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."
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.
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.
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...
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
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
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!
As is the case with many things; Quality pot usually doesn't come from the U.S. and even if it does, it's not as cost effective as the dirt cheap equivilent that comes in from Mexico. It's just easier to grow the crop where law enforcement doesn't really look that hard for it, then sneak it across the border. It's economics at work. A large growing operations that produces enough pot to be super cheap has a harder time doing "business" in the U.S. due to "regulation" (re: DEA agents busting down the doors.) In Mexico, the government doesn't care, so you can make a lot of a cheap product for export.
There are a lot of different Marijuana traffic patterns. A lot from Mexico, a surprising amount from Canada. Most of the US grown pot comes from old moonshine territory such as the Kentucky hills.
The big Terrorist drug is Opium. Afghanistan exports two things: Opium and more opium. The drug money in that country faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar surpasses any GDP they've ever had. Ever. Hell, add a bunch of their yearly GDP's up and compare it to a years worth of estimated Opium exports. Adjust for inflation, have Enron do the book keeping, do what you want. Afghanistan is to Opium as Kuwait is to oil. That's the biggest terrorism financing tool. Good old fashioned Smack.
So remember kids, be a Patriot! Smoke homegrown pot! and When you're doing Herion, you're shooting up with Osama!
There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
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.
The 9/11 Commission found the pre-911 stock activity to be innocuous; details at snopes.
No, no no.
Many suicide bombers are MIDDLE CLASS with degrees! That's what people don't get. These aren't just people who know they have nothing going for them.
European help was rejected with phony arguments, despite being urgently, and obviously so, needed.
Not just European help, people from other parts of the US were prevented from helping. You even got the situation of doctors being prevented from treating people whilst their papers were checked.
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
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.
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.
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.
This is
I'm going to shoot from the hip here and say people were just poor in a different way. Nowadays people are poor in an inner city and no longer have an extended support network. I think it used to be that if you were dirt poor you still had neighbors and an extended family that may also be dirt poor but at least helped you out as best they could. I don't think that the present day inner city poor have that kind of network anymore, and if they do they also only exist in the inner city so how are they supposed to help you get out?
I grew up in rural WI in a farm town were everybody was relatively poor, I'm only 30 so not that long ago too. But there was an impressive social network where whenever somebody was down on their luck, usually because of an accident affecting their health, some group (church, Lions, Rotary, Knights of Columbus) do a fundraiser of some sort or other.
Wow that's a good idea. Good thing the framers thought of that and added an amendment to the constitution that covered these sorts of issues.
U.S. Constitution: Tenth Amendment
Tenth Amendment - Reserved Powers
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
Death toll from Katrina: 1420
Death toll from the European 2003 heat wave: 35000
Not a fair comparison. The heat-wave was not a desaster-like event. Normal death rates during a warm summer are not so much lower, but the business of burying the dead does not have much reserves in Paris, it seems. So they had to stow some of the dead in cooled tents. That was the only reason it made the papers, not the number of dead people.
Better compare it to, e.g., the flooding in eastern Germany. The death toll there was single digits from drowning and accidents. Not more than normal accidents would have caused. And a comparable number of affected people as Katrina. It did not hit that fast, admitted. It was a buildup during several days. Or look at typical earth-quake damage in the Rhine-fault. These things are enough to shake people awake (I was several times so far), and hit up to 5 on the Richter scale. Usually no one injured and some building damage.
But I guess the real test whether European catastrophy management is superior will happen in the near future is when the bird-flu will start to be infectious between human beings. I am not looking forward to that one.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
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.
Your posts have the ring of "truthiness" to them, however, you give yourself away with the phrase "relatively poorer" -- in absolute terms in inflation adjusted dollars, the poor are not poorer than they were decades ago. Where they are *relative* to everyone else does not matter for this particular argument (one can argue that it is unjust etc, but that is a seperate discussion) -- when you say the poor are poorer than they were decades ago, you imply that they have less spending power in absolute terms. And this is clearly not so. Your post above indicates that you are well aquainted with these facts, so that leaves me with the conclusion that you are actively attempting to decieve in order to promote some agenda.
Ian Ameline
"This is America. This isn't a third-world country. Nothing bad can happen to me. Uncle Sam will figure it out so I won't get hurt"
If you really think this is how people think, you're seriously deluded. We're talking about people that live paycheck to paycheck, with barely enough food to eat that live in structures that you would be hard-pressed to call a house. You really think that they believe nothing BAD can happen to them? After the life of constant poverty that they've been living? What a fucking joke. Open your goddamn eyes man.
I regret to hear about this mania in the UK. We have similar problems here in the US. The UK press is infamous for pandering to the lowest common denominator, and this is happening here also.
However, your bad experience was an isolated incident, I hope. You shouldn't give up your compassion based on this. Just state your intentions clearly to as many persons around you as is reasonable; this should clear up any potential misunderstanding.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is usually crucified.
People DO care that the US had concentration camps, many Americans are ashamed of them. But to say they were anything like Germany's is beyond stupid, it's offensive. There was no forced labor in the US camps, and there was no 'final solution' either. Mistreated Japanese POWs don't even compare to what American POWs went through at their hands (death marches, starvation, etc..) But again, anyone educated enough is ashamed of our crimes as well.
The US has plenty to be shameful of. (I'd think dropping NUCLEAR WEAPONS on a CIVILIAN CITY would be far more dispicable than ANYTHING the Germans EVER did, but I guess killing millions of civilians all at once is less spooky than doing it over a period of time...)
Are you mother fucking kidding me? First off, I agree that dropping the bombs were a mistake without demonstrating their power to the Japanese first. Secondly, its purpose at least had some nobility - the end of war. Apparently you find Germany's motives of killing jews and other minorities to be more respectable. Also, your figures are totally off the mark. The bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima cost 70,000 and 80,000 lives respectivly and about the same amounts from after effects. Not even half a million, let alone the "millions" you erroneously claim. If you add those totals, plus the number of people who were killed in the Dresden bombings ( upper estimate of 60,000) and Tokyo fire bombings (upper estimate of 100,000) you still don't even reach half a million. Compare this with Germany's concentration camp dead (something like 8 MILLION or those that were killed in Russia's purges (around 20 MILLION).
Yes, the US is no saint, and has plenty to be shameful of, especially the current torture programs. But to compare, equate and even claim that the holocaust was not as bad is about the dumbest fucking thing I've read in a while. I hope you're just ignorant, otherwise you truly disgust me.
I cannot believe that this tripe was not only unchallenged, but modded "Insightful".
First off, we have this claim: "We have a President that has failed at every single thing he's done." Well, I can say he did two things successfully (got elected and then got re-elected) so there's an outrageous lie. But lets go on:
"We've gone from disaster to disaster" right, so nothing else has happened in the last 5 years. really. hmm.... it must suck to be a 5 year old. after all, your entire life has been one disaster after another.
"we lost the World Trade Center" Sorry, we didn't *lose* the WTC. It was blown up. A group of determined terrorists, who were well financed and fairly well organized managed to perform three acts of unspeakable terror on one day. They had planned (from what I've read) at least 3 others, which were thrwarted. (The plane which was heading for the capital but crashed in Pennsylvania, and at least two attacks on the west coast which were thwarted by the fact that the terrorists forgot about time zones and the airports were closed before they could attack). But of course this was Bush's fault because he, as president, is all knowing and all seeing.
"we lost New Orleans" Really? I saw in the news that Mardi gras went off in New Orleans just a week or so ago and the NBA is going to be playing in New Orleans very soon (possibly even today). Sounds like the town isn't exactly dead.
"we lost Bin Laden" We got the other guy though, Hussain. and the best thing about that is that he's being tried in Iraq. The fact that we can't capture a single guy who's been keeping a low profile and has good friends who's pocketbooks look like the US treasury doesn't suprise me at all. But then again, that's Bush's fault. Of course if we'd caught him, then it would have cost to much and that would also be Bush's fault. Let me guess, you don't like him do you?
"we are losing every day in Iraq" we are? last I saw Iraq was struggling to put together their government. Read much history? The US wasn't built in a day. In fact, it took 2 years after the War for Independence ended before there was a Constitution. And 13 years after the Declaration of Independence. The fact that Iraq's government isn't stable doesn't suprise me. But it would be irresponsible for us to pull our backing for the regime just because we don't like who they elected.
"We watched over days while Katrina slowly destroyed New Orleans and, just like on 9/11, he did nothing, nothing at all" What did you do? did you give anything? did you drive to Louisiana and try and rescue someone? Did you even pay attention, or did you just listen to what idiots were saying. For example, did you know that the Governor of Louisiana sent FEMA workers home AFTER Katrina hit but before the levees broke believing that the levees wouldn't fail. And then failed to call FEMA back immediately? But again, its Bush's fault. His fault that the Hurricane even hit. and that it strengthened by some 100 MPH in the 2 days just before hitting New Orleans.
on a side note, I am simply shocked by the rapidity of this storm and its behavior. Here is a link to tracking data on Katrina http://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/at200512.asp ?imgfeature=image&textfeature=track
On the 26th of August it went throught the florida keys and had just upgraded from a Tropical Storm to a Hurricane with 75 MPH winds. on the 27th its winds were 100 MPH and it was moving directly west. By the 28th it hadn't moved far but was still gathering strength. Then all of a sudden, it makes a 90 degree turn north, gains 65 MPH in winds (from 110 MPH to 175 MPH) and crashes into Louisiana, florida, Mississippi, and Alabama. By August 31 it was gone. not just through New Orleans, but dead. We're talking 5 days from the Florida keys to hitting the gulf coast to dying IN TENNESSEE. Not something easy to