US Ports and Arab Control

You know, I honestly have not been paying as much attention to this issue as I might have in the past few months, because I am honestly torn by this situation (and the fact I am really busy at work).

On one side, are the national security advocates are saying by allowing an Arab controlled company, from an Arab country (United Arab Emirates) to run six US East Coast ports, then we are making ourselves more susceptible to a terrorist attack. On the other side, is the capitalistic perspective that says by allowing the best economic entity run the ports ( ie. Invisible hand theory), then the ports can run more efficiently and profitably. These are both very valid points of view in this discussion. Finally, just to get my Bush bashing in, you have the 3rd perspective of those not in the know, which our illustrious president seems to find himself again (Harriet Meir, Katrina, VP shooting, etc.).

I am often butting heads with my father, whenever we discuss the Middle East, since he will state that Arabs are only interested in destruction and war, and it is impossible to negotiate or work civilly with them. I always point out that not all Arabs are like this, and if we (as a collective we, not my father and I) hope to ever bring peace to the Middle East then we cannot summarily dismiss all Arabs in this manner. I hope that we only see 20% of the extreme and the rest of the 80% of law-abiding, family loving folks like myself. I also have to admit in the wake of the recent cartoon-gate that the Arab world certainly does not try to change their image in the western world, they seem to lack a peace advocating leader, but that is another story altogether.
We need to be able to reward capitalistic endeavors that are driving commerce in the middle east. The point of this ramble is are we to assume the folks at Dubai Ports World are legitimate partners of the United States and don't have any interest in state sanctioned terrorism, or do we assume like my father, that all Arabs are inherently bad and we should not reward them economically for providing the best bid for this job since they will allow a free entry for terrorist into this country.

I assume (and I realize it is probably a very bad assumption) and hope that the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security is going to make this organization jump through multiple hoops, to verify who is working in the US at these ports, doing a thorough screening of all potential employees, both domestic and international to ensure that terrorists are being smoked out. The bottom line is if an American or European or Asian organization won the rights to manage these ports, would they be any more secure from terrorists than by having a middle eastern Arabian entity control the business operations? My guess is it would be exactly the same amount of security, since security is a function of the effort put into those that run the ports, not the countries that own the entity.

If we are concerned about terrorists attacking the ports, or using those areas as an entry point to this country, then DHS, INS, the Coast Guard and every other agency involved in the fight on terrorism ought to review existing procedures at every port in the US and set up new standards then strictly enforce those standards and ensure all organization running all the ports are strictly adhering to these standards, with massive fines and consequences for non-compliance. At the end of the day, security is only as good as the procedures, and those responsible for adhering and enforcing those procedures, and it does not matter the managers national origin. If you are committed to be secure, you will be secure. If you pay lip service, then you won't be secure. It is that simple.

The bottom line is we cannot have it both ways; punishing the Middle East because they are Arab or undemocratic or not Christian or whatever the beef is and then expect them to work with the western world to stabilize the region. So the answers seems to be let them run the ports, do everything within our power to ensure the security of these and all US ports and lets move onto the next issue.