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A R C H I V E linked articles prone to be ephemeral |
The war against terrorism is a fraud. After 3
weeks' bombing, not a single terrorist implicated in the attacks on America has been caught or killed in Afghanistan.
Instead, one of the poorest, most stricken nations has been terrorised by the most powerful to the point where U.S.
pilots have run out of dubious "military" targets and are now destroying mud houses, a hospital, Red Cross
warehouses, lorries carrying refugees. Unlike the relentless pictures from NY, we are seeing almost nothing of this.
Tony Blair has yet to tell us what the violent death of children, 7 in one family, has to do with Osama bin Laden.
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Why are cluster bombs being used? The British public should know about these bombs, which the RAF also
uses. They spray hundreds of bomblets that have only one purpose; to kill & maim people. Those that do not
explode lie on the ground like landmines, waiting for people to step on them. If ever a weapon was designed
specifically for acts of terrorism, this is it. I've seen the victims of American cluster weapons in other countries,
such as the Laotian toddler who picked one up and had her right leg & face blown off. Be assured this is now
happening in Afghanistan in your name.
None of those directly involved in 9.11.01 was Afghani. Most were Saudis, who apparently did their planning
and training in Germany and the U.S. The camps which the Taliban allowed bin Laden to use were emptied
weeks ago. Moreover, the Taliban itself is a creation of the Americans and the British. In the 1980s, the tribal army
that produced them was funded by the CIA and trained by the SAS to fight the Russians. The hypocrisy does not
stop there. When the Taliban took Kabul in 1996, Washington said nothing. Why? Because Taliban leaders were
soon on their way to Houston, Texas, to be entertained by executives of the oil company, Unocal. With secret US
govt approval, the company offered them a generous cut of the profits of the oil and gas pumped through a pipeline
that the Americans wanted to build from Soviet central Asia through Afghanistan. A US diplomat said: "The Taliban
will probably develop like the Saudis did." He explained that Afghanistan would become an American oil colony,
there would be huge profits for the West, no democracy and the legal persecution of women. "We can live with
that," he said. Although the deal fell through, it remains an urgent priority of the GWBush administration which is
steeped in the oil industry. Bush's concealed agenda is to exploit the oil & gas reserves in the Caspian basin,
the greatest source of untapped fossil fuel on earth and enough, according to one estimate, to meet America's
voracious energy needs for a generation. Only if the pipeline runs through Afghanistan can the Americans hope to
control it.
So, not surprisingly, Sec.State Powell is now referring to "moderate" Taliban, who will join an American-sponsored
"loose federation" to run Afghanistan. The "war on terrorism" is a cover for this: a means of achieving American
strategic aims that lie behind the flag-waving facade of great power. The Royal Marines, who will do the real dirty
work, will be little more than mercenaries for Washington's imperial ambitions, not to mention the extraordinary
pretensions of Blair himself. Having made Britain a target for terrorism with his bellicose "shoulder to shoulder" with
Bush nonsense, he is now prepared to send troops to a battlefield where the goals are so uncertain that even the
Chief of the Defence Staff says the conflict "could last 50 years". The irresponsibility of this is breathtaking; the
pressure on Pakistan alone could ignite an unprecedented crisis across the Indian sub-continent. Having reported
many wars, I am always struck by the absurdity of effete politicians eager to wave farewell to young soldiers, but
who themselves would not say boo to a Taliban goose. In the days of gunboats, our imperial leaders covered their
violence in the "morality" of their actions. Blair is no different. Like them, his selective moralising omits the most
basic truth. Nothing justified 9.11.01 killing of innocent people, and nothing justifies the killing of innocent people
anywhere else. By killing innocents in Afghanistan, Blair & Bush stoop to the level of criminal outrage. Once
you cluster bomb, "mistakes" & "blunders" are a pretence. Murder is murder, regardless of whether you crash
a plane into a building or order & collude with it from the Oval Office & Downing Street.
If Blair was really opposed to all forms of terrorism, he would get Britain out of the arms trade. On the day
of the twin towers attack, an "arms fair", selling weapons of terror (like cluster bombs & missiles) to assorted
tyrants & human rights abusers, opened in London's Docklands with the full backing of the Blair govt. Britain's
biggest arms customer is the medieval Saudi regime, which beheads heretics and spawned the religious
fanaticism of the Taliban. If he really wanted to demonstrate "the moral fibre of Britain", Blair
would do everything in his power to lift the threat of violence in those parts of the world where there is great &
justifiable grievance & anger. He would do more than make gestures; he would demand that Israel ends its
illegal occupation of Palestine and withdraw to its borders prior to the 1967 war, as ordered by the Security Council,
of which Britain is a permanent member. He would call for an end to the genocidal blockade which the UN, in reality
America & Britain, has imposed on the suffering people of Iraq for more than a decade, causing the
deaths of half a million children under the age of 5. That's more deaths of infants every month than the number
killed in the World Trade Center.
There are signs that Washington is about to extend its current "war" to Iraq; yet unknown to most of us, almost
every day RAF & American aircraft already bomb Iraq. There are no headlines. There is nothing on the TV
news. This terror is the longest-running Anglo-American bombing campaign since World War Two. The Wall Street
Journal reported that the US & Britain faced a "dilemma" in Iraq, because "few targets remain". "We're down to
the last outhouse," said a US official. That was 2 years ago, and they're still bombing. The cost to the British
taxpayer? £800 million so far. According to an internal UN report, covering a five-month period, 41% of the
casualties are civilians. In northern Iraq, I met a woman whose husband & 4 children were among the deaths
listed in the report. He was a shepherd, who was tending his sheep with his elderly father & his children when
two planes attacked them, each making a sweep. It was an open valley; there were no military targets nearby. "I
want to see the pilot who did this," said the widow at the graveside of her entire family. For them, there was no
service in St Paul's Cathedral with the Queen in attendance; no rock concert with Paul McCartney.
The tragedy of the Iraqis, and the Palestinians, and the Afghanis is a truth that is the very opposite of their
caricatures in much of the Western media. Far from being the terrorists of the world, the overwhelming majority of
the Islamic peoples of the MidEast & south Asia have been its victims largely of the West's exploitation of
precious natural resources in or near their countries. There is no war on terrorism. If there was, the Royal Marines & the SAS would be storming the beaches of Florida, where more CIA-funded terrorists, ex-Latin American dictators & torturers, are given refuge than anywhere on earth. There is, however, a continuing war of the powerful against the powerless, with new excuses, new hidden agendas, new lies. Before another child dies violently, or quietly from starvation, before new fanatics are created in both the east & the west, it is time for the people of Britain to make their voices heard and to stop this fraudulent war and to demand the kind of bold, imaginative non-violent initiatives that require real political courage. The other day, the parents of Greg Rodriguez, a young man who died in the World Trade Center, said this: "We read enough of the news to sense that our govt is heading in the direction of violent revenge, with the prospect of sons, daughters, parents, friends in distant lands dying, suffering, and nursing further grievances against us. "It is not the way to go … not in our son's name." |
MotherGoose Parade 'reaffirmation' of American way 11.15.01 Sophy Chaffee Carlsbad, CA SD UT
55th annual Mother Goose Parade 619.444.8712
In January, it seemed natural for organizers of the annual Mother Goose Parade to select "Mother Goose Salutes
America's Military" as the theme for the 2001 parade, given the board of directors' strong ties to the military and
their patriotic bent. After the attacks of Sept. 11, the decision took on a whole new significance. "The whole country
is looking for something military, probably because a lot of events have been canceled," said parade exec. dir.
Sandy Maynes, who noted that interest in the event has swelled, both in San Diego & the Southwest.
Approximately 400,000 people are expected at the parade, the second-largest in the western U.S. after the Rose
Parade. "(The parade) is incorporating Thanksgiving, Christmas and America all in one day. People are looking for
a reaffirmation, a reinforcement that all's going to be right with our world."
Robert Modrzejewski, one of three Congressional Medal of Honor recipients to march in the parade, concurs. "I
think parades now are going to take on more meaning. Patriotism seems to be back in vogue. It gives the
community a sense of being able to do something." While some suggested to Maynes that the event be canceled
for security reasons, she said the board was resolute in marching forward. "No, we are not going to do what these
terrorists want," she said. "We are not going to back down and run and hide because we're scared. We're going to
do this because more and more the community needs this."
While some of the military personnel originally slated to participate were called to war, the military presence will still
be strong. Among the military expected to participate are Marines re-enacting the raising of the flag at Iwo Jima,
several color guards, the U.S. Navy Band Southwest, the Buffalo Soldiers, battalions of local servicemen and
women, and a flyover by the Sons of the Confederate Soldiers aircraft. Also on hand will be look-alikes of Abraham
Lincoln, John Wayne, Buffalo Bill, the Statue of Liberty and other patriotic figures.
For one of those playing an American icon, the highlight of the parade will be seeing parade Grand Marshal John
Finn, who at 92 is the oldest living Congressional Medal of Honor winner. "His story just brings tears to your eyes,"
said Gary Marchinke, who will play Uncle Sam. During the attack on the Naval Station at Hawaii's Kaneohe Bay on
Dec. 7, 1941, Finn shot a machine gun at enemy aircraft from a completely exposed section of a parking ramp.
Although he was wounded several times, Finn would not leave his post until ordered to get medical attention.
(Modrzejewski and the other medal of Honor recipient, John Baca, both served in Vietnam.) The parade, founded in 1947 by businessman Thomas Wigton to give El Cajon children an early Christmas present, will also feature traditional holiday fare. Santa Claus, the Budweiser Clydesdales, Belgian horse brigades, floats, nursery-rhyme characters, the parade queen and her court and other longtime participants will travel down the 2.2-mile parade route. "It's time to lift spirits, especially around the holiday," said Linda Marchinke, who will play Betsy Ross (and is indeed married to "Uncle Sam"). "We do have a lot to be thankful for." |
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"Baa, baa black sheep, have you any wool? Yes sir, yes sir, Three bags full. One for my master. One for my dame. But none for the little boy who cries in the lane." | |
10.14.01 Barbara Kingsolver LATimes auth. The Poisonwood Bible, Prodigal Summer
I am going to have to keep pleading against this madness. I'll get scolded for it, I know. I've already been called
every name in the Rush Limbaugh handbook: traitor, sinner, naive, liberal, peacenik, whiner. I'm told I am
dangerous because I might get in the way of this holy project we've undertaken to keep dropping heavy objects
from the sky until we've wiped out every last person who could potentially hate us. Some people are praying for my
immortal soul, and some have offered to buy me a one-way ticket out of the country, to anywhere. I accept these
gifts with a gratitude equal in measure to the spirit of generosity in which they were offered. People threaten
vaguely, "She wouldn't feel this way if her child had died in the war!" I feel this way precisely because I
can imagine that horror. More subtle adversaries simply say I am ridiculous, a dreamer who takes a child's view of
the world, imagining it can be made better than it is. The more sophisticated approach, they suggest, is to accept
that we are all on a jolly road trip down the maw of catastrophe, so shut up and drive.
I fight that as if I'm drowning. When I get to feeling I am an army of one standing out on the plain waving my
ridiculous little flag of hope, I call up a friend or two. We remind ourselves in plain English that the last time we
got to elect somebody, the majority of us, by a straight popular-vote count, did not ask for the guy who is currently
telling us we will win this war and not be "misunderestimated." We aren't standing apart from the crowd, we are the
crowd. There are millions of us, surely, who know how to look life in the eye, however awful things get, and still try
to love it back. It is not naive to propose alternatives to war. We could be the kindest nation on Earth, inside amp;
out. I look at the bigger picture and see that many nations with fewer resources than ours have found solutions to
problems that seem to baffle us. | |
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INS restructures after visa foul-up ¹ Immigration approved hijackers' visas after 9.11.01 3.15.02 AP more forewarning &185;
Immigration & Naturalization Service reassigned 4 midlevel employees Friday in the wake of the agency
issuing visa approval notices for 2 9.11.01 hijackers 6 months afterwards. Immigration commissioner James Ziglar
said the breakdown that led to the notices being issued "is unacceptable and will not be allowed." No one was fired.
Pres. GWBush said Thu. that he was "stunned, and not happy" when he learned that the student visas for
Mohamed Atta & Marwan Al-Shehhi. "Let me put it another way: I was plenty hot," he said. Bush said he was
unhappy that the men remained in the immigration pipeline even though the names on the forms were widely
known. He said Ziglar was responsible for "this embarrassing disclosure," but should be given a chance to rectify
the problem. "His responsibility is to reform the INS; let's give him time to do so. He hasn't been there that long,"
Bush said. Friday AttyGen Ashcroft asked Congress to give him back authority to fire INS employees for violating
Justice Dept rules. That power was not included in the current budget proposal. "It is essential that I have the
authority to quickly discipline or terminate individuals for acts of negligence, mismanagement or disregard for
Justice Dept policies," Ashcroft said.
INS changes affecting 4 career employees came just 2 days after President Bush ordered Ashcroft to
investigate the latest embarrassment to hit the beleaguered agency. Officials did not identify the four employees
reassigned, citing privacy laws, but provided the names for their replacements. Ashcroft has asked the Justice Dept
inspector general to investigate what happened. The AG Thu. threatened to "hold individuals accountable," and
called this week's incident "inexcusable, in my judgment." On Monday, Huffman Aviation in Venice FL received
student visa approval forms for Atta & Al-Shehhi, who had trained at Huffman in 2000 & early 2001 and
applied for visas to attend technical schools. Immigration officials have said the visa for Atta, an Egyptian, was
approved in July and the visa for Al-Shehhi, from the United Arab Emirates, the following month. The paperwork
received by the flight school was a routine repeat of notifications the INS had given the men and the school last
summer. Immigration agency spokesman Russ Bergeron said Thu. that the INS had no information "regarding these people and their link to terrorism" when the visas were granted. Critics maintained that the INS still had abundant reason to deny Atta's visa request, however. He had left the country and re-entered at least 3 times on previous expired visas; the third time, in January 2001, he aroused the suspicions of immigration officials who pulled him aside and questioned him for an hour. In addition, a warrant was out for his arrest because he had skipped a court hearing in May in Broward County FL where he had been arrested for driving without a license. |
public-transit system of Paris in my city. I'd like us to consume energy at the modest level that Europeans do, and
then go them one better. I'd like a govt that subsidizes renewable energy sources instead of forcefully patrolling the
globe to protect oil gluttony. Because, make no mistake, oil gluttony is what got us into this holy war, and
it's a deep tar pit. I would like us to sign the Kyoto agreement today, and reduce our fossil-fuel emissions with
legislation that will ease us into safer, less gluttonous, sensibly reorganized lives. If this were the face we showed
the world, and the model we helped bring about elsewhere, I expect we could get along with a military budget the
size of Iceland's.
How can I take anything but a child's view of a war in which men are acting like children? What they're serving is
not justice, it's simply vengeance. Adults bring about justice using the laws of common agreement. Uncivilized
criminals are still held accountable through civilized institutions; we abolished stoning long ago. The World Court and the entire Muslim world stand ready to judge Osama bin Laden & his
accessories. If we were to put a few billion dollars into food, health care and education instead of bombs, you can
bet we'd win over enough friends to find out where he's hiding. And I'd like to point out, since no one else has, the
Taliban is an alleged accessory, not the perpetrator, a legal point quickly cast aside in the
rush to find a sovereign target to bomb. The word "intelligence" keeps cropping up, but I feel like I'm standing on a
playground where the little boys are all screaming at each other, "He started it!" and throwing rocks that keep taking
out another eye, another tooth. I keep looking around for somebody's mother to come on the scene saying, "Boys!
Boys! Who started it cannot possibly be the issue here. People are getting hurt." I am somebody's mother, so I will say that now: The issue is, people are getting hurt. We need to take a moment's time out to review the monstrous waste of an endless cycle of retaliation. The biggest weapons don't win this one, guys. When there are people on Earth willing to give up their lives in hatred and use our own domestic airplanes as bombs, it's clear that we can't out-technologize them. You can't beat cancer by killing every cell in the body; or you could, I guess, but the point would be lost. This is a war of who can hate the most. There is no limit to that escalation. It will only end when we have the guts to say it really doesn't matter who started it, and begin to try and understand, then alter the forces that generate hatred. We have always been at war, though the citizens of the U.S. were mostly insulated from what that really felt like until 9.11.01. Then, suddenly, we began to say, "The world has changed. This is something new." If there really is something new under the sun in the way of war, some alternative to the way people have always died when heavy objects are dropped on them from above, then please, in the name of heaven, I would like to see it now. |
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"There are elements of JSOC we don't talk about," an Army officer said. Under the command of Army Maj. Gen. Del Dailey, JSOC units train in total secrecy. Few outside the units know who they are or what they do. Gen. Dailey, an ex-member of the 800-strong Delta unit, personally briefed President Bush on their missions in Afghanistan before the war began. DefSecretary Rumsfeld visited Pope & Ft Bragg this week to fire up troops on whose shoulders much of the war's fate now rests.
Backed by air power, they must not only kill terrorists, but also help catch or kill the 2 primary al Qaeda leaders: bin Laden & his top aide Ayman al Zawahiri.
While at Ft Bragg, Rumsfeld credited SOF with turning the war in Afghanistan in U.S. favor. In the first weeks after the air campaign began Oct. 7, opposition forces made little headway. But once U.S. warriors entered the country in significant numbers and began finding crucial command & troop targets, the Taliban began its retreat.
"The air war enabled the ground war to succeed," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "And it turned when we had Special Forces down there to help with the targeting. And God bless them for doing it."
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insider divestiture
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Officials say they're using every means to cut money to terrorists;
Ask Congress for more power ¹
WASHINGTON Administration officials told Congress on Wednesday they are using every means
they have to halt the flow of money to terrorist networks and appealed for expanded powers. Treasury Sec.
Paul O'Neill & Justice Dept officials said U.S. allies are helping in the effort to dissect the complex
financial network of Osama bin Laden. Lawmakers were sympathetic but said they have misgivings about law
enforcement agencies' ability to work together against terrorists, given their history of turf fighting and reluctance to
share information. "If you don't trust each other to share information, how can you expect us to trust you?" Rep.
Sue Kelly R-NY, asked 3 officials from the FBI, Justice and Treasury Depts at a hearing by the House Financial
Services Committee. Other lawmakers also noted that the FBI, a bureau of the Justice Dept, and the Customs
Service, Drug Enforcement Administration and other Treasury agencies have had trouble cooperating.
O'Neill acknowledged previous "blockages." Now for the first time, he said, enforcement agencies are engaged in
"dedicated & determined" sharing of information to help the campaign against intl terror. "Currency can
be as lethal as a bullet," O'Neill told the lawmakers. "If we are to root out terrorist cells that threaten to do violence
to our people & our communities, we have to hunt the financial benefactors & the willfully blind financial
intermediaries that underwrite murder & mayhem." He & the other officials asked for expansion of the
govt's powers to fight money laundering and track money flows. The administration is seeking the new
powers in an anti-terrorism package it proposed to Congress after 9.11.01 attacks. Some of the proposals have
sparked opposition from liberals & conservatives alike, who fear they would infringe on civil liberties.
President Bush moved last week to freeze assets of bin Laden and 26 other people & organizations with
suspected links to terrorism. The administration says that so far, some $6 million has been blocked and 50 bank
accounts frozen, 30 in this country and 20 overseas. O'Neill said the administration had "taken decisive action
domestically, and, just as importantly, scores of countries have followed suit with bank freezes and pledges to take
measures to heighten scrutiny of suspicious transactions." O'Neill & deputy asst atty general Mary Lee Warren
told the committee that legislation was needed to close legal loopholes that terrorists use to transfer money without
detection. Committee Chairman Rep. Michael Oxley, R-OH and Rep. John LaFalce NY, its senior Democrat,
proposed legislation Wed. that would expand the govt's authority. The measure contains similar provisions to those
being sought by the administration.
9.26.01 Greg Farrell USA Today
Suspicious trading points to advance knowledge by big investors
10.5.01 Barry Grey WSWS
… 10.2.01 Wall St Journal reported ongoing investigation by the SEC into suspicious stock trades had been
joined by a Secret Service probe into an unusually high volume of 5 year U.S. Treasury note purchases prior to the
attacks. The Treasury note transactions included a single $5 billion trade. As the Journal explained: "5 year
Treasury notes are among the best investments in the event of a world crisis, esp. one that hits the US. The notes
are prized for their safety and their backing by the US govt, and usually rally when investors flee riskier
investments, such as stocks." The value of these notes, the Journal pointed out, has risen sharply since 9.11.01
events. The article went on to quote Tucker Anthony Inc. bond market strategist Michael Shamosh, who said, "If
they were going to do something like this they would do it in the 5 year part of the market. It's extremely liquid, and
the tracks would be hard to spot."
… on Tue. the Investment Dealers Assoc., the Canadian securities industry trade association, posted on its
web site a list sent by the American SEC of 38 stocks. The US agency had asked
the Canadians to look into trading in these stocks between Aug. 27 & Sept. 11. As soon as US officials
became aware of the Internet posting, they demanded that the IDA yank it from the web site, and the Canadian
organization complied. However, reporters & others were able to copy the list before it was pulled. The list incl
parent companies of American, Continental, Delta, Northwest, Southwest, United and US Airways, as well as
Carnival & Royal Caribbean cruise lines, aircraft maker Boeing and defense contractor Lockheed Martin.
Several insurance companies are on the list: American Intl Group, Axa, Chubb, Cigna, CNA Financial, John
Hancock and MetLife. The SEC list also includes several big companies that were tenants in the collapsed WTCtr:
investment firms Morgan Stanley, the complex's largest occupant; Lehman Brothers; Bank of America; and the
financial firm Marsh & McLennan. Other major companies listed incl General Motors, Raytheon, LTV, WR Grace,
Lone Star Technologies, American Express, Bank of New York, Bank One, Citigroup and Bear Stearns.
Testifying Wed. before House Committee on Financial Services, FBI Financial Crimes Section chief Dennis Lormel
said, "To date, there are no flags or indicators ... that people took dvantage of this." However USA Today quoted
PTI Securities co-founder Jon Najarian, described as an "active player" on the Chicago Board Options Exchange,
who said, "The volumes were exceptional versus the norm." …
SEC investigates trading in 38 companies' shares
WASHINGTON … IDA … sent a notice of the list to its approximately 190 member firms.
"These are the ... securities the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating in the U.S. We ask that
you review same with a view of determining any unusual trading patterns," the Web site posting said. The dealers'
group enforcement vp Alex Popovic said Tue. that the SEC had asked brokerage firms to concentrate on stocks on
the list, but not to limit their review. "One shouldn't be wearing blinders when looking at that sort of thing," he said
by telephone from Toronto. SEC spokesman Michael Robinson would not comment Tue. SEC Chairman Harvey
Pitt told Congress last week that the agency's top priority is to pursue its investigation of possible trading by people
associated with the terrorists.
If such trading is found to have occurred, "We will do everything within our power to track those people down and
bring them to justice," Pitt said in testimony to the House Financial Services Committee. …
Suppresed details of criminal insider trading lead directly into the CIA's highest ranks
Although uniformly ignored by the mainstream U.S. media, there is abundant & clear evidence that a number
of transactions in financial markets indicated specific (criminal) foreknowledge of 9.11.01 … That evidence
also demonstrates that, in the case of at least one of these trades, which has left a $2.5 million prize unclaimed, the
firm used to place the "put options" on United Airlines stock was, until 1998, managed by the man who is now in the
CIA #3 Exec. Dir. position. Until 1997 A.B. "Buzzy" Krongard had been chairman of investment bank A.B. Brown,
which was acquired by Banker's Trust in 1997. Krongard then became, as part of the merger, vice chairman of
Banker's Trust-AB Brown, one of 20 major U.S. banks named by Senator Carl Levin this year as being connected
to money laundering. Krongard's last position at Banker's Trust (BT) was to oversee "private client relations." In this
capacity he had direct hands-on relations with some of the wealthiest people in the world in a kind of specialized
banking operation that has been identified by the U.S. Senate & other investigators as being closely
connected to the laundering of drug money. Krongard joined the CIA in 1998 as counsel to CIA Dir. Geo.
Tenet. He was promoted to CIA Exec. Dir. by Pres. GWBush March 2001. BT was acquired by Deutsche Bank
in 1999. The combined firm is the single largest bank in Europe. Deutsche Bank played several key roles in events
connected to 9.11.01.
Scope of known insider trading 9.21.01 story by the Israeli Herzliyya Intl Policy Institute for Counterterrorism, entitled "Black Tuesday: The World's Largest Insider Trading Scam?" documented the following trades connected to 9.11.01:
CIA, the banks and the brokers
Clark Clifford …
Probe of terrorists' insider trading still inconclusive
Govt investigators don't appear to be coming up with quick answers in their probe of possible insider trading
by terrorists ahead of the 9.11.01 attacks. Despite what seemed to some people initially to be a glaring case of
market manipulation, no evidence has emerged publicly to indicate that those tied to the attacks tried to gain
financially from them. "To date, there are no flags or indicators" showing that terrorists used trading strategies
known as "short selling" to profit from the attacks, FBI financial-crimes unit chief Dennis Lormel told a
Congressional committee Oct. 3. Some experts now say they doubt that such a scheme took place. What appears
to be suspicious activity in some stocks may turn out to have been legitimate trading, they say. What's more, there
is doubt that the terrorist organization that went to great lengths to plan & conceal the attacks would have
risked leaving behind a paper trail that could expose its identity.
"It would be out of pattern [for them] to just lead us so easily to their tracks," Temple Univ. intl financial crimes
expert Nikos Passas. "If they [tried to manipulate the market] it would have been a strategic mistake on their part,
and their track record so far shows they don't make such mistakes." Nevertheless, the FBI, SEC and other
agencies continue to search for evidence that terrorists may have sought to profit from the post-attacks plunge in
the securities of airlines and other companies. … To their advantage, regulators have conducted this sort of
insider-trading probe many times in the last 2 decades. Though the stakes are higher than ever before, the process
is the same: It involves combing through a labyrinth of trading records in the U.S. & abroad, an exercise at
which the SEC has become quite skilled, experts say. Crucial to the investigation, they add, is the cooperation of
other countries.
Regulators are adept at tracing financial activities within the U.S., and can fairly easily obtain records from
domestic brokerages, experts say. That process probably was completed in the initial days of the probe. But if the
financial trail leads overseas, the probe's outcome could hinge on how successful U.S. regulators are at
tracking down leads from abroad, several experts said. The SEC has worked hard in the last decade to forge close
ties with its regulatory counterparts in other countries. The agency has information-sharing pacts with more than
two dozen countries in which foreign regulators have pledged their assistance in such investigations. "There's a lot
of pressure in every sense of the word being brought to bear on any one of these jurisdictions to cough up the
information and cooperate," said former SEC enforcement chief William McLucas. Nevertheless, tracking assets
& transactions overseas can be a slow & painstaking process that is rife with obstacles. Chief among
those is the likelihood that any illegal trading would have been done through shell accounts in which the identity of
account-holders is purposely disguised. In such cases, investigators must rely on foreign govts to reveal who
controls the funds. "The govt's ability to trace information abroad is largely, almost exclusively, dependent on the
cooperation of the govt of that country," said former Justice Dept prosecutor Bill Lawler, now a partner
with Vinson & Elkins in Wash.DC. "Once they get to a country that says, 'No, we're just not going to help
you,' that would be the dead-end."
Some analysts aren't convinced that the evidence is compelling enough to suggest that illegal trading occurred.
For example, open interest in AMR put options surged 73% on Sept. 10, a huge one-day jump, said Chris
Johnson, an analyst at Schaeffer's Investment Research, a Cincinnati research firm. But that was only the fifth-
largest one-day jump in AMR put options since 1990, Johnson said. And the weakening economy was hurting
airlines well before the attacks, analysts note. On Sept. 7, AMR warned that it would have disappointing
second-half results. "(The put-option activity was) significant, but at the same time it has happened in the past for
reasons other than terrorist activities," Johnson said. "You can't rule out the fact that this was non-terrorist-related."
However, questions linger. The number of put contracts that have yet to be closed out remains relatively high in
AMR, Johnson said. Given that the plunge in AMR shares following the attacks made the puts very profitable, those
contracts normally would be closed out as traders took their profits, Johnson said. That could be a sign that trading
in the put options was legitimate, and that investors are holding on to the securities in the hope that AMR's stock
price will fall further. But it also could signal that the accounts have been frozen or that the investors don't want to
close out the trades for fear of drawing attention.
House & Senate leaders clash on banking measure
Wash.D.C. … Democratic leaders say that they will not take any more action on the
overall bill unless it includes tougher banking rules. 9.11.01 terrorists left a long paper trail of bank accounts, credit
cards and money transfers showing that they used the ordinary banking system with little scrutiny. … Money-
laundering legislation in the House & Senate would impose similar mandates on banks to scrutinize customers
and report suspicious activity. It would also give the Treasury secretary broad powers to track money overseas and
to punish foreign govts that fail to help in the crackdown. … longstanding debate about whether banks are
doing enough to make sure that criminals do not use intl financial system to help commit crimes. … Law
enforcement officials, incl AG John Ashcroft, have pushed hard for new rules that would allow law enforcement
officers to scrutinize bank accounts and have easier access to bank records filed with the IRS & other federal
agencies. Treasury Sec. Paul H. O'Neill & White House economic adviser Lawrence B. Lindsey often criticized
money-laundering rules as burdensome & ineffective before 9.11.01. Since, Mr. O'Neill has been leading the
administration's high profile campaign to curtail terrorist access to the financial system. Mr. Lindsey has continued
to oppose some new banking measures as draconian. His office has taken the lead in seeking to work out
differences between House & Senate versions of the terrorism bills.
Conservative groups & bankers have lobbied against the measures, although their approach has been low key
relative to the intensive efforts to kill such legislation in the past. Some 25 conservative leaders organized by the
Ctr for Freedom & Prosperity sent a letter to President Bush earlier this month urging him to reject the
Senate's money- laundering proposals. They called the new rules a backdoor attempt to eliminate intl competition
in the financial industry and complained that it gave too much power to the Treasury secretary. Some banking
groups, incl influential Texas Bankers Assoc., have also pushed House supporters, incl Mr. Armey, to strip
some of the most contentious provisions out of the banking bill, Congressional aides said. "Bankers are very
uncomfortable with this bill. It tries to turn banks into spies for the govt," said banking consultant Bert Ely
who opposes the new legislation. …
Clinton White House axed terror-fund probe ¹
The Clinton administration shut down a 1995 investigation of Islamic charities, concerned that a public probe would expose Saudi Arabia's suspected ties to a global money-laundering operation that raised millions for anti-Israel terrorists, federal officials told The Washington Times. Law enforcement authorities & others close to the aborted investigation said the State Dept pressed federal officials to pull agents off the previously undisclosed
probe after the charities were targeted in the diversion of cash to groups that fund terrorism. Former federal
prosecutor John J. Loftus said 4 interrelated Islamic foundations, institutes and charities in Virginia with more than
a billion dollars in assets donated by or through the Saudi Arabian govt were allowed to continue under "a veil of
secrecy." "If federal agents had been allowed to conduct the investigation they wanted in 1995, they would have
made the connection between the Saudi govt & those charities," said Mr. Loftus, now a St. Petersburg, FL
lawyer who filed a lawsuit last week accusing a Florida charity of fraud. "Had the charities been shut down, they
would have been unable to raise the millions that since have been used by terrorists in hundreds of suicide
attacks," he said.
Federal agents last week began a new investigation, known as "Operation Green Quest," into the funding by charities of suspected terrorists,
raiding 14 Islamic businesses in Virginia. Agents from the U.S. Customs Service, Internal Revenue Service,
Immigration & Naturalization Service and FBI, coordinated by a Treasury Dept counterterrorism task force,
seized 2 dozen computers, along with hundreds of bank statements & other documents. Records in the case
have been sealed and no arrests have been announced, although the probe is continuing.
Warrants served by agents in the Virginia raids last week targeted, among others, the International Institute of
Islamic Thought in Herndon, major source of funding for Mr. Al-Arian's World & Islam Studies Inst. The
warrants sought information on Islamic Jihad, Hamas, the Islamic Concern Project, the World & Islam Studies
Enterprise, and Mr. Al-Arian. They also sought information on the SAAR Foundation, educational & health
charity founded by the Al-Rajihi family of Saudi Arabia. The Islamic Concern Project and the World & Islam
Studies Enterprise have been named by the State Dept as front organizations that raised funds for militant Islamic-
Palestinian groups such as Islamic Jihad & Hamas. They have been tied to the diversion of millions of dollars
to terrorists for weapons, safe haven, training and equipt.
Saudi information office spokesman Nail Al-Jubeir in Washington called the accusations "simply nonsense,"
adding that Saudi Arabia has cracked down on terrorists & those who fund them. "There is not one iota of
evidence to support these accusations," Mr. Al-Jubeir said. "It is nothing more than an effort to smear our name. If
there is any proof, I would suggest it be taken directly to the U.S. govt." Mr. Al-Arian & Islamic Concern Project
dir. Mazen Al-Najjar targeted by federal investigations since mid-1990s. No criminal charges filed against the two,
although the govt shut down the World & Islam Studies Enterprise.
Mr. Loftus is seeking an injunction blocking Florida charities, including those headed by Mr. Al-Arian, from
transferring "money, weapons, equipt or communications gear" to terrorists. Mr. Al-Arian has vigorously denied any
wrongdoing, calling the Loftus lawsuit a "publicity stunt." His atty, Robert McKee, did not return calls to his office for
comment. Pres. Clinton spokeswoman Julie Payne did not repond to inquiries about State Dept policy in 1995
during his administration. Accusations that Saudi govt used charities as front organizations to fund international
terrorism are long-standing, first surfacing 20 years ago when U.S. intelligence officials warned Congress that the
Saudis had taken over the direct funding of terrorist groups such as Islamic Jihad and Hamas.
One former & 3 current federal law enforcement officials said the new probe began after U.S. officials learned
that intelligence agents in India had wiretapped the telephone of a Pakistani charity funded by the Saudi govt and
discovered transfer of $100,000 to al Qaeda 9.11.01 hijacker Mohamed Atta. That information helped U.S. officials
identify the 19 hijackers, 15 of whom were from Saudi Arabia, the officials said. Officials said Treasury's
interagency task force was created after 9.11.01 to investigate ties between charitable organizations in this
country and intl terrorist groups.
Dallas 4 brothers who work for a suburban Dallas computer company made an initial court
appearance Wednesday on federal charges related to an alleged financing scheme for the radical Islamic group
Hamas. No pleas were entered during the brief hearing, which came hours after the 4 were
arrested by a federal joint terrorism task force in Dallas & the suburb of Richardson.
A 33-count indictment filed Tuesday named the 4 brothers, another brother already in custody, an Islamic militant
leader, his wife, and the computer company Infocom Corp. Investigators allege the group engaged in various
export violations involving Libya & Syria, laundered money, conspired to deal in the property of a specially
designated terrorist and funneled funds through Infocom.
FBI dir. Robt Mueller told reporters the investigation "relied upon an array of intelligence and law enforcement
initiatives and tools that have characterized our post 9/11 efforts."
Fifth brother named in the indictment Ihsan Elashyi, also known as Sammy Elashyi, was placed in custody earlier
on an unrelated charge. Mousa Abu Marzook, also known as Abu Omar, was the Islamic militant leader indicted.
He has already been deported.
According to sources, Ghassan Elashi is Infocom vp & an official with the Holy Land Foundation, designated
by U.S. as a financial supporter of terrorist organizations. The others are also employees of Infocom. The
indictment named Bayan Elashi as chief executive officer.
Marzook was said to have made donations to the Holy Land Foundation in the early 1990s, according to a
foundation atty. The Bush administration froze Holy Land's assets and raided its offices Dec. 2001 after
determining the group was aiding a terrorist organization. Holy Land sued, claiming govt officials had not sufficiently
proved a link to terrorism and had violated its constitutional rights.
Muslim charities treading fine line on politics
On the surface, Al Rasheed appears typical of such charities. Based in the port city of Karachi it provides crucial
food aid to widows & children in Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan. Its biggest project is bakeries in the
Afghan capital Kabul, which provide subsidized daily bread for tens of thousands of residents. In Pakistan's capital Islamabad Tuesday, dozens of children staged a rally to protest against the freeze on Al Rasheed, saying they faced being kicked out of school because their source of fees had dried up. Yet Al Rasheed does have some links with jihadi groups, which mushroom in Pakistan.
The organization first raised eyebrows earlier this year when they offered to take over bakery projects in Kabul run by the World Food Program (WFP) during its standoff with Afghanistan's Taliban over the employment of local women in the project. Although that standoff was resolved, Al Rasheed's offer struck some aid officials as odd, and they wondered if it wasn't a ruse to siphon off food to the Taliban's fighters. There are signs that suggest while Al Rasheed may not actively support bin Laden & his al Qaeda network, 2 of its publications advocated Islamic jihad, or holy war, a common rallying call of all Islamic groups.
Sharing Al Rasheed's building in Quetta is the office of "Dharb-i-M'umin," a weekly newspaper published by the
trust and registered in Karachi. The paper's content leaves little doubt as to its political bent. The Urdu-language
daily Islam, published from Karachi, is another newspaper of the trust focusing on jihadi activities & groups.
"Muslims should be ready for the Jihad," screamed the banner headline on one recent front page. "4000
Jew employees in WTCtr absent on attack day," read another. An editorial suggested the attacks
were a Jewish plot to discredit Muslims. ¹ ² A few minutes away from Al Rasheed's offices is HQ of
Jaish-e-Mohammed (Army of the Prophet Mohammad), which first claimed then denied responsibility for
Monday's suicide attack on the Kashmir provincial assembly in neighboring India in which 39 people were killed.
The group, also on the U.S. watch list, is headed by Maulana Masood Azhar who has been a key member of
various extremist Muslim groups that have been banned over the years.
Azhar, detained for years in India because of his Kashmir activities, was released in Dec. 1999 in a complicated
exchange involving hostages on a hijacked Indian airliner and 3 Kashmiri militants. New Muslim trusts &
charities spring up as fast as old ones are banned. Critics say the leaders & activists remain essentially the
same. So do their aims. "Wherever Muslims are under attack, we are ready to fight," said Abdul Jabar, the leader of Jaish-e-Mohammad in Pakistan's Baluchistan's province. "We are international," Jabar told Reuters. "Our goal,
when Muslims are in trouble, is to free them, to fight with them against our common enemies, wherever that may
be." Al Rasheed says its aims are more prosaic. "Al Rasheed Trust is a charity working for the welfare of people of Pakistan & Afghanistan," spokesman Abdullah told Reuters from Karachi. "We have been working for the last five to six years under the govt rules for non-governmental organizations and our accounts are audited annually," he said. "We are prepared to defend ourselves at any forum with all our books & accounts."
U.S. freezes assets of British charity
Wash.D.C. GWBush administration moved on Wednesday to financially incapacitate a charity and 3 companies in Britain for their alleged role in funneling money to an al-Qaida affiliate that has carried out terrorist acts in Libya and elsewhere. U.S. Treasury Dept action also applies to 5 people in Britain that U.S. suspects of providing financial support to the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, or LIFG, the al-Qaida affiliated terror organization.
The department alleges that Sanabel Relief Agency Limited, with addresses in London and other parts of the U.K. bills itself as a charity to help the sick and poor but that its "first priority is providing support to LIFG's jihadist activities." The department alleges that the charity is used to transfer money and documents for terrorist activities. "The Libyan Islamic Fighting Group threatens global safety and stability through the use of violence and its ideological alliance with al-Qaida and other brutal terrorist organizations," said Treasury's terrorist financing and financial crime asst sec. Patrick O'Brien. |
Let's hit terrorists in wallet & halt tax evasion, too 9.30.01 D.Bauder, D.Cervantes & B.Wood SD UT
Let's not just try to strangle Osama bin Laden's banking relationships: Let's take this opportunity to reform the
world's banking system, thwarting drug and terrorist money-laundering , and tax evasion, through offshore havens.
Experts say that money-laundering absorbs between 2% & 5% of the world's economic output. As
much as $500 billion to $1 trillion in illegal funds from organized crime, narcotics trafficking, terrorism and other
criminal behavior is laundered each year, with half the loot going through U.S. banks. But that estimate only
includes transactions that are illegal under U.S. laws: The numbers exclude much foreign activity.
In March, legislation was introduced in Congress that would increase reporting requirements of U.S. financial
institutions operating outside this country, require identification of people who use a foreign financial institution's
correspondent account with a U.S. institution, require identification of foreign people using accounts at U.S.
institutions, and impose conditions on U.S. institutions' correspondent accounts with foreign institutions. Last year,
a similar bill was thwarted, largely by Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, who responded to pressure from the banking
industry. He opposes the current bill and refuses to say that he was wrong last year. The funds that helped finance
the Sept. 11 tragedies probably came to the U.S. through the underground banking system known as
"hawala." Through brokers, lawyers and others, money moves across borders without a paper trail. Key to the
enterprise are secrecy-shrouded tax havens. Caribbean-based tax havens support terrorism, says Newport Beach-
based fraud expert Jay Adkisson, "and Switzerland is by far the worst." Companies are involved, too.
"The Commerce Dept actively helps to get companies to invest in the U.S.," says Adkisson, who has a Web site,
www.quatloos.com. "Many that do are front companies for terrorist organizations." As a lawyer, in 1993 he
defended a U.S. company fighting a hostile takeover attempt by an Iraqi company. "The Iraqi company purchased
the U.S. company to acquire licenses to ship chemicals overseas," says Adkisson. "Later it turned out that the
company was a front for Saddam Hussein. It looked like a legitimate foreign investment, but it was really a
subterfuge to acquire those licenses." "The structuring for money-laundering that I am familiar with involved
numerous front companies, many offshore, multilevel," says Oklahoma City attorney Michael Johnston, an expert in
terrorist money-laundering. "After money passed through several of these front companies, it was difficult to trace
the origins."
Any U.S. company or individual should open the books if it is moving money offshore, says Adkisson. Similarly,
"Someone coming into the U.S. with offshore money should open the books." Says Johnston, "It is not
unreasonable for the U.S. to demand complete accounting of the origin of the funds, no matter how many accounts
it passes through." This will bring howls from the privacy lobby and the low-tax crowd. Some of the privacy
arguments are persuasive, but we are in a national emergency. Frankly, a tax evader screaming about privacy
invasion is about as credible as a highwayman saying he simply believes in an equitable distribution of wealth, or a
murderer claiming he is only practicing his passionate belief in negative population growth.
"The people who will take a hard line against laundering drug and terrorist money will treat tax evasion with kid
gloves," says Adkisson. That's putting it kindly. The political inability to pass meaningful legislation to crack down
on our own banks' dealings with tax havens unwittingly played into the terrorists' and other launderers' hands, says
Adkisson. Last summer, the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering, or FATF, part of the
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, proposed to fight deleterious offshore tax haven fraud.
The Bush administration protested, believing the initiatives would put a burden on financial institutions. The FATF
has a list of non-cooperative jurisdictions, tax havens that refuse to cooperate in an international crackdown:
Cook Islands, Dominica, Egypt, Guatemala, Grenada, Hungary, Indonesia, Israel, Lebanon, Marshall Islands,
Myanmar, Nauru, Nigeria, Philippines, Russia, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Vincent, the Grenadines and Ukraine.
In June, the Bahamas, Cayman Islands, Liechtenstein and Panama were taken off the list, but the FATF said it
would closely monitor them.
Patriotism is sweeping the U.S.. Anti-terrorist money-laundering measures should pass in this
environment. But tax evasion is unpatriotic, too. Illegal offshore tax scams cost the nation $70 billion a year.
It's time for sweeping, not narrow, reform.
U.S. freezes fewer terror assets
The amount of assets frozen by U.S. anti-terrorism units is declining dramatically each year, prompting a former Bush admin official who helped oversee the program to suggest that a "lack of urgency" is hurting efforts to block terrorist fundraising.
U.S. & allied efforts to pursue the assets of individuals, charities and groups with suspected ties to terrorists began under a presidential directive after 9.11.01. It has been a key part of the Bush administration's strategy to make it more difficult for terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda to get money to operatives.
"The strategy needs to be re-evaluated, restructured and refocused," says Gurule, who left the Bush administration in 2003 and is a University of Notre Dame law prof. "It's time for an overhaul."
Levey also cites the 9/11 Commission's recent evaluation of govt's strategy against terrorism funding, which the panel gave a grade of A-minus. It was the highest score awarded in the commission's wide-ranging and mostly critical report on federal anti-terrorism efforts. The report did include some criticism of the push to go after terrorists' assets, however.
Money transfers virtually untraceable
¹
In the Kandahari bazaar here, many hawala dealers are concentrated in a 5 story concrete building that
resembles a bunker, its interior dark and its offices lighted by dim bulbs. Outside, donkey-drawn carts vie for space
with Toyota Land Cruisers, and 3 wheel motorized rickshaws dodge buses & pedestrians. The absence of
women, save a couple of beggars, is striking. In Pakistan & Afghanistan, money business is men's business.
Anyone can walk into a hawala shop in Quetta or a thousand other cities in southern Asia, put down a stack of cash
and ask that the sum be transferred to a recipient in another country. Khan & his associate, found sitting
cross-legged on the floor of their sparse office and sipping tea, keep transactions in a brown notebook on Khan's
desk. When Khan receives a telephone call or a fax to confirm that money has been picked up elsewhere in the
world, the relevant page is torn out of the notebook. Even the new scrutiny prompted by the 9.11.01 attacks is
highly unlikely to disclose all the details of how bin Laden's money moves through the ancient system.
Khan, for one, refuses to divulge the cities where he has associates, saying he fears the authorities."This system is
made for transferring enough money to get a pilot's license or make a deposit on an apartment without raising an
eyebrow," said Temple Univ. transnational crime expert Nikos Passas, consultant to govt agencies. Finance
Minister Shaukut Aziz, former Citibank exec. vp in New York, said $2 billion to $5 billion moves through the
hawala system annually in Pakistan, more than the amount of foreign transfers through the country's banking
system. Pakistan is trying to draft laws to regulate the industry. But for now it thrives illegally in places like the
Kandahari bazaar.
U.S. Treasury Dept study identified hawala as the principal means of money-laundering from drug
trafficking & other crimes in Pakistan. The report said that Pakistan, India and Dubai on the Persian Gulf form
the "hawala triangle" to move money secretly worldwide. In hawala, sums large & small are sent halfway
around the world on a handshake & a code word. Records of transactions are kept just until the deal is
completed. Then they are destroyed. No cash moves across a border or through an electronic transfer system, the
places where authorities are most likely to spot or record the transaction. The sender does not have to provide his
name or identify the recipient. Instead, he is given a code word, which is all the recipient needs to pick up the same
amount of cash from an associate of the original trader. The transaction can occur in the time it takes to make a
couple of phone calls or send a fax.
The system was in place long before Western banking. The ancient Chinese used a similar method called
"flying money," or fei qian. Arab traders used it as a means of avoiding robbery along the Silk Road.
Millions of Pakistanis, Indians, Filipinos and other people from southern Asia working in foreign countries use the
system to send money home to relatives. "They don't feel comfortable walking into a bank," Aziz said in an
interview. Khan, who arrived in Quetta from Afghanistan many years ago, said yesterday, "It's very dangerous to
talk about this, because it is illegal. I can't tell you much." A colleague shook his head and told Khan to keep quiet.
Trust, Khan said, is the essential quality of a hawala trader. Most of his customers are from the same part of
Afghanistan. So there is an innate sense of trust. He said transfers were usually sent among family members and
involved a few hundred dollars. Sometimes transactions are for as little as $50. He provides a five-digit code word,
a letter and four numbers, that the recipient takes to one of Khan's associates as far away as the U.S., Germany or
Russia. The same associates accept money for transfer to relatives in Quetta. "They tell the code word, and we
hand over the money," he said. "Then we tear up the records on both ends."
Direct link uncovered ¹
Wash.D.C. Federal investigators have discovered that Mohamed Atta, the hijacker believed to
have piloted the first jetliner into the WTCtr, wired several thousand dollars to a top associate of bin Laden 3 days
before the deadly attack. Investigators say the transactions provided them with a direct financial link between Atta,
considered a leader of the 9.11.01 attacks, and Mustafa Ahmad, longtime bin Laden ally believed to have helped
finance the terrorists. Two other men identified as hijackers, Marwan al-Shehhi and Waleed Alshehri, also wired
money from the U.S. to the United Arab Emirates. Investigators said they believe the money was left over from
funds they received to finance the hijackings. "The wire transfers have been like fingerprints at a crime scene," said
a federal investigator familiar with the money trail who asked not to be identified by name. "It's a very promising
lead."
Separately, senior officials in the UAE said 3 of the identified hijackers each wired $5,000 to an unidentified Saudi
man in the UAE. The man, who landed in the UAE in June from neighboring Qatar, left for Karachi, Pakistan, with
the $15,000 on Sept. 11. It's not clear if that man, who was not identified by authorities in the UAE, was Ahmad, the
known bin Laden associate. Since the terrorist attacks, federal investigators have been serving subpoenas on
financial institutions looking for the hijackers' bank accounts. The FBI has also collected electronic cash transfer
records from Western Union outlets in Maryland, where Atta sent the money.
Age-old way of moving cash leaves little trail
There is something about the Al Rashid Trust office, located on the second floor of a trading building in a posh
neighborhood here in Pakistan's capital, that makes one think this is not an ordinary charitable organization. Maybe
it is the Islamic sword painted on a huge billboard outside, beneath the slogan "The Blow of the Pious." Or maybe it
is the tea server, a gray-bearded ex-army captain who carries a pump-action shotgun when he greets visitors at the
door. The Al Rashid Trust is one of Pakistan's most visible philanthropic groups, soliciting funds for widows,
orphans and the disabled. It also has been named by the U.S. govt as part of shadowy financial empire that
keeps money flowing to terrorism … ancient & nearly invisible route known as hawala in the Arab world,
or hundi in Pakistan.
Hawala banking, which is illegal in Pakistan, relies on something older than money itself: a person's word. Nothing
could be more discreet. There is no need to smuggle large amounts of cash from one country to another or to fill
out bank forms that can draw unwanted attention. No need, in fact, for detailed bank records. A person simply
hands over cash at one end and it is paid out at the other, leaving virtually no paper trail to follow. Here's how it
works: The hawala banker who takes a deposit writes down the phone number or address of the payer's
representative in the receiving country. Then he instructs his partner, a money trader or group of traders in that
country, to pay out the required sum. Generally the contact is made by telephone or e-mail. A code word, or a
recognized face or voice, is all that is required to complete the transaction. No cash is moved through legal banking
channels. The hawala money trader & his partner simply keep straight between themselves who owes what to
whom and settle their own debts in cash, gold or other commodities when convenient.
There are many permutations that muddy the trail of anyone trying to follow the money, said a banker in Islamabad
familiar with the system. For instance, when multimillion-dollar sums are needed, groups of money traders will split
the transaction among themselves to make the payment. They also may turn to friendly offshore banks to issue
cashier's checks. It would be difficult to audit the money-changers, said the Islamabad banker, who insisted that he
not be identified for security reasons. The groups in Pakistan keep on hand only as much cash as they need.
Any excess is regularly carried by plane to such locations as Singapore or the United Arab Emirates and deposited
in joint accounts. Only the traders among themselves know who owns what in those pooled accounts. Asked
what happens if someone tries to cheat, the banker frowned. "These are very bad people," he said. "In this
business, you don't cheat."
Most hawala transactions are in the hundreds of dollars, such as remittances that Pakistani workers in Persian Gulf
states send to their families back home. But the only limit on a hawala transfer is the amount of cash you bring to
the counter, said the Peshawar money-changers, all members of the executive board of the Money Changers'
Assn. of Peshawar, who spoke on condition that they not be named because they fear more visits from the police.
Hawala persists in Pakistan because it serves an important function. The Islamabad banker said it plays a huge
part in the nation's black market economy, which could total billions of dollars. During the former Soviet Union's
occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, billions of dollars in U.S. & other Western military aid were secretly
channeled to Afghan moujahedeen fighters, who included bin Laden, through the Bank of Credit & Commerce
Intl. The bank had Pakistani managers and wealthy Arab backers from the Gulf states and was the preferred
banker for intelligence agencies, drug traffickers & money launderers of various sorts until it collapsed 7.5.91.
That is when the financial acumen & personal wealth of bin Laden, scion [
inaccurate word choice ] of a wealthy Saudi family, made him so
important to the radical Islamist movement he would soon come to lead, according to investigators.
Hawala bankers, sympathetic govts, wealthy Arab benefactors and the heroin trade all played a part in
developing the intricate Al Qaeda financial network that Washington is now trying to tear apart in its war against
terrorism. Pakistan's govt has been trying for several years to put hawala bankers out of business but has only
succeeded in driving them underground, the money-changers said. The crackdown began after 1998 tests of
nuclear weapons by Pakistan & India. The govt in Islamabad knew that it would be slapped with U.S.
economic sanctions as punishment and ordered police raids to stop people from moving huge sums of U.S. dollars
& other hard currency offshore, the money-changers said. But hawala bankers still operate secretly in
Peshawar's money bazaar, and more openly in a region of Pakistan's NW frontier province known as the "tribal
areas," where gun markets also flourish and ethnic Pushtuns are more likely to obey their own traditions than
national laws.
Like the hawala system, the Islamic charitable funds that the Bush administration believes are a source of the
money for bin Laden's group are based on cash & trust and, therefore, are largely free any independent
scrutiny. Though many have ties to militant Koranic schools or to mullahs known for extremist views, the funds
have proved adept at attracting money from the rich & poor by promising to use it for laudable causes. During
a reporter's visit to the Al Rashid Trust Tue., an old man came in with about $20 that he wished to give as a zakat,
a gift to the needy that under Islam is required of all Muslims who can afford it. Ghyass Uddin, the bookkeeper on
duty, took the cash and put it aside, recorded the gift in a ledger and handed the man a glossy receipt that looked
something like a check. It was filled in with the man's name, the date, the amount of money given and the purpose,
in this case simply "Afghanistan."
Uddin, whose office is across the street from Islamabad's American Ctr and only a short distance from the
Supreme Court, denied that such money could ever be put to criminal purposes. "All our money & its uses are documented," he said. But asked how anyone could be sure where the money went, he said with a benign look, "You trust the Trust." There is no independent oversight, he said. Al Rashid Trust, headquartered in Karachi, has branches all over Pakistan and, according to Uddin, takes in a steady stream of funds. The group's literature
denounces the U.S. for its policies toward Israel, Iraq and Saudi Arabia and praises Islamic fighters. Yet Al
Rashid says it spends its money only on social causes such as aiding needy Muslims, providing disaster relief and spreading knowledge about the faith.
At least some of its goals, however, hint at a more political agenda, such as aiding "illegally jailed" prisoners,
cleansing the media of pornography and creating books "to promote in the people & the elite the fear of the
Last (Judgment) Day." And even a cursory glance at its publications hints at links between Al Rashid &
Afghanistan's Taliban movement. A recent edition of The Blow of the Pious newspaper included on its front page a
decree by Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar threatening any Muslim country that sides with the U.S.
Al-Qaeda eludes financial clampdown
Osama Bin Laden's al-Qaeda network has largely eluded a US-led effort to find and freeze its financial assets, the Wash.Post says, partly by moving its money into commodities such as gold & diamonds.The Post quotes American & intl officials saying that al-Qaeda shifted its funds from areas such as Swiss bank accounts into precious stones even before 9.11.01. "It was a paradigm shift in the financial organization that we missed," one unnamed investigator told the paper. "Everyone was trying to find bank accounts in Geneva when al-Qaeda was greatly reducing their exposure in the formal financial sector," the investigator said. "Now we are finding tentacles into all kinds of precious stones and metals."
Diamonds, tanzanite and sapphires became part of the al-Qaeda's portfolio, the paper says, because they are easy to store and move, if necessary. Small amounts can also be put on the market at a time to avoid alerting
authorities. As a result, much of the network's money has eluded a worldwide effort to cut off terrorist financing, the Post reports. Pres.GWBush ordered clampdown on terrorist financing after 9.11.01, blocking bank accounts linked to a dozens of groups & individuals. The UN and EU backed move resulted in the freezing of more than $100m worth of alleged terrorist funds around the world. But since Feb., much has been unfrozen because of lack of evidence, the Post said.
All 189 UN members were supposed to file reports on their compliance with a Security Council resolution to crack down on terrorist funding, but only 43 have done so. Of those, more than half said they found no terrorist funds to freeze at all. The efforts to track al-Qaeda's cash flow have also been hindered by a lack of co-ordination between various US agencies such as the CIA, FBI and the Treasury & Justice Depts, the paper reported.
bin Laden's 'cash link' to hijackers
There are reports that US investigators have uncovered evidence of financial transfers linking Osama Bin Laden to 9.11.01 attacks on America. According to FBI sources, Mustafa Mohamed Ahmad, suspected Bin Laden financial operative, transferred money to Mohamed Atta, one of the hijackers, in the days running up to the attacks
Furthermore Atta & 2 of the other hijackers transferred some $15,000 back to an account under the same
name just 2 days before the attacks. Mr Ahmad, also known as Sheikh Saeed, is one of 27 individuals or groups
with a known link to Bin Laden who have had their assets in America frozen. He worked as a financial manager for bin Laden when he was based in Sudan and is believed to be a financial operative for the al-Qaeda
organisation.
Cash transfers were made to Atta via a money service in Florida on Sept. 8 & 9 from an account in Dubai,
under the name of Mustafa Ahmad. Atta is believed to have been the ringleader of the 19 hijackers. Atta & 2
other hijackers, Waleed al-Shehri & Marwan al-Shehi, then each sent $5,000 from the US to an account in
Dubai, also under the name of Mustafa Ahmad, 2 days before the attacks. The money is believed to have been
unused surplus from the fund for the attacks, which investigators say may have amounted to about $500,000.
Money laundering in a changed world
As far as money laundering goes, Sept 11 may be perceived as a watershed as important as the precipitous
collapse of communism in 1989. (Commentary) Israel has always turned a blind eye to the origin of funds
deposited by Jews from South Africa to Russia. In Britain it is perfectly legal to hide the true ownership of a
company. Underpaid Asian bank clerks on immigrant work permits in the Gulf states rarely require identity
documents from the mysterious and well-connected owners of multi-million dollar deposits. Hawaladars continue
plying their paperless and trust-based trade, the transfer of billions of US dollars around the world. American and
Swiss banks collaborate with dubious correspondent banks in off shore centres. Multinationals shift money through tax free territories in what is euphemistically known as "tax planning". Internet gambling outfits and casinos serve as fronts for narco-dollars. British Bureaux de Change launder up to 2.6 billion British pounds annually. The 500 Euro note will make it much easier to smuggle cash out of Europe. A French parliamentary committee accuses the City of London of being a money laundering haven in a 400 page report. Intelligence services cover the tracks of covert operations by opening accounts in obscure tax havens, from Cyprus to Nauru. Money laundering, its venues and techniques, are an integral part of the economic fabric of the world. Business as usual?
Not really. In retrospect, as far as money laundering goes, Sept 11 may be perceived as a watershed as important as the precipitous collapse of communism in 1989. Both events have forever altered the patterns of the global flows of illicit capital.
What is money laundering ?
The scale of the problem
The system
Why is it a problem ? A multilateral, co-ordinated, effort (exchange of information, uniform laws, extra-territorial legal powers) is required to counter the international dimensions of money laundering. Many countries opt in because money laundering has also become a domestic political and economic concern. The United Nations, the Bank for International Settlements, the OECD's FATF, the EU, the Council of Europe, the Organisation of American States, all published anti-money laundering standards. Regional groupings were formed (or are being established) in the Caribbean, Asia, Europe, southern Africa, western Africa, and Latin America.
The least important trend is the tightening of financial regulations and the establishment or enhancement of compulsory (as opposed to industry or voluntary) regulatory and enforcement agencies. New legislation in the US which amounts to extending the powers of the CIA domestically and of the DOJ extra-territorially, was rather xenophobically described by a DOJ official, Michael Chertoff, as intended to "make sure the American banking system does not become a haven for foreign corrupt leaders or other kinds of foreign organized criminals." Privacy and bank secrecy laws have been watered down. Collaboration with off shore "shell" banks has been banned. Business with clients of correspondent banks was curtailed. Banks were effectively transformed into law enforcement agencies, responsible to verify both the identities of their (foreign) clients and the source and origin of their funds. Cash transactions were partly criminalized. And the securities and currency trading industry, insurance companies, and money transfer services are subjected to growing scrutiny as a conduit for "dirty cash".
Still, such legislation is highly ineffective. The American Bankers' Association puts the cost of compliance with the laxer anti-money-laundering laws in force in 1998 at 10 billion US dollars - or more than 10 million US dollars per obtained conviction. Even when the system does work, critical alerts drown in the torrent of reports mandated by the regulations. One bank actually reported a suspicious transaction in the account of one of the Sept 11 hijackers, only to be ignored.
More than 150 countries promised to co-operate with the US in its fight against the financing of terrorism - 81 of
which (including the Bahamas, Argentina, Kuwait, Indonesia, Pakistan, Switzerland, and the EU) actually froze
assets of suspicious individuals, suspected charities, and dubious firms, or passed new anti money laundering laws and stricter regulations (the Philippines, the UK, Germany). A tabled EU directive would force lawyers to disclose incriminating information about their clients' money laundering activities. Pakistan initiated a "loyalty scheme", awarding expatriates who prefer official bank channels to the much maligned (but cheaper and more efficient) Hawala, with extra baggage allowance and special treatment in airports.
Still, a universal code is emerging, based on the work of the OECD's FATF (Financial Action Task Force) since
1989 (its famous "40 recommendations") and on the relevant UN conventions. All countries are expected by the
West, on pain of possible sanctions, to adopt a uniform legal platform (including reporting on suspicious
transactions and freezing assets) and to apply it to all types of financial intermediaries, not only to banks. This is
likely to result in ...
Decline of off shore financial centres and tax havens
Quo vadis, money laundering ?
Gradually, money laundering rings move their operations to these new, accommodating territories. The laundered
funds are used to purchase assets in intentionally botched privatizations, real estate, existing businesses, and to
finance trading operations. The wasteland that is Eastern Europe craves private capital and no questions are asked by investor and recipient alike.
In its "Report on Money Laundering Typologies" (February 2001) the FATF was able to document concrete and
suspected abuses of online banking, Internet casinos, and web-based financial services. It is difficult to identify a
customer and to get to know it in cyberspace, was the alarming conclusion. It is equally complicated to establish
jurisdiction.
Trust-based, globe-spanning, money transfer systems based on authentication codes and generations of
commercial relationships cemented in honour and blood - are another wave of the future. The Hawala and Chinese networks in Asia, the Black Market Peso Exchange (BMPE) in Latin America, other evolving courier systems in Eastern Europe (mainly in Russia, Ukraine, and Albania) and in Western Europe (mainly in France & Spain). In conjunction with encrypted e-mail and web anonymizers, these networks are virtually impenetrable. As emigration increases, diasporas established, and transport and telecommunications become ubiquitous, "ethnic banking" along the tradition of the Lombards and the Jews in medieval Europe may become the the preferred venue of money laundering. 9.11.01 may have retarded world civilization in more than one way. |
|
IGCA stock sale runs into Enron backlash 2.26.02 Ken Ward Gaming Today
In a sudden reversal, state regulators have sent Innovative Gaming Corp. of America back to the drawing board.
The Nevada Gaming Commission, at the company's request, returned for staff review a planned million$ public
offering. That ICGA stock offering had been approved this month by the Gaming Control Board. |
|
Cook Islands Dominica Egypt Grenada Guatemala Indonesia Marshall Islands |
Burma Nauru Nigeria Niue Philippines Russia Ukraine St Vincent & the Grenadines |
IMLA-FATA will change way banks deal with customers & the govt 11.2.01 Ivan Schneider BNK
12.6.01 Pacific News Service
12.6.01 Pacific News Service Yaren … In another development, Australia's Foreign Affairs minister Alexander Downer will visit Nauru next week to discuss the nation's crippling financial plight. Air Nauru was grounded this week after it failed to pay maintenance bills to Qantas. Downer said the airline's grounding is symptomatic of problems facing Nauru's economy. He said the federal govt has been working with Nauru to try to find a solution. |
12.6.01 Pacific News Service FATF is an independent intl body whose Secretariat is housed at the OECD. The 29 member countries & govts of the FATF are: Argentina; Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, China, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, NZ, Norway, Portugal, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, UK and U.S. 2 intl organisations are also members of the FATF: the European Commission & the Gulf Cooperation Council.
Background
12.7.01 Andrew ClennellSydney Morning Herald |
A spokeswoman for Australia's Foreign Affairs Minister, Alexander Downer, said yesterday: "In terms of any
connection with the asylum seekers' issue, it's a different thing. It's not connected in any way." The counter-
measures include stringent requirements on identification of clients before people are allowed to enter into
business with individuals or companies from Nauru. If employed, it would be the first time the task force has
acted against a country in its 12-year history.Nauru issued a statement on Wednesday, saying it would pass anti-money laundering legislation. Chief Sec. Mathew Batsuia defended its tardiness in meeting the deadline. "We are a very small country with limited infrastructure, so it is understandable it has taken time to amend the legislation. "Significant Govt resources have been engaged in other prominent matters affecting our country, including the asylum seekers and upcoming elections," he said.A govt spokesman could not confirm last night if the laws had been passed. The tiny island, accused of laundering $136.7 billion from the Russian mafia, has 450 offshore banks.
12.7.01 Grant Holloway CNN & Reuters
Nauru, 21 sq. km (7 sq mi) population 12,000, is also commercial headquarters of about 400 banks. U.S. Treasury
Dept says $70 billion of illicit money left Russia destined for accounts in Nauru in 1990 alone. Some Australian
& U.S. banks & financial institutions are thought to have been implicated in the recycling of Russian crime
money through Nauru, although no charges have ever been laid. Nauru uses the highly traded Australian dollar as
its unit of currency. Nauru Pres. Rene Harris announced in Aug. that his govt would ban money-laundering
practises, saying "undesirable elements" had exploited Nauru's banking system. The Nauru govt also set up a
regulatory body to supervise the banking sector. However, these actions have not been sufficient to appease the
task force.
The sanctions incl not allowing Nauru banks or financial institutions to win any new banking licenses in task force
countries, and govt warnings to banks & firms on the risks of doing business in Nauru. Russia & the
Philippines got a similar ultimatum from the task force, but got off the hook after passing emergency laws to tighten
up their rules and make it harder for banks to turn a blind eye to money from crime syndicates or tax evaders.
The task force is comprised of mainly industrialized countries and includes Australia, Canada, Britain, U.S., Hong
Kong, Singapore and New Zealand.
Alternative income 
Asylum seekers armed with metal bars have tried to escape from the Woomera detention centre during a mass
protest. One asylum seeker was injured when caught in razor wire on perimeter fencing of the compound in S.
Australia's north and a security guard was injured when hit on the head by a rock thrown by a detainee. About 200
asylum seekers jumped onto rooftops at the centre about 11am (CDT) while others damaged an interior fence as
they tried to escape. Chanting "visa, visa" and holding signs saying "Freedom or death", the asylum seekers could
be seen running across the rooftops.The protest occurred on the 11th consecutive day of a hunger strike by a group of 188 asylum seekers at the centre. It was unclear if those involved in today's mass protest were hunger strikers. A medical team was summoned to the centre as detainees, some armed with metal bars, gathered in groups around internal fencing while others remained on top of buildings. Earlier, the Immigration Dept said 2 asylum seekers required medical attention within the centre overnight. A dept spokesman said the 2 asylum seekers remained in the medical centre at the facility in S.Australia's north. The spokesman said the 2 were not involved in incidents of self-harm but could not provide further details. He said 188 asylum seekers at Woomera remained on the hunger strike today. The hunger strikers included 16 women and 9 children, the spokesman said. Of the 188, 37 people, incl one child, had sewn their lips together, he said. |
12.4.01 Pacific News Service
The task force incl Cook Islands, Nauru and Niue on list of 15 banking jurisdictions which are "non-cooperative" in
the intl fight against dirty money. An FATF report said the jurisdictions had "serious systematic problems with
money laundering controls and they must improve their rules & practices as expeditiously as possible or face
possible sanctions." Set up in 1989 as an independent intl body, FATF polices money laundering & terrorist
financing. NZ is one of 29 member countries & govts. … The task force says that offshore banking
centres, incl Pacific islands, fall short by having loopholes in financial regulations, obstacles raised by other
regulatory requirements, obstacles to intl cooperation & inadequate resources. In NZ, submissions closed last
week on the Terrorist (Bombing & Financing) Bill which is proceeding through Parliament in order to meet
recommendations from the FATF. During a session in Wash.DC late last month, which Mr Dawe attended, 8
recommendations were issued which the FATF said would "deny terrorists & their supporters access to the intl
financial system".
In terms of NZ, Dawe confirmed banks & financial institutions were continuing with searches of their records
for suspicious activity. "I was talking to one bank early this week," Dawe said. "They have been through their
records four or five times but haven't found anything suspicious. "Overall everyone is working hard and looking very
closely at transactions but at this stage no assets with links to terrorist activity have been located or frozen in
NZ."
9.17.01 BBC Another group on board, of more than 400 mainly Afghan asylum seekers who were refused entry to Christmas island after they were rescued from a sinking ship, are staying on board waiting for the outcome of a ruling by the Australian High Court on their case. The court, considering a govt appeal against an earlier ruling that it illegally detained the refugees while removing them from Australian waters, is expected to give its decision on Monday. An Australian navy helicopter flew Intl Org. for Migration (IOM) dir. Mark Getchell to the ship for talks with the boat people on board. Mr Getchell returned from the Manoora saying 230 of those on board do not want to land on Nauru, but are insisting they be taken to Australia.
Australian govt refused to allow either group of asylum seekers to land on Australian soil. Instead, it struck a deal
with Nauru to accept more than 500 refugees while their asylum claims are processed in return for millions of
dollars of aid. NZ agreed to accept the remainder.
Wasteland
1.2.03 Reuters "One of the detention officers was attacked around the legs with a tyre lever, another was hit in the chest with a similar implement," Ruddock told reporters. "This was premeditated, very deliberate." Ruddock said up to 15 detainees had tried to escape but were held back by camp guards. The 2 injured officers were taken to hospital for treatment.
The break-out was the latest in a string of escapes, riots and threatened suicide bids at 7 mainland Australia
detention ctrs that house asylum seekers, illegal workers, and those overstaying visas. Intl human rights groups
condemned Canberra's hard line of detaining all illegal arrivals, incl women & children, while their cases for
asylum are handled, because it can mean years behind barbed wire.
Woomera, set in harsh outback about 450 km (280 miles) north of Adelaide, is the most controversial immigration
camp because of its isolation; the govt is in the process of mothballing it. Up to 43 buildings at Woomera were
destroyed or damaged in deliberately lit fires in late December as a spree of violent protests swept Australia's
immigrant centers. |
6.14.02 Grant Holloway CNN Sydney
More than 400 asylum seekers were sent to Nauru last year after being rescued from a sinking ferry bound for
Australia. The fate of the boatpeople sparked an international incident after the Australian govt denied entry to the
Norwegian freighter, Tampa, which had rescued the boatpeople. Conservative John Howard govt arranged for
them to be transferred to Nauru to have their applications for refugee protection visas assessed there, rather than
in Australia. U.N. now rejected more than half of the applications but also warns it is still too dangerous for the
unsuccessful applicants to return to Afghanistan. Those rejected can appeal their decisions, a process than can
take many months, even years, to complete. In meantime, UN says Australia should be patient and house the asylum seekers until safe for them to return. Australian govt is keen to dissuade asylum seekers from the appeal option, and is offering rejects A$2,000 (U.S.$1,140), A$10,000 for families resettlement offer to go back to Afghanistan. The offer is considered generous given the annual average Afghani income is only A$200. Many of the Afghani asylum seekers have had their claims rejected because of the fall of the Taliban govt. Australia's Minister for Foreign Affairs Alexander Downer, said Thu. Australia would encourage unsuccessful refugee applicants to return to Afghanistan. "We have a welcoming & positive approach to people who wish to migrate legally to Australia or to come as part of our refugee resettlement program," Downer said. "But we are very tough on people who try to get here illegally and on people smugglers who are trying to accumulate personal wealth on the back of who they mislead into believing that they can get into Australia illegally. It's an approach that's been effective and I think there is a lot of interest in Europe about how we've made this work so well," Downer said. |
10.17.01 Sue Lackey MSNBC
Many Muslims & Koranic scholars denounce this radical interpretation of Islamic precepts as one that distorts
Islam's holiest text into a cookbook for violent action. "It is a religion of peace," American Muslim Council
spokeswoman Farkhunda Ali said. "These types of acts are not Islam. They are manslaughter." An internal security
officer in an Arab country, who asked not to be identified, put it more bluntly: "They're killers. By the time they're
teen-agers, they're capable of being recruited as terrorists." It is important to stress that not all of the young men
who attend Wahhabi schools will turn to violence. A number will go on to become religion teachers themselves. The
Wahhabi pride themselves on adherence to Islamic values such as honesty & piety in their dealings with each
other. Wahhabi communities are generally well organized & well financed, and residents carry on normal lives
as tradesmen. The vast majority of Wahhabi communities do not openly maintain armed militias, though they do
engage in paramilitary training. With the notable exception of the Taliban, weapons or other arms are kept
concealed. These communities are different than Wahhabi factions that have developed in Palestinian refugee
camps, particularly in Lebanon. There, many members are criminals & fugitives who have turned to radical
Islam and receive financing in return.
The Wahhabi movement flourishes in every Muslim country despite the fears of govts, and in some cases because
of those fears. This has given suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida organization an intl ideological
& operational network. In Lebanon, where factional politics flourish, the Wahhabi movement is estimated by
internal security officials to be about 4,000 strong. The movement is far larger in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.
It goes by many names, Ikhwan, Wahhabi, Salifiyya, Mowahabin and now, famously, Taliban. What all of them
have in common is a militant view of Sunni Islam and financial support at the highest levels of the Saudi Arabian
govt. Over the past 10 years, Saudi Arabia, either directly or indirectly through non-govtal organizations,
has financed all of the Wahhabi movements in the region, says one prominent Islamic scholar in Lebanon. "This
was really a strategic mistake," he says. "The Arab rulers, as well as the policy analysts, have really
underestimated the [fundamentalist] regeneration in the region. I would expect a war of Wahhabism against the gulf
countries, particularly Saudi rulers." By funding the Wahhabi sect, the Saudi royal family purchased immunity for
itself, but this now appears to be ending.
For their part, the U.S. & Britain, which saved the Saudi kingdom from almost certain conquest by Iraq in
1990-91, are furious at the emerging evidence that Saudi money bankrolled the 9.11.01 killers. The militancy that
the U.S. believes is behind the Sept. 11 bombings has been dubbed the New Wahhabism. But it is really only the
latest manifestation of a centuries-old feud within Islam. The Wahhabi movement began in 1740 on the Arabian
Peninsula, where harsh & primitive conditions bred an unyielding & violent strain of Islam. When Saudi
Arabia founder and father of the current rulers Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud conquered the peninsula in the 1920s, he used
the Wahhabis to drive out his Hashemite rivals, who now rule Jordan. The Wahhabis eventually turned on Abdul
Aziz for not adhering to their fundamentalist view of Islam, and he killed or imprisoned most of their leadership.
Now, bin Laden has remade the Wahhabi movement in his own image. First & foremost, bin Laden would like
to see New Wahhabism overthrow the Saudi govt, which he denounces for corruption and for allowing U.S. soldiers
to be based on Saudi soil following the Persian Gulf War.
The West & Arab govts such as Saudi Arabia's are not the only targets of the New Wahhabism. This harsh
fundamentalist view of Islam sees all who do not adhere to its beliefs as infidels, even moderate Sunni Muslims
& Shiites, who form the majority in Iran & Lebanon and substantial minorities in other Arab countries.
Also beyond the pale to these puritans, of course, are members of any other religion. Many Islamic scholars who
disagree with these views see bin Laden's call for a holy war against America as a distraction from his larger
intentions. In reality, they say, the Wahhabis' personal & organizational beliefs ultimately will force a war within
Islam, as well. "There is hatred between Wahhabism & Shiaism," says an Arab expert on fundamentalism.
"This is very crucial. They consider that everyone has deviated." The repressive nature of many Arab regimes has
provided fertile ground for this ideology, particularly among poorer & less educated people who have no
access to the window that the Internet or satellite television provides to the outside world. Where many govts have
been unable or unwilling to provide social services, Islamic associations, including Wahhabi groups, have stepped
in, fostering loyalty to Islam instead of a state. To keep social unrest at bay, many regimes, from Egypt to Saudi
Arabia to Pakistan, encourage demonization of Israel & the West.
Fundamentalism, with its abhorrence of modernity, ensures that the poor & illiterate will receive one narrow
view of world events. "Bin Laden has recruited without a physical presence in the street," says one Arab expert on
fundamentalism. "Why? Because whether you like it or not, the average citizen in this part of the world is perceiving
what's happening as a clash of civilizations, despite the emphasis of the U.S. & Europe." The U.S. may
destroy the Taliban with its airstrikes, but this expert says that the Wahhabis will win out in the end because they
are disciplined and have the money & recruiting system to build their following. "The [other Islamic factions]
fight the Wahhabis as an independent movement, they think they are backwards. But finally they are going to give
up and become Wahhabis. The money is coming from the Wahhabis; it's as simple as that."
Saudi royal family rocked by December riots
Abu Dhabi Saudi Arabia is downplaying reports of widespead rioting last month but diplomatic
sources said the nation was rocked by the worst Islamic unrest in years. Saudi govt as well as Western diplomatic sources confirmed reports of massive Muslim riots attacking foreigners & Saudi families. Muslims destroyed property and voiced calls against the regime for what they asserted was its refusal to abide by Islamic principles.
Police were unable to stop the violence. Sources said most of the protestors escaped when security forces arrived. 2 Saudi princes were among 300 arrested, the sources said. They said Saudi police refused to arrest the princes until they were ordered to by senior commanders. The worst rioting took place in Jedda during last month's Eid al Fitr holiday. But other cities, including Dammam, were also sources of unrest. Diplomatic sources tried to downplay the violence by linking it to Osama Bin Laden; strength of feeling and the manner of its expression alarmed the regime. Saudi officials & newspapers confirmed the riots, but attributed them to unidentified young people.
About 60 committed activists of all ages & nationalities came from or officially represented local &
national organizations, including ACCESS, American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), Arab American
Institute (AAI), American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), National Lawyers Guild (NLG), Triangle Foundation, South
Asians Against Police Brutality and Racism, Solidarity USA, Refuse & Resist! and its youth network, La
Resistencia, Committee Against the U.S. Empire (CAU$E), supporters of the Revolutionary Communist Party,
Libros Revolución in L.A., Revolution Books Outlet in Detroit, the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade (RCYB),
La Resistencia Student & Youth Network, American Muslim Council, Muslim-American Society Political Action
Committee, and anti-war coalitions from Houston, Chicago, and northern California.
Pastor Martin Niemoeller's quote from Nazi Germany had served as an orientation building for the summit: "First
they came for the Communists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up
because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I didn't speak up because I was a
Protestant. Then they came for me, but by that time, no one was left to speak up."
One of the speakers on the opening panel was Mo Nishida, as a child interned in WW2 concentration camps for
Japanese-Americans. He said he wanted to comment on fear & fascistic moves. He pointed out before WW2,
the FBI had said that Japanese-Americans were no threat, but they were interned anyway. In the discussion Travis
Morales, a supporter of the RCP and a member of La Resistencia from Houston, picked up on that and added that
the govt did that because they had a bigger goal, to create hysteria, to create an "enemy within," to terrorize people
to go along with them.
Participants pointed out that Arabs, Muslims and South Asians are only the first people the govt is targeting.
Imad Hammad of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee said, "American citizens, look at these laws
and see how they affect all Americans, not just me." Randall Hamud, an Arab-American attorney from San Diego
who on Sept. 12 was defending detainees, pointed out how citizenship does not protect people. He gave two
examples of Arab-Americans in custody by the U.S. and by Israel.
A mission statement was arrived at through very vigorous and principled discussion among participants of very
varied political views. It emphasized the purpose of the Blue Triangle Network and laid the basis for a plan of
action. The statement read in part:
The action plan included adopting the blue triangle as a symbol and the name Blue Triangle Network. In the Nazi
death camps, members of various groups were forced to wear different symbols, yellow Star of David for Jews, the pink triangle for gay men, the blue triangle for immigrants & stateless people. This hated symbol of oppression will now be transformed into a symbol of resistance. |
1981 Robt. Lacey The Kingdom (HBJ) "Mud cannot save you," taught ibn Abdul Wahhab. "Pray to God and God alone".
ƒ It is thought MiAW was particularly influenced by the teachings of 13th cent. A.D. Syrian Hanbali,Taqi al
Din ibn Taimiyah. The Teacher interpreted the law in all its strictness, the law of God, the Shariah, dictated by God
to the Prophet Muhammad at the beginning of Islam but now only practised laxly. When the Teacher came upon a
woman guilty of adultry, he organized her punishment prescribed, stoning her to death.
Wahhabi preached conversion as duty of good Muslims once they put their own life in order, to purify those around
him. If persuasion failed, the ruler must proclaim jihad, holy war. Soon after Wahhab's coming, the al Sa'ud
attacked nearby Riyadh, then rode into Nejd to subdue Arabia's heartland. They conquered to the shores of the
Persian Gulf.
Constantinople's sultan-caliph sent Egyptian viceroy Muhammad Ali & armies to retake Mecca & Medina
in 1813 but they were rebuffed when moving inland. M.Ali's second son Ibrahim Pasha leading Turkish troops
& bribed bedouin tribes eventually sieged Dar'iyah for 6 months, first time in recorded history foreign troops
invaded & conquered Arabian heartland. Sa'ud leader was beheaded in Constantinople for failing to recant.
Sa'ud regrouped a dozen miles from Dar'iyah in Riyadh to be exiled to Kuwait from a more modesty hegemony in
1891 Rasheed dynasty conquest from north. Abdul Aziz al Sa'ud, founder of dynasty ruling Saudi ever since,
recaptured Riyadh recapture Jan. 1902. & soon married Tarfah, daughter of Riyadh qadi & chief
religious leader Sheikh Abdullah ibn Abdul Lateef, Wahhab's direct blood descendant.
9.01 Stephen Schwartz, auth. Intellectuals & Assassins, Anthem Press
The first thing to do when trying to understand Islamic suicide bombers is to forget the clichés about the Muslim
taste for martyrdom. It does exist, of course, but the desire for paradise is not a safe guide to what motivated
9.11.01 attacks. Throughout history, political extremists of all faiths have willingly given up their lives simply in the
belief that by doing so, whether in bombings or in other forms of terror, they would change the course of history, or
at least win an advantage for their cause. Tamils are not Muslims, but they blow themselves up in their war on the
govt of Sri Lanka; Japanese kamikaze pilots in the second world war were not Muslims, but they flew their
fighters into US aircraft carriers. Islamofascist ideology of Osama bin Laden and those closest to him, such as the
Egyptian & Algerian Islamic Groups, is no more intrinsically linked to Islam or Islamic civilisation than Pearl
Harbor was to Buddhism, or Ulster terrorists are to Christianity. … orthodox Muslim theology, which cautions
soldiers in the way of Allah to fight their enemies face-to-face, without harming non-combatants, women or children.
… if you ask educated, pious, traditional but forward-looking Muslims what has driven their umma, or global
community, in this direction, many of them will answer you with one word: Wahhabism, a strain of Islam that
emerged not at the time of the Crusades, nor even at the time of the anti-Turkish wars of the 17th century, but less
than two centuries ago. It is violent, it is intolerant, and it is fanatical beyond measure. It originated in Arabia, and it
is the official theology of the Gulf states. Wahhabism is the most extreme form of Islamic fundamentalism, and its
followers are called Wahhabis.
Not all Muslims are suicide bombers, but all Muslim suicide bombers are Wahhabis except, perhaps, for some
disciples of atheist leftists posing as Muslims in the interests of personal power, such as Yasser Arafat or Saddam
Hussein. Wahhabism is the Islamic equivalent of the most extreme Protestant sectarianism. It is puritan,
demanding punishment for those who enjoy any form of music except the drum, and severe punishment up to
death for drinking or sexual transgressions. It condemns as unbelievers those who do not pray, a view that never
previously existed in mainstream Islam. It is stripped-down Islam, calling for simple, short prayers, undecorated
mosques, and the uprooting of gravestones since decorated mosques & graveyards lend themselves to
veneration, which is idolatry in the Wahhabi mind. Wahhabis do not even permit the name of the Prophet
Mohammed to be inscribed in mosques, nor do they allow his birthday to be celebrated. Above all, they hate
ostentatious spirituality, much as Protestants detest the veneration of miracles & saints in the Roman Church.
Ibn Abdul Wahhab, founder of this totalitarian Islamism, was born in Uyaynah, in the part of Arabia known as Nejd,
where Riyadh is today, and which the Prophet himself notably warned would be a source of corruption &
confusion. Anti-Wahhabi Muslims refer to Wahhabism as fitna an Najdiyyah or the trouble out of Nejd. From the
beginning of Wahhab's dispensation in the late 18th century, his cult was associated with the mass murder of all
who opposed it. For example, Wahhabis fell upon the city of Qarbala in 1801 and killed 2,000 ordinary citizens in
the streets & markets.
In the 19th century, Wahhabism took the form of Arab nationalism v. the Turks. The founder of the Saudi kingdom,
Ibn Saud, established Wahhabism as its official creed. Much has been made of the role of the US in creating
Osama bin Laden through subsidies to the Afghan mujahedin, but as much or more could be said in reproach of
Britain which, three generations before, supported the Wahhabi Arabs in their revolt against the Ottomans. Arab
hatred of the Turks fused with Wahhabi ranting against the decadence of Ottoman Islam. The truth is that the
Ottoman khalifa reigned over a multinational Islamic umma in which vast differences in local culture & tradition
were tolerated. No such tolerance exists in Wahhabism, which is why the concept of US troops on Saudi soil so
inflames bin Laden. Bin Laden is a Wahhabi. So are the suicide bombers in Israel. So are his Egyptian allies, who
exulted as they stabbed foreign tourists to death at Luxor not many years ago, bathing in blood up to their elbows
and emitting blasphemous cries of ecstasy. So are the Algerian Islamist terrorists whose contribution to the
purification of the world consisted of murdering people for such sins as running a movie projector or reading secular
newspapers. So are the Taleban-style guerrillas in Kashmir who murder Hindus. The Iranians are not Wahhabis,
which partially explains their slow but undeniable movement towards moderation & normality after a period of
utopian & puritan revivalism. But the Taleban practise a variant of Wahhabism. In the Wahhabi fashion they
employ ancient punishments such as execution for moral offences and they have a primitive & fearful view of
women. The same is true of Saudi Arabia¹s rulers. None of this extremism has been inspired by American
fumblings in the world, and it has little to do with the tragedies that have beset Israelis & Palestinians.
But the Wahhabis have two weaknesses of which the West is largely unaware. The first is that the vast majority of
Muslims in the world are peaceful people who would prefer the installation of Western democracy in their own
countries. They loathe Wahhabism for the same reason any patriarchal culture rejects a violent break with tradition.
And that is the point that must be understood: bin Laden & other Wahhabis are not defending Islamic tradition;
they represent an ultra-radical break in the direction of a sectarian utopia. Thus, they are best described as
Islamofascists, although they have much in common with Bolsheviks. The Bengali Sufi writer Zeeshan Ali has
described the situation touchingly: Muslims from Bangladesh in the US, just like any other place in the world,
uphold the traditional beliefs of Islam but, due to lack of instruction, keep quiet when their beliefs are attacked by
Wahhabis in the US who all of a sudden become "better" Muslims than others. These Wahhabis go even further
and accuse their own fathers of heresy, sin & unbelief. And the young children of the immigrants, when they
grow up in this country, get exposed only to this one-sided version of Islam and are led to think that this is the only
Islam. Naturally a big gap is being created every day that silence is only widening. The young, divided between
tradition and the call of the new, opt for Islamic revolution and commit themselves to their self-destruction,
combined with mass murder.
The same influences are brought to bear throughout the ten-million-strong Muslim community in America, as well
as those in Europe. In the U.S., 80 per cent of mosques are estimated by the Sufi Hisham al-Kabbani, born in
Lebanon and now living in the US, to be under the control of Wahhabi imams, who preach extremism, and this
leads to the other point of vulnerability: Wahhabism is subsidised by Saudi Arabia, even though bin Laden has
sworn to destroy the Saudi royal family. The Saudis have played a double game for years, more or less as Stalin
did with the West during WW2. They pretended to be allies in a common struggle against Saddam Hussein while
they spread Wahhabi ideology everywhere Muslims are to be found, just as Stalin promoted an antifascist coalition
with the US while carrying out espionage & subversion on American territory.
If we get rid of bin Laden, who do we then have to deal with? The answer by UCSD political science professor
Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr, author of an authoritative volume on Islamic extremism in Pakistan,: If the U.S. wants to do
something about radical Islam, it has to deal with Saudi Arabia. The "rogue states" Iraq, Libya, etc. are less
important in the radicalisation of Islam than Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is the single most important cause &
supporter of radicalisation, ideologisation, and the general fanaticisation of Islam. From what we now know, it
appears not a single one of the suicide pilots in New York and Washington was Palestinian. They all seem to have
been Saudis, citizens of the Gulf states, Egyptian or Algerian. Two are reported to have been the sons of the
former second secretary of the Saudi embassy in Washington. They were planted in America long before the
outbreak of the latest Palestinian intifada; they seem to have begun their conspiracy while the MidEast peace
process was in full, if short, bloom. Anti-terror experts & politicians in the West must now consider the Saudi
connection.
Lawrence of Arabia
The image of U.S. Special Forces on horseback riding across the Afghan desert reminded me of one of my favorite
movies … 2 important points …
Arab revolt during WWI was led by the family of Sherif Hussein, belonging to the Sunni sect of Islam, the Beni
Hashem tribe claiming direct descent from Mohammed. This struggle was not a Jihad, holy war, against infidels,
which is why the British were allowed to participate.
A later Arab revolt in the 1930s, led by the family of Ibn Saud, was helped by tribes belonging to the radical Wahhabi sect
of Muslims. … That revolt was a Jihad that established control of the Arab peninsula under the Saudi family
and established Wahhabi Islam in that area. |
Now syndicated by Hearst Newspapers, Mrs. Thomas has also denounced Mr. Bush outside the confines of the
White House briefing room. "This is the worst president ever," Mrs. Thomas told the Daily Breeze of
Torrance CA, in January. "He is the worst president in all of American history."
The teacher snapped at the class, "Class, you should be ashamed. Suzuki, who is new to our country, knows more
about its history than you do." She heard a loud whisper: "Screw the Japs."
Now furious, another student yells, "Oh yeah? Suck this!" Suzuki jumps out of his chair waving his hand and shouts
to the teacher, "Bill Clinton, to Monica Lewinsky, 1997!"
The teacher fainted. And as the class gathered around the teacher on the floor, someone said, "Oh shit, we're in
BIG trouble! and Suzuki said, "The Taliban! 2001."
Also snubbed by Mr. Bush at last night's news conference was Mike Allen of The Washington Post, the second
consecutive time that the president has skipped over The Post's correspondent, who was seated last night in the front row.
[ con muchisimas gracias a maestra SM ]
It was the first day of school and a new student named Suzuki, son of a Japanese businessman, entered 4th
grade. The teacher said, "Let's begin by reviewing some American history. Who said 'Give me Liberty, or give me
Death?' " She saw a sea of blank faces, except for Suzuki, who had his hand up. "Patrick Henry, 1775", he
said.
"Very good! Who said 'Govt of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth'"?
Again, no response except from Suzuki: "Abraham Lincoln, 1863.", said Suzuki
"Who said that?" she demanded. Suzuki put his hand up. "Lee Iacocca, 1982."
At that point, a student in the back said, "I'm gonna puke." The teacher glared and asked "All right! Now, who said
that?" Again, Suzuki says, "George Bush to the Japanese Prime Minister, 1991."
Now with almost a mob hysteria someone said, "You asshole! If you say anything else, I'll kill you." Suzuki
frantically yells at the top of his voice, "Rosanne, to Tom Arnold, 1999."
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