DW Ports: Letter to Maureen Dowd and other sensible Americans who have been misled

Ms Dowd,

I have read your column religiously (as well as Bushworld and Are Men Necessary), but I have to, sadly, complain about your last column. You complain about the security of U.S. ports, rightfully. However, DW Ports will not be in charge of security (nor was P&O). That duty falls to the Coast Guard and Customs. Furthermore, you write that "Is [UAE) it a nation that helps us sometimes but also addicts us to oil and then jacks up the price". This is inaccurate. According to a story in Tuesday's Financial Times, Dubai only gets 7 percent of its GDP from oil. It had small reserves to begin with and correctly diversified its economy away from oil. You also claim that "Just because the wealthy foreigners who own our debt can blackmail us with their economic leverage, does that mean we should expose our security assets to them as well?" Again, you miss the main point that DW Ports is an internationally recognized company with a large share of American executives (including the head of the Maritime Authority who was the head of the European division of DW Ports; a conflict of interest, yes, but still a valid consideration). While Britain and Dubai are different across the board does not mean that their running of U.S. ports will be any different. The protectionist wings of the Democratic and Republican parties have jumped on this as an issue which they feel they can tack national security onto their own agendas. Rushing to protect (the British-owned) P&O (or Unocal for that matter) against an "evil" (i.e., Chinese-owned) or "terrorist" (i.e. Arab-owned) company feeds the fires of people like Ralph Nader and Pat Buchanan and harms America's reputation as being market-friendly (as opposed to nationlistic) reputation.