P&O and DWP

One of the stupider eruptions of American politics is going on over the Dubai World Ports bid for P&O. Simple crass populism as the usual suspects scream about handing over ports and security to some bunch of Ayrabs.

When of course, as anyone who has actually looked into it knows, P&O doesn’t actually own any ports, simply manages some small parts of a few of them (6 out of 300 or so in the US) and isn’t responsible for the security at any of them.

Gerard Baker at The Times blogs on it:

The bipartisan opposition in the US to the takeover of P&O, the British company that runs six US ports, by Dubai Ports World is nothing but opportunistic populism that enables, exploits and empowers the very worst instincts of some Americans.  It has no basis in economics or in concerns about national security. It is chauvinism and pandering of the most contemptible sort.

Take the article in today's USA Today by the two most loathsome (it's an equal opportunity thing - one's a Democrat, one's a Republican) protagonists, Seantor Charles Schumer and Congressman Peter King.

(While we're on the subject of security, may I point that Mr King was for years one of the most active American sympathisers with the IRA, so I guess he knows a thing or two both about nasty ethnic loathing and the threat of terrorism to decent, innocent peoples).

Their objection to the takeover is apparently that it would hand over control of US ports to "a country through which a number of the 9/11 hijackers traveled and al-Qaeda money was funneled."

Oh, and this makes Dubai a unique threat, does it? As I recall, al Qaeda people also travelled or funnelled their money through Germany, Britain, Italy, the Czech Republic, not to mention the US. The men behind the 7/7 bombings in London were British, as was Richard Reid, the shoe bomber.  Why not ban them all from bidding for US companies?

The idiot protectionists in full hue and cry do actually seem to be gaining some traction:

PRESIDENT BUSH appeared to back down last night in the face of a threat of a full-scale congressional revolt over a deal allowing an Arab company to take control of six US ports.

At pains to deflect accusations of xenophobia from across the Middle East, the White House signalled that it was prepared to give Congress more time to approve the sale of the ports to a state-owned company in the United Arab Emirates.

Conceding that security concerns were “entirely appropriate”, Karl Rove, a top presidential adviser, said Congress should have more time to be fully briefed about the takeover.

Exactly what that fuller briefing will consist of is a little unclear. One would hope for a "You’re all idiots" followed by public contrition but that might not actually happen.

Quite the best background to the actual intricacies of what P&O does and does not do is at Dennis the Peasant’s. (I will also admit to an admiration for the One Handed Economist’s headline "Dear Racist Half-Wits in Congress".)

It’s amazing what kind find out if you’re willing to put in, say, about two hours on the internet.

Really.

I decided to go to the web site of Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company (P&O) and see what I could discover about their operations at the seaports that fell under the jurisdiction of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Here’s what I discovered:

P&O Ports, a subsidiary of P&O, operates exactly one cargo terminal at the Port of New York and New Jersey, which is the Port Newark Container Terminal.

There’s much much more of it there, several long post’s worth. Detailed descriptions of exactly what is going on, what P&O does, what it doesn’t and why this is indeed simply pandering to the worst instincts of a certain section of the American public.

Yeah, like we’re surprised politicians do that in an election year.

Perhaps just one little reminder of how the world has changed in recent years. The most clear headed and accurate deconstruction of the latest political storm sweeping across the US is actually coming from a 49 year old, overweight CPA, writing as a Monty Python character and sitting in the middle of flyover country, a true red state Republican. This clear explication sandwiched inbetween reports from his Weight Watcher’s group, attacks on Pajamas Media and some extremely fine pieces on Somali refugees in the Mid-West.

Truly, there is a media revolution going on.