Liberal Talk Radio

Nick Kristof, easily the most intellectually honest columnist in the NY Times’ stable, argues [Times$elect!] that the DP World deal shouldn’t concern us:

Critics of the deal seem to suggest that swarthy men in black turbans are going to be arriving to provide port “security” in Newark. But Dubai Ports World is run mostly by Western executives, under an American chief operating officer. Nothing is going to change on the ground in Newark.

He might have gotten that partly wrong. As far as I can tell, the CEO is almost certainly not American, though he was educated in the U.S. But here’s the more important point:

Suppose you were Osama bin Laden and wanted to set off a nuclear weapon or a “dirty bomb” in front of the U.S. Capitol. First you would bribe Russians with access to loosely secured nuclear materials.

Then you would ship them to the U.S. — but the key step would occur in the foreign port: hiding the materials in the shipping container of a well-known and trusted exporter. If the container were shipped out of Rotterdam and seemed to contain Lego toys, for example, U.S. customs officials (who are now also based abroad) might not bother to examine it.

So even if agents of Al Qaeda infiltrate Dubai Ports World, and some manage to get U.S. visas and be stationed in Newark, it’s not clear that they could help the plot.

Furthermore, a globalized society is always going to be about trade-offs, and the merits of each one have to be weighted carefully against the consequences:

So every country accepts trade-offs. We admit European tourists without visas, even though terrorists may slip in as well. But since 9/11 there has been a nativist, Know-Nothing streak in politics; a year ago it blocked China’s deal to acquire Unocal, and today it rages at the Dubai ports deal.

Secretary of State Cordell Hull used to say that “when goods do not cross borders, armies do.” If we want to promote global markets, as an avenue to peace, we have to practice what we preach.

Of course there are differences between the UAE and the UK. We have to grant that. Of course there are legitimate concerns here, on the face. But once you dig deeper, you quickly realize that the issue of shifting management paperwork from one global shipping concern to another is the least of our port-related worries.

I’ve said on the show that I refuse to engage in a debate with pro-lifers until they take the minimum, obvious steps of making contraception freely available to teenagers and provide good health care and other social services to young, poor, single mothers (yes, the same ones they routinely chastise as “welfare moms.”) Similarly, I think any debate over the global management paper trail of port operations companies has to take a back seat to far more pressing issues of actual port security.

Technorati Tags: Nick Kristof, UAE, Homeland Security, Dubai Ports World