truckjunkie

BUT - I do have another scenario... What if (God forbid) a nuke came in from Australia, on a Finnish shipping line, smuggled by a terrorist group consisting of Germans, Britons, Hispanics, and Taiwanese, through a Coast Guard / CBP / Port Authority secured port, went through a Chinese managed terminal, unloaded by U.S. Longshoremen, and exploded somewhere in the U.S.?

Who would you go war with?

dezeldog

Junkie, you can turn this around any way you want but the facts are that our country was attacked by a Islamic radical terrorists organization that is bent on the destruction of America. Therefore we must be forever watchful as to who we allow in this country and thus the mandatory 45 day waiting period for security reasons which is standard for any deal with a foreign country.
Am I saying that all Arabs are terrorists, absoulty not. However it would be in our best to take a long, hard look at who is comming into this country and how they are getting here.
Keep in mind that we were not attacke buy the Germans, Brits or the Mexicans. We were attacked by Arab terrorists and that is the reason that we should be just a little more wary of who we allow to handle our ports. The 45day security check is for all nations not just Arabs. Did you ever stop and think why they backed out of the deal when the waiting period and security check was mentioned. Kinda makes you wonder doesn't it???

Jim

Mexstan

Interesting you say this. This morning I happened to read something along these lines so will post it here for y'all to think about and comment on;

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/ar...TICLE_ID=49223

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/ar...TICLE_ID=49224

truckjunkie

Mexstan - nice posts - the first one was dead on - if the nukes get within our national waters, it's too late already....

ON EDIT - I agree that the overall security at the ports is more for show and tell than teeth. But I don't think that nationalizing port/terminal security and management is the answer either.

I wonder if we could build ship-sized scanners that we could place about 100 miles off shore and have all ships pass through them....

Hmmmm..... Maybe I'm on to something there - let me go out to the garage and get some tools and some graph paper...

truckjunkie

See - there you go again being the uninformed majority - they'd already gone through the 'standard' vetting process given to all companies in this situation. They AGREED to the additional 45 days as an act of good faith. Actually there's some reports going around that one of their consultants - you may have heard of him - Bill Clinton - suggested the additional 45 day waiting period. Let me see if I can dig something up on that. ON EDIT - here's one article - I can get more if you want - it also mentions that DPW voluntarily submitted to the 45 day period: http://www.newsday.com/news/nationwo...-top-headlines

It makes me wonder what concessions were given to them by both Republican and Deomcratic congressmen to make this deal go away prior to the end of the 45 day period, and how much it costs us.

The congressmen on both sides of the aisle can now stand up in front of the cameras and say they were tough on national security in an election year.

I'm seriously considering withdrawing my RNC affiliation / membership. Not that I'd become a Dem, but the Republicans in this case aren't any better.

dezeldog

[QUOTE=truckjunkie]
It makes me wonder what concessions were given to them by both Republican and Deomcratic congressmen to make this deal go away, and how
much it costs us.

What is the price you are willing to pay for our national security. I just didn't have that warm fuzzy feeling about the deal for whatever reason.
Please tell me why you thought that this was such a wonderfull deal to begin with. I think that we are able to manage our own ports so why outsource them. You mentioned that those articles that Mexstan posted were right on. Well you should reread the first paragraph in the post. Now that was right on.
Just another member of the uninformed majority club.

Jim

truckjunkie

I don't disagree that we should be able to manage our own terminals. What I have the heartburn about is that we've singled out an Arab outfit for this scrutiny, ON EDIT - and that so many people don't know the actual particulars of the deal.

The management of terminals in U.S. ports have been 'outsourced' since the 70's.

BTW - please tell me what American owned company actually does Terminal Management in the U.S. today. I've been looking for a couple of weeks and haven't been able to find one.

Lary Ellis (Top)

I think you need to reread your history....Our east coast is referred to as the graveyard of the Atlantic because German U-Boats sank so many of our ships leaving port...

It was the British that burned down the both the White House and the Capital during the war of 1812...

And it was Mexico that we were at war with when the Alamo was destroyed...

The point being that you are singling out the Arab world but ignoring the fact that danger can wear any hat and come from any direction.

I personally would feel better if all our access points were solidly in control of American owned companies, but I am also very aware that we have friends in the Arab world who are Not our enemies. And they do not deserve to be all lumped into the same category.

This issue was clearly blown out of proportion because it suited political needs to do so. Even with an American company running the ports, we are STILL in great danger of something coming through them.

Every container can NOT be checked and it matters little who owns the company that operates the off loading of these vessels. Unless we can find a way to check every single container before it enters the country, we will remain vulnerable in that area.

Doing that however, would be a logistical nightmare and it would raise the cost of all imported goods astronomically. So all this politcal saber rattling has been nothing but show, again more nonsense from our elected officials and the media in the name of ratings and votes.

dezeldog

Lary, I am quite familiar with history. What I meant was in the modern world. Germany did not attack our country they sunk a few boats. When I say attacked i am speaking of the 9-11 and Pearl Harbor type. Those were attacks. If you all think that this port deal was a good deal then by all means it must've been and the rest of us uninformed missed the deal of the century.

Jim

P.J

Uh, HD said a "NEW PARTY"! This is nothing new.

Begle1

The ideas of bottom-up control of the government, an unregulated economy, flat taxes and civic freedom aren't anything new either.

If I recall, those ideals have been around since 1776...

(And I think that today's "Libertarian" party suffers from extremism and poor leadership. I don't believe that a self-styled "libertarian" will ever be in office, but Republicans are going to end up adopting the Libertarian ideals they once held.)

truckjunkie

See there IS something we can agree on :-) I agree that their ideals - for the most part - are what this country needs. And I agree that poor leadership has not helped their cause.

But even they don't see the DPW thing as anything more than grandstanding... And they worry about the long term effects of this snub in the Arab world. http://www.lp.org/article_292.shtml

Mexstan

As has been discussed previuosly, no matter who controls your ports, how are you going to police everything? How can you inspect EVERY container? Here is a new report on this matter:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060311/...security_study

truckjunkie

See Mexstan - maybe that whole idea of the ship-sized scanners anchored 100 miles offshore might work.

That idea can't be any worse than my failures with the Mr. Fusion device I was working on.

Lary Ellis (Top)

Jim you are the one missing the point, I never said that the deal was a good thing. What I said was that it didn't matter WHO owns the company that runs the ports. The same labor unions supply the workers who unload the ships, none of that would have changed.

Our ports are wide open and have been, all this stuff has done absolutely NOTHING to improve our security. The only thing that has been accomplished is a bunch of politicians got to smile for the cameras knowing many Americans are foolish enough to believe that it meant they actually did something useful.

Obviously they were right as much of this thread proves beyond a shadow of a doubt. They took a nonissue and with the help of the media gave themselves a platform to help promote their future political careers.