Repubs (Bush, Romney) need to take lessons from Kerry on national security

[ProSense]

Clueless Republicans:

'We were apparently mistaken as a nation in believing that there were weapons of mass destruction there, so that aspect of the entry into Iraq was obviously based on faulty intelligence," Romney told reporters after meeting with the families.

But he said ''those who are fighting in our armed services are doing so in a very real effort to preserve our liberties and preserve the safety of our citizens."

Asked by a reporter if he believed that the Iraq invasion had been a mistake, Romney responded: ''Well, we went in under faulty impressions, faulty intelligence . . . We thought there were weapons of mass destruction." He declined to say whether the United States should have gone to war if the lack of such weapons had been clear.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2005/10/18/romney_cites_faulty_intelligence_in_iraq_war

Bush unveils plan to tackle global corruption

Try not to laugh...

Does that have anything to do with this?


The Lesson -- Follow the money:

Two decades ago, the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) was a highly respected financial titan. In 1987, when its subsidiary helped finance a deal involving Texas oilman George W. Bush, the bank appeared to be a reputable institution, with attractive branch offices, a traveler's check business, and a solid reputation for financing international trade. It had high-powered allies in Washington and boasted relationships with respected figures around the world.

All that changed in early 1988, when John Kerry, then a young senator from Massachusetts, decided to probe the finances of Latin American drug cartels. Over the next three years, Kerry fought against intense opposition from vested interests at home and abroad, from senior members of his own party; and from the Reagan and Bush administrations, none of whom were eager to see him succeed.

By the end, Kerry had helped dismantle a massive criminal enterprise and exposed the infrastructure of BCCI and its affiliated institutions, a web that law enforcement officials today acknowledge would become a model for international terrorist financing. As Kerry's investigation revealed in the late 1980s and early 1990s, BCCI was interested in more than just enriching its clients--it had a fundamentally anti-Western mission. Among the stated goals of its Pakistani founder were to "fight the evil influence of the West," and finance Muslim terrorist organizations. In retrospect, Kerry's investigation had uncovered an institution at the fulcrum of America's first great post-Cold War security challenge.

Snip...

Make no mistake about it, BCCI would have been a player. A decade after Kerry helped shut the bank down, the CIA discovered Osama bin Laden was among those with accounts at the bank. A French intelligence report obtained by The Washington Post in 2002 identified dozens of companies and individuals who were involved with BCCI and were found to be dealing with bin Laden after the bank collapsed, and that the financial network operated by bin Laden today "is similar to the network put in place in the 1980s by BCCI." As one senior U.S. investigator said in 2002, "BCCI was the mother and father of terrorist financing operations."

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0409.sirota.html

In 1988, Kerry began an investigation of international drug connections as chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics, and International Operations. He discovered that the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, a powerful global financial institution, was laundering drug money for Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega and serving as banker for some of the world's most notorious terrorists, criminals and despots, including Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.

At that time, I was the U.S. Commerce Department official responsible for Panama and other Latin American countries involved in the drug trade. I held a top-secret security clearance and read CIA reports bluntly describing the bank's role in drug-money laundering and other illegal activities. I was aware of Kerry's efforts to stop BCCI's activities.

I witnessed how Kerry met with opposition in Washington from powerful figures in both political parties. Even President George H.W. Bush, whose son George W. Bush received a $25 million BCCI loan for one of his oil businesses, pressured Kerry to drop the investigation. Finally, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Democratic Sen. Claiborne Pell, formally asked Kerry to end his probe.

Instead, Kerry gave his information to New York District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, who launched a criminal investigation into BCCI. By 1991, the investigation exposed what Morgenthau described as "one of the biggest criminal enterprises in world history."

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2002062322_timashby14.html

Though the big newspapers pooh-poohed our discovery, Sen. Kerry followed up our story with his own groundbreaking investigation in early 1986 when Ronald Reagan was at the height of his power and George H.W. Bush was eyeing a run for the White House.

The Reagan-Bush administration did whatever it could to thwart Kerry's investigation, including attempting to discredit witnesses, stonewalling the Senate when it requested evidence, and assigning the CIA to monitor Kerry's probe.

But it couldn't stop Kerry and his investigators from discovering the explosive truth: the contra war was permeated with drug traffickers who gave the contras money, weapons and equipment in exchange for help in smuggling cocaine into the United States.

Kerry also found that U.S. government agencies knew about the contra-drug connection, but turned a blind eye to the evidence in order to avoid undermining a top Reagan-Bush foreign policy initiative.

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2005/120905.html

In 1988, Kerry successfully proposed an amendment that forced the Treasury Department to negotiate so-called Kerry Agreements with foreign countries. Under these agreements, foreign governments had to promise to keep a close watch on their banks for potential money laundering or they risked losing their access to U.S. markets. Other measures Kerry tried to pass throughout the 90's, virtually all of them blocked by Republican senators on the banking committee, would end up, in the wake of 9/11, in the USA Patriot Act; among other things, these measures subject banks to fines or loss of license if they don't take steps to verify the identities of their customers and to avoid being used for money laundering.

Snip…

In other words, Kerry was among the first policy makers in Washington to begin mapping out a strategy to combat an entirely new kind of enemy. Americans were conditioned, by two world wars and a long standoff with a rival superpower, to see foreign policy as a mix of cooperation and tension between civilized states. Kerry came to believe, however, that Americans were in greater danger from the more shadowy groups he had been investigating -- nonstate actors, armed with cellphones and laptops -- who might detonate suitcase bombs or release lethal chemicals into the subway just to make a point. They lived in remote regions and exploited weak governments. Their goal wasn't to govern states but to destabilize them.

The challenge of beating back these nonstate actors -- not just Islamic terrorists but all kinds of rogue forces -- is what Kerry meant by ''the dark side of globalization.'' He came closest to articulating this as an actual foreign-policy vision in a speech he gave at U.C.L.A. last February. ''The war on terror is not a clash of civilizations,'' he said then. ''It is a clash of civilization against chaos, of the best hopes of humanity against dogmatic fears of progress and the future.''

Snip…

By singling out three states in particular- Iraq, North Korea and Iran -- as an ''axis of evil,'' and by invading Iraq on the premise that it did (or at least might) sponsor terrorism, Bush cemented the idea that his war on terror is a war against those states that, in the president's words, are not with us but against us. Many of Bush's advisers spent their careers steeped in cold-war strategy, and their foreign policy is deeply rooted in the idea that states are the only consequential actors on the world stage, and that they can -- and should -- be forced to exercise control over the violent groups that take root within their borders.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/10/magazine/10KERRY.html?ei=5090&en=8dcbffeaca117a9a&ex=1255147200&partner=rssuserland&pagewanted=print&position=

In 1997, four years before Sept. 11, Kerry published "The New War," which was derived from his years leading the Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics, and International Operations. In the book, Kerry described a changed global landscape after the end of the Cold War, with security threats coming less from nation-states than from shadowy criminal groups. Although it dwelled mostly on drug cartels and the Russian mafia, "The New War" also addressed the threat of Islamic terrorism and called for international cooperation to fight it.

"We should be the natural leaders of a world coalition against crime," Kerry wrote, "but we have yet to recognize the `new crime's' scale and sophistication."

This year as a presidential candidate, Kerry has offered a plan for energy independence that is notable not just for its sweep and technical detail but because it recognizes the destabilizing effect of resource shortages in the struggle for world security.

These three examples highlight John Kerry's core strengths: an ability to see complex problems in new, often prescient, ways and a willingness to seek collaborative solutions. Far from being wavering or indecisive, Kerry's worldview has been steadfastly informed by these values for as long as we on this page have known him. In complex and dangerous times, the United States needs a leader who can bring together people and ideas. For these reasons, the Globe endorses John F. Kerry for president and John Edwards for vice president in the critical election Nov. 2.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2004/10/17/kerry_for_president

Hearing on the Administration's "National Money Laundering Strategy for 2001"

Prepared Testimony of the Honorable John F. Kerry (D-MA)
United States Senator
10:00 a.m., Wednesday, September 26, 2001 - Dirksen 538

Mr. Chairman, I want to take this opportunity to thank you for holding this important hearing on efforts to control the scourge of money laundering. I would also like to take this opportunity to express my appreciation to Senator Charles Grassley, who has been working with me to enact anti-money laundering legislation and Senator Carl Levin who, as Chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Investigations, has held a series of important hearings which have clearly shown the need to update our money laundering laws.

On September 11, the tragic and dastardly attack on the United States could not have taken place without the movement of the terrorists' assets through the global financial system. These terrible events underscore the need for a concerted anti-terrorism offensive, both internationally and domestically.

Osama bin Laden's terrorist network, known as al-Qaida, which is believed to be responsible for the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center, has for years obtained funding by taking advantage of an open system of international financial transactions. With the help of the Tailban in Afghanistan, the al-Qaida raises funding through the sale opium. They have stolen or diverted money intended to assist refugees or religious organization. They have raised money from wealthy Islamic donors. Finally, Osama Bin Laden himself has not only a substantial personal fortune but either owns or controls a vast number of businesses and investments in Saudi Arabia and around the world.

In many cases, the funds that fuel al-Qaida are moved through an underground system of brokers built on trust, called hawala, which allow enormous amounts of cash to be moved without any paper trail. Obviously, this method of moving money cannot be controlled by international restrictions. However, the profits that the al-Qaida receives from the sale of opium do move through the existing international financial systems

Because this terrorist network obtains funding through a broad number of sources, we must develop, in conjunction with our allies, a variety different initiatives to stop the flow of funds to the al-Qaida. The United States is currently administering sanctions against the Taliban regime for their part in the drug trade. However, these sanctions have not proven to be enough to stop the illegal activities of the al-Qaida.

If we are to lead the world in the fight against terror, we must insure that our own laws are worthy of the difficult task ahead. I strongly support the Bush Administration's decision to freeze the financial assets of 27 entities associated with terrorism and I support attempts to enhance the use of Federal criminal and civil asset forfeiture laws. However, if we are going to win this war on terrorism, there is much more that we need to do. This work has already begun in the European Union, where just last week, they approved stronger measures against money laundering.

Today, too many nations - some small, remote islands - have laws that provide for excessive bank secrecy, anonymous company incorporation, economic citizenship, and other provisions that directly conflict with well-established international anti-money laundering standards. These nations have become money laundering havens for international criminal organizations like the al-Qaida.

The United States and the European Union have made great strides in the fight against money laundering over the past 12 years. The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an intergovernmental body, was established at the urging of the United States and President Bush in 1989 to develop and promote policies to combat financial crime. The Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) began a new crackdown on tax havens by targeting 36 jurisdictions which it said participate in unfair tax competition and undermine other nations' tax bases. The OECD approach does not punish countries just for having low tax rates, instead, it looks for tax systems that have a lack of transparency, a lack of effective exchange of information and those countries that have different tax rules for foreign customers than for its own citizens. The United States and the European Union have been working together to force jurisdictions that fall short of international standards to update and improve their anti-money laundering laws and to lift the veil of secrecy around tax havens by threatening to limit their access to our financial systems.

Today, the FATF reports that nineteen jurisdictions -- including Lebanon, Hungary, Nigeria, Russia, and the Philippines -- have failed to take adequate measures to combat international money laundering. Since a report naming many of these countries was released last year, many of these countries have already begun to update their anti-money laundering laws.

However, I am concerned that the money laundering strategy recently released by the Bush Administration begins to step away from the bilateral efforts that have proven successful in fighting financial crime and contradict the tough stance rightly taken by President Bush in his recent Executive Order. The new strategy, combined with efforts previously announced by Treasury Secretary O'Neill related to tax havens, seems to support a more unilateral approach toward fighting financial crimes instead of the successful multilateral approach adopted by the OECD and the FATF. I believe this will make it more difficult to track and freeze the assets international terrorists like bin Laden and expand upon the recent progress we have achieved. I also believe that this is the wrong time to pull back our efforts to stop money laundering into the United States by increasing the amounts necessary to require a Suspicious Activity Report issued by a financial institution.

It is now time for the United States to do its part to stop international money laundering and stop international criminals from laundering the proceeds of their crimes into the United States financial system. First, I believe the Bush Administration should call an emergency meeting of the G-7 nations and the Financial Action Task Force to implement a more vigorous international strategy to cut off the blood money that these international criminal networks use. Second, the United States should immediately impose bilateral and multilateral sanctions against any country that has, through neglect or design, permitted its financial systems to be used by bin Laden or other terrorist groups.

Third, the Congress should pass the International Counter-Money Laundering and Foreign Anticorruption Act of 2001, which I introduced along with Senators Grassley, Sarbanes, Levin and Rockefeller. During the 106th Congress, the House Banking Committee passed this bill with a bipartisan 33-1 vote. The bill will give the Secretary of the Treasury the tools necessary to crack down on international money laundering havens and protect the integrity of the U.S. financial system. The bill provides for actions that will be graduated, discretionary, and targeted, in order to focus actions on international transactions involving criminal proceeds, while allowing legitimate international commerce to continue to flow unimpeded.

I believe that the Congress should enact this legislation this year to help stop the flow of assets and money that fund bin Laden and other terrorist groups. I look forward to working with the members of this Committee on this important issue. Thank you.

http://banking.senate.gov/01_09hrg/092601/kerry.htm

Summary:

Follow the money

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=2776008&mesg_id=2776105">Failed foreign policy

More cluelessness on national security

[whistle]

1. Uh-mm, a $400 billion mistake, how convenient for U.S. war contractors

[LeahD]

2. Thanks for the links. Recommended!

[globalvillage]

3. Wouldn't you just love to see a debate

Between the Gov and Jr Sen fom Mass?
They'd have to write an o-mitt-uary when it was over.
Poor Mittens. Good hair. Nothing underneath.

[ProSense]

4. He's a bit Allenesque!

Romney, like George Allen, often starts off making a point, but then confuses himself.

[karynnj]

11. It could be as much a mismatch as debate 1 against Bush

Romney would be every bit as pathetic.

[wisteria]

5. They stubbornly refuse to listen to reason. Kerry offered a reasonable

and smart approach that was quickly refused and demeaned during the election in 04. Kerry was right then and he is right now. We need to forget about this administration ever getting it right by listening. What we need to do IMO, is reach the public with Senator Kerry's sensible approach to terrorism and the handling of Iraq.

[MissWaverly]

8. George Will said he was right on ABC This Week

Finally, people are beginning to realize that Iraq will not solve terrorism. But, then
they go back into the Iraq mindset, but, but, they have Hezbollah flags in Ramadi, attack,
attack, attack. You can't defeat ideas with bombs and missiles.

[The Backlash Cometh]

6. We got into Iraq because the CEO Dick Cheney, decided to squelch

any information that contradicted the information that would have supported his decision to attack. This is what CEOs may do in business, but when applied to government, it proved to be disasterous.

[MissWaverly]

9. Yes, and he has no concept of democracy

now they are interfering with a Senate race in Connecticut, neutralize all opposition and on
the Talk Shows there is a push for an expansion of wire tapping powers. Russ Feingold said
there is no need for warrantless wire tapping, that it can be handled thru FISA. But,
I heard Bush provided Blair with secret information that the Labor Party was seeking to
oust him. He raced back to London (both he and Bush were to be on vacation when the shampoo
bomb plot was exposed) and squelched it. Who is Bush listening to with his warrantless wire-
taps. How did he know of a plot to oust Blair. I have a friend in DC, she said that
whenever there was a movement to oppose Tom DeLay. He would appear just like he was
"psychic."

[karynnj]

7. This is a fantastic collection of information

The Democatic strategists on talk shows need to make some of these points. he very methods Kerry recommended were what the British used to foil this - for which they deserve credit. Stunning that the RW is trying to use this as proof that Bush's policies worked - when we were clearly not in the lead. Too bad that people in both parties didn't see how critical this was and fought Kerry. It's amazing he was able to do what he did with everyone trying to stop him - for selfish vested interests - instead of seeing that this could do to the world.

As to Romney, that he questions Kerry's credentials on this shows he learned all he knows from Limbaugh - who has no credentials at all.

[glitch]

10. I love these informative threads., especially on Sunday mornings. K & R nt

[ProSense]

12. Bush's formula for fighting terror:

lies (WMD, regime change and spreading democracy), hubris ("mission accomplished") and bravado (inciting the enemy to "bring them on," while American troops remain in harms way).

[blm]

13. Romney and ANY Republican who PROTECTED Bush1 and 2 on BCCI

are welcome to debate what should be done on terrorism with Sen. Kerry.

Too bad many Republicans never bothered to read Kerry's 1997 book on the growing global terrorism problem and the tracking of its networks back then - Al qaeda would have had a more difficult task of forming if Republicans would have bothered to be patriots instead of treasonous shills for the BFEE.