http://www.chronwatch.com/content/contentDisplay.asp?aid=13663
'Funding Evil': A Worldwide Criminal Enterprise
Written by Alan Caruba
Wednesday, March 23, 2005
I don't know when it first dawned on me that the study of history was the study of a worldwide criminal enterprise, but a look back at just the last century reveals that the Nazis had it in mind to control and loot all of Europe, while the Empire of Japan sought to do the same with China and Pacific Basin nations.
If you go back in history, Pax Romana, imposed by the Roman Empire was, in essence, a huge extortion scheme in which the conquered nations paid Rome to "protect" them and provide some good roads. If you come forward to our times, for some seventy years until 1991, the Soviet Union basically plundered its captive nations in the Baltics and elsewhere until it fell apart due to the inability to do anything in a rational and productive manner. The examples are endless and the most recent is the massive United Nations "Oil for Food" rip-off of billions of dollars intended to benefit the people of Iraq, but which Saddam kept or used to bribe the French and others.
I got to thinking about this as I read "Funding Evil" by Rachel Ehrenfeld ($14.95, Bonus Books softcover); an extraordinary book about the way the Islamic Jihad is funded largely through the sale of narcotics and a variety of other criminal schemes. It also derives much of its funding from donations to "charities," mostly by and from Saudis, the worst perpetrators of Wahabi fundamentalism on the face of the Earth.
Think about this, however. The whole justification for Islam is that it is morally superior to all other religions. The Saudis and their Middle Eastern brethren are forever denouncing America, Israel, and the West in general as dens of iniquity, places of corruption where pornography is rampant, people gather to drink and to dance together, casual sex is the norm, and just about everything else we do needs the curative effects of Sharia (Islamic) law.
May I suggest that any religion that funds worldwide terrorism to advance the destruction of Judaism, Christianity and all other religions, and to attack the citadel of liberty and freedom, the United States of America, is the new criminal enterprise that has replaced those of the past? They do this through the worldwide sales of illegal narcotics and other schemes. Moreover, they are funded as well by the billions Americans, Europeans, and other nations spend to acquire their only legitimate natural resource, oil.
The appalling hypocrisy of this seems to have escaped many otherwise law-abiding Muslims, but it is increasingly clear that the relentless terrorism they claim is intended to advance Islam is wearing thin. So much of it has been directed against other Muslims that it was only a matter of time before the illogic of this began to set in. In addition, there appears to be evidence that, throughout the Middle East, the universal, human desire to live in freedom, under a system of laws that provide human rights and real justice, is beginning to manifest itself.
If you think about it, Iraq is an example of a criminal enterprise run by the family and cronies of Saddam Hussein. Syria, and Lebanon, under the control of the Assad family. Iran, under the control of its mullahs, poses yet another threat as it pours its wealth into various terrorist organizations.
When one looks at the Middle East, one sees nation after nation controlled by oligarchies passing themselves off as monarchs, mullahs, or, as in the Sudan or in Somalia, warlords running the show. Egypt is, for all intents and purposes, a dictatorship, as is, of course, Libya. Under the control of Arafat, the so-called Palestinian cause was little more than a way to line his pockets. Much of Africa is a sinkhole of corruption.
The greatest legacy George W. Bush and the much-maligned "neo-cons" in his administration will leave behind is a transformed Middle East.
Ehrenfeld has provided a detailed look at the billions being spent by the Saudis in particular and the Islamists in general. For anyone who wants to gain an insight to the scope of the Jihadist war, this book is required reading. "A significant portion of the financing of many terrorist organizations stems from the illegal drug trade," says Ehrenfeld and then she meticulously documents how it stretches from Afghanistan to South America.
Along the way she notes, "It was bin Laden who had managed the drug profits (from Afghanistan's production of Heroin) for the Taliban and arranged money laundering operations with the Russian Mafia." She traces the drug trade, its Islamic producers and distributors, to Uzbekistan, through the Balkans, and to yet another center, South America where a "lawless jungle corner of Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay is "the heart of Islamist terrorist activity in Latin America, and home to tens of thousands of Muslims, mainly from the Middle East."
Jihad may be the justification for this criminality that includes every kind imaginable, but the driving force behind it and the on-going threat to peace and stability is traceable to the complete and utter corruption fostered by Saudi billions and the billions derived from the scourge of illegal drugs.
Do not be fooled by the presence of Saudi "charities," some of which still function openly in the United States, nor the pretensions of groups such as al Qaeda, al Fatah, Hamas and Hizbollah. These are criminal enterprises whose purpose is to line the pockets of those who control them. The war against America, against Israel, and "the crusaders," i.e., Christianity, is just a subterfuge for the power being exercised by Middle Eastern dictators and others who use Jihad as their excuse and Islam as their instrument.
About the Writer: Alan Caruba writes "Warning Signs," a weekly commentary posted on http://www.anxietycenter.com , the website of The National Anxiety Center.
http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=6306
<THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR
<Funding Terror
By Shawn Macomber
Published 3/19/2004 12:04:43 AM
Does the sound bite culture have the heart to fight terrorism? Rachel Ehrenfeld, director of the American Center for Democracy, doesn't pose this question directly in her recent book, Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed and How to Stop It (Bonus Books, 266 pages, $24.95), but it is nevertheless at the heart of her proposed solution to the terrorism-funding conundrum.
The media, politicians, and the public have spent the two and a half years focusing on the more visceral elements of the War on Terror. Which caves are we bombing? Who is bombing those caves with us? Should we bomb this cave unilaterally or encourage our reluctant friends and allies to come along? It all fits tidily together for the morning papers and the evening news.
If only it were that simple. Ehrenfeld's book is a portrait of the complexity of just what it is we're up against. It's hard to read Funding Evil without feeling that we have underestimated the seriousness of the threat of global terrorism. The public perception of al Qaeda and like terror groups have thus far consisted of men on dirt floors reading the Koran by candlelight, traditional Islamic scarves wrapped around their heads and AK-47s in their laps. The more realistic picture is far more insidious, widespread, and frighteningly banal.
TERRORISM REQUIRES MANY things: blind adherence to a destructive ideology; disregard for human life; charismatic leadership skills. But above all it takes cash. There is a reason why Osama Bin Laden is the CEO of worldwide jihad: his oversized bank account. Following the example of Bin Laden and the Saudi jihad exporters, terrorists have in effect become an investor class.
They open pizza shops, bakeries, car washes, and other legitimate businesses to raise perfectly clean money and launder the dirty stuff. They found charities, tugging at the heartstrings of good people, and then funnel the cash to radical Islamists. They take advantage of people's addictions and the large profits available in the international drug trade. "We are making these drugs for Satan America and the Jews," states an official Hezbollah fatwa justifying Muslim involvement in the drug trade. "If we cannot kill them with guns, so we will kill them with drugs." Often as not, the drug money helps buys guns and they get to do both.
Ehrenfeld's book details several terrorist fundraising schemes, and hints that there are very probably many, many more we have yet to uncover. Often they are brilliantly simple. For example, one U.S.-based group of Hezbollah supporters smuggled truckloads of cigarettes from North Carolina to Detroit, Michigan, exploiting the 70 cent difference in cigarette taxes between the two states to raise up to $10,000 per trip. Over the course of a year and a half, the group raised an estimated $7.9 million. (The estimated costs for the terrorists to set up the September 11 attacks was $500,000.)
Ehrenfeld also illustrates how popular support for terrorist activities often grows out of the positive activities of terrorists in countries without solid governmental infrastructures. "Unfortunately, alongside genuinely worthy causes such as building hospitals and supplying food, the groups pursue illicit activities such as purchasing weapons, establishing training camps, and paying families of homicide bombers," she writes. "Their dual role possibly serves to legitimize and glorify terrorist activities."
This infiltration of Middle Eastern and African countries, made possible by Western dollars, can quickly translate into real security problems. For example, terrorist-run hospitals in Africa not only are good local PR for the murderers and a solid recruitment tool, but they also make it easier for terrorists to obtain visas for overseas travel.
POST SEPTEMBER 11, THE United States took serious steps to cut down on terrorist funding. The PATRIOT Act gave law enforcement officials many new tools for tracking suspicious financial transactions. The Treasury Department established the multi-agency Operation Green Quest task force, charged with "identifying, disrupting, and dismantling the financial infrastructures and sources of terrorist funding," and they have had some limited successes.
There is much reason to worry, however, as Funding Evil lays out in meticulously well researched detail. The financial arm of the War on Terrorism lacks the romance of military action. We don't embed reporters in the Treasury Department, after all. And who wants to be the un-PC reporter to investigate some poor Muslim immigrant's pizza parlor? It's far more fun, and less ambiguous, to board a donkey and travel to the no man's land between Pakistan and Afghanistan to record the crazed ranting of Muslim militants.
Meanwhile, the terrorists' suave, clean-shaven counterparts are buying up real estate and investing in hedge funds. They walk among us, and they are largely ignored.
Shawn Macomber is a reporter for The American Spectator. He runs the website Return of the Primitive.
<HOMELAND SECURITY INTELWATCH
http://www.newsletterscience.com/ejkrause/archive_view.cgi?issue_id=27
March 02, 2004 Vol. 2, No. 9
Funding Evil is a chilling, sobering, and downright frightening roadmap of who pays for terrorism, why and how they do it, and the extent to which their powerful and shadowy funding networks reach even mainstream life around the world. Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld, known for her expertise in narco- terrorism, connects the dots in a complex web of banking, organized crime, charity organizations, governments, and government organizations as she documents how terrorists groups around the world reap billions of dollars in direct funding and support for their missions of hate, killing, and political change. With a foreward by former Director of Central Intelligence, R. James Woolsey, Funding Evil, tracks direct and indirect "contributions" to terrorism organizations-mostly Islamic fundamentalist groups like Hamas and Hizballah-from such unlikely organizations as the European Union, the United Nations, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and many of the world's most well known Islamic charities. In addition, the book documents millions of dollars in terrorism support from Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization and Palestinian Authority and from other Middle East and Arab governments, including Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Libya, and Lebanon. While most of these terrorism donors will not come as a surprise to the initiated reader, a striking aspect about Funding Evil is its often repeated and well documented references to U.S. Government knowledge and tolerance of-even acquiescence to-long before the September 11, 2001 attacks on Washington and New York. Writing from a seemingly conservative and pro-Israel point of view, Dr. Ehrenfeld is meticulous in explaining how illegal drug trade, originating in Southeast and Central Asia as well as South America and following distribution conduits through some of the most strategically important geographies in the world, has long been a large and reliable funding source to some of the most militant terrorist organizations on the planet, including al-Qaeda. She also reports that long-running cigarette smuggling operations in Virginia and the Carolinas, also benefiting international terrorism groups, have only recently received focused attention from the FBI and other law enforcement entities. In a clear effort not only to educate readers about the sourcing of terrorism funding but also to underscore the magnitude of its pervasiveness, Dr. Ehrenfeld makes a strong case of the need to support the war on terrorism, using not just military and diplomatic weapons but the full array of U.S. legal, commercial, and trade policy resources. Citing corruption as a major foundation for terrorism financing, she calls upon government and private sector decision and policy makers to focus on fighting the following forms of corruption: She writes: Funding Evil is not only an eye opener into the realities of terrorism funding, it also provides a realistic foundation for debate on some thought provoking solutions Books In Review Bonus Books, 2003 Global terrorism is fueled by money, and groups such as Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah and the Palestinian Authority have proven to be very effective fund-raisers. Ironically, Western nations have openly provided millions of dollars to these organizations, effectively underwriting attacks on their own citizens. With attempts at appeasement and hand-slapping responses to attacks, government leaders have naively aided radical Islamists bent on the destruction of non-Muslim industrialized countries. But tracking the flow of money through a complex web of drug dealers, money-laundering schemes, bribed officials and legitimate-looking, religious-based charities can be mind-numbing and near-impossible. Just ask any young FBI or Interpol agent charged with doing so. In Funding Evil, Rachel Ehrenfeld has taken a giant step toward unraveling this web, exposing terrorists for what they really are--heartless criminals who are far less inspired by religious zeal than age-old criminal greed and power. She doesn't hesitate to name terrorist organizations and the charities that support them, as well as banks that help launder the millions eventually used to buy weapons and explosives. In the end, simple donations to a "nurse" holding a can in a U.S. airport might fund the destruction of aircraft and buildings, attacks on U.S. Navy ships and killing of innocent citizens in the U.S., Europe, Russia, the Far East and Israel. Backed by well-documented facts, figures and quotes, the book condenses accounts that many of us have read or heard in news reports. However, by pulling them together in one place, and putting them in the context of radicals' thought processes, the "why" and "how" of terrorism starts to make sense. And becomes far more scary than any isolated news report. Funding Evil is brutally bipartisan and international in its bare-knuckled explanations of how political power and corporate greed have emboldened and strengthened the likes of Osama bin Laden and Yasar Arafat, while allowing future terrorists to be recruited and trained. For example, lavishly spreading money around Washington and the capitals of Europe--while keeping Saudi Arabian oil flowing at dirt-cheap rates - ensures successive Western leaders overlook $87 billion the Saudi kingdom spent between 1973-2002 to promote Wahabism worldwide. The Saudi branch of Islam, Wahabism is "the angry form of Islamism . . . the soil in which anti- Western and anti-American terrorism grows," according to ex-CIA director R. James Woolsey, who wrote the forward to Ehrenfeld's latest book. Its first chapter--"How Did We Get Here?"--lays a solid foundation for understanding the global breadth and financial depth of today's terrorist organizations. But Ehrenfeld's unique contribution is in detailing the intricate ties between terrorism and illicit drugs. Her years of experience, research and enviable sources are apparent in the detailed description of links between Al Qaeda and South American drug cartels, for instance. She has also written Narcoterrorism and Evil Money, which both delved into the cesspool of drugs and terrorism that bedevils today's Western societies. In a section called "Al Qaeda and the Taliban," Ehrenfeld notes that heroin produced in Afghanistan provided the Taliban with an estimated $8 billion in 1999 alone. Even after the U.S.-led war that rooted out the Taliban and Al Qaeda, "both heroin production and prices in the country are on the rise," she said. "It was bin Laden who managed the drug profits for the Taliban and arranged money-laundering operations with the Russian Mafiya--operations so complex that they have been described as 'an extended and octopus-like network.'. . . Bin Laden's commission of 10-15% from these money-laundering operations would have provided him with an annual income of about $1billion." Ehrenfeld not only documents the nature of terrorism and its sources of funding, but offers ways to fight back. The first step is to prevent international financing organizations, such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), from providing financial aid to countries known to support terrorism. Second, the U.S. and European nations need to discard policies of nonconfrontation and start censuring and pressuring nation states that fund or foster terrorism--Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, Sudan, Indonesia, Libya and North Korea. Action should include freezing assets and going after companies and other entities that do business with those countries. "Such businesses generate immense amounts of money for countries such as France, Germany, Russia and China, and for politicians and private and public companies in these and other 'allied' nations--and within the U.S. itself. They also enable terrorists to exploit U.S. inattention and increase their power," Ehrenfeld charges. The overarching strategy she offers, though, is to attack corruption systematically on a global scale, primarily through revised policies at Western-backed financial organizations and banks. "Terrorism, like organized crime and drug trafficking, can flourish only when abetted by government corruption," she writes. One solution is to develop a "truly authoritative model based on . . . internationally recognized anticorruption principles"--an International Integrity Standard with associated measurands and goals. In essence, if a country doesn't adopt recognized accounting and auditing procedures, codes of conduct for officials, backed by anticorruption legislation, and methods to ensure donor funds reach the right people, they simply won't get IMF and World Bank money. Finally, Ehrenfeld says, "To truly stem terrorist financing, political will and leadership are a must. . . . Unless we take all the steps necessary to comprehensively combat terror, including the adoption of an outright, aggressive campaign to cut off all sources of terrorist funding--and name states and groups that are providing not only funding but also safe haven--the metaphor of the suicide bomber may soon apply to all of us." Funding Evil should be required reading for every elected and senior government official in the U.S. and Europe--especially those charged with counterterrorism responsibilities. http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=2379 by Peter Hannaford Some years ago a California politician coined the now-famous phrase, "Money is the mother's milk of politics." In Funding Evil, Rachel Ehrenfeld presents a convincing case that it is also the "mother's milk" of terrorism. President Bush's recent announcement that the U.S. Government would freeze the funds in this country of several charities which support Hamas underscored Ehrenfeld's thesis that we can ultimately declare "victory" in the war on terrorism if we succeed in drying up most of its funds. Ehrenfeld, director of the Center for the Study of Corruption and the Rule of Law, and an expert on narco-terrorism and official corruption, spells out in detail where the terrorists' money comes from and the circuitous routes if often takes to get to the evil-doers. The author notes that the State Department has identified 69 terrorist organizations in the world, 31 of which are Islamist. She contends that annually "the total cost of maintaining the global Islamist network is estimated to be in the billions of dollars." Ehrenfeld says the funding sources for this group of organizations consists of governments such as those of Iran and Saudi Arabia, charitable organizations (such as the Muslim World League and International Islamic Relief Organization), seemingly legitimate businesses operating as fronts, exploitation of financial and commodities markets (especially diamonds), and international trade for the purpose of "laundering" money. She argues that the Soviet Union and its allies trained many of today's terrorist group, asserting that "The collapse of the Soviet Union served as the catalyst for an alliance between radical Sunni and Shiite movements that helped revive Islamist fundamentalism." That is a rather broad assertion, but the training of terrorists by Soviet client states is irrefutable. Drugs play a large role in funding terrorist groups. Citing U.S. government figures, she says that FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), alone, gets $7-8 billion in annual drug revenues. Others "that benefit most from the trade in heroin, cocaine, methamphetamines and hashish" include al-Qaeda, Hezbollah and the IRA (Irish Republican Army). Freezing assets of terrorist beneficiaries has been only partially success. According to the author by April of this year only $124 million in assets had actually been frozen. She claims that some countries pay only lip service asset-freezing. Though she does not name them, she claims that in several European countries, nit-picking bureaucrats have released frozen funds because they claimed the U.S. had not provided the right information. Funding Evil is a sort of Cook's Tour of terrorist organizations, their supporters and the means of financing their deadly activities. In this regard, the author unearths some surprising facts. For example, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) funds the Palestinian Authority's schools. The European Union (EU) has, for several years, given large sums to the Palestinian Authority in the apparent hope that it would engage in legitimate building of a civic infrastructure. What is to be done to curb the funding of terrorism? The author has a number of recommendations. Among them, she says we should treat all terror-supporting entities equally. Does this mean that because some rich Saudis are funding terrorists we should cut off our supply of oil? Presumably not until we have an alternative source, such as Russia. Her recommendation on reducing the heroin and cocaine trade is more practical: "Instead of spraying herbicides which have no real effect on the poppy and coca plantations, the U.S. should employ new technologies that permanently destroy" the plants. Reading Funding Evil will make you angry and that is probably the author's objective: She wants each of us to speak out and build a groundswell for more effective fighting of this scourge called terrorism. Mr. Hannaford was closely associated with former President Reagan for a number of years. His latest book is Ronald Reagan and His Ranch: The Western White House, 1981-1989. --------------------------------- Copyright © 2003 HUMAN EVENTS. All Rights Reserved. <Publishers Weekly
<Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed -- and How to Stop It
Rachel Ehrenfeld, Bonus, $24.95 (275p) Conservative analyst and pundit Ehrenfeld contends that our image of terrorism is all wrong. Rather than shadowy cells of young, religious martyrs, the true face of terror, she says, is an international network of corrupt state leaders, superwealthy contributors, and drug and crime kingpins. Without money- especially laundered U.S. dollars- there would be no terror, and this lively, well-documented primer reveals their sources, the amounts and the armed terror organizations they support. Not surprisingly, the author of Narco-Terrorism is at her best on the ironies of the West's appetite for drugs, which terror groups exploit for funding, arms and recruiting those who would undermine a degenerate Western society. Some readers might be alienated or distracted by the author's exhaustive yet fascinating description of the activities and funding of the PLO, Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which takes up nearly half of the book. Reigniting the drug war and supporting Israel are Ehrenfeld's clear national security priorities, as are other policy initiatives like regime removal and economic sanctions states sponsoring terrorism. But the Bush administration and a succession of U.S. and Western leaders are taken to task for "a willful blindness" to the role of the international oil and drug trades in funding terror and for "lacking the political will" to confront Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan and other states for their "anti-Western Agenda." Ehrenfeld's prescription for ending terrorism might depend on an unrealistic hope for immediate international cooperation, but this timely expose should heat up public demand for real progress in the war on terrorism. (Sept. 15, 2003)
In addition, Dr. Ehrenfeld cites "political reform in the Islamic world," President Bush's Millennium Challenge Account, and an international integrity standard as potential steps towards mitigating international funding of terrorism.
And, she proposes that "the U.S. could use the International Integrity Standard.to evaluate the performance of international organizations such as the UN and the World Bank, that also provide aid and grants" to countries which are directly or indirectly funding or harboring terrorist organizations.
<Aviation Week & Space Technology
01/19/2004, page 420
William B. Scott
<Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed - and How to Stop It
By Rachel Ehrenfeld
275 pp., Hardcover, $24.95
www.bonusbooks.com
Posted Nov 17, 2003
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