| This question <157|160> overall <158-4|159-1> Hans: <152|160>. |
| Question 235: Is there anything wrong with private property? |
| [159] Hans: Private Property and Terrorism Here is an article from the Moscow Times, an English language newspaper in Moscow, Russia, URL is |
| http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2001/09/28/107.html |
| Friday, Sep. 28, 2001. Page VIII |
| Global Eye -- Follow the Money |
| By Chris Floyd |
| Why couldn't American agents find Osama bin Laden's money and stop the flow of his support to terrorist networks around the world before they struck on Sept. 11? Because Phil Gramm didn't want them to. |
| The hard-line Texas senator has long led the fight against international efforts to crack down on money laundering, tax evasion and other financial hijinks beloved of operators taking advantage of the “free flow of capital” around the world. Gramm has successfully lobbied his fellow Republicans -- and not a few Democrats -- to keep “Big Guvmint” from peering under the rocks where terrorists, drug lords, outlaw regimes and various Mafias entwine so comfortably with Big Business and High Finance. |
| Last year, as head of the Senate Banking Committee, Gramm killed a Clinton initiative to give federal authorities broader powers to stop money laundering and bar foreign countries and banks from U.S. financial markets if they didn't cooperate with investigators, The New York Times reports. Even after the attack, Gramm was proud of his intransigence. |
| “I was right then, and I am right now,” Gramm crowed last week. “The way to deal with terrorists is to hunt them down and kill them.” But not, obviously, to interfere with their financial transactions. After all, some of that cash finds its way back to the pockets of those generous folks in the banking industry -- Gramm's political patrons. |
| Feisty Phil wasn't the only one opposed to such efforts, however. Just a few weeks ago, the Bush administration -- another group well-watered by the murky flow of offshore capital -- announced its withdrawal from international treaty talks on cleaning up the money-laundering swamp. Why on earth did they oppose this strike against terrorism and organized crime? Let's ask Joseph Stiglitz, former chief economist of the World Bank -- no “left-wing fifth columnist” he: “The answer is, it's in the interests of some of the monied interests to allow this to occur,” he told The Nation in June. “It's not an accident; it could have been shut down at any time.” |
| And this week, the Bush administration finally reversed the long-standing conservative appeasement of wealthy murderers, at least in part, by freezing the financial assets of Bin Laden and his associates and threatening to, er, bar any foreign countries and banks from U.S. financial markets if they didn't cooperate with investigators. Of course, it took them 13 days to get around to blocking the cash flow of their “prime suspect” -- but maybe some of their comfortably entwined High Finance pals needed time to get untangled before the freeze. |
| Oh well, better late than never, right? |
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