Dubai-ous

There's a firestorm of controversy raging over Dubai Ports World (DP World) of the United Arab Emirates taking control of operations and security at New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, New Orleans, Miami, and Philadelphia ports. What I haven’t heard debated is the fact that DP World isn’t simply a UAE based company, it’s actually owned by the UAE.

Set aside security concerns for a moment, and simply look at this in relation to our belief in a capitalistic democracy. Why in the world are we contracting a company that's owned by another government to run our ports? If you were to propose to this administration that the United States create a state run company to administer our ports, they would immediately reject the idea.

An overview of the DP World/port security situation can be found at this link to UPI News Online. Also, here’s a great link to blog article written by Carl Pope laying out the many port security issues we should be concerned about.

[UPDATE: U.S. State Department spokesman Adam Ereli has acknowledged that the UAE observes the Arab Leagues' boycott of Israel. He also added that "it has renounced or does not enforce the secondary and tertiary aspects of the boycott, which means it does business with companies, including American companies, that do business with Israel," What a relief. Isn't Israel our #1 democratic, stable ally in the region? Would we take issue if the UAE boycotted any of our other major allies? While the UAE's boycott wouldn't affect U.S. ports, it prevents any goods that have even the smallest component made in Israel from entering their UAE ports.]

(Interesting side note: you might not know it, but our very own Amtrak is technically owned by the U.S. federal government, since the government owns all Amtrak’s preferred stock, and the President appoints its board of directors. Its official name is actually the National Railroad Passenger Corporation.)