Reply #67: Hardly;

[Spider Jerusalem]

as I said, they're only buying the operation rights, as part of their $6.7B buyout of P&O. Their offer was accepted by P&O's stockholders, so from their perspective, the deal was a fait accompli...but now all of a sudden you have hysterical Americans throwing a spanner in the works by making noise about "security concerns" (which apparently weren't as much a concern when a British company was running things, oddly enough), based largely on absurd and xenophobic arguments having to do with "risk of terrorism"...as though there's any percentage in a multinational corporation which happens to be a major player in its field jeapordising its position in such a manner (not a good reflection, I'm sure you'd agree; and would the protests be so vehement were this not an Arab company? I think not). So here they are with billions tied up in this, and suddenly, thanks to this hysteria (and the cynicism of politicians hoping to score points by looking "tough on national security") they stand to lose rather lucrative freight-terminal concessions. Should they be happy?

And the US reaction is NOTHING BUT hot-headed...it's based completelty on emotional reaction with very little resembling logic entering the picture. Of the many hundreds of posts on the subject I've seen here, very few seem to have the vaguest idea of the actual issues, or of why this is MUCH less worrisome than everyone seems to think it is.