Slashdot Mirror
Why Terror Financing is So Tough to Track Down
An anonymous reader writes "After a recent Slashdot story detailing the errant investigation into a credit card holder's dept payment, comes this article from the Christian Science Monitor discussing the commoditization of terrorism, its relationship to crime, and the difficulties encountered when trying to track "bad" money."
one mans terrorist is anothers freedom fighter
if its freedom fighters we have to look no further than the US goverment, iam sure Bin Laden would agree
Enough said.
For people who shuddered when they saw that the paper reporting this had "Christian Science" in the name like I did, it appears that the paper is not linked in any way with the Creation Science movement.
According to their site, the paper is largely secular (except for a single religious article each day). The paper just happens to be published by a church.
Which I address in this post (albeit with bad html), below.
Just keep an eye out for the people who pay down the entire balance of their store credit card. Those people are obviously the terrorists!
There is something utterly wrong about the words Christian and Science being next to each other.
Why? Because you don't understand the distinction between literalists and real intellectuals who also happen to be Christians?
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
The other reason is that our leaders who might themselves be inept, think that the way America works is the way other societies work and think. In areas where terror is cultivated, folks are willing to do stuff for free...all in the hope that some divine power will reward them sometime in future.
The other case to consider is the fact that societies cultivating terror do their thing in the crude way. Messages are sent by horse-back and pigeons. Worse still these messages are encrypted...talk of a cold winter might mean the delivery of some important ingredients for some project. In this case, our folks at NSA simply get lost or ignore stuff like this. We also do not understand the cultures of others and are too willing to think we're the best!
To conclude, I'd like to pose a question:
Can any slashdotter tell me why despite the fact that Katrina was known to be coming, and that it would be huge, there was so much devastation amid confusion without clear leadership? This is all part of the incompetence I mentioned above.
If news lately is to be believed then there are thousands of terrorists running around. Rarely are building blown up, or water supplies poisoned. This has led me to the conclusion that either the government is fear mongering or the terroists are really stupid. Really, how hard is it to blow up a building?
Religion for nerds. Stuff that really matters
...seems to be played under the same rules as regular big business.
Although, from reading TFA, one might suspect that this sort of thing was only happening in the middle east or europe.
We might need to look a closer to home too, but I suspect TFA is doing it's best to suggest otherwise.
Laws and law-enforcement officers are always lagging behind and will continue to do so. The degree to which they lag behind is what matters. If a dog starts running after you, and gets nearer to your heels you tend to speed up and ultimately lose focus and fall into the open manhole.
This is what law-enforcement should focus on, instead of trying to leapfrog over the terrorists.
PATRIOT act can't help much because it ends up harassing the normal people more than it can catch the bad guys.
Singapore's example is a good one. The whole system is completely integrated. My library card becomes invalid the moment my employment pass is canceled. Similarly, the credit card company automatically sends me a closure statement and the IRAS gets the remaining funds from my bank account.
However this does not hassle the common man in any way from buying beer in THailand or cigars in malaysia using his card.
Prepaying the card with a huge amount also does not trigger a warning flag because the whole system hinges on a high degree of cooperative automation.
However with disparate state laws, etc., it is difficult to enforce it in US.
Strangely i felt more under microscope in US than i did in singapore. Every time i visited BankAm in US to deposit my paycheck ($4000-$6000) i needed to provide TWO photo IDs to deposit and withdraw. Additionally i needed to fill in a few nasty forms for an amount beyond $5,000/-
In singapore since the system already has my photo and EP number and details, they don;t even bother asking. They took one good look at my face, compared it with record (seeing it was not canceled) and that's it.
Moral: Laws cannot prevent or catch criminals. Only vigilance can. Law can be used to charge criminals.
And GWB is making it worse for US agencies to get cooperation from other countries by kicking at their guts and laughing.
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
But I thought that terrorism is supported by online piracy and illegal drugs and other things the government doesn't like.
It's just that an awful lot of the time, that someone is wrong.
Check out the Wiki page on it too...
Because those investigating the money trail are those responsible for organising and funding the terrorism in the first place.
I have a friend living in Dubai as an ex-pat and during his last visit here at Christmas we got into terrorism and financing. According to what he knows, it's an open secret that the wealthy and well connected in the Gulf States, including the UAE, finance terrorists. Whenever you fill up your tank, at least a portion of that lines the pockets of the rich oil producing countries like Saudi Arabia who then in turn find ways to get the money to terrorists.
Forget paying off your $6000 credit card bill with laundered money, the Gulf is where the real financing is coming from and buying foreign oil is partly responsible for that.
You've clearly never read the Christian Science monitor, either, as it has nothing to do with Christian Science but is in fact highly regarded for its relative objectivity and minimal bias in reporting compared to other American newspapers.
English is easier said than done.
Whenever you fill up your tank, at least a portion of that lines the pockets of the rich oil producing countries like Saudi Arabia who then in turn find ways to get the money to terrorists.
Doesn't that just give you a warm and fuzzy feeling when you see someone fill up their Ford Excursion at a gas station?
They are also not very scientific in their approach, as they often would refuse to be treated by doctors, and refuse to acknowledge the existense of bacteria, viruses and other micro-organisms and how these can cause disease.
I think they should just pick a new name. There was such a group on my campus and I approached their table thinking it is a group of scientists who are just Christian that have meetings, Bible study and what not, I had no idea it was a religion all by itself...
Luckily, Canada is the USA's largest source of oil (and other resources I believe) so that money isn't going to questionable characters. However it would obviously benefit the USA if they could reduce their consumption and import less oil from the middle east, where it seems that all their troubles are centered.
Remember in the 70's and early 80's when West Germany was fighting the Red Army Fraction and collaborating palestinian terrorists? Maybe not, since nobody called it global war on terrorism. Anyway, the federal government tried the same techniques (Rasterfahndung, dragnet investigation). They checked every bank account, every lease, harassed innocent people at every second intersection. The bottom line is these measures were unsuccessful and people did mistrust their government more than they did before. The worst case scenario! Free people should be able to trust their government. What did make the difference was a totally different tactic. Teams of few well trained police officers and agents tried to understand how the terrorists operated. One team would pursue one target. These teams were damn successful, and I am very glad. They big question is, why repeat mistakes?
You do realize that the Christian Science Monitor is a highly respected publication right? People complain about the lack of real journalism...well check out them (on a side note i was once doing a research paper and found that site for an article and was immediately skeptical before I found out they are highly reputable. I discovered that on my own when I read the quality of the journalism and dead on accuracy.
The phrase "more better" is acceptable English. suck it grammar Nazis
Oil is Fungible.
Remember that government funded superbowl ad about how buying marijuana was helping put box-cutters into the hands of hijackers? Of course at the time it probably made you angry enough to want to fly an airplane into the DEA headquarters, but there probably was some grain of truth, where if you follow n-many levels of redirection then yes some percentage of that money ended up in the hands of people so designated as terrorists. But then, you think about it more, and any money you give to anyone for anything could end up in the hands of terrorists after it has changed hands a few times. It's like 7 steps to Kevin Bacon, but with money instead of movies, and Osama or whoever instead of Kevin Bacon.
Similarly the government NEVER trusts its own people.
Why do you think we have laws then?
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
It turns out that "fear mongering" is what the neo-conservatives now in power in Washington DC need to do what they do. The most interesting conclusion of the film is that al Qaeda isn't this all global organization with thousands of sleeper cells ready to commit attrocities. That is what people like Bush, Cheney and Wolfowitz want us to believe. To find out why, whatch the move...
weed dealers must be smarter than we thought
They do things like buying enough "put" options on United Airlines to create a market spike - just three days before 9-11.
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
Very good post!
I'm not really sure you understand what "sectarianism" means.
Basically... it is violence between two relegious factions. Sometimes it is used to describe violence between two warring political factions.
If the Catholics and Protestants (ex: Ireland) go at it, that is sectarian violence.
Sectarian violence isn't necessarily terrorism and terrorism isn't necessarily sectarian violence. Sectarian violence is always within a group.
Which adjective you use to describe the violence depends on what the story is. Is the story about (1) people dying? Or is it about (2) why they are dying. If 1, it's terrorism, if 2, it's sectarian violence.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sectarianism
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Well if it's such an open secret, where is the evidence supporting that? Do you really think the US knows about it but simply isn't doing anything? Are you suggesting the US government is neglecting what is supposidly a huge and obvious resource of the same terrorism trying to undermine it and the country it's leading? (That's really what that "open secret" of your buddy is implying)
I think these are ridiculous claims. No western government would standby and watch as weak and easily defeatable 3rd world countries are supporting terrorism so blatantly with no backing on there side (e.g. no USSR). In fact I'm sure that would be exactly the kind of thing the US government would like to see happen so they could have an excuse to occupy the oil wells and have it for free, especially considering the fact no gulf country could withstand an attack from the US.
The terrorists anyway tried to blow out the Al-Buqaiq oil facility last week or so (which outputs 2/3 of Saudi Arabia's oil), why would they even attempt such a thing if it's what's supporting them?
The reality is based on fiction more than anything, probably as an excuse to find a target where anger and hate can be subjected without worry. After all, people want to find someone to blame, preferably "the others".
"Christian" Scientists reject many of the most basic ideas of Christianity.
The Answer: It's not! The U.S.A. wants to send nuclear material to India. This will enable India to produce dozens of nuclear warheads per year, rather than the 5-6 they currently produce.
That terror financing was easy to track down.
If you look at the evidence you'll notice a lot of things that are not right with the official story. And this link is just a spin-off of that official story.
... and also shut down organized crime pretty well, too. Just outlaw cash. I'll predict that some countries start doing that before 2020. It's quite a price to pay, but to take a huge bite out of crime and terrorism, maybe worth it.
You must have a disturbed relationship to all forms of government and laws. In what kind of society would you like to live?
I very much agree with the parent post. As to how respected CSM is -- have a look at: "Christian Science Monitor admits using forged documents against antiwar British MP Galloway" http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/jul2003/gall-j05 .shtml
While tracking money that goes through conventional means is difficult, tracking money distributed by Hawala is much more so. Trying to really outlaw it has had only mixed success. The U.S. has had a lot of success in drying up tens of millions of dollars in known terrorist funding, but the frightening fact remains that 9/11 cost about $500,000 to plan and carry out. While the funding for 9/11 largely didn't depend on Hawala, it still remains an effective and difficult to trace method of doing business. The attack on the U.S.S. Cole likely cost much less than 9/11, not to mention low-cost, low-level domestic eco-terrorism operations (ALF, et. al.). Drying up the funding is great and important, but it's like playing whack-a-mole at best.
I just don't see why they bother. If Saudi Arabia wanted to hurt the US all they would have to do is to only accept euros for their oil. The collapse of the dollar after that would hurt the US way more then Osama ever dreamed of.
evil is as evil does
I don't know about him but I think it's an oxymoron. If a scientist believes in God without any proof, experimentation, mathematical model or anything what else are they likely to believe in without proof?
evil is as evil does
Or it was, anyway, until the mass resignation of the editorial staff in 1989.
The 9/11 Commission found the pre-911 stock activity to be innocuous; details at snopes.
People accross the world need economic safety and social security in order to prevent terrorism I think some the Marshall Brain's ideas should be implemented world-wide. http://marshallbrain.com/robotic-freedom.htm
Slashdot = Sarcasm
Fantastic! I had no idea that New Orleans had the same population density, flood probability, and problem of a massive amount of people who didn't own a car. If you've ever lived on a coast, you know that half the time it never hits where they say it will, and some people even evacuate in the wrong direction, heading towards the storm (especially in Florida). The white elephant is, of course, that most of the deaths weren't people who drowned - they died of natural causes exacerbated by the fact that our Federal Government, with BILLIONS of dollars at their immediate and easily accessible disposal, completely failed them. There are still hundreds of empty beds at FEMA camps all across the region, due to poor management and poor planning. And there's no excuse for "confusion of responsibility:"
"DISASTER. It strikes anytime, anywhere. It takes many forms -- a hurricane, an earthquake, a tornado, a flood, a fire or a hazardous spill, an act of nature or an act of terrorism. It builds over days or weeks, or hits suddenly, without warning. Every year, millions of Americans face disaster, and its terrifying consequences.
On March 1, 2003, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) became part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). FEMA's continuing mission within the new department is to lead the effort to prepare the nation for all hazards and effectively manage federal response and recovery efforts following any national incident. FEMA also initiates proactive mitigation activities, trains first responders, and manages the National Flood Insurance Program and the U.S. Fire Administration."
Now the current (and previous) administration has missed the clues and failed to prepare for:
Terrorism and 9/11
The Iraq War
Katrina
As Senator Kucinich said, I think we see a pattern here. But the problem is not Republican or Democrat - it's that our government is fundamentally broken. I'm voting straight down the line this year - voting out every single incumbant, regardless of how much I hate the alternative.
Grandparent poster's perception may have been informed by a high noise-to-signal ratio.
Athy, athier, athiest.
Uhh, CSM admitted their error; they did not forge the documents themselves, and they did a subsequent investigation that undermined their earlier story. That, to my mind, bolsters their credibility rather than hurts it. CSM is extremely highly respected, certainly more so than WSWS, the World Socialist paper that you link to!
Yes, "informed" by the /. bigoted masses. So one "shudders" just from seeing the words Christian and Science together. ::rolls eyes::
"While the identities of possible beneficiaries of advance knowledge of the attacks were not known publicly, experts were quick to point to possible candidates -- all presumed to be affluent residents of Arab nations."
There were Mossad agents caught filming the plane crashes into the twin towers as though Israel had prior knowledge:
http://ww1.sundayherald.com/37707
So it could have been Mossad raising money for its operations in the US. I don't see why the terrorists would do it, since it makes them easier to catch.
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
I have a friend living in Dubai as an ex-pat and during his last visit here at Christmas we got into terrorism and financing. According to what he knows, it's an open secret that the wealthy and well connected in the Gulf States, including the UAE, finance terrorists.
Hardly confined to the UAE. Or to just wealthy individuals. Corporations and governments are also in the business of financing and supporting terrorists.
Do you eat candy ? then you're financing Osama.
Last year in a local magazine (in Belgium, magazine is Humo) there was an article about the finances of Osama Bin Laden.
I don't remember all specifics and I didn't search on the net for proof but the gist was that like 80 percent of all 'arabic gum' (sp ?) production (used in candy and other foods) comes from one concern which is owned/run by Osama (or his family).
Learn about pinball machines on www.flippers.be
oh come now, since when are the Canadians not questionable characters?
ôó
Well if it's such an open secret, where is the evidence supporting that? Do you really think the US knows about it but simply isn't doing anything? Are you suggesting the US government is neglecting what is supposidly a huge and obvious resource of the same terrorism trying to undermine it and the country it's leading?
Governments tend only to be interested in opposing terrorism which is a threat to themselves. Most terrorists are not any kind of threat to governments in the first place.
Yeah, whatever.
Terrorism financing is so hard to track down because terrorism doesn't exist until its labelled as such. The actual distinction between terrorism and war is nada (both require a lawmaker's stamp). Its obvious 9/11 was nasty, clearly characterizable as warfare. Think of the organized crime wars of past eras or the Janjaweed in Sudan now. What makes terrorism even more difficult to detect is that people who are not criminal, are sympathetic to the enemy. Bush says over and over that the US is not at war with Iraq, but that's just not true. The real Iraq is still there, and those people hate the US and want us out. Really, we're at war with all those people - right or wrong. I'm not very sympathetic to them, because I don't know many. I just don't think its a war worth winning. That's because I would do OK with expensive oil and a nervous Israel. I'd probably do better since there'd be less cars trying to run me over on my bike. And my Israeli friends would probably spend more time here in the US instead of Tel Aviv and I'd get to see them more.
The US tries to sell this as a war on terror when its really just a war on Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Afghanistan, and soon to be Iran. But by trying to not be at war when you are, you create this confusion. Why did I say Saudi Arabia? Because they're a monarchy chiefly supported by the US and Britain (a puppet dicatorship if you will - watch 'Lawrence of Arabia' that's the Sauds). That's why so many of the 9/11 hijackers were from there.
The same thing happened back in the 1980's with Northern Ireland. Plenty of donation money for poor Irish made its way to violent means back in the 80's. I lived in Boston back then and the level of conspiracy was intense. Donate to a good Irish cause - some of the money found its way to the IRA. I remember the winks and nods at Southie day in 1984. The British and Irish were at war, but the Irish couldn't fight against a nuclear power with conventional means. The Irish didn't want to take over Britain, they just wanted to kick them out of Northern Ireland (or least stop the paramilitary Protestant death squads). But in the end the British drew a truce reigned in the death squads and none of those terrorists is in a place like gitmo. That's because the British didn't have the heart for decimating the Northern Irish Catholics, which is what they would've had to do to win. I'll give the British props for not being as inhuman as the US is now.
Maybe eventually, Americans will realize you can't have a war on terror because terror is a form of war. In fact it was originally coined by the French as a form of warfare on their own population. They had to keep all those citizens in line after the revolution and so they did some pretty terrible (terrorizing) things.
To win this war, you need to rephrase the whole thing. Define your enemy. In this case it would be Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Saudi Arabia, maybe Syria soon too. But since the US population isn't ready to accept that this country is an imperialist on the scale of the Roman Empire, we have this stupid 'war on terror' confusion. If you want to win, you need to get everyone on board and lock up or kill every possible enemy and bomb them into oblivion. Think Dresden in WW2 or Nagasaki. That's how you break the enemy's morale. You have to decimate them. Think hundreds of Gitmo's. That's how you win a war. You kill them.
I personally don't have the stomach for it, and I think its a stupid gamble that only people who havn't read their history would make.
If Saudi Arabia wanted to hurt the US all they would have to do is to only accept euros for their oil. The collapse of the dollar after that would hurt the US way more then Osama ever dreamed of.
;-)
Guess again. Currencies are convertible, and the cost to the US of paying in Euros would be negligible. When you have a billion dollars to convert to Euros, Shekels, Rubles, or Saudi Dinars, you don't pay much of a premium for the conversion.
Now, if OPEC decided to adopt a gold standard, then they might actually do us a favor.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Without cash, how would crooked officials collect bribes?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Sure, GM has a huge organization with a monumental bureucracy of uncountable levels and whole departments so far removed from the factory floor that they could be on a whole different planet.
But GM does actually produce a hell of a lot of cars, despite/because all this superstructure!
I can imagine that Al Queda has a fair amount of trainers etc. Or an enormous amount. It doesn't really matter. If you look at the end product, they produce very little actual terror. If it's because they ran out of killers and only have paper pushers left or whatever, is not really that interesting.
The original posts point remains. They're either incredibly inefficient at their core mission. Or they're not nearly as many and resourceful as we've been led to believe.
I know that this sounds like an off the wall conspiracy theory but when you think about it, it's true.
Methods that peek into people's credit card transactions won't find terrorists. Terrorists are, as much as people might not want to admit, intelligent people. They are not going to do anything that gets them noticed. This includes buying semtex with their credit cards.
I'm pretty sure that the Government knows this obvious truth. So if they are not using the PATRIOT Act to spy on terrorists (since things like the PATRIOT Act is useless in finding terrorists), then who are they spying on? You of course!
The whole idea of a 'war on terror' is not a new one. Various Governments have used the same scare mongering tactics to try and control their populations. I know I'm not saying anything here that people don't already know but I feel it has to be said until people actually listen.
look it up, remember when the GOV censored the first couple of messages from Osama in the days after 9.11
He was denying having anything to do with the hijackings
monery values are based on supply and demand. Right now the main strength of the dollar is from the demand generated by the fact that all oil is sold in dollars. If OPEC demanded any other currency then the value of the dollar would drop drastically.
evil is as evil does
"smart people are very good at rationalising the thing they came to believe for none-smart reasons"
The religious will often seek out evidence to support their already-decided beliefs, and so will be blind (even if only subconsciously) to anything that shows otherwise. These aren't the kinds of people who can be trusted with data gathering. I'm not saying that only the religious do this, but anyone who includes FAITH as a major part of their person, is going to have a brain more structured that way.
The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
Machavelli stated it perfectly: " The great majority of mankind are satisfied with appearances as though they were realities"
Did you pay taxes? Then the funding came from you.
Maybe you missed the 2.3 TRILLION DOLLARS that the Pentagon announced 'misplaced' on September 10, 2001.
Just think about it, that's the money that the 'Defense' Department WON'T admit to having used to kill people. But all of it comes from us.
Terrorist says what...
The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
Interestingly, some CS'ers claim that Einstein did some hanging around CS reading rooms later in his life.
Why would it be surprising or interesting that a bunch of nutballs are trying to convince everyone that Einstein was a secret fan of their organization? Don't you find it a bit "interesting" that if he was spending so much time hanging out in CS reading rooms that his friends and colleagues haven't mentioned this at all?
FTA: "A recent report from the Center for Security Policy shows that the ARMB currently has investments in 68 companies that do business with Iran and eight with business ties to North Korea. Several billion dollars can be traced to these and other Alaskan investments."
The state has a resolution pending to study the matter.
Right now the main strength of the dollar is from the demand generated by the fact that all oil is sold in dollars.
No, the "main strength" of the dollar is the United States' $11.75 trillion GDP.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
But this sort of thing has been going on for centuries. And the methods by which we establish who is a conspirator and who is not are just as accurate.
"It is first agreed and settled among them, what suspected persons shall be accused of a plot; then, effectual care is taken to secure all their letters and papers, and put the owners in chains. These papers are delivered to a set of artists, very dexterous in finding out the mysterious meanings of words, syllables, and letters: for instance, they can discover a close stool, to signify a privy council; a flock of geese, a senate; a lame dog, an invader; the plague, a standing army; a buzzard, a prime minister; the gout, a high priest; a gibbet, a secretary of state; a chamber pot, a committee of grandees; a sieve, a court lady; a broom, a revolution; a mouse-trap, an employment; a bottomless pit, a treasury; a sink, a court; a cap and bells, a favourite; a broken reed, a court of justice; an empty tun, a general; a running sore, the administration.
"When this method fails, they have two others more effectual, which the learned among them call acrostics and anagrams. First, they can decipher all initial letters into political meanings. Thus N, shall signify a plot; B, a regiment of horse; L, a fleet at sea; or, secondly, by transposing the letters of the alphabet in any suspected paper, they can lay open the deepest designs of a discontented party. So, for example, if I should say, in a letter to a friend, 'Our brother Tom has just got the piles,' a skilful decipherer would discover, that the same letters which compose that sentence, may be analysed into the following words, 'Resist--, a plot is brought home--The tour.'"
-- Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
terrorised and killed by b52
Wow, didn't know we targetted civilians with B52s. You learn something new each day.
Don't worry about evidence, we'll just take your word for it.
Because the commitment of some with "terror" (or "freedom", or whatever one may call it) is big enough. For enough people terror makes sense.
They still haven't found out that Microsoft has been funding SCO?
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
The World Trade Center building 7 fell in exactly the same way as WTC 1 and 2, and it was NOT hit by an airplane. ALL the collapses looked exactly like controlled demolitions.
Let me guess, the Jews were behind it just like they made up the holocaust too?
How can an intellectual believe in magical faries, that the earth is six thousand years old, and that when you die you go to an afterlife, despite absolutely no evidence for any of that? All because of a badly-translated, unverified book written thousands of years ago? That's no intellectual.
Governments tend only to be interested in opposing terrorism which is a threat to themselves. Most terrorists are not any kind of threat to governments in the first place.
Wow you can't win can you. Either Bush is blowing terrorism out of proportion for votes or leaving them alone because they are no threat. How about some intellectually honest discussion for a change.
...are animal freedom fighters! (ALF, supporters including PETA, USE TERROR TACTICS to fight for their cause... they're not labeled 'terrorists' because they're domestic not foreign?)
The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
FUCK Singapor.
If you threaten the party line, they can cancel your existence? You can starve at the press of a button if you happen to hold views the reigning government dislikes? This is NOT a good system. Imagine what Bush would do if he had that power at his finger tips. --Not that he doesn't. He's already openly declared war on journalists and whistleblowers.
Give me a society which is based on paper money with NO electronic banking. And heck, remove the concept of lending for profit, for that matter. (Usury used to be considered a sin for a good reason.)
Terrorism is a lark. It is funded and quietly encouraged by Governments, and where there are no willing suicide bombers, good gosh, the secret services will damned well drug up children and send them into the line of fire with bombs around their necks; but not before calling the press first.
Here's one example of fake terrorism using rockets.
There is just so much to be gained by facists when the populace fear a made-up enemy of the state.
-FL
What if things are going just peachy?
What if the main objective is not to win the war, but to maintain a state of constant war? If this were the case, then it would achieve several things. . .
1. It would keep the American Public in a state of perpetual fear. When people are scared, they don't think rationally. They don't mind having their freedoms revoked, they are much easier to herd like cattle. They do as they are told. The upshot being that the dictator gets to bend rules and stay in power for as long as he can maintain the state of 'war'.
2. It keeps money flowing in huge amounts from the public coffers to the pockets of oil men and weapons salesmen, (both of which Bush is). His fellow staff share this trait. Peace is not profitable.
Oil was selling at around $13 per barrel before the first Gulf War. When bombs started dropping in the desert, oil jumped to $40 per barrel. --A few people made a lot of money overnight. The brokers were wetting themselves. And they couldn't wait for it to happen again, which it has.
I think the 'war on terror' confusion has more to do with deliberate marketing than with error.
-FL
An example. . . (And perhaps you've heard this.) Before the U.S. invaded Afghanistan, (arguably the top producer of opium in the world), the Taliban had started burning its narcotic crops and Opium production fell dramatically. But now with the Taliban driven back into the scraggy foot hills under American rule, Opium production is back on top, and in fact, higher than ever before. Whew! That was close. The CIA's illegal war funding machine (the drug trade), almost lost a major contributor.
-FL
If you want to win, you need to get everyone on board and lock up or kill every possible enemy and bomb them into oblivion. Think Dresden in WW2 or Nagasaki. That's how you break the enemy's morale. You have to decimate them. Think hundreds of Gitmo's. That's how you win a war. You kill them.
No. That's how you lose. That's how you lose everything. Your pride, your integrity, your freedoms. Everything.
Don't believe me. Try and remember that the other side in WWII engaged in "morale defeating excercises" even worse than those mentioned above. Their societies are still living in shame. Forever burdened with the crimes their countries have committed.
Do you want that to happen to the United States?
May the Maths Be with you!
Actually, he's right (mostly). Our productivity may be the strength of our economy, but is not the sole strength of the dollar itself. The fact that everyone uses dollars to complete oil trades means that dollars are always in demand on the exchange markets. It's almost tautological to point out that dollar-denominated trades, colloquially, thus prop up the dollar. Check out the bulk of this article, e.g.
Were Gulf countries suddenly to refuse U.S. dollars in exchange for oil, you're right that trades would in a simplistically theoretical model be no different in the long run; unfortunately, that long run would never happen, since shit'd be hitting fans in the meantime.
[bogaboga]:
Can any slashdotter tell me why despite the fact that Katrina was known to be coming, and that it would be huge, there was so much devastation amid confusion without clear leadership? This is all part of the incompetence I mentioned above.
Democracy does not breed competence, that is why.
No. Because Christianity is faith.
Faith involves believing something which cannot be proved.
Science involves disbelieving everything which cannot be proved.
No kind of belief can be held by one person for both faith reasons and science reasons.
-- MartinG To mail me: echo kewyjlcxyzvjfxbqwh | tr bcefhjklqvwxyz
The US Economy is big but it's also saddled with debt. It's basically being propped up by a handful of companies. We have IP (movies and music), Software (microsoft and basically nothing else), and arms. Of those the only one worth betting on for the future is war. I don't see anybody coming up to the plate to challenge us on making arms or waging war.
evil is as evil does
Or at least, every Euro. Expect the US to follow suit rapidly as the two major power blocs tend to copy each others' authoritarian ideas.
Hitachi is developing RFID tags for the EU (the "mu" chip) which are small enough to embed in paper currency. In terms of data, this is no better than the present system of unique serial numbers on each note. The rub is that since an RFID tag can be read far more easily and quickly, and remotely, you can track which notes are passed out in transactions at the bank, and note when they come back in. You can even trace their movements in the field, if you put pickup loops in places of interest.
The cash economy, which is relatively untraceable at present, becomes as trackable at electronic transactions. And government gains insight into the behaviour of its' citizens, and a means to determine when that behaviour varies in a way they deem "abnormal".
Talking of "people who haven't read their history". The troubles in Northern Ireland was not that the "British and Irish were at war".
It was a civil conflict between two sets of people in Northern Ireland. Both sides had lived there for hundreds of years. The British government sent troops in originally to protect the minority population from attacks by Protestant mobs.
The IRA were not freedom fighters representing a Irish majority strugging under British tyranny; they were terrorists purporting to represent a Catholic minority wanting independance from Britain. The British repeatedly tried to mitigate discrimination by the Protestant majority against the Catholic minority, but their efforts were almost always thwarted by local Protestant politicians, who objected to what they saw as favoritism or support for Catholics.
As in Iraq British (read American) troops ended up disliked by both sides they were trying to police.
In Britain we see Iraq going down the road that we ended up in Northern Ireland. Most people here oppose the Iraqi intervention because we have seen how these things go wrong. We have had the equivalent of the Patriot Act in our Prevention of Terrorism act. In recent years a whole series of "Irish terrorists" wrongly convicted under this Act have been subsequently freed under appeal some after tens of years in jail.
I am surprised that a country such as the USA, with such a history of scepticism about central (federal) government, has been so willing to pass such bad law.
The problem is not in the investigating. It's the fact that official investigators either don't like to do it, or if they do, their CO's don't allow them to do it because the people at the top know exactly where it will lead.
For instance. . .
Why is it that nobody has yet investigated the people who benefited directly from suspicious trades on the stock market in the couple of days leading up to 9/11? Isn't that one of the first things to be looked at in any criminal investigation?
Well not here. And why EVER could that be? Well, because if you brought those people to light, it would expose the secret government behind the attacks. --And by "secret government", I am not talking about dark rooms filled with blinking lights and spy types. I'm simply talking about ranking members of the current structure in both the civil and military sides who all quietly hold certain views and unilaterally agree to wield their power toward common causes which the voting public has no knowledge of. It happens all the damned time. It's called by other names, like Cronyism, and Corruption.
The rest of this is bullshit. Terrorism is a lark. (I'm not saying that there aren't very pissed off people with bombs, but I AM saying that they are strongly encouraged by governments eager to reap the benefits of fear they produce, which can easily be used to fortify a fascist government's rule.)
And the apologist crap fed to us by the 9/11 commission, (created by the government to investigate the, um, government), was just more of the same line of garbage.
I've been called a 'conspiracy theorist' by a lot of people who seem to think that label by itself invalidates everything I have to say, and they have told me for the absolute dumbest reasons that 'conspiracies do not exist'. I can't figure out how the heck the media managed to convince the public of this when organized crime clearly EXISTS, the Manhattan Project EXISTED quite effectively, and how people can say that "It's impossible to keep a secret", (which is true), but then ignore all the gushing leaks in the official story. "Those leaks don't mean anything because that would imply a conspiracy, and conspiracies don't exist because it's impossible for a government to keep a secret; there would be leaks!" Uh, yeah. Thanks for the insight.
Anyway. . .
The Christian Science Monitor? I'm sorry, but when religious twits with a made-up air of reason, (except where it concerns their sacred cows and various blind spots), tell me that "It's sooo hard to follow the money", I'm afraid I'm just not going to be able to take them very seriously.
Please do not forget; The Christians are not just foolish, they are actually Insane. They WANT to see the end of the world. It's in their most sacred book of books as the Big Cool Thing which will launch them into Heaven. Let me repeat that; Christians actually want to see nukes dropping.
--And the end of the world, in their view, must be preceded by the domination of Israel over the Middle East, which is why the U.S. sends so much funding over there. --Though, when the goal of Jewish domination over the Arab world has been met, if they don't all then convert to Christianity, they'd better watch out. The Savior has a mean attitude, after all. He's only nice and forgiving on some pages, apparently.
So Christians Monitoring Science? Please.
-FL
Ohhh, nigga got snoped!
Since you have no idea where your oil comes from, the only way to stop funding terrorists is to drive smaller more fuel efficient vehicles. Ironically the US is the terrorist's biggest ally since so many people see nothing wrong with driving a hulking SUV to work for the daily commute.
My post was pretty damn relevant! There is evidance showing a large sum of money going from PETA to a convicted arsonist, who Ingrid Newkirk (president of PETA) has publically complimented (I forget her exact words, something like "a fine upstanding man"). They refuse to condemn tactics such as firebombing research labs performed by people like ALF (Animal Liberation Front - ie, people fighting for freedom of animals), stating they "understand" it.
They finance people directly involved with applying terrorist tactics against people who don't agree with them.
No wonder it's difficult to track terrorist funding, idiots mark posts like this as "troll". Just because they're fighting for animals, doesn't make them any less dangerous.
The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
Actually, he's right (mostly).
No, he isn't. Oil is traded in dollars because of the strength and stability of the dollar. Just like any other globally-traded commodity, parties to energy-market transactions like to factor out currency risk as much as they can.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Correct. Some say that's why Iraq was invaded, and why Iran will soon be invaded. The first time the US government made up lies about WMDs, this time it's nuclear research.
Petrodollar Warfare: Dollars, Euros and the Upcoming Iranian Oil Bourse
(Written almost a year ago, it still managed to predict the current nonsense being spread about Iranian nuclear research)
it's in my head
Enough of this knee-jerk "blame-the-victim" mindset. Your post is wrong on so many basic points, it's hard to begin addressing them.
Decades ago, people would have known that the hurricane was coming and that it would be big. They would have taken the personal responsibility to get the hell out of dodge
Really? How many decades? Care to give an exemple? A cyclone that strong hitting a city that big and flooding a region that densely populated? Millions of people orderly fleeing through the devastation? I've tried but I can't find any such occurence. But you know better. So I'm counting on you. Please be specific.
and people are used to being coddled by their government
Maybe one day you'll open your eyes and get yourself a passport and visit some foreign countries. Or if you can't be bothered, just read some foreign newspapers. That day, you'll realize that the US is probably THE single least coddling government in all the western hemisphere. And it's probably less coddling today than it was "decades" ago. So your nice, heart-warming little theory that all evil come from big government and welfare state will crumble down.
The federal government does not do anything well that involves actual people except for killing them
Really? Did you run some research to establish that? Or is this just one of those certainties you clinch to that allow you to let people suffer while still calling yourself "good"? Because responding to rare disasters is exactly the sort of things that are better handled on the federal level. Ever heard of something called mutualization or economies of scale? Expecting each state to maintain an emergency infrastructure scaled to be useful once every 10 years does not make economical sense. Better to mutualize that across all the states (aka federal gov.) so that one year it will be employed in Louisiana, the next year in Florida, then in Texas etc...
Also, I fail to see how asking each individual state to handle its own emergency infrastructure with no help from the feds will improve personal responsibility. Or do you recommand that each citizen maintains his own emergency infrastructure complete with surveillance airplanes, evacuation choppers and mobile hospitals?
Civilization in general and Christian civilization in particular are based on the principle that you should help others so that they will help you in return. If I'm struck, my family will help me. If my family is struck, my neighborhood will help us. etc... This goes up to states and US and other nations. But apparently, the people currently in charge in Washington do not abide to this basic principle. That's why they refused help from other nations and why they refused to help Louisiana.
I don't know what's going on in the US these days. It's very weird. But there seems to be a school of thought that managed to masquerade selfishness and greed as goodness and high morality.
I'll try to help. If you actually help actual people, you're good. If you sit on your hands while finding reasons to blame the people who need help, you're evil.
It would be nice to be sure of anything the way some people are of everything.
B52s were used extensively during "shock and awe" campaign to destroy a bunch of targets in Iraq. The title of the campaign might give you a little clue as to what the intent was, ie to terrorise Iraq into submission. B52s are not precision tools and the vast majority of the bombs dropped were not "smart".. they were just bombs. You don't need to explicity "target" civilians in order to kill them.
Secondly, why is it only civilian death that counts ?
Does the fact that someone was conscripted into the Iraqi army mean they deserve to die ? In particular, does it mean its OK to kill them in their own country by dropping bombs from planes ?
http://rareformnewmedia.com/
IIRC the Saudi Riyal is at a fixed exchange rate of 3.5 Riyals to the US Dollar, so if the Dollar performs badly it will screw the Saudis over too.
From your link:
A single U.S.-based institutional investor with no conceivable ties to al Qaeda purchased 95 percent of the UAL puts on September 6 as part of a trading strategy that also included buying 115,000 shares of American on September 10. Similarly, much of the seemingly suspicious trading in American on September 10 was traced to a specific U.S.-based options trading newsletter, faxed to its subscribers on Sunday, September 9, which recommended these trades.
They cite this as evidence that nothing was fishy, but that all rests on the "no conceivable ties to al Qaeda" assumption, which begs the question. If we reverse that one assumption, we get a very different conclusion, since that would mean that the US based investor and the newsletter effectively pumped a large amount of money out to people unknown--exactly the sort of thing you might do if you wanted to fund sleeper cells. (Think of it this way--if you had some way to throw very large quantities of someone else's money out of a downtown window at a specific time and date, you could use it to fund your cohorts by having a few of them "just happen" to be in the mob below. Not efficient, but then it's not your money).
Further, without quantifying both trades, it's not clear that the institutional investor didn't clean up on the deal as well.
--MarkusQ
How about some intellectually honest discussion for a change.
You do realize this is politics you're talking about, right?
Well, scientists have an unspoken faith in the immutability of the laws of Nature. It's just that there is plenty of circumstantial evidence in favour of this and no counterexamples. Everytime something far away looks smaller than something close up, that is evidence for light travellig in straight lines. Everytime something stays where it is, that is evidence for Newton's First Law, and everytime you pick something up and can feel its weight, that is evidence for the Third. And other examples too numerous to mention.
So the fundamental tenets of a scientist's faith are being continuously re-affirmed. And since the Laws of Nature are presumed to be as simple as possible, we can suppose that confirmatory evidence for one corollary of a fundamental law is confirmatory evidence for the underlying fundamental law itself; particularly in the light of evidence for several phenomena which would follow from the same fundamental law.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Yes, of course, and that's why it's unlikely any significant quantity of oil trades will be made in currencies other than USD in the foreseeable future. The point of the original poster, however, was that if, if a major oil exporter should start demanding euro, yen, gold, Monopoly money, or anything other than the U.S. dollar--for whatever reason, chalk it up to insanity or politics--the dollar would sag, a reasonable projection. Denying the central conceit of the discussion (that if) sort of saps this whole hypothetical situation here of any relevance, so let's stick to the original point.
And it's perfectly easy to imagine that one oil-rich regime or another might decide to start refusing petrodollars in favor of petroeuros, even purely out of spite. Iraq was doing exactly that for several years before the present war.
Besides which, there is actually a good case to be made that switching to euro-denominated exchanges would be in the best interests of oil-rich nations, an argument I'm not going to bother getting into.
Imagine a terrorist that sabotaged a million sets of traffic light signals. Lost national productivity, wasted fuel emissions, and fuel imports to help their 'buddies', not to mention people getting cancers from all this extra pollution. They then got into the roads department, and closed certain strategic road, and key exits and turns, to cause traffic mayhem, and amplify economic losses. Large amounts of money changed hands so this could be 'overlooked'. See Australia, Sydney, Eastern Distributor tollway. They are still on the loose, and aim to expand.
"We also, for the most part, didn't have the absolute poverty that we have today. "
Bull. The "poor" today are better off than the "middle class" of 100 years ago. The primary difference is that people think that old like "...I'm from the government and I'm here to help you..."
That used to be considered one of the three great lies (I'm almost 50 years old). Now people actually believe it!
Do people also believe "...the check is in the mail..." and "...I won't come in your mouth..." too?
Can any slashdotter tell me why despite the fact that Katrina was known to be coming, and that it would be huge, there was so much devastation amid confusion without clear leadership?
Actually, a more interesting question I'd lie to pose is exactly how the hell did Katrina die down before hitting the big easy, only to picks back up immensely in power? I watched that hurricane nonstop from start to finish, watch it degrade, upgrade, and more. how the hell does a storm go from tropical storm right before landfall into a Cat4 hurricane again? Not to sound weird, but perhaps we're messing with weather-control technology? I don't think it'd be too hard, either. Just heat up some area of our atmosphere, and watch the temperature change cause climate-related problems and abnormalities. *EndConspiracyTheory # 499*
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Just keep track in The MATRIX.
9 27
http://www.adcritic.com/interactive/view.php?id=5
Face it, people are stupid, and the internet is the place where they all meet.
>As much as people don't want to hear it terrorists, whether they
>are IRA, UDA, Hammas, Shining Light etc. etc., tend to be the
>brightest and best that there society can offer.
>The maze prison in Nothern Ireland was full of bright young
>men from good families with above average educational acheivement.
The question is what conclusion you draw from this:
1. That these people are actually good, superior folk, who's ideas have merit
-or-
2. That higher education teaches some pretty wacked out crap these days.
Because doing it this way is easy. Yes it's a mistake, but sounds impressive when put on a powerpoint slide.
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
Most acts of violence (terrorism is defined by those in power) are driven by fear, anger power and greed. The people at the top are generally driven by power and greed whereas the people at the bottom are generally driven by fear and anger. They are people just like you and me that have been driven into situations where they feel that their acts are their only way out.
The countries producing terrorists currently have perhaps been ill-treated by "the West", but then a lot of other countries have been much worse treated. West Africa lost large parts of its population to Atlantic slave trade, what the Belgians did in Congo is quite unspeakable, the sufferings of the people in Indochina due to colonial wars was pretty bad etc. By these standards, countries like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Yemen, Egypt etc got away very lightly. It is instructive to compare India and the Middle East/North Africa region. Both old state bearing cultures, similar history of subjugation by Western powers, decolonialized at about the same time. Huge social inequalities and ethnic tensions. Do the Indians set the world ablaze? Wouldn't the Vietnamese have much more reason to want to get back at the US than any Moroccan? And so on.
No, it is a questions what you want to do with your problems. We in the west didn't make these people terrorists. They choose to become terrorists.
We could certainly be a little bit more helpful to the rest of the world, but we are not making it a better place by absolving other people of their personal responsibilities.
I obviously do not think like a terrorist. I know I'm going to die in a suicide bombing next week and with the small amount of money I have left I do what? Pay down my credit card debt?
The actual distinction between terrorism and war is nada
Wrong. Terrorism is violence which deliberately targets innocent civilians. War makes at least some attempt to minimize civilian casualties.
Remember in the 70's and early 80's when West Germany was fighting the Red Army Fraction and collaborating palestinian terrorists?
Yes, indeed, the mistake the Germans made was to fight the Rote Arme Fraktion and collaborate with the palestinian terrorists. This is one of the reasons we are in the mess we are today. After the massacre in Munich the three surviving terrorists were captured to be brought to trial. To save itself from trouble with the Arab world the Germans agreed with palestian terrorists to feign a hijacking of a Lufthansa aircraft, after which the Munich survivors were released.
The failure to act against emerging international terrorism in the 70's proved that it worked and encouraged more.
3. If you piss a group of people off enough over a long period, they might explode. Literally. If you want to be sure of violence, include a religious aspect.
/godwinned. I'll get my coat...
Every time you open the payload bay doors over an urban area, you are targeting civilans. Labeling them "collateral damage" might work for some people, but not me.
PS the B52s took off from my country (UK), it was live on the news at the time. Does that count as evidence?
There are so many holes in the official story that anybody who cannot see through it is either lazy, stupid or is eagerly looking forward to the day he is issued a side arm and the mandate to spy on his neighbors.
-FL
The credit card holder's dept payment? Which department?
williambradley@earthlink.net
Banks and credit-card organisations define "unusual" transactions as transactions who'se size make them stand out from the usual transactions on an account. Those transactions are then checked in detail.
From this perspective it would seem that an account that has a long history of sudden fair-sized transactions (say 10,000$ or more) would be a much better (in the sense of less conspicuous) vehicle for a terrorist organisation to move money about. After all ... the size of the transactions wouldn't be unusual at all, and (operationally meaningful amounts of money could just be made to disappear in the petty cash accounts. In addition, the holders of such accounts would have some expertise in moving money around, and would be quite aware of what sort of transactions would seem suspicious and which ones wouldn't.
Considering that by all accounts Al Quaeda doesn't seem to be cash-strapped, and its leader has moved in (very) wealthy circles, wouldn't it make more sense to scrutinise transactions of larger accounts than those of small ones? Wouldn't it make sense for terrorist organisations to try and recruit a few wealthy individuals or simply acquire a few businesses that can hide such money flows?
After all, we hear that illegal drug trafficking is the largest industry in the US (dollarwise), and in my view (but I'm not an expert) that amount of money simply cannot be moved in any other way than through the banking system. There's far too much of it for one thing. And all this despite the conspicuous success of our much-vaunted "War on Drugs".
Given then, that we seem to have have good reason to suppose that there are huge streams of money flowing through the banking system that are derived from illegal activities, why not focus on those? Why not scrutinise the activities of the larger accounts (this may already be happening, but I don't know).
Now I understand that flagging unusual transactions on millions of small private accounts may be much easier to automate than checking transactions of larger accounts (just flag any transaction larger than the 95% confidence interval of all transactions or 5000$, whichever is smaller). And I also understand that in this way the police can detect petty crooks, but the focus of attention does seem to be a bit skewed.
What do you think?
For those who want to know it, the work of the norwegian-born judge Eva Joly, in the context of international corruption that occurred inside the French Elf Aquitaine oil company, is worth considering. In the following interview (http://www.subversiv.com/doc/elf/eva-rfi.htm), she says in particular (translated from French) :
Here is an interesting excerpt of Eva Joly's book :
Thus nowadays, people whine because terrorists take advantage of the ability to transfer big sums of money with very few control. But if over the last 20 years, we hadn't tolerated the spread of a now unforeseen level of corruption in politics and in business, perhaps the situation would be safer for all of us.
It could be argued that after all, people just get what their passivity, their lack of concern, and their irresponsability finally deserves. Because one can not really say that such facts are not known : the problem is much more that people like you and me just don't care, thus they do not raise their voices sufficiently loud to obtain that these problems become seriously - and widely - discussed. As a result, nothing changes, and our policy-makers maintain their tolerance for corruption. Without the risk of any real negative feedback, why should they change their behaviour ?
You don't need to explicity "target" civilians in order to kill them.
Here is where you try to convince me there's not much difference between targetting civilians and targetting enemies amongst civilians right?
Secondly, why is it only civilian death that counts ?
Of course, nobody ever said that military deaths don't count.
Perhaps you meant to ask, why are they less important that civilian deaths. The reason that the general public may feel this way (and they do) is because during war, targetting an enemy soldier is the goal, whereas targetting a civilian is a severe crime. I'm not sure if I need to go into much more detail for you to agree with me that killing civilians and soldiers are two very different things.
Does the fact that someone was conscripted into the Iraqi army mean they deserve to die ?
I have never heard anyone claim such a thing in my life, but to answer your question, no they don't deserve to die just because they joined their country's army.
In particular, does it mean its OK to kill them in their own country by dropping bombs from planes ?
If we are at war with a country, then not only is it ok to kill enemy soldiers in their own country, but it is the goal.
The reasons behind the war are a different issue. You are really either at war or you aren't, you either go in there with the bombs going hard or not, no?
I don't necessarily think we should have gone into Iraq in the first place, and so would think all military action that is taking place there is wrong. But as far as military strategy and USA public interest goes, I support the war because it is decided by our democratically elected government. They were given permission by all of us because the powers they (and the president) have are shaped by the country over many years. If democrats get in next time and decide to not invade Iran for instance, whereas say republicans would have, I will support the no-war stance of our government.
The fucking French! That's who!! It always comes back around to the French. The bastards.
"it would _still_ be wrong and very immoral to target Fijian civilians. "
you're missing the point. GP is saying when vengence takes you over, rational goes out the window. Right and Wrong don't factor into the the equation.
You've invaded someone's territory and killed their loved ones before their eyes.
9 out of 10 times, the animal brain takes over and kicks logic and reason to the curb.
We always hope rational and logos win over animal desires, because reason is the only way to bettering ourselves, and evolving beyond to the next level.
But i think we sadly underestimate the power of the animal brain, most probably because we've never been placed into a situation that exacerbated it as much.
And when we are, that animal might just beat our reason into submission.
And without reason, morality doesn't exist.
We, in the west, could sit back and watch those events on TV in the relative safety of our homes. We could cheer from the sidelines. For others it was different. Those events were not very pleasant for the Russians or the white South Africans.
Now it is our turn. We are getting kicked out of the Middle East. Our long standing policy of propping up kings, dictators, and Zionists is collapsing before our eyes. It is going to be ugly.
However, it is the history of the world. Britain lost its empire though widespread disorganized uprisings across the Empire. It was very painful for the British. The French had an ugly time in Algeria. The Belgians had the Congo. They all screamed about terrorism but it didn't matter, their time was up and their only alternative was to go home. Now, our time is up.
So sit back, pop some popcorn and watch the history lesson. We should have learned this one the first time around.
Absolutely, fuckin kikes.
Step 1) Find out CIA national budget.
:-(
Step 2) ???
Step 3) Profit!
Seriously, the CIA go around sneaking into other countries causing trouble. To the rest of the world, THEY're the spies and terrorists; and the US taxpayer funds their (illegal, to the countries they're infiltrating) activites.
If you want to track down the masterminds who fund terrorism, try looking in your own backyard....
But wait: it's the *other guys* brand of terrorism that's bad, isn't it? Never your own.
Hint... the terrorists are in the white house.
..this is how democracy dies if we let it...
Lets see..
-we got a secret worldwide network of gulags holding afghan fruit stall vendors and other assorted "threats".
-spying on Americans without court orders
-people dissapearing indefinately in git'mo
-Homeland security going after Americans for inocuous "suspicious behavior"
-A fanatic in the whitehouse going on about a "religious war"
-And complacents (both Dem & Rep) letting it happen..
Welcome to the New Dark Ages... Welcome to the new Amerika..
in 6 short years..how so much has changed..
I can see stories in the future going "mommie mommie..can tell me again what it was like.. was it true you didn't need to show your license papers everytime you went out? tell me about the free America when you grew up? Aren't we free now mommy?... Son...I am sorry I cannot dear, or else they will.."
it does - the poor and shat on don't think actions will change anything whereas those from a privileged background are used to making things happen
Flamebait? Absolutely.
But also very insightful and contains more than just a grain of truth.
Why do you think we have laws then?
Mostly, because people don't trust other people.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
google Sybil Edmunds, she found some interesting information while working as a translator for the FBI... then she was gagged by the government.
Citgo is a wholy-owned subsidiary of the Venezuelan national oil company, and some of the money you spend at Citgo's pumps actually gets to poor people in Venezuela, and seems to be helping finance a spunky little social revolution.
http://www.google.com/search?q=citgo+buycott
Terrorist financing is so hard to "track down" because the money moves through rich, powerful hands. Like banks and governments. To whom their terrorist customers are more important than the lives and liberty of "someone else's customers", like millions of civilians. Those "transfer agents", in turn, are more important to the governments tracking them down than are their own citizens.
Why would George Bush threaten the safety of the Saudi royalty just for the benefit of a bunch of godless New Yorkers? Especially when he doesn't need to do so to get elected? He's a proper good ol' boy, and so is Bandar Bush. And so (they think) are the people who keep them in power.
--
make install -not war
This is rediculous. All the leftists spraying lies left and right hoping that one will take root. In their minds, its _always_ Bush's fault.
This was the fault of the governer. HE knew that there was going to be a problem, HE knew there were busses that could drive the people to another city, but HE didn't do anything about it. The governer should have done his job.
Why repeat the mistakes? Millions of voters scream at thier officials "DO SOMETHING". The only thing they can think of is "pass laws". If you only have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. My solution to plane hijacking is: give the pilot a button that causes a 14 inch bowie knife to drop into the lap of every passenger. 100 ARMED passengers that want to live vs a handful that want to die. Run them down the toilet and don't press charges.
>PS the B52s took off from my country (UK)
Well, one of the main things that needs to happen before I will accept that the wars are actually crimes, and that the US regime is corrupt, is for one or more of the high-profile accomplices, such as UK, to stop marching in lock-step with the US, to dissolve its alliance with the US in protest, and to instead use its military force in opposition to the US, say, by liberating Iraq or Cuba for example. Nothing of that nature happens, but I'm still supposed to believe that the US has a rogue government and that the whole world "hates" the US.
I don't believe that. I can't help noticing that Americans are still permitted to travel to all those countries where they are "hated", and once there, they are allowed to leave. I notice the diplomats didn't pack up the UN and leave New York. I notice that the US continues to enjoy a significant level of support from other countries. Until that changes, I'm not able to buy the notion that the US is "hated", not as long as it operates without meaningful opposition.
If we had all the information we do now, the day before 9/11, we could not arrest them. They did not have strange purchases. They did not make speeches. They might have been deported because some visas had exprired. The ACLU would have fought those deportations. The Arab-american community would have called it profiling. All the data in the world would not have shown what was in thier hearts. The only way to stop them is to infiltrate the organizations. 6ft patriotic honkies don't fit into that crowd too easily. TIA does help catch drug dealers and tax cheats. It can also help agents track cute girls.
Anyone who regularly reads the news knows that the Christian Science Monitor is a very unbiased news source.
The article says that "Hundreds of millions of dollars of assets have been frozen." Does anybody believe that terrorists are funded to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars? What that tells me is that a significant number of the funds being frozen are don't have anything to do with "terrorists". And later "Some estimates put the number of filings in the US alone at 13 million a day." That's almost 5 billion filings a year. Roughly 15 for every man, woman and child in the US every year. At that point, you're not watching for terrorists, you're watching basically everything. So what's the point? Is it really to watch for "teh terrorists"?
Yes, the biggest problem with faith is that it explains nothing. If something good happens, it is by the grace of God that it happened. If something bad happens, it either means God works in mysterious ways, or it means maybe God didn't really mean to do that, so we need to pray more to try to convince him that we know the right thing that he should do instead. Faith is a crutch for people who can't accept that "shit happens". Science is a tool for people who accept that "shit happens" and wish to know what causes it.
LRC, the best-read libertarian site on the web
Believe me we're getting a good laugh over here over this Muhammad cartoon thing.
And there was the summer a couple of years ago when the weather got about as warm in France as it does in Dallas 40 weeks out of every year, and hundreds died.
European firefighters do have cool-looking helmets though.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
No, freedom fighters and terrorists are not the same thing. They fight for totally different reasons, and use totaly different tactics.
Or were you just trying to be funny?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Luckily, Canada is the USA's largest source of oil
_ publications/company_level_imports/current/import. html
Not by much, though:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/data
1 - Ban all 'cash' transactions for anything. All transactions must use 'digital currency' and go thru the federal government along the way. Even for a burger or stick of gum.
2 - Just take all funds away from the people, make it a true socialist society.
3 - Anyone caught bartering for any reason goes to prison for life.
This was a joke.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Oh, say, because you were born there and have never had enough money to get out? Or because you moved there in better times and have suffered reverses, and now can't afford to move?
What are you suggesting? That all poor people should move away from areas where they might experience a natural disaster? Where would they move to? Who would pay for it?
Your post is just another way of saying that people who are poor DESERVE to be victimized, because, well... they're poor.
Sean
The whole Bush administration is a terrorist organization. They spread terror and torture people to death. 'Nuff said.
The point of the original poster, however, was that if, if a major oil exporter should start demanding euro, yen, gold, Monopoly money, or anything other than the U.S. dollar--for whatever reason, chalk it up to insanity or politics--the dollar would sag, a reasonable projection.
He said "collapse", not "sag".
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
This doesn't pass the laugh test. If they really cared about terrorist financing, they'd nail down the people who placed all the puts on UAL before 9/11, instead of preventing workers from sending money home, and preventing any contributions to refugee relief. Hell, the head of the ISI, who was in D.C. meeting with Porter Goss on 9/11, wired Mohammed Atta 100,000 $US in August that year. The whole business stinks from the top, not the bottom.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
Imagine what effect it would have if we had spent our billions of dollars on ways to reduce our dependency on foreign oil *instead* of the War on Terror. It would have been an interesting response for Bush to say "We are going to stop being dependant on foriegn oil by the time I leave office." Perhaps it's not feasable, but I'd prefer a real and motivated attempt over the token measures curernty being taken.
It probably would "collapse." As I've tried to make clear, dollar demand is driven strongly by the fact that the whole world, with negligible exceptions, needs dollars to purchase oil. I'm not sure what you're not understanding here.
How can an intellectual believe in magical faries, that the earth is six thousand years old, and that when you die you go to an afterlife, despite absolutely no evidence for any of that?
Where in the Bible does it say that the earth is any specific age?
We don't have any proof yet of the existance of certain subatomic particles, but many people believe in their existance as well. Ansence of evidence is not the same thing as evidence of absence.
There is some evidence of an afterlife, but not proof. People with past life experiences, who know things about places that they shouldn't. Like I said, it's not proof but it is evidence.
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
It is hard because it is not being done.
I am too lazy right now to track it down, but one of the terrorists had credit cards from a bank in Dubai. The money left in the account went back on Sept 11 -- why waste it right? Anyway, the FBI was forbidden to track terrorist financing and that of the Bin Laden family by a Bush memorandum.
What do you think, credit through banks is a blind transaction? If only by design.
Try moving $20 thousand all of a sudden in cash -- watch the flags go up.
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
"...Perhaps you meant to ask, why are they less important that civilian deaths. The reason that the general public may feel this way (and they do) is because during war, targetting an enemy soldier is the goal, whereas targetting a civilian is a severe crime..."
Don't be foolish. The goal of a war, any war, is to enforce a nation's will in circumstances where the preferred tools such as diplomacy, bribery, threats, blackmail etc have not been productive. Sometimes the war is an end in itself (identification of such wars is left as an exercise for the reader), but even then, the killing of any enemy combatants is still an undesirable side effect.
T&K.
Political language
Wow you can't win can you. Either Bush is blowing terrorism out of proportion for votes or leaving them alone because they are no threat. How about some intellectually honest discussion for a change.
There is nothing inconsistent in those statements.
Fact: Bush is blowing it all out of proportion. This is well understood at this point.
Fact: Bush isn't doing much of anything to the terrorists because they are not much of a real threat.
So, while he is using the entirely blown out of proportion threat of terrorism as a justification for his actions, his actions aren't designed to do anything about the problems (real or imagined) posed by terrorism. They are designed to increase the power of the US government over its own citizens.
So, what exactly about what the OP said do you consider to be in any way inconsistent or intellectually dishonest. The two ideas go hand in hand. They do not conflict with each other in any way.
You might disagree that they are true if you haven't bothered to inform yourself on the issue, but that still doesn't mean that the ideas aren't perfectly complementary.
This is the real problem with trying to combat terror financing.
SELECTIVE ENFORCEMENT.
And it has been the main tool of thugs and dictators since the first tough-guy caveman picked up an antelope thigh, and started smacking around tribe-mates to get them to fork over (if they had any forks) their mammoth stakes (or whatever). Any time you have a hierarchy of power, laws are made with the intent of applying to everyone, but their enforcement is entrusted to a few. And what you get is a million variations on the "protection racket".
So - the Sultan of Bunghoel is the king; but there exist a few religious wackjobs with bombs. He knows that the bombers can choose to blow up his kid on his way to private school, and they might indeed do that because there is jealousy, or zealotry, or whatever. So he has his people meet their people, say: "Israel|The US|The Shiites|The Hindus are the real enemy, go blow them up, here's $500k. Just don't blow up my kids or my palace. I'm with you my brother, let's free our country from evil Western oppression." Of course the Sultan of Bunghoel plays golf with President Shrub, and they used to be partners in an oil company, so when the wackjobs with bombs blows up something that affects President Shrub, he passes laws against terror financing and such, has HIS people go talk to the Sultan's people: "hey dude, chill out or I'll freeze your swiss account, and then you can kiss your Heroin trafficing operation good bye" and then the Sultan says; "throw in a few seaports and you've got a deal!". . . . .
But the rest of us don't have the luxury of being President Shrub's golfing buddies. And that's why the Osama bin Ladens of the world still sling huge sums of money around the globe undetected, and you get investigated by the FBI for paying off a credit card too soon.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
While I am of the opinion that Christian Science (hereafter, CS) itself is a heretical sect, they did have one notable and quite good effect on journalism. Due to the fact that pretty much all other Christian groups considered CS to be heretical, there was a lot of "yellow press" concerning Mary Baker Eddy (hereafter, MBE).
As such, they constantly wrote reports about what a scam they thought CS was, their low opionion of MBE, how heretical she was considered, etc. It got to the point where they could do nothing at all without the press seeking to make personal attacks against them in the articles and generally engaging in what we might now call "tabloid journalism."
Therefore, she helped found the CS Monitor with strong principles of neutrality and against using personal attacks in their stories. I believe they were even set up as an independent entity, not under CS control. In any event, they have long been considered to be one of the most ethical and unbiased newspapers around.
So while I think that MBE was out to lunch, trying to transmute something akin to Christian faith into magickal* "spiritual principles," I do at least admire the strong tradition of ethical journalism exhibited by the CS monitor.
* The letter 'k' in "magick" isn't a typo; rather I would compare the principles of CS to the belief (if not the practice) of those who practice what they call "magick" (those who believe such use the extra 'k' is to distinguish it from stage magic).
Lighten up a scientists understands far better than you, that in order to prove the existance of or the non-existance of God he would have to prove it experimentaly. The experiment would entail a control group and an experimental group such that he'd need two universes, one where God existed, and an other where God didn't exist. If God existed, it would be impossible to have a universe with out him, and if God didn't exists it would be impossible to have a universe where he did. Therefore a scientist would have to conclude that proof is impossible and religion is outside the realm of science. Even Oscam's razor can be argued both ways.
Beliefs and proofs aren't exclusive to science and religion, finding beliefs disgiesed as proofs often puts a scientist in the history books.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Geez, man. Seriously. Are you fucking stupid?
Christian Scientists are neither practising Christians nor objective scientists.
Can we make it a requirement that one has to have a modicum of knowledge of the world outside his own town (or village) in order to post on the internet? (anywhere on the internet...)
Shit, it's the Christian Science Monitor, it's not like this is a small, unknown paper.
(2,3-Benzopyrrole)
Yeah - short skirts usually cause an inflation for me! But it isn't in the pocket that holds my wallet! :-)
Libertas in infinitum
While true that someone can be a Christian and a scientist (see: Newton, Liebnitz, etc.), the sect known as "Christian Science" is considered completely heretical by almost all other Christians because it makes faith into a sort of magick guided by "spiritual principles."
As much as some would like to believe otherwise, science began within the church, and the church was never anti-science, but rather against various philosophies dressed up in "science." Not unlike that evolutionary morality nonsense that's going around, which have precious little to do with evolution or science, really, and which seem to consist primarily of foolish fables dressed up in biological jargon.
his actions aren't designed to do anything about the problems (real or imagined) posed by terrorism.
Utter bullshit sorry. If you like I will list all things I can find that the US governement has done to counter terrorism, along with commentary by independent terrorism experts on whether they think each measure is useful or not.
Don't be foolish. The goal of a war, any war, is to enforce a nation's will in circumstances where the preferred tools such as diplomacy, bribery, threats, blackmail etc have not been productive.
Obviously I did not mean that the entire reason for war is for the fun of killing people. Obviously I was pointing out the goal of killing enemies (who are trying to kill you, not surrendering) compared to the negative goal of killing civilians.
Gregor Mendel was a Christian monk. That doesn't mean that he was bound by any church doctrine as he explored the world of genetics.
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
I'm not sure what you're not understanding here.
I'm not understanding why you think that a single commodity market (one I've worked in, BTW) is the only basis of the dollar's value. Sounds like something you latched onto as an easy "sky is falling" meme.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Because it leads to trackers, doesn't it?
I can find that the US governement has done to counter terrorism, along with commentary by independent terrorism experts on whether they think each measure is useful or not.
And I could counter with expert opinion about how they do nothing useful against terrorism, so it's not particularly useful. If you choose to believe that the government is your friend and is working for your interests rather than its own, then no amount of facts or reason will change your opinion, since it directly contradicts all of recorded history so it's clearly a religious belief.
It still doesn't address the actual point that the OPs 2 statements are in no way contradictory.