Fatter Cats

While pundits and pols pretend Americans are endangered with the UAE Dubai Ports (DP) deal to operate 6 US ports, no one I've read mentions the sale in December 2004 of CSX Corporation’s International Terminal Business to DP.

"CSX owns companies providing rail, intermodal and rail-to-truck transload services that are among the nation's leading transportation companies, connecting more than 70 river, ocean and lake ports, as well as more than 200 short line railroads. Its principal operating company, CSX Transportation Inc., operates the largest railroad in the eastern United States with a 22,000-mile rail network linking commercial markets in 23 states, the District of Columbia, and two Canadian provinces. CSXT headquarters are in Jacksonville, Fla."

CSX's domestic lines was sold in December 2002 to the Carlyle Group. It appears Dubai purchased only the international terminal business of CSX and Carlyle the domestic lines of CSX. Those domestic lines being predominantly rails. Guess we know who will be shipping us in boxcars to those detention centers built by Halliburton/KBR.

If CSX rings any bells that may be due to Floridian Thomas Martin Fiorentino, a fatcat one time CSX lobbyist, who in 1997 took a "courageous stand" against "political sell-outs to special-interests, denouncing a Florida fundraiser in which fat cats who contributed $50,000 got a private audience with President Clinton and Al Gore."

Fiorentino has since courageously served BushCo in D.C. as chief of staff of the Federal Railroad Administration and counselor to the Deputy Secretary of Transportation. Or the bell may ring because John Snow, Treasury Secretary, was CEO of CSX.

But the opposition, as usual, has jumped on an issue that isn't an Arab threat to you or me, nor would the sale take jobs from Americans. Many in the naysayer crowd are also the sayers of such gems as "we can't be isolationist" and "it's an interdependent world now." But we can't inter-depend on Arabs? We've already sold America to the Japanese, Chinese, Europe, and India.

Originally 9/11 terrorism sent us into Afghanistan. Now some say a few of the 9/11 hijackers had ties to UAE, and Michael Moore pointed to a Saudi connection in Fahrenheit 911, and BushCo propaganda pointed to Iraq, Iran, Syria connections. Are we leaving any Arabs out? Scared enough yet?

Another discordant talking point for me: Dubai Ports is a state/government owned entity. And the United States isn't? Corporate owned government or a government owned corporation – what's the difference.

This port-a-gate has nothing to do with terror or threat – it's all business.

The fatcats are squabbling, likely just to score political points with the voting naysayers above. Reaching across the aisle our pols are doing their part to piss off and write off more of the Middle East on our way to WWIII or IV, choose the numeral you prefer. Whichever way it goes, it's all profit for big business.