The Port Deal: Layers of Controversy

Before my head explodes (as it often does), here some miscellaneous thoughts and nuances to this controversy... These are the other aspects of this multi-layered story I haven't blogged about yet.

Bur first, I am still in awe that the White House's defense is that, despite his veto-promise bravado yesterday, President Bush had no idea about the deal at all until the press reported the controversy! A MSN article this afternoon has the headline: "Bush was in dark on port deal". 'Nuff said. On an issue where his national security priorities are under attack, does the President really want to remind Americans of the perception that he is often in the dark?

Moving on, beside the legitimate security concerns, there may be even more tangible issues in question.

The first is that the administration did not comply with a federal law requiring a 45-day investigation of the deal. This administration sure does have a poor track record of following the law, doesn't it? As noted in the NY Times, "such an investigation is mandatory when the acquiring company is controlled by or acting on behalf of a foreign government. Administration officials said they conducted additional inquires because of the ties to the United Arab Emirates, but they could not say why a 45-day investigation did not occur". NY Senators Schumer and Clinton have called for that investigation to now take place; they were joined in that request by Mayor Bloomberg.

And don't forget that Sec. Rumsfeld claimed to only have learned about the deal a few days ago, even though he is a member of the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States (which supposedly approved the deal). So there's definitely something fishy there.

The second reason, as reported in the Daily News, is cronyism concerns due to White House ties to the Dubai firm. Treasury Secretary John Snow was chairman of the CSX rail firm that sold its own international port operations to to the Dubai firm in 2004. Snow's Treasury Department is the agency that signed off on the deal. Also of concern is David Sanborn. Sanborn currently heads the U.S. Maritime Administration. He also runs the Dubai firm's European and Latin American operations. These concerns are something that investigation might want to look into.

The real reason that Bush is insisting on this deal appears to be out of military necessity. The UAE allows us access to their ports and airfields, which are a great location for us to base out of in our neverending wars in the Middle East. And if they want a lucrative port deal in return, we are hardly in a position to say no. Apparently, Sen. Warner confirmed as much on CNN tonight. As Digby notes, "It's nothing personal. It's strictly business."

Defenders of the deal say criticism is manufactured and irrational, noting that before this week no one cared about what companies controlled the ports. That's because we (like, apparently, President Bush) just found out about this issue last week when the story appeared in the papers. I admit my (naive?) ignorance in assuming that foreign governments, from any part of the world, did not control any U.S. ports. Out of curiousity, do we own ports in any other countries? At this point, I'll assume we do.

So globalization is a factor here too. I have never been a fan of it (in the capitalist sense, culturally it is a very good). Because of this phenomenon more and more Americans are forced to work shit jobs at Walmart or McDonalds because the real jobs are being sent overseas to be done by people who are paid pennies and treated like slaves. It hurts the U.S. economy and only furthers the rich/poor gap in the countries we export our businesses to. And people do get upset about that. So shouldn't we have an issue with foreign governments owning parts of our national infrastructure?

At the same time, I do not support economic isolationism. We all share this world and we should communicate with each other and share our cultures and goods. But President Bush has never wanted to really do that, except where economically convenient. He and fellow conservatives have spent the better part of the past 4-5 years thumbing their noses at the world and different cultures (yum, freedom fries!). But when it comes to state-owned corporations, well suddenly Bush is all hugs and politically correct. In summary- People bad, corporations good.

So I have no issue with foreign companies operating inside the U.S. and doing good business with us (and vice versa). We should have good-faith relationships. But a foreign government controlling ports is a whole other ball of wax.

The only real concern I would side with defenders of the deal is how Arabs will perceive this outrage. Reuters has an article about this stating that Arab analysts believe the opposition "reflects a Western phobia of Arabs which could scare off other Middle East investors". I understand their concern and lawmakers must be publically vocal in reassuring them that's not the case. The concerns here are very specific and not to be seen as an insult to the Middle East as a whole.

And to whatever extent that there is a race component to the outrage (from either right or left), it is merely the consequence of 4+ years of intense fear-mongering by the Bush administration. He is now sowing what he has reaped with his tactics. There is even a Reuters article detailing this exact point.

On the trust issue, this is also the result of Bush's breaches of trust (pre-war intelligence, etc). Those of us in cities like New York and New Orleans, who've suffered greatly as a result of Bush's incompetence, are certainly not likely to trust him on any issue of consequence.

Finally, there is some hypocrisy here from the right (on two levels).

The first is their previous lack of open concern for port security (their focus was on border security- darn those Mexicans!). John Kerry made port security a key campaign issue in 2004 and was blown off. On numerous occassions, Republican senators voted against bills that had port security fixes in them. Their anger this time likely originates from an existing, and growing, shift away from the White House due to numerous scandals.

The second level of hypocrisy is Congress suddenly being universally angry that the White House has denied them their oversight powers. Many of those speaking out now stood by the President when he declared his inherent constitutional authority to violate the FISA law and spy on Americans. As Atrios sarcastically noted, "Bush does, of course, have inherent authority under Article II to make all decisions relating to national security". Glenn Greenwald expanded on this in great detail, noting that "It is really quite astounding to watch Congressional Republicans fall all over themselves advocating legislation, on the grounds of national security, to force the President to reverse his decision about who is going to operate our ports. Many of these same Republicans have been defending Bush’s violations of FISA on the ground that Congress lacks constitutional authority to restrict or regulate the President’s Article II power to act unilaterally with regard to matters of national security".

Whatever their motivation (whether election year logistics or otherwise), it's good that everything is working together on this one. I am glad these Congressional Republicans have remembered that we have checks and balances in America, and that it is their job to hold the President accountable for his actions. Letting the President do his own thing without oversight can be very dangerous. I'll be counting on them to remember that as the NSA spying scandal continues on.

One thing is certain here- This will clearly not blow over anytime soon.

[Previous entries-
-Port Of Contention
-President Bush: 'I Have No Idea What Goes On In My Own Administration']