Terrorism And The Fear Market
by Terrell E. Arnold
Excerpt:
How does terrorism compare with other risks?
Our reactions to the possibility of terrorism are out of proportion to the facts. In order to understand the problem, it is useful to look at several common risk situations.
Upward of 320,000 Americans died in homicides or suicides during the period 1996-2002. That amounts to about 45,000 people per year, and the chance that an American might die this way is roughly one in 6,500. American deaths from terrorism during that period amounted to only 1,538, including over 1,400 Americans who died in the 9-11 attacks. In this period, inclusive of 9-11, the chance of an American dying by terrorist hands was roughly one in 1.3 million.
Almost 200,000 people were killed or injured in vehicle accidents in the United States involving drunk driving during 2001. A total of 1530 Americans were killed or injured in the 9-11 attacks that year.
During 2002 more than 17,400 people in the United States died in alcohol related motor vehicle accidents. Only 61 Americans died or were injured as a result of terrorist attacks during 2002.
Data gathered by the Centers for Disease Control indicate that since 1981 over 660,000 Americans or more than 30,000 per year have died in the United States from homicides, suicides and unintentional shootings involving firearms. During the period 1981-2002 worldwide terrorist deaths and injuries amounted to about 51,600 or roughly 2350 per year.
On average more than 40,000 Americans are killed and close to 3 million are injured in highway accidents each year. The odds are less than one in 100 that any of us could be involved in such an accident in the United States. Last year the worldwide chance of someone dying by terrorist hands was about one in 2.7 million.
More at http://www.rense.com/general49/fear.htm
10 Things You Don't Know About Terrorism
by Loretta Napoleoni
Two and a half years into the 'war on terror', the US is running a $500 billion budget deficit, its highest ever and the country is struggling to cover war costs. Terrorism seems to be a very costly business. So how can terrorists afford it? The answer is simple: terrorism is their business.
1. Terrorism has always been a business
During the Cold War terrorism was the trade of the superpowers. They fought wars by proxy across the world by funding local armed groups with legal or covert operations (for example the Contras in Central America). In the late 1970s-early 1980s, some of these groups managed to privatize terrorism. To raise money, they used a mixture of legal and illegal activities -- the IRA had the monopoly of private transport in Belfast; the PLO got a cut out of the Hashish trade from the Bekaa Valley; Carlos the Jackal and Aby Nidal became 'guns for hire' for Arab leaders such as Gaddafi.
2. Globalization boosted terrorism
In the 1990s, as international economic and financial barriers were lowered, terror groups expanded their businesses, which become transnational. Today, money is raised cross border, as proved by the joint business empires of Yousef Nada and Idris Nasreddin, two of bin Laden's associates. According to the UN, their portfolios, which range from real estate to fisheries, sprawl across Europe and Africa, and are worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
3. Each time an American reads a newspaper or takes a sip at a soft drink, they contribute to Osama bin Laden's financial empire
Terror businesses could not stay out of the largest consumer market in the world, the US. In the mid 1990s, while residing in Sudan, Osama bin Laden acquired 70% of Gum Arabic Company Ltd, which produces about 80% of the world supply of gum arabic. Extracted from the sap of the acacia trees that grow in Sudan, gum arabic is used to make ink stick to newspapers, to prevent sediment forming in soft drinks and to create a protective shell around sweets and pills to keep them fresh. The US is the largest importer in the world. Bin Laden's investment proved to be a very sound one. In November 1997, when Clinton imposed economic sanctions on Sudan, a number of American importers including the Newspaper Association of America, and the National Soft Drinks Association of America, objected. Eventually, Gum Arabic was exempted.
4. The Terror Economy is Bigger than the GDP of the United Kingdom
Globalization also facilitated the merging of terror enterprises with criminal and illegal activities. This meant big business. Today their joint yearly turnover is a staggering $1.5 trillion dollars, higher than the GDP of the United Kingdom.
5. The terror economy props up western capitalism
The bulk of the $1.5 trillion flows into Western economies and gets money laundered in the US and Europe. This is a vital infusion of cash into these economies. If we were to cut it overnight, the West would be plunged into a recession.
6. The illegal/terror economy grows faster than the US economy
Up to now, terror business has been conducted in dollars, primarily in 100 dollars bills; so are arms and drugs smuggling and other criminal and illegal activity. Thus, a rough indication of the rate of growth of the terror economy is given by the yearly infusion of new stock of US dollars. In the year 2000, as much as two third of the US money supply, equivalent to $500 billion, was taken out of the US monetary system for good and is now held abroad. This figure refers to money taken abroad in suitcases or via offshore accounts. If these statistics are correct, then the rate of monetary growth of the terror/illegal economy is higher than that of the US economy.
7. 9/11 was one of the greatest insider-trading events in modern history
Terrorists are also very skilled speculators. During the week before 9/11, an unusually high volume of trading was reported in certain sectors, e.g. air transport, energy and insurance. Shares of American Airlines and United, the US airlines involved in the 9/11 attack, were targeted. A similar trend was reported in the insurance business, with leading companies becoming the object of exceptional and unexpected speculation on the futures market. The weekend following the attack, Ernst Welteke, president of the German Bundesbank, admitted that there had been insider trading by 'terrorists' and added that the commodities markets had also been targeted. Indeed, days before the attack, oil and gold experienced a sudden and inexplicable rise in price. This was followed by a surge in activity on the futures market. On 12 September, oil prices jumped by more than 13 per cent and gold prices went up by over 3 per cent. Prices continued to climb all week. Anybody who knew what was going to happen on 11 September could have predicted such a trend.
8. Profiteering on Terrorism
Terrorism is such a good business that even the US government tried to get a stake in it. Last summer, the Pentagon was forced to abandon a 20 months project, Future PAM, to launch an online futures market that allowed speculators to bet on assassinations, coups and acts of terrorism. The project was headed by a leading expert on state sponsored terrorism, retired vice admiral John Poindexter, formerly national security adviser under President Reagan. In the1990s, Poindexter was convicted on five felony counts, including lying to Congress, destroying documents and obstructing congressional inquiries into the Iran-Contra scandal. Several US senators strongly opposed the project on the ground that terrorists would be the biggest beneficiaries as they are the ones who carry out the attacks.
9. Terrorism is such a good business that nobody really wants to eradicate it
So far, international efforts to curb terror financing have failed. An insignificant $140 million of terror money have been frozen since 9/11, 70% coming from accounts held in the West. Business profits generated by Al Qaeda front companies and donations from the Muslim world are mostly untouched. For example, Haramain Charitable Foundation, a Saudi charity worth $30 million per year, is still active in several countries. Recently Haramain has opened a new Islamic school in Jakarta, a hot bed of Islamist terror in South East Asia. Twice the Saudis have agreed to shut this charity, which is headed by Sheikh Saleh bin Abdul Aziz al-Ashaikh, Saudi minister for Islamic affairs, but never did it. So far the Saudis have frozen $4.7 million of terror money, closed 6 of the 241 Saudi charities and prohibit the collection of coins at the entrance of shopping malls. Not a lot when compared with UN reports stating that prior to 9/11, as much as 20% of Saudi GDP went to fund Al Qaeda alone.
10. Twice the US passed on the opportunity to get hold of Osama bin Laden
Is terror such good business as to prevent the arrest of bin Laden? In 1996, the Sudanese Minister of Defence, Major General Elfatih Erwa, offered to extradite Osama bin Laden, then resident in Sudan, to the US. American officials declined the offer. Instead, they told General Erwa to ask bin Laden to leave the country. 'Just don't let him go to Somalia,' they added. In 1993, 18 US soldiers had been brutally killed in Somalia in street riots involving Al Qaeda supporters and the US feared that bin Laden's presence in the country would create further unrest. When Erwa disclosed that bin Laden was going to Afghanistan, the American answer was 'let him go'. A few weeks after 9/11 the leaders of the two Pakistani Islamist parties negotiated with Mullah Omar and bin Laden for the latter's extradition to Pakistan to stand trial for 9/11. Once again the US refused the offer.
Two and a half years into the 'war on terror' it is apparent that the winners are the terrorists -- while Al Qaeda's finances are still intact the US is running the highest budget deficit in history. What can be done? Start by treating terrorism for what it is: a global business; force our Muslim allies to act immediately to curb terror funding and concentrate our efforts to hunt terror money in our countries, even if that implies putting under investigation the strongholds of Western capitalism: Wall Street, the City of London and the thousand offshore centres linked to them.
Loretta Napoleoni is an economist who has worked for banks and international organizations in Europe and the US. She has written novels and guide books in Italian and translated and edited books on terrorism. She is among the few people who interviewed the Red Brigades in the early 1990s. She developed the idea to research and write a book on the economics of terrorism while interviewing the leaders of the Red Brigades.
Napoleoni's latest book, published September 2003, is Modern Jihad: Tracing the Dollars Behind the Terror Networks
http://www.progress.org/2004/napo03.htm
Patterns of Global Terrorism
There were 190 acts of international terrorism in 2003, a slight decrease from the 198 attacks that occurred in 2002, and a drop of 45 percent from the level in 2001 of 346 attacks. The figure in 2003 represents the lowest annual total of international terrorist attacks since 1969. A total of 307 persons were killed in the attacks of 2003, far fewer than the 725 killed during 2002. A total of 1,593 persons were wounded in the attacks that occurred in 2003, down from 2,013 persons wounded the year before. In 2003, the highest number of attacks (70) and the highest casualty count (159 persons dead and 951 wounded) occurred in Asia. There were 82 anti-US attacks in 2003, which is up slightly from the 77 attacks the previous year, and represents a 62-percent decrease from the 219 attacks recorded in 2001. Thirty-five American citizens died in 15 international terrorist attacks in 2003.
More at http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/pgtrpt/2003/31569.htm
For daily news links about terrorism and more, check out Joel’s new web site, which is where I saw the story above, at http://www.worldaffairsbrief.com
Hard Facts You Should Know About 911
"It is important for the shadow government to continue to instill fear in the American people so they will continue forfeiting their God-given rights for a false sense of security." Full commentary by Devvy Kidd at
http://www.newswithviews.com/Devvy/kidd40.htm
With the exception of the Oklahoma City bombing of 1995, notes Al-Qaeda authority Rohan Gunaratna, all major terrorist attacks of the past decade in the West have been carried out by immigrants. A closer look finds that these were not just any immigrants but invariably from a specific background: Of the 212 suspected and convicted terrorist perpetrators during 1993-2003, 86% were Muslim immigrants and the remainder mainly converts to Islam.
http://www.danielpipes.org/article/1815
More “Washington whispers” about possible pre-election terrorist attack
Two more pieces published in the press in recent days point to a continuing discussion within the political elite in the US about the electoral consequences of a pre-election terrorist attack. Top officials and analysts speak as if an attack were probable if not certain, and indicate the major concern in Washington is how such an attack would affect the outcome of the elections.
In the “Washington Whispers” section of this week’s US News & World Report, columnist Paul Bedard reports: “White House officials say they’ve got a ‘working premise’ about terrorism and the presidential election: It’s going to happen.” Bedard quotes a top administration official as asserting, “We assume an attack will happen leading up to the election,” and that it will happen in Washington, D.C.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/may2004/terr-m25.shtml
The Guantanamoization of America
The war on terrorism is also a war on the citizens of the Western world in general and a war on the citizens of the United States in particular. It is a war on civil liberties and personal freedom.
More at http://www.infowars.net/Pages/Oct_04/181004_guantanamoization.html
Terrorism And The Normal Aberrations Of Society
In the past six years up through 2003, terrorism - as reported in the US Department of State Patterns of Global Terrorism--resulted in approximately 22,000 casualties worldwide, mainly outside of North America. As reported in the same database, terrorism in North American resulted in 4,463 casualties, all in 2001. In that same period, data from the Centers for Disease Control indicate that AIDS alone caused close to 95,000 deaths in the US; according to the FBI, homicides caused close to 90,000 US deaths, MADD data indicate that drunken driving caused upward of 100,000 US deaths, and suicides, mostly of men and boys, caused close to 100,000 US deaths. Aside from 9-11, in that six-year period, there were no casualties in North America from terrorism. In 2002 alone, the year after 9-11, homicides took upward of 16,000, suicides took around 17,000, highway accidents took 26,000, and drunken driving accounted for over 15,000. All of these data shout the message: The main threat to American life and limb, anywhere in the world, is not terrorism.
http://www.rense.com/general60/rret.htm
The Truth About Terrorism
In broad terms, fourth generation warfare seems likely to be widely dispersed and largely undefined; the distinction between war and peace will be blurred to the vanishing point. It will be nonlinear, possibly to the point of having no definable battlefields or fronts. The distinction between "civilian" and "military" may disappear. Actions will occur concurrently throughout all participants' depth, including their society as a cultural, not just a physical, entity. Major military facilities, such as airfields, fixed communications sites, and large headquarters will become rarities because of their vulnerability; the same may be true of civilian equivalents, such as seats of government, power plants, and industrial sites (including knowledge as well as manufacturing industries). Success will depend heavily on effectiveness in joint operations as lines between responsibility and mission become very blurred.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17676
Why is no one mentioning the major sources of terrorism? Communist Russia (the "former" Soviet Union) and other Communist countries like Red China have been the main source of training, arming, and directing terrorists.
Major terrorist training camps have for decades been operating in the U.S.S.R. and elsewhere in the ComBloc.
Muslims have been a major recruiting target because of similarities between Marxism-Leninism and radical Islam. Proxy war is being carried on against the U.S. very successfully by the "former" Soviet Union through terrorists and the threat of terrorist atrocities.
"The action is in the reaction." Terror and the threat thereof give excuse for those presently in control of the federal government to restrict the freedom of Americans. Many otherwise sensible people are frightened into giving up freedom for only the promise of safety.
Sadly, not many seem to believe what Benjamin Franklin once said: "They who would sacrifice essential liberty for temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
"Peace and safety" is the sales pitch which
cannot be attained, with the very real risk of never returning to the former state of freedom.
The truth is , there is no peace and safety, until GOD HIMSELF BRINGS IT.
:'(
:.>
Immigration and Terrorism: Beyond the 9/11 Report
Analysis shows widespread violations by 9-11 aliens, others.-FrontPageMagazine/CIS.org
http://frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=19671
I believe the country most attacked by terrorists over the past 40 years is Israel. I live and worked in Israel in 1970, and went back briefly in '73 and '77. That doesn't make me the resident expert on the country, but I saw and experienced enough terrorism, including getting shot at, to form the opinion that the terrorists were reasonably well supplied with Soviet designed weapons, and they constantly tried to attack Israel any and every way they could. By far, most attempts failed because of constant Israeli vigilance.
Also, they were largely hit and run attacks, small scale attacks within their means.
Consider the terrorists attacks against the US on US terretory. As far as I know, they have been far more sophisticated than those in Israel or elsewhere. I do not believe the same sort of people who organize the attacks in 2. and 2. world countries have the capability to pull off jobs like OKC and 911. I am thoroughly convinced that these jobs had considerable technical and inside assistance from Americans. As I posted elsewhere on this site, I believe that the 911 airborne terrorist attacks in NYC & DC were done for a spectacular show, another step in the plan to instill fear into Americans, and probably others as well, and coerce Americans into ultimately seeking and accepting protection from a powerful world wide organization, probably the United Nations, at further expense to our national sovereignty.
Another or additional reason may have been to provoke the US to spend its means and strength warring in foreign lands, as is now being talked up in the media, leaving us spread out and further weakened and more vulnerable to attack by those enemies that the PTB, with so much help from our own traitors, have been preparing for the purpose of destroying the one nation that really stands in the way of the one world government they desire.
OKC was, in my opinion, perpetrated by American traitors intent on instilling fear of so-called right wingers, true patriots, and anybody else who distrusts the FedGov.
I believe the real perpetrators of the attacks are those persons whose ultimate goal is total relinquishing of national sovereignty and submission to a world government.
Had the perpetrators of the attack really wanted to do damage, there is much more they could have done. They could have poisoned our water supplies, executed gas and biochemical attacks, even possibly nuclear explosions in major cities. This may yet happen. But that it is not happening here as it is happening in Iraq is, again, in my opinion, no credit to our border protection efforts, but rather because somebody is holding them back. If any 3 or 4 of us who post here often wanted to get together, pool our talents, and wreak havoc on the USA, we could cause a lot of death and destruction. Likewise, a group of the kind of people we usually associate with al Quaida could do the same, especially with help from within the United States, as I believe the OKC and 911 perps had. I believe it is not happening because the PTB are controlling the terrorists.
Also, our borders have nowhere near the security that Israeli borders have, or had when I was there.
Why do the PTB want it to not happen? Must be a reason.
Daily News Links—Terrorism
http://millennium-ark.net/NEWS/06_Terror/06_Terror_Index.html
http://www.topix.net/news/terrorism
Fact Sheets On Terrorist Attacks
The National Academies has prepared, in cooperation with the Department of Homeland Security, fact sheets on four types of terrorist attacks.
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Fact_Sheets_On_Terrorist_Attacks.html
Isn't it nice that the Dep't of Homeland Insecurity would make info. available to us to help us prepare for terrorist attacks?
One man recently observed that the diseases and the cures (for our societal ills, and terrorist attacks) seem to be manufactured in the same laboratory.
Robert Welch, 30 and 40 years ago predicted that the Insiders would create an atmosphere of fear and terror in an attempt to stampede the American people into giving up their freedom for the mere promise of security.
"Are we there yet?"
Cyrus35
Newt Gingrich’s Long Straussian War
Man, what a windfall for Lockheed Martin, Halliburton, Bechtel, Blackwater, and other death merchants and war profiteers. Newt Gingrich believes the “Long War with the Irreconcilable Wing of Islam” (no kidding, this is what the Straussian neocons now call their mass murdering criminal behavior, formerly known as the war on terrorism) will “last as long as 70 years.”-Kurt Nimmo/Prison Planet
http://prisonplanet.com/articles/march2006/080306Gingrich.htm
"Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace." Sounds like the plot for the novel "1984," by George Orwell.
"The Long War" proposed by the so-called neo-cons is nothing more than the nightmarish world portrayed in "1984."
War gives those in power more and more excuses to regiment and enslave the people over whom they rule.
They ignore and trample on the Constitution of the United States, which they hold in contempt.
But of course, the "Yellow Dog Republicans" will support them, and the deluded American electorate will not know any better than to re-elect the same kind of politicians that have brought them to this sorry pass.
Cyrus35