Or is that secret little Canadian Forces base in Dubai too important to ruffle the feathers of the Emirates? Or, is it even an issue?

Rove Steps In To US Ports Issue - (because he got caught with his pants down and his preznit is in doo doo)

From Liberal Catnip Karl Rove has stepped into the Dubai Ports deal in the US and it appears now that Dubai Ports World will delay the completion of the deal to take over 6 terminal operations in the United States.

Our interest is in making certain the members of Congress have full information about it, and that, we're convinced, will give them a level of comfort with this," Rove said, adding that regulatory rules abroad could also add a few days to a final sign off on the transaction.

There is no word as to the state of the deal with respect to Vancouver's Centennial Terminal since the Conservative government only comes out on cloudy days in an effort to avoid seeing their shadows.

If David Emerson would quit wallowing in self-pity and get on with his job, we might have more information on this. You draw the pay; you do the job, Emerson. Or is this someone else's responsibility?

Check out Liberal Catnip for the whole story.

UPDATE: OK, here's what I see out of this. The guy who REALLY runs the Oval Office has hit the deck running. Rover got caught napping on this one. This was supposed to be a nothing event and just slide on by. Then the press got into it and Congress went nuts. It would have been an easy spin job if it had just been the Democrats making all the noise, but even the Republicans are barking and baring their teeth. (You might say this was Rove engineered if it wasn't for the fact that there is a bi-partisan block working in the same direction and Rove would always view that as a disaster.)

What must be terrifying Rover is that Dubya has been fending off bi-partisan attacks on his own... without the spin machine spun up.

There is another aspect to this. I suspect that more than one of the Republican Senate/House critters knows full well that there is less to this than they are willing to admit, but more than one of them have a solid axe to grind with Rove.

Rove, if you recall, was behaving like a thug with a large group of Senate and House Republicans over their lack of support for Bush's illegal domestic spying operation and was threatening to have them blacklisted. Maybe it's just me, but this looks like payback and a way to stick it to Rove. Certainly, he'll have a tough time spinning this now, especially since the likes of Michelle Malkin, O'Reilly and all the other rabid dogs who usually support Bush are demanding he put a stop to the deal and explain how it got as far as it did. And now Rove has to, (ahem), provide them a level of comfort over the deal. If I was one of the senators previously threatened by Rove, I would think I have a little political capital on this one.

Or, maybe I'm wrong.

The Destooling Of Bush

Now that Dubai Ports World has decided to hand over operation of its U.S. ports to a U.S. company (as yet unnamed), one would expect things should begin to settle down a bit.

Hardly.

The DPW affair has exposed Bush for the hypocrite he really is and it has caused a major shift in how he is viewed in his own country. Bush was caught defending his actions: the invasion of Iraq, illegal domestic spying, suspension of constitutional rights and torture under the banner of protecting Americans against any and all terrorist threats. Despite outrageous abuses of power, he justified it all on the basis of guarding against even the slightest possibility of a threat. Until it involved a global business deal.

Suddenly, it was no threat, despite the UAE having had clear connections with the actual perpetrators of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

Was it a big deal? Probably not. But that is hardly the point.

Bush's unbelievably virulent defence of the DPW ports deal, including the threat to veto a bill to block it, told many Americans one thing. Everything Bush had been telling them up to the time the deal came to light was a lie. To have surrendered rights and freedoms; to have submitted to intrusions on personal privacy; and to have lived in fear of an unseen threat, was for nothing.

Bush trapped himself. Unprepared for either the exposure or reaction, Bush was caught off guard - and so was Rove. No script, no strategic plan and no way out. And now it looks like it won't go away.

Congress, for so long little more than a rubber stamp for all things Bush, has handed the president his head. By threatening a bill to block DPW and then mustering enough votes to override a presidential veto, the US Congress has taken control of government away from the administration. And now the distancing begins.

This, from the Washington Post via Liberal Catnip, speaks volumes.

"We want to protect the American people," House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) said this morning. "We've been doing it the last four and a half years. We fought a war in Iraq, fought a war in Afghanistan, stood up to the Homeland Security Department. We will continue to do that. We will maybe have our differences, but we think we're going to continue to" oppose the Dubai deal."(Emphasis mine).

Even before that, conservative Republicans were starting to distance themselves from this president. He has become a liability.

But now, the Bush cargo culture is starting to lose heart. They are finally recognizing that Bush has been pulling the wool over, not just the eyes of his opponents, but theirs too.

From this whiny-ass-titty-baby comes an interesting comment.

This should end the ports controversy, but it won't. From now until November, we'll hear about the "deal," how badly it was handled by the administration, etc. What we won't hear about, is whether there was ever any substance to the claim that DP World's involvement in managing port terminals posed any security risk. Nor will we hear about the other port facilities that are already being managed by foreign companies, unless a way can be found to spin that fact against the administration.

Assrocket should pull his pants up, put his hat on straight and act like an adult. It goes deeper than that. Bush's behaviour over the DPW deal is more than "mishandling". It is viewed as a betrayal. Brother John and his fellow travelers can take heart that they helped fuel that perception.

Hindraker's concern with "substance" is laughable. Or perhaps he's forgotten the Swiftboating of John Kerry, or the various smears against Jack Murtha, or any other number of dishonest attacks in which he was a willing participant.

So, maybe he's right. Maybe the cost of all this is that the Democrats will take a "no substance" issue and run with it. And, maybe they won't. They have accomplished what was necessary. However, if they do, the Republicans will recognize it quickly. It is, after all, a Republican tactic.