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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated

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To: Ilaine who wrote (158779)	2/23/2006 11:18:05 AM
From: greenspirit	Read Replies (1) of 793549

Of course I've heard of those things. My questions were designed to open up discussions in other areas in order to explore the pro's and cons of the port issue. It's a very gray zone to me. What seems to be lost in most of the MSM reports, is the simple fact that we long ago decided to allow foreign ownership of port facilities such as the ones in question. It's a fact that a British company has been running these facilities for years. Therefore, we are not turning over the facilities to foreign interests. We are transferring ownership from one foreign company to another foreign company. I don't necessarily buy into the notion that we are in greater danger from a UAE company owning the entity as the communist country of China owning port facilities in California. I've seen what the Chinese are up to on many different levels, and there is much the American people do not know. They are not our allies. They are a competitor, which desires to spread their power and influence around the world. On the other hand, there are many decent Muslim companies in the middle east who want nothing more than the opportunity to make a buck, and couldn’t care less about extremist Muslim ideological interests. Of course, there are fanatics in the Muslim world as well and we shouldn't ignore the threat they pose. There are also a heck of a lot of Muslims in Malaysia, if the company was Malaysian in origin and the CEO was a Muslim should we worry about safety in the same manner and ban them from purchasing port rights? Its incumbent on us as a society to explore where these boundaries exist and what criteria we should use to put them in place. Now, it may not have been wise to allow foreign ownership of these resources. But, that's really a separate issue at this juncture and should be debated separately. If the UAE company had an office in the Cayman Islands and pretended to be Bahamian in nature, would we care? Would all of this had even come up? Then there is the aspect of union control of port employment. I suspect the same requirements for background checks of employees working on the docks would exist under UAE management control. But, I don't know and I'm just speculating.

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