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
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.
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
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
It's just that an awful lot of the time, that someone is wrong.
Check out the Wiki page on it too...
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.
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?
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.
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...
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
They still haven't found out that Microsoft has been funding SCO?
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
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
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.