Political Posturing
& the Ports Flap
Monday, April 3, 2006
By John F. McManus
Both sides in our nation's latest exercise in political posturing succeeded. Democrats who were anxious to make Republicans look bad and Republicans who increasingly find a need to distance themselves from a president with plummeting poll numbers jumped aboard the Dubai ports controversy and now claim victory.
Only about a month after the announcement that Dubai Ports World (DPW) — a firm controlled by one of the governments that make up what is known as the United Arab Emirates (UAE) — would purchase the rights to manage operations at six major U.S. ports, the firm backed out of the deal. Much of the objection about DPW’s management of the ports stemmed from the UAE’s past support of al-Qaeda terrorists. Allowing such a firm to oversee shipping operations in New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Miami, and New Orleans smelled of an invitation for potential terrorism. Hence, the thunder from many sources. It’s hard to remember a more robust protest from the public and from Congress about any other issue.
There’s no doubt that pressure from back home stimulated the uproar in Congress. Here was a sitting president not only eagerly supporting the deal but also threatening to use his veto power to block any congressional action to cancel it. Well into his fifth year in office, George W. Bush has never vetoed any measure, meaning that his threat in this instance was significant. But House Majority Leader John Boehner, a stalwart Republican backer of the president, claimed that rank and file members of the party were outraged about the deal. Excusing GOP congressmen for opposing their president, the Ohio congressman stated that many of his colleagues were obviously “representing their constituents.” Even the topmost GOP leader, Speaker Dennis Hastert, announced that he wouldn’t stand in the way of legislation to block the move. House GOP Conference Chairman Deborah Pryce chimed in with claims that her Ohio constituents “inundated her office” with calls to kill it.
On the Democratic side, New York Senator Charles Schumer loudly objected to turning the ports “over to a country that has been linked to terrorism.” New Jersey colleague Frank Lautenberg likened the proposal to transferring title “to the Devil.” New York Senator and presidential aspirant Hillary Clinton missed no opportunity to register her opposition. Schumer then speedily introduced an amendment to block the handover and took advantage of the media attention he drew to bash “the incompetent Republican administration” and to urge voters everywhere
“to elect a Democratic Senate and House.”
As is frequently the case, the issue had far more to do with political maneuvering than widely expressed fear of terrorism from Dubai. Lost in the noise coming out of Washington is another Dubai company’s already existing contract with the U.S. Navy to provide services both for U.S. warships in the Middle East and for commercial vessels in dozens of American ports. Time magazine’s Daren Fonda reported that Inchcape Shipping Services, a firm recently purchased by a government investment firm based in Dubai, is now “responsible for providing all logistics requirements of U.S. Navy and Coast Guard ships in ports throughout the [Middle East] region.” Other Dubai-based firms provide maintenance for the equipment used by our nation’s troops in the Middle East, food for our servicemen in Iraq, and delivery of vehicles to our armed forces in the region. And the very Dubai Ports World firm that intended to purchase the contract to manage the six ports is already the manager of port operations in the Texas cities of Beaumont and Corpus Christi, through which pass heavy armor and helicopters bound for our forces in Iraq.
Why is there no concern about these other Dubai contracts? Why no upset about South Korea’s control of a portion of the huge Long Beach, California, shipping terminal? Or about communist China’s firm, China Ocean Shipping Company (COSCO), owning another terminal in Long Beach? Objection to the move by Dubai Ports World is reasonable, but most of the noisy resistance is obviously based on pure politics.
Something else is missing from all the hoopla about saving the ports from foreign management and potential terrorism. How is it that a contract to manage our nation’s most important seaports could be purchased by any foreign company? Are we not masters of our own fate?
We buy oil, automobiles, electronics, and a vast array of other products from overseas companies. Our trade deficit just last year totaled more than $700 billion and is rising. The money we spend on all these imports comes back to purchase U.S. businesses including the firms that manage our ports.
The same political forces that raised an alarm about Dubai’s desire to manage our ports are responsible for locking up offshore and Alaskan oil deposits and keeping us dependent on imports. They tax Americans for unconstitutional programs, destroy the value of the dollar with inflation, operate government with enormous deficits, and leave our nation vulnerable to Chinese, Japanese, and other foreign purchasers of U.S. debt. These are issues that all the worriers over DPW management of American ports ought also to be raising. Until they do, it’s perfectly proper to see all of their blather about the six ports as pure political maneuvering.
John F. McManus is President of The John Birch Society.
He was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1935. At graduation from Holy Cross College in Worcester, Massachusetts, he received a bachelor's degree in physics and a commission in the United States Marine Corps. After serving three years of active duty, he entered the field of electronics engineering, where he won an award from the U.S. Air Force for designing a component used in fighter aircraft.
Jack left the engineering field in 1966 to accept a full-time position with our organization. Working closely with Founder Robert Welch for many years, he was named the Society's Public Relations Director and its official spokesman. In 1991, he was appointed President.
The author of several books and numerous articles, Jack has represented the Society in hundreds of media appearances, spoken from JBS platforms in all 50 states, and written and produced several JBS films and videos. With his wife, Mary, Jack resides in Wakefield, Massachusetts.
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