In article , Dave
wrote:

On Thu, 23 Feb 2006 23:00:10 +0000, Peter Wiley
said:

I really can't see why you guys are getting upset.

I think most of the hysteria is fed by an underlying assumption by many
Americans that all Arabs are terrorists. They are unable or unwilling to
articulate that premise because it's un-PC to do so.

That said, the two elements that in combination give me pause are
uncertainty about how much information a port operator would have about the
operative details of whatever security measures are adopted to safeguard
cargo,

That is a valid concern, because the ports people have to know.

and the fact that a Dubai-based enterprise may be more vulnerable
than other enterprises might be to infiltration by people out to do us in.

Yeah, might be, but you could probably find out all you needed to know
by hanging out in the local bars. Assuming you could blend in of
course. Subcontract to Scotty......

A well run & busy port is a cash cow. You get to charge everyone for
everything and they have limited choices of what to do about it, since
the cost of building a new port is somewhere between prohibitive &
impossible. Since all costs get loaded onto the next in the food chain,
the shippers & freight forwarders don't care. They care about getting
ships/cargo turned around fast, so inefficiency is an issue, but
they'll pay what it costs.

PDW