The story below [from the
Jerusulem Post] illustrates yet another reason we should never let
any foreign country run our ports or dictate our policies. Let's call it `cultural differences'....
The parent company of a Dubai-based firm at the center of a political storm in the US over the purchase of American ports participates in the Arab boycott against Israel, The Jerusalem Post has learned.
The firm, Dubai Ports World, is seeking control over six major US ports, including those in New York, Miami, Philadelphia and Baltimore. It is entirely owned by the Government of Dubai via a holding company called the Ports, Customs and Free Zone Corporation (PCZC), which consists of the Dubai Port Authority, the Dubai Customs Department and the Jebel Ali Free Zone Area.
"Yes, of course the boycott is still in place and is still enforced," Muhammad Rashid a-Din, a staff member of the Dubai Customs Department's Office for the Boycott of Israel, told the Post in a telephone interview.
"If a product contained even some components that were made in Israel, and you wanted to import it to Dubai, it would be a problem," he said.
A-Din noted that while the head office for the anti-Israel boycott sits in Damascus, he and his fellow staff members are paid employees of the Dubai Customs Department, which is a division of the PCZC, the same Dubai government-owned entity that runs Dubai Ports World.
And here we have, from the Washington Post, a corporate apologist for the sell-the-US-to-foreigners policy, identified as the second chairman of the CFIUS after it was created in 1975. [CFIUS is the government entity that reviews, or shall we say, rubberstamps -- because they've only turned down one since 1975 -- these types of deals]:
Third, it would be a grave mistake to enact new legislation that permitted Congress to exercise case-by-case review of individual applications for foreign investments in the United States. Such congressional micromanagement exists in other specialized policy areas such as arms exports to foreign countries. But applying it to commercial transactions would generate such uncertainties and potential delays for foreign investors that it would have a huge chilling effect on their proclivity to buy American assets.
The United States needs to attract almost $1 trillion of foreign financing annually to fund our huge and growing trade and current account deficits. It would be the height of national folly to erect any such deterrent to one of the most desirable channels for such flows.
So he's saying that we need to sell off America to the highest bidder so we can finance our `growing deficits'. I think the question should then be - and why do we have these GROWING DEFiCITS, when we had a growing SURPLUS during the Clinton adminstration?
And the answer is: George Bush's tax cuts for the rich. We have a huge deficit because Mr. Bush has decided that his friends and family and wealthiest supporters don't need to pay taxes like we 'little people' do. So to finance those enormous tax cuts, we are selling America's independence, future and security.
The next time you visit with your Republican in-laws, ask them if they think it's worth it.
http://claudialong.com/...