Heard an interview with an economist I truly admire the other day (Jim Rogers) and he was asked by the host his feelings about the Arabs taking over the ports and he was very in favor of it. His explanation was that the firms currently running those ports were doing a miserable job of it and that the companies taking over had a wonderful track record.

In many ways, having Arab control of those ports might actually make them safer from attack and infiltration if you think about it. The owners of the companies are going to have access to security information from their own countries that might tip them off to possible threats. The attackers are going to be more likely to go after targets that aren't controlled by other Arabs.

Bottom line is these guys are in all probability businessmen first and Arabs second. In many ways it's a good look into our prejudices to automatically assume that somehow Arabs controlling our ports would be more likely to allow a terrorist attack on our soil.

Should we also send packing the Japanese businessmen who've successfully built large automobile manufacturing facilities within our borders? Without their infusion of capital and experience into our country we'd have a whole lot more auto workers out of work if they had to rely only on the success of our own auto giants who can't spot a consumer trend more than a day in advance.

Let's face it. The world is a safer and more peaceful place the more our economy is tied to the rest of the world. I'm not a fan of Michael Chertoff but I think he's right on this issue.

Art