SIVACRACY.NET

What makes me wonder about this scenario is why no one protested this sale for the past three years. The negotiations between the British firm that ran the Port of Miami, and the UAE firm that is buying it, did not start and stop yesterday. Only now, when all the contracts are about to be signed do the pundits come out against the sale of the port. Also, it is the management of the port that is changing hands, and not the security of the port. "Homeland Security," as much as it is monitors the security aspects of the port. Plus, why are we so sure we were more safe with a British firm running the port?

Because the UAE supported the Taliban, fostered money laundering for Al Queda, and is a dictatorial monarchy.

This is not a private corporation any more. It's another government. And it's a very bad government.

Dubai Ports World (the company that is buying the contract to manage the ports) isn't going to have anything to do with providing security at the ports. This transaction does nothing to improve the huge security gaps in the U.S. port system, but there's no indication that it does anything to make it worse.

But it's not clear what the WTO would have to say about this. This is a transaction between a British firm and a (state-owned) Emirati firm. As such, would it really be subject to WTO rules? In fact, it would seem to be an example of just the sort of globalization that the WTO has been erected to support. It's not a deal that would seem to be subject to U.S. trade regulations (the Bush Administration did have to sign off on it), which is what would make it subject to WTO rules. Since it's not a government contract, but rather a sale of a management contract between two businesses, it wouldn't be subject to open-bidding rules, I don't think. The U.S. government blocking the deal in order to put in a firm that is more favorable to it--either a U.S.-based firm or a company from somewhere else--would seem to be an example of the protectionism that the WTO is supposed to work against.

I can't help thinking, though, that there would be none of this opposition (or not nearly so much) were DPW not from a Muslim country. The UAE's record re: terrorism isn't any better (and may be marginally worse, although not by much) than any other country in the Middle East (anyplace with banks has fostered money laundering for terrorists--Dubai just happens to be the place in the Middle East with the most banks). But to call it a "dictatorial monarchy" is unfair. It's a federal structure of several emirates whose ruling structures are essentially tribal (and, by current standards in Washington, aren't all that dictatorial at all). More to the point, it is a rare exception in the Muslim Middle East in that it is actually making real steps toward increasing democracy and free trade. While this may be damning with faint praise, it's worth something.

None of this is to say that W's approval of the deal isn't a sop to his family's cronies in the oil business. Or that W could actually find the UAE on a map. But to argue that "free trade" shouldn't include firms from Muslim countries is to rig the game just as much as W does.