Centerfield

That's a really misleading story, starting at the headline. Doncaster is a "weapons maker" only by a major stretch of the imagination. Using that loose a definition, AC/Delco's spark plugs are "weapons." OK, if you put some in a sock they make a dandy blackjack, and a Hummer won't run without 'em, but....

Which is kind of the point.
When you start restricting foreign ownership for "security" reasons where do you draw the line?
On the other hand, if they manufacture the smallest critical component for a weapon system they can potentially sabotage, stop or delay the deployment of the system. This is going to reach the point where we will need a new agency just to figure out what a foreigner can own in the USA. What a mess!

China: Ports ok, but no oil companies?
Dubai: Ports not ok, but aerospace good?

Can Dubai buy the publisher of the company that sells the book teaching how to make potato cannons?

Bk: No, because that would be a weapon of mashed destruction.

LMAO at the potato masher gag. In general, I agree with bob's point about line-drawing.

ROFLMAO! I bow to the punsters.

When you start restricting foreign ownership for "security" reasons where do you draw the line?

Excellent point. Globalization makes certain that avoiding interdependence is difficult at best. Pretty much anything can be represented as vital for security....

The madness is in even considering letting an arab country buy American businesses, especially ones that are linked to national security. Let's hope as much fuss is raised as the ports deal was, and that this deal can be thwarted as well.

Tully is there any line you would draw in terms of doing business with non-free countries, countries that have links to terrorism? Do you have any morals or standards, or is making profits paramount to you even if it risks national security?

Laura:
Could you clarify, you're saying that you don't just object to arab companies owning defense infrastructure, but American companies of any description, period? The inference of "[w]he madness is in even considering letting an arab country buy American businesses" would appear to be that you'd object whether they were buying Boeing or Liquid Paper.

OH MY GOD!!!!! MADNESS!!!! INSANITY!!!! I'M WILLING TO BUY SPARK PLUGS FROM AY-RABS!!!!

Get a grip, Laura, and develop some perspective. Here's a few news flashes for you. EVERYTHING can be linked to "national security" in one fashion or another, from iPods to appendectomies. We live in an interdependent global economy, and we don't own the world. Globalization is not a philosophy, it is not a strategy, and it is not a transient phenomona. It is a tide. It as as stoppable as the seasons, as resistable as anoxia, as avoidable as adolescence.

It continues apace whether hysterical isolationists like yourself (or for that matter, Al Qaeda) care for it, or not. We can be drowned by it, or we can grab a surfboard and work on a good ride.

Either way, the tide will still come in. Get used to it.

Either way, the tide will still come in. Get used to it.

And if you are a fraidy cat, you'll take to the trees.

National Security is not something to throw to free market forces. Out-sourcing national security is about par with selling General Dynamics to the Chinese.

Of course there should be areas of American and allied research, manufacture and management that should be excluded from non-allied or foreign ownership, but also jobs and services that for National Security should not be out-sourced.

A Centrist view might be to split the equation (protectionism v globalization) and create a group of US corporations given incentives to restrict out-sourcing and a registry of domestic assets which are too vital to allow foreign ownership.

There is no need to accept spark plugs as being vital to National Security; just use common sense. I am sure the National Academy of Science can identify critical infrastructure, services and manufacture vital to continued security. Only those allied and American companies and workers who meet established criteria and background checks ought to be in control of National Security services and assets besides our elected officials (now that's questionable).

If not, let's sell NASA to the Iranians, our airports to Saudi Arabia and PBS to the Russians.

I will point out that the WTO recently called America the freest market in the world. That doesn't change the reality that the WTO President is now Putin, who see little problem in building Iran a reactor or calling the Belarus election fair. Dubai certainly won't let us buy their ports. The point is this: the world is still locked in an intense competitive and ideological struggle. Until the sharks are contained National Security requires both reasonable protectionism and continued globalization. I say American corporations need better protection from foreign espionage.

Can you imagine the American reaction if a nuke went off in a Dubai-controlled American port? That is my primary reason for not wanting them here. And it has little to do with free markets, zenophobia or the fact Dubai sends money to the family of dead terrorists.

Common sense....