Never a Dull Moment

Unbelievable.





WASHINGTON, Feb. 24 (UPI) -- A United Arab Emirates government-owned company is poised to take over port terminal operations in 21 American ports, far more than the six widely reported.
The Bush administration has approved the takeover of British-owned Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Co. to DP World, a deal set to go forward March 2 unless Congress intervenes.
P&O is the parent company of P&O Ports North America, which leases terminals for the import and export and loading and unloading and security of cargo in 21 ports, 11 on the East Coast, ranging from Portland, Maine to Miami, Florida, and 10 on the Gulf Coast, from Gulfport, Miss., to Corpus Christi, Texas, according to the company's Web site.

More about the Port Deal you might have not heard:

On the face of it, a simple matter of a buyout of a company, allowing existing contracts to continue. But step back and examine the buyout, which did not go to the highest bidder. Why would the stockholders approve of a deal giving them substantially less money, to sell to the UAE, than selling to Singapore would have provided? Indonesia is not only a staunch ally of the US and Britain, but also had no links to terrorism or support of 911 and Bin Laden. The stockholders of the private British company up for sale, of course, were not presented with an option, nor are private companies that well regulated so few recourses were available to the stockholders, so they took the option they were given. Grab the money and run. The known links to terrorism the UAE presented included hosting Bin Laden for hospital care in the months leading into 911, visiting him in Pakistan, being the home country for a number of the 911 terrorists, and laundering money for the 911 crowd. With this rap sheet, why would the British and the US want to encourage their control of key ports in the US?

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The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality - judiciously, as you will - we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man-John Perkins

Thanks to Jeff Wells and RI commenters