[Mb-civic] The Dangers of Ports (and Politicians) - Robert J. Samuelson - Washington Post Op-Ed

[William Swiggard]

The Dangers of Ports (and Politicians)

By Robert J. Samuelson
The Washington Post
Tuesday, March 14, 2006; A19

The idea of letting an Arab-owned company, Dubai Ports World, run 
container terminals at some major U.S. ports struck many Americans as an 
absurdity. Why not just turn control over to al-Qaeda? In late February 
a CBS News poll found that 70 percent of respondents were against the 
deal and only 21 percent in favor. The company's withdrawal last week 
can be seen as a triumph of public opinion. Or it can be acknowledged 
for what it is: a major defeat for the United States, driven by 
self-indulgent politicians of both parties who enthusiastically fanned 
public fears.

Leadership in a democratic society requires a willingness and ability to 
challenge and change public opinion when it is based on misinformation, 
no information, prejudice or stupidity -- as it was in this case. There 
never was a genuine security problem. The Dubai company wouldn't have 
"taken over" the U.S. ports. It simply would have run some terminals. 
Cargo would still have been handled by American, unionized longshoremen. 
The Coast Guard and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency would 
still have been responsible for port security.

To be sure, the 9 million or so containers arriving annually in the 
United States do pose security threats. In congressional testimony, 
Stephen Flynn of the Council on Foreign Relations outlined one danger: a 
truck driver, sympathetic to al-Qaeda, picks up a container of sneakers 
in Indonesia; on the way to the port, he diverts the trucks so 
terrorists can load the container with a "dirty" nuclear device; and the 
container is shipped to Chicago, where it's detonated. Flynn urged more 
worldwide electronic and radiation scanning of containers at ports of 
departure. He estimated that screening would require about a $20 fee per 
container.

"We need to know what's in the box more than we need to know who is 
moving them around a container yard," Flynn testified. Both Flynn and 
James Jay Carafano of the Heritage Foundation testified that Congress 
had underfunded the Coast Guard. No matter. It was a free-for-all on 
Capitol Hill. Democratic Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Charles 
Schumer of New York led the fearmongering. Republicans joined the 
chorus, some frightened of being cast as "soft" on terrorism. In a 
typical comment, House Speaker Dennis Hastert said: "We want to protect 
the American people."

As political theater, the posturing may be harmless. But all the 
grandstanding -- precisely because the criticisms were overblown -- 
damages American interests. It's a public relations disaster in the 
Middle East. The United Arab Emirates -- of which Dubai is a part -- has 
been a strong American ally, permitting the use of its ports and 
airfields for U.S. ships and military aircraft. Dubai's ruler, Sheik 
Mohammad bin Rashid al-Maktoum, is trying to integrate his city-state 
into the world economy. There's been a building boom of offices, malls 
and luxury hotels. Dubai has also gone on a global investment binge, 
buying the Essex House in New York, Madame Tussauds wax museum in London 
and (of course) the port operations of Britain's Peninsular & Oriental 
Steam Navigation Co.

If this isn't what we want from Arab countries, what do we want? Much 
bitterness is reported in Dubai, especially among those who are 
pro-Western. They blame racism. That's understandable and perhaps 
correct. A Post poll last week found that 46 percent of Americans had a 
negative view of Islam -- a crude proxy for Arabs. (Yes, not all Arabs 
are Muslim, and not all Muslims are Arabs. But the poll is still 
suggestive of American opinion about Arabs.) The ports furor also hurts 
the United States in another way. It weakens confidence in the dollar as 
the major global currency. The U.S. trade deficit now spews more than 
$700 billion into the world annually. To some extent, global economic 
stability depends on foreigners' keeping most of those dollars. Mass 
dollar sales could trigger turmoil on the world's currency, stock and 
bond markets.

People outside the United States hold dollars because they believe the 
currency maintains its value and offers a wide menu of investment 
choices. The message from Congress is that the menu is shorter than 
people thought. Once any investment is stigmatized -- rightly or wrongly 
-- as a "security problem," Congress may act against foreigners.

Every country has the right to protect its security interests. But those 
interests must be defined coherently and not simply as the random 
expression of political expediency. That's what happened here, as it did 
last year when Congress pressured a Chinese oil company (China National 
Offshore Oil Corp.) to withdraw its bid for a U.S. firm (Unocal Corp.). 
The more this process continues, the more it corrodes confidence in the 
dollar.

It will be said that other countries are equally nationalistic and 
political, so their currencies aren't realistic alternatives to the 
dollar. Not true. If we imitate the French or Malaysians, the dollar 
will have compromised its special status. The irony is that the people 
who are creating all these risks are the very same members of Congress 
who claim to be protecting us.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/13/AR2006031301352.html?nav=hcmodule
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