US approves sale of a port to a nation we have a GOOD relationship with...

[Dark Jaguar]

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1...urity.html

What sort of logic is this?

[The Former DMiller]

I don't get all the furor over this. UAE is one of the most advanced Arab nations, and one the US is fairly friendly with, and people are going nuts because 2 of the 9/11 hijackers were from UAE. The security at our ports is already horrible, which is highly publicized, and this sale won't make things any worse since the company isn't even in charge of the security at the ports.

[Dark Jaguar]

The problem is we have a great relationship with them so why would we give up land to them?

[Great Rumbler]

and people are going nuts because 2 of the 9/11 hijackers were from UAE.

No kidding. Timothy McVeigh came from the army so I guess we can't let them run anything either!

I can understand to an extent why some people are bothered by this and why it could potentially be a problem. But the particulars of the this "take-over" is so convoluted that I just can't see why people are up in arms as they. A British company that oversaw the port is being bought by a Dubai-based company that's partially owned by the UAE government where two of the 911 hijackers came from and maybe some of their banks were used to funnel money to terrorists. It's a long way from here to there. Not to mention that port security is awful ANYWAY.

The problem is we have a great relationship with them so why would we give up land to them?

They don't OWN the port, they just manage it.

[A Black Falcon]

A British company is selling property to a company from the UAE. So? Why is this bad? Because it's American land being bought by a foreign country? That's not new news... the majority of this state, for instance, is owned by foreign companies (paper companies own huge amounts of forestland... and most paper companies are, at the top, foreign-owned. Including Arab country based companies, I believe, though I'm not certain.) Look, if this were happening five years ago, it'd be no news... but because now there's a huge amount of racism towards Arabs in this country because of 9/11, it is ("But they deserve it"? In certain things, they do... but this is business, not the amount of democracy in their governments or their respects for the rights of their citizens or Western standards of law. Business. As in, this won't affect anything... (oh, and anyway, security doesn't change; this is just the port, not the port security. That isn't affected.)

It's somewhat absurd that so many politicians are jumping on this as "an issue to unite behind because we know there's a lot of misplaced popular outrage over it"... sadly absurd...

Really, what means could you find to deny this based on? That UAE's rights record isn't perfect and their freedoms ... well, in line with the region... that'd probably be true, but... with a few exceptions, we don't censure companies based on their nation of origin. Perhaps we should, but unless we had a coherent, CONSISTENT policy... and anyway, this would be punishing a company for something that is not their fault. Dubai Ports World is just a company, not the government... (yeah, the government owns it, at least in part, but still, that doesn't mean that it has anything to do with anything related to rights, or terrorism, or whatever else...

[Great Rumbler]

Woah, ABF and I agree on something regarding politics?! Far-out!!

[A Black Falcon]

This doesn't seem to be a partizan issue, for some reason...

[Great Rumbler]

The whole thing's slightly convoluted really.

[Weltall]

I thought all of the 9-11 jacknuts were Saudis.

[The Former DMiller]

The majority of them were, but not all.