RWB is lucky not to have been blogging heavily earlier in the week and therefore in not having been tempted into committing to a position on this whole U.A.E. ports-management-deal. As of this stage, I find myself absolutely committed to being uncommitted. The only thing clear seems to be that the issues involved are not clear. I note that even Charles Johnson (of the famed “Islamophobic” Little Green Footballs) has just said that although he doesn’t outright support the deal, he is “cautiously OK with it.” Then he goes on to update the very same post with several reasons not to be so “OK” with it. I sympathize; every time I think I have a good reason to think one way or another I read something that makes me think again. Nothing wrong with waiting till all the facts are out in the open, I guess. (What a novel way of making up your mind!)

One of the points “con” that Johnson raises is via the estimable Charles Krauthammer:

The greater and more immediate danger is that as soon as the Dubai company takes over operations, it will necessarily become privy to information about security provisions at crucial U.S. ports. That would mean a transfer of information about our security operations — and perhaps even worse, about the holes in our security operations — to a company in an Arab state in which there might be employees who, for reasons of corruption or ideology, would pass this invaluable knowledge on to al-Qaeda types.

That is the danger, and it is a risk, probably an unnecessary one. It’s not quite the end of the world that Democratic and Republican critics have portrayed it to be. After all, the UAE, which is run by a friendly regime, manages ports in other countries without any such incidents. Employees in other countries could leak or betray us just as easily. The issue, however, is that they are statistically more likely to be found in the UAE than, for example, in Britain.

Well, take that last sentence. Seems like commonsense. However, it occurs to me that Britain—offered here as the point of comparison—certainly has a significant radicalized Muslim population, as we know well (the July 7th bombers included individuals who would have been thought of as anything but likely suicide killers). And now to what I don’t know but am inclined to surmise: The managers of the U.A.E. based company are unlikely to labor under any Western-style “political correctness” strictures. (Do you think that they have to take “sensitivity” classes or are compelled in any way to promote “diversity?”) Also, when it comes to identifying someone with secret radical Islamofascist tendencies, it would also seem a kind of commonsense to think that a manager coming from an Arabic/Muslim background is, if anything, more likely to see through a smokescreen thrown up by such an individual (and more likely to be able to take immediate and un-second-guessed action against them).

So, is the risk really so much statistically greater with a highly-regarded and highly-profit-motivated U.A.E. company, versus a British one, managing port operations?

Well, as said, I’m forcefully undecided on the final answer. I am, however, definitely willing to agree that the 45-day waiting period is a good idea.

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