text: what can be done about our ports being turned over to aforeign country? i know the british had our shipping ports before, but why now, with all the terroists , we don't know who is friend or foe! well, first off, it's important to make sure any deal is carefully vetted (and this one was, both by the committee on foreign investment as well as u.s. intelligence).  second, it should be noted that though the uae has had problems with money-laundering by terrorists, and 2 of the 9/11 hijackers were from there, is actually an ally of the u.s.  they did give us a base from which to stage the invasion of iraq, the uae has given major support to u.s. and other western intelligence services, and u.s. ships make port calls to dubai all the time -speaking of which, the same company who oversees operations at the port(s) is the very same company now attempting to take over managing of the ports here in the u.s.  if they wanted to do any serious damage, they could have already done so with some of our warships.  however, it's more important to realize that actual *ownership* of the ports will remain the port authorities of each city/region.  security will still be their responsibility, as well as that of u.s. customs & the coast guard.  all dubai ports world will do is take over day-to-day running of the operations.  so, really, nobody is actually turning our ports over to anyone.  as it is, most of our ports are *already* run by other countries.  and most maritime security experts have already stated that the management of the ports by dpw won't actually mean a breach of security, unless the port authorities decide to slack off.  just because it's an arab country doesn't mean it's automatically an enemy.  sure, such countries can expect more of a vetting than a company from britain or france, but, really, it's ludicrous to ban a country simply because of the acts (however terrible) of some of its citizens.  otherwise, we'd have to ban every country in the world -including ourselves.  remember jose padilla or john walker lindh?  all the fuss is really about is the complaints of the longshoremen's unions, who are afraid of possibly losing their jobs.  now, while i can totally accept that as a valid concern, there has to be a balance point between "run this company/entity as profitably as possible" and "don't do anything new, because otherwise we might end up being replaced by computers".  politicians on both sides talk of "the need to win the hearts and minds of the arab people".  if we ban this company on the basis of being from an arab country, without any thought as to what the country is actually like, what does that really say about the u.s.?