Profiling in Another Direction
The deal with Dubai Ports World has touched off a firestorm of debate and bipartisan fury. That fury has mostly been directed at President Bush as he staunchly defends the transaction and threatens to finally use his veto power to strike down any bills from Congress that overturns the deal or calls for greater investigation. Members of Congress have said that any veto would be overturned, which would hand Bush a political defeat given the Republican Congress and the bipartisan support (especially between the Senate's Majority and Minority Leaders, Bill Frist and Harry Reid) needed to overturn a veto.
Defenders of the deal have accused detractors of having a view that anything Arab automatically is equal to anything terrorist. This sort of silly accusation towards Republicans, Democrats, and concerned citizens alike have this streak of discrimination in them does nothing to help solve the problem, whether the deal is kept or not. In fact, it is quite insulting that those throwing these bombs are themselves only putting Arabs on the same field as terrorists.
While David Brooks makes a couple of good points in defense of this deal, throughout his whole column in the New York Times ("Kicking Arabs in the Teeth," Thursday, February 23, 2006, subscription or other means to access the piece required), the same accusation that the opponents of the deal think that all Arabs are terrorists appears. In addition, he makes the accusation that the lawmakers opposed to this deal are isolationist and xenophobic...neverminding that small detail that operations that Dubai Ports World will be controlling have been under the control of a British-based company, Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Co., which has been bought by the Dubai company, setting off this fierce debate. Hardly isolationist.
It is only until the sixth paragraph of the piece that Brooks starts making a rational case in defense of the port deal.
Brooks argues that this deal would have an insignificant effect on security. The Coast Guard controls the physical security and the Customs Service controls container security. In addition, local authorities would also have their patrols and security measures in place for the ports.
Brooks also argues that the makeup of the workforce would not be radically altered. The American workers would mostly remain in their positions. They would merely be collecting their paychecks from a different employer.
Brooks further argues that Dubai Ports World isn't new at this business and that foreign companies operating the ports of a country is nothing new either. He cites Dick Meyer of CBS News, saying that the company operates facilities in Austrailia, China, Germany, and Korea and that Dubai Ports World is seeking to acquire facilities in 18 other countries. Brooks also points out that 80 percent of the facilities in the port of Los Angeles are run by foreign firms.
That is about the extent of the rational argument from David Brooks in his column. The rest of his argument rests on an unreasonable notion that Congress is full of racists.
"It's therefore time for Chuck Schumer, Hillary Clinton, Bill Frist and Peter King to work together to write the National Security Ethnic Profiling Save Our Children Act, which would prevent Muslims from buying port management firms, the Chinese from buying oil and mouth-toy companies, and the Norwegians from using their secret control of U.S fluoridation levels to sap our precious bodily fluids at the Winter Olympics.
In other words, what we need to protect our security and way of life is a broad-based, xenophobic Know Nothing campaign of dressed-up photo-op nativism to show foreigners we will no longer submit to their wily ways.
Never mind -- the nativist, isolationist mass hysteria is already here.
This Dubai port deal has unleashed a kind of collective mania we haven't seen in decades. First seized by the radio hatemonger Michael Savage, it's been embraced by reactionaries of left and right, exploited by Empire State panderers, and enabled by a bipartisan horde of politicians who don't have the guts to stand in front of a xenophobic tsunami."
What garbage. Michael Savage is a hatemonger, true, but to say that this protest from more than just the members of Congress that Brooks listed is just a way of pandering to the Empire State is just ridiculous. If anything, more support for New York, as well as an end to the unequal balance of tax revenues to federal expenditures would be very welcome. If this "bipartisan horde of politicians" were so xenophobic, then P. & O. Steam Navigation Co. wouldn't have been in control of those port facilities in the first place. And clearly, this country wouldn't have the trade deficit it has if our Congress were full of xenophobes and racists that wouldn't dare let a foreign person or product on American soil. His mention of China and Norway is nothing more than the height of hyperbole to try to sweep aside the concerns of many over this deal.
"Nor is Dubai a bastion of Taliban radicalism. All Arabs may look alike to certain blowhard senators, but the United Arab Emirates is a modernizing, globalizing place. It was the first country in the region to sign the U.S. Container Security Initiative. It's signed agreements to bar the passage of nuclear material and to suppress terror financing. U.A.E. ports service U.S. military ships, and U.A.E. firms have made major investments in Chrysler and Time Warner, somehow without turning them into fundamentalist bastions."
That paragraph after the second sentence provides a rational defense of the track record of the United Arab Emirates. However, the first two sentences are trash. Nobody having doubts about the deal that are based in sanity is making a case that the Emirate of Dubai is ruled by the Arabian version of the Taliban, though the United Arab Emirates was one of three states to recognize the Taliban as the ruler of Afghanistan and severed relations with the Taliban after the September 11th attacks.
It is beyong silly to assume that many of our representatives in Congress see all Arabs as one and the same, especially given that some of those representatives have also been against racial profiling.
If that weren't enough, Brooks also accuses detractors of aiding the terrorists that we are fighting.
"God must love Hamas and Moktada al-Sadr. He has given them the America First brigades of Capitol Hill. God must love the folks at Al Jazeera. They won't have to work to stoke resentments this week. All the garbage they need will be spewing forth from press conferences and photo ops on C-Span and CNN."
Brooks must be in a retro kind of mood, yearning for the time when accusations of helping the terrorists win because one disagreed with their own opinion were more common. Furthermore, he is putting the people of Dubai Ports World and the United Arab Emirates on the same field as Hamas or the Taliban, as that is his means of defending his opinion.
Whatever position a person takes on this issue is one thing. To drag the debate down to a level like this as David Brooks has done not only insults the intelligence of everyone debating the issue at hand but it also insults the very people he is so proudly trying to defend. Brooks and anyone else suddenly using ethnicity in a "holier-than-thou" argument should step off his high horse and stick to the facts.
Defenders of the deal have accused detractors of having a view that anything Arab automatically is equal to anything terrorist. This sort of silly accusation towards Republicans, Democrats, and concerned citizens alike have this streak of discrimination in them does nothing to help solve the problem, whether the deal is kept or not. In fact, it is quite insulting that those throwing these bombs are themselves only putting Arabs on the same field as terrorists.
While David Brooks makes a couple of good points in defense of this deal, throughout his whole column in the New York Times ("Kicking Arabs in the Teeth," Thursday, February 23, 2006, subscription or other means to access the piece required), the same accusation that the opponents of the deal think that all Arabs are terrorists appears. In addition, he makes the accusation that the lawmakers opposed to this deal are isolationist and xenophobic...neverminding that small detail that operations that Dubai Ports World will be controlling have been under the control of a British-based company, Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Co., which has been bought by the Dubai company, setting off this fierce debate. Hardly isolationist.
It is only until the sixth paragraph of the piece that Brooks starts making a rational case in defense of the port deal.
Brooks argues that this deal would have an insignificant effect on security. The Coast Guard controls the physical security and the Customs Service controls container security. In addition, local authorities would also have their patrols and security measures in place for the ports.
Brooks also argues that the makeup of the workforce would not be radically altered. The American workers would mostly remain in their positions. They would merely be collecting their paychecks from a different employer.
Brooks further argues that Dubai Ports World isn't new at this business and that foreign companies operating the ports of a country is nothing new either. He cites Dick Meyer of CBS News, saying that the company operates facilities in Austrailia, China, Germany, and Korea and that Dubai Ports World is seeking to acquire facilities in 18 other countries. Brooks also points out that 80 percent of the facilities in the port of Los Angeles are run by foreign firms.
That is about the extent of the rational argument from David Brooks in his column. The rest of his argument rests on an unreasonable notion that Congress is full of racists.
"It's therefore time for Chuck Schumer, Hillary Clinton, Bill Frist and Peter King to work together to write the National Security Ethnic Profiling Save Our Children Act, which would prevent Muslims from buying port management firms, the Chinese from buying oil and mouth-toy companies, and the Norwegians from using their secret control of U.S fluoridation levels to sap our precious bodily fluids at the Winter Olympics.
In other words, what we need to protect our security and way of life is a broad-based, xenophobic Know Nothing campaign of dressed-up photo-op nativism to show foreigners we will no longer submit to their wily ways.
Never mind -- the nativist, isolationist mass hysteria is already here.
This Dubai port deal has unleashed a kind of collective mania we haven't seen in decades. First seized by the radio hatemonger Michael Savage, it's been embraced by reactionaries of left and right, exploited by Empire State panderers, and enabled by a bipartisan horde of politicians who don't have the guts to stand in front of a xenophobic tsunami."
What garbage. Michael Savage is a hatemonger, true, but to say that this protest from more than just the members of Congress that Brooks listed is just a way of pandering to the Empire State is just ridiculous. If anything, more support for New York, as well as an end to the unequal balance of tax revenues to federal expenditures would be very welcome. If this "bipartisan horde of politicians" were so xenophobic, then P. & O. Steam Navigation Co. wouldn't have been in control of those port facilities in the first place. And clearly, this country wouldn't have the trade deficit it has if our Congress were full of xenophobes and racists that wouldn't dare let a foreign person or product on American soil. His mention of China and Norway is nothing more than the height of hyperbole to try to sweep aside the concerns of many over this deal.
"Nor is Dubai a bastion of Taliban radicalism. All Arabs may look alike to certain blowhard senators, but the United Arab Emirates is a modernizing, globalizing place. It was the first country in the region to sign the U.S. Container Security Initiative. It's signed agreements to bar the passage of nuclear material and to suppress terror financing. U.A.E. ports service U.S. military ships, and U.A.E. firms have made major investments in Chrysler and Time Warner, somehow without turning them into fundamentalist bastions."
That paragraph after the second sentence provides a rational defense of the track record of the United Arab Emirates. However, the first two sentences are trash. Nobody having doubts about the deal that are based in sanity is making a case that the Emirate of Dubai is ruled by the Arabian version of the Taliban, though the United Arab Emirates was one of three states to recognize the Taliban as the ruler of Afghanistan and severed relations with the Taliban after the September 11th attacks.
It is beyong silly to assume that many of our representatives in Congress see all Arabs as one and the same, especially given that some of those representatives have also been against racial profiling.
If that weren't enough, Brooks also accuses detractors of aiding the terrorists that we are fighting.
"God must love Hamas and Moktada al-Sadr. He has given them the America First brigades of Capitol Hill. God must love the folks at Al Jazeera. They won't have to work to stoke resentments this week. All the garbage they need will be spewing forth from press conferences and photo ops on C-Span and CNN."
Brooks must be in a retro kind of mood, yearning for the time when accusations of helping the terrorists win because one disagreed with their own opinion were more common. Furthermore, he is putting the people of Dubai Ports World and the United Arab Emirates on the same field as Hamas or the Taliban, as that is his means of defending his opinion.
Whatever position a person takes on this issue is one thing. To drag the debate down to a level like this as David Brooks has done not only insults the intelligence of everyone debating the issue at hand but it also insults the very people he is so proudly trying to defend. Brooks and anyone else suddenly using ethnicity in a "holier-than-thou" argument should step off his high horse and stick to the facts.
posted by Will at 1:03 AM
1 Comments:
Royal Caribbean Incorporated in Liberia - Is that safer than United Arab Emirates?
Only 17% of Americans believe that control of 6 major American ports should be given to the United Arab Emirates. Perhaps Americans should think twice before becoming sharholders or customers of Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines (RCCL) since they are incorporated in Liberia and controlled by families form Norway and a partnership in the Bahamas. Would you entrust the safety and security of your loved ones to a Liberian Corporation?
The folowing statements appear in the Form 10-K filed by RCCL with the Security and Exchange Commission on February 24, 2006:
We are not a United States corporation and our shareholders may be subject to the uncertainties of a foreign legal system in protecting their interests.
Our corporate affairs are governed by our Restated Articles of Incorporation and By-Laws and by the Business Corporation Act of Liberia. The provisions of the Business Corporation Act of Liberia resemble provisions of the corporation laws of a number of states in the United States. However, while most states have a fairly well developed body of case law interpreting their respective corporate statutes, there are very few judicial cases in Liberia interpreting the Business Corporation Act of Liberia. For example, the rights and fiduciary responsibilities of directors under Liberian law are not as clearly established as the rights and fiduciary responsibilities of directors under statutes or judicial precedent in existence in certain United States jurisdictions. Thus, our public shareholders may have more difficulty in protecting their interests with respect to actions by management, directors or controlling shareholders than would shareholders of a corporation incorporated in a United States jurisdiction.
We are controlled by principal shareholders that have the power to determine our policies, management and actions requiring shareholder approval.
As of February 10, 2006, A. Wilhelmsen AS., a Norwegian corporation indirectly owned by members of the Wilhelmsen family of Norway, owned approximately 20.4% of our common stock and Cruise Associates, a Bahamian general partnership indirectly owned by various trusts primarily for the benefit of certain members of the Pritzker family and various trusts primarily for the benefit of certain members of the Ofer family, owned approximately 15.8% of our common stock
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