Ports - Still Our Veins To The World

Well, our government leaders have decided to give away control of some of our ports to a company owned by the United Arab Emarates, a nation in the Middle East who helped fund the Taliban. Is this a great idea or what! Now they can bring their bombs right into the country without having to worry about some of those minor infractions. This way we can keep our planes and we can curb that temptation to fake passports and IDs. We can probably even cut down on airport security now that we can figure on most terrorists choosing to come by boat instead. In fact, why don't we just hand over our airports to the Terrorists too since they would surely take better care of them then and be kinder to us. Can't we all just get along? Where's the love?


We should not give up our nation's sovreignty to any other nation, let alone a nation that has taken part in terrorist acts upon the United States by funding the Taliban.

[My concerns don't stem directly from national security issues but rather from national sovreignty issues.]

First we should never give up the governing of any part of our nation to another nation. This violates our sovreignty as well as gives that other nation the upper hand in situations with respect to that particular area of governance.

Second this could be just the start of a choking out of our international commerce by giving away our rights as part of a free enterprise economic system. There is potential here for our economic abilities to be infringed upon by this foreign company. Having a foreign power holding the position of essentially a governing agency we will be required to submit to their athority in matters involving our economy. Having a foreign country controlling our ports and having certain powers over our economic decisions (however limited they may be) could be detrimental to the stability of our economy. US shipping would become more dependent on that foreign country and would want to please them in order that they might show favoritism in return.

President Bush was quoted as saying:

“If there was any chance that this transaction would jeopardize the security of the United States, it would not go forward,”

And further:
“It sends a terrible signal to friends around the world that it’s OK for a company from one country to manage the port, but not a country that plays by the rules and has got a good track record from another part of the world,”

My question is this: How does funding the Taliban translate into a "good track record" or "playing by the rules"? Whose rules are we talking about here? The UAE may not be supporting the Taliban now but why should we risk it? What good thing will come from us trusting a nation with a "track record" like this one? What makes it worth the risk? I ask you? What?