Wednesday, February 22, 2006
The UAE ports kerfuffle, Part II
I stand by my basic point:
It may very well be that it is unwise for the United States to hire an Arab company to manage some of its key ports. Or it may be very wise. The harsh reality is that there is no evidence that the United States is better at detecting jihadi infiltration than the government of the United Arab Emirates, or a company owned by it that happens to be expert in port administration. I, for one, think that it takes an Arab to catch an Arab. Will it really be easier for jihadis to penetrate the security of an Arab company that has, frankly, protected the Westerners on its watch elsewhere?
Point is, we need to be thoughtful about this decision and others like it. We cannot beat the jihadis without help from Muslims. While the developments of the last few weeks suggest that moderate Islam is not so prevalent in the world as we might have hoped, you are unlikely to find a hotter hotbed of anti-jihadi sentiment than in the luxurious halls of the Emirates.
Remember that: Nine times out of ten, it is going to take and Arab to catch an Arab.1 Does that mean that we have to win the "hearts and minds" of Arabs and other Muslims? Absolutely not, however important this is to people who haven't learned anything new since they absorbed that one flawed idea from the Vietnam war. We don't need friends nearly as much as we need for al Qaeda to make lots of enemies.2 But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't be receptive to Arab expertise when we can get it. And it certainly doesn't mean that we should go out of our way to make it clear that Arab business is not welcome in the United States.
The politics of this are also a bit less obvious than they appear at first blush. Yes, as my co-blogger wrote yesterday, the administration had better "get transparent, or they will accomplish something practically impossible: make the opposition look stronger on security." This almost unbelievable possibility has caused Democrats across the spectrum to go nativist. We have expected nativism from Republicans since they absorbed the Know-Nothings in 1856, but from Democrats? They are actually opposing a foreign investment in this country on the frail reed that Arabs are behind it. In their lunge for a wedge issue against the lame-duck Bush administration, they are telling the world that they can be just as nativist as Republicans. Beautiful.
The Democrats spend a lot of time worrying about "moral authority." Senator Clinton, Senator Schumer, Paul Begala and other leading Democrats who have been bleating about this issue without fact one are squandering theirs.
UPDATE: The Wall Street Journal looks at it same way I do:
Yes, some of the 9/11 hijackers were UAE citizens. But then the London subway bombings last year were perpetrated by citizens of Britain, home to the company (P&O) that currently manages the ports that Dubai Ports World would take over. Which tells us three things: First, this work is already being outsourced to "a foreign-based company"; second, discriminating against a Mideast company offers no security guarantees because attacks are sometimes homegrown; and third, Mr. Graham likes to talk first and ask questions later.
Besides, the notion that the Bush Administration is farming out port "security" to hostile Arab nations is alarmist nonsense. Dubai Ports World would be managing the commercial activities of these U.S. ports, not securing them. There's a difference. Port security falls to Coast Guard and U.S. Customs officials. "Nothing changes with respect to security under the contract," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said yesterday. "The Coast Guard is in charge of security, not the corporation."...
Critics also forget, or conveniently ignore, that the UAE government has been among the most helpful Arab countries in the war on terror. It was one of the first countries to join the U.S. container security initiative, which seeks to inspect cargo in foreign ports. The UAE has assisted in training security forces in Iraq, and at home it has worked hard to stem terrorist financing and WMD proliferation. UAE leaders are as much an al Qaeda target as Tony Blair.3
As for the Democrats, we suppose this is a two-fer: They have a rare opportunity to get to the right of the GOP on national security, and they can play to their union, anti-foreign investment base as well....
So the same Democrats who lecture that the war on terror is really a battle for "hearts and minds" now apparently favor bald discrimination against even friendly Arabs investing in the U.S.? Guantanamo must be closed because it's terrible PR, wiretapping al Qaeda in the U.S. is illegal, and the U.S. needs to withdraw from Iraq, but these Democratic superhawks simply will not allow Arabs to be put in charge of American longshoremen. That's all sure to play well on al Jazeera....
______________________
1. Obviously, I'm using shorthand here for the point that in a civil insurgency, the people who are best at catching the enemy usually come from the enemy's world.
2. See, e.g., Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, The Next Attack: The Failure Of The War On Terror And A Strategy For Getting It Right
. Their book, about which I will have much more to say in the near future, argues that it is enormously significant that America's popularity in the Muslim world has declined to very low levels, but largely ignores the parallel steep increase in opposition to al Qaeda. I think that the latter is much more important than the former.3. Don't for an instant think that I'm backing away from my devoted mockery of monarchy, which I continue to think is the most asshattish system of government devised by man.
12 Comments:
By 
, at
Wed Feb 22, 08:53:00 AM:
Remember that: Nine times out of ten, it is going to take and Arab to catch an Arab.
On what do you base that premise? Personally, I think it's equally as valid to say that it takes an American to defend America.
To refer to my comment from yesterday, if the administration had delivered on more than only 1/4 of the money necessary to defend our ports, we would have been able to afford strong, public-sector security to administer our ports. Regardless of whether the UAE is an ally of ours or not, there is nobody with a stronger interest in protecting us from terrorism than ourselves.
Also, I heard on the news last night (sorry, no link) that weeks after 9/11, an al-Qaeda operative was apprehended in the UAE for planning a terrorist attack on our ports. Is this true? If so, wouldn't that be a huge red flag in this whole deal (whether you trust the UAE or not)?
Sorry, but I think we could've been a lot smarter here.
By 
Admin, at
Wed Feb 22, 08:56:00 AM:
the might just isnt strong enough to convince me.
i still think its a bad idea.
By TigerHawk, at
Wed Feb 22, 09:07:00 AM:
Sam,
Remember that: Nine times out of ten, it is going to take and Arab to catch an Arab.
On what do you base that premise?
History, actually, but I admit that there are conflicting lessons in that history.
A lot depends on how you think about this war. As longstanding readers know, I view the war the war of al Qaeda and its ideological affiliates as an insurgency within the Islamic world, in to which we and other non-Muslim countries (see, e.g., Russia, the Philippines, Thailand, India and much of Europe) have been dragged. The war against al Qaeda and its allies is a counterinsurgency, and it is virtually global in scope.
Generally, locals have more success fighting counterinsurgency war than foreigners. True, sometimes the locals needs help, training, and so forth, but the real success come with local intelligence, which has a huge advantage in detecting the wolves among the sheep.
So that's what I mean. The United States, or even the West, is not going to beat this insurgency. Only Muslims will do that. Fortunately, I think they will, almost no matter how much they dislike Americans.
By Admin, at
Wed Feb 22, 09:27:00 AM:
additionally, i think having any corporation controlling something as vital as our port systems is a bad idea.
By Dawnfire82, at
Wed Feb 22, 10:05:00 AM:
Sorry Hawk, I'm aligned against you on this one.
"The Coast Guard is in charge of security, not the corporation." - That is true, but the corporation can make it easier to smuggle things into or out of the port by altering cargo lists, changing schedules, forging paperwork, or whatever. 50%+ of all security is paperwork. (visas, identification papers/cards, badges, concealed carry licenses, et cetera) All it really takes is for whomever does the paperwork to turn against you. The fact that the UAE is a politically friendly nation isn't terribly relevant; it's an Arab nation from the Gulf region. All it would take is some mujihadin sympathizers in the company, and I can guarantee that those are far more common in the UAE than, say, Britain. US officials who insist that this idea won't be a security risk obviously are not connected closely enough to the reality of security operations, and I guess it'd be politically unwise to say "this isn't enough of a security risk."
Secondly, I oppose handing over port operations to a foreign *state-owned* company on principle.
By , at
Wed Feb 22, 10:41:00 AM:
TigerHawk:
A lot depends on how you think about this war. As longstanding readers know, I view the war the war of al Qaeda and its ideological affiliates as an insurgency within the Islamic world, in to which we and other non-Muslim countries (see, e.g., Russia, the Philippines, Thailand, India and much of Europe) have been dragged. The war against al Qaeda and its allies is a counterinsurgency, and it is virtually global in scope.
Generally, locals have more success fighting counterinsurgency war than foreigners. True, sometimes the locals needs help, training, and so forth, but the real success come with local intelligence, which has a huge advantage in detecting the wolves among the sheep.
I'll grant you that, but we're not talking about "local intelligence" here. Local intelligence is what we're getting in Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc., and they may very well be able to find a local al-Qaeda cell and detect a plot against our ports, for example. Our Arab allies, I'm sure, are a great asset to us in these operations for the very reasons you describe above.
But what we're talking about here with our ports is not offensive in nature, but defensive (thus, "Homeland Security"). The people who are defending our ports are more effective when they're more familiar with the port's geography, features, and bureaucracy -- they would better be able to spot something out of the ordinary and take action immediately. Their job is not, for example, to perform sting operations on terror cells and thwart plots before they happen; instead, their role would be to neutralize plots as they are happening.
All other things being equal, in a homeland security role (i.e. defense), one would much prefer someone who is familiar with what they are defending than someone who has a learning curve in this front. And in this case, that would be the "locals", or us.
I hate to keep harping on this, but it's just infuriating to me that our government didn't allocate enough money to get the best security available. This is one area that simply shouldn't be outsourced -- to the UAE, to Great Britian, or to anybody.
By Unknown, at
Wed Feb 22, 11:44:00 AM:
Thanks for the link, Tigerhawk. I'm still posting on this subject but I'm beginning to feel mighty lonely. You, Dan Bercik at Bloggledygook, AJStrata at the Strata-Sphere, Dafydd ab Hugh at Big Lizard, and a scant handful of others are the forlorn hope on this.
Most of those who actually know something about port operations or security or the UAE are on the same side as we are (I have to admit that Jimmy Carter's concurrence has made me seriously reconsider my reasoning).
By Lanky_Bastard, at
Wed Feb 22, 04:08:00 PM:
Additionally, it is time to lay off our entire Homeland Security Department and the Secret Service and replace them all with Arab ex-patriots. Nine out of ten times it takes an Arab to keep us safe from Arabs, and we can't trust our national security to the 1 in 10 chance of Americans succeeding. Expect Arab foreigners to assume the safeguarding of our nuclear stockpiles and the security on Plum Island as soon as possible.
This has been a public service announcement from The Oceania Defense League, reminding you that we have always been at war with Eurasia. Good day.
By Cassandra, at
Wed Feb 22, 10:04:00 PM:
Out of all the major US seaports, how many are US managed?
*crickets chirping*
By , at
Wed Feb 22, 11:48:00 PM:
Isn't anyone curious about previous connections between the UAE royal family and OBL?
"The Central Intelligence Agency did not target Al Qaeda chief Osama bin laden once as he had the royal family of the United Arab Emirates with him in Afghanistan, the agency's director, George Tenet, told the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks on the United States on Thursday.
Had the CIA targeted bin Laden, half the royal family would have been wiped out as well, he said."
More details.
By , at
Wed Feb 22, 11:56:00 PM:
Whoops, looks like I screwed up that last "connections" link. Try this instead...
http://in.rediff.com/news/2004/mar/25osama.htm
By cakreiz, at
Thu Feb 23, 09:29:00 AM:
Continued superb work, Hawk. You're a consistent beacon of enlightenment.
