Dubai Port Deal Sunk

It started as a rumble, grew to a roar and went out with a whimper. And after all of this...nothings really changed. The ports are still as susceptible to exploitation as before. The problem of inspection was never addressed in this whole brouhaha.

Now I am not particularly upset that DPW was forced to back out of the U.S. part of the acquisition, far from it. They may be our ally now, but they were not in the past, and we can't be absolutely sure about the future. Add onto that the fact that Dubai has the policy of boycotting any Israeli imports, wether enforced or not. Of course it isn't enforced because Israel is the only productive country in the area. DPW even contracts with Zim, an Israeli shipping company.

The one argument that, to me, was probably the lamest was "what if a nuclear bomb went off in a port?" If you think about this, it is utter BS. If a bomb is on a ship in the harbor and the Coast Guard is looking at it during a cargo inspection, if it goes off then, well we knew it was there, but to late. The port is gone. Security needs to start at the point the cargo is loaded onto the ship before it gets to the U.S. On that problem, Dubai was the first to allow U.S. Customs to set up shop in their country and inspect cargo leaving their ports for America.

Now that the deal with DPW is gone, we turn to the next question. Who is going to manage our ports? Port management is a field that American companies have abandoned. Who can they get to take on this task ? A large company with deep pockets is going to be needed to fulfill this huge undertaking. Who fits this criteria? Halliburton. The Donk's will go crazy if this is proposed. They and the Daily Kos crowd will be screaming the whole port deal was a setup from the start for Bush to give more money to his buddies.

The other choice is even scarier. The Government will take it over. Get ready for massive inflation. The cost of loading and unloading cargo will triple. We know how well government does when they decide to run something. Airport security, we're spending billions more and the lines keep getting longer and no one feels any safer. Or take Amtrak, the government took it over to protect the rail system and the taxpayer has to subsidize every ticket bought (around 40%) to get it to meet expenses.