>Would that be ALL the people from the Middle East?I'm afraid
>you are suffering from the same condition Bush suffers
>from.He way over estimated the threat after 911.It is a
>handful of people who represent the real threat,and they
>have not tried again as they are not funded or orginized
>here.No Bin Laudin money availabe at this time.We shut down
>his bank accounts .Good move!Another 911 has not
>happened,not as a result of the war on terror.There just are
>not enough people of any pursuation that have the inititive
>and means and $$$$ to try it again.
Wrong, They have lots of funding, among them drugs. This is from:
Funding Terrorism: Sources and Methods
Rachel Ehrenfeld
Director – American Center for Democracy & the New York City Center for the Study of Corruption and the rule of the Law (CSC), New York, USA
How many people across America would believe that two such beautiful plants as the poppy and the coca were responsible for funding September 11? Not many people realize that these same two plants are more valuable than diamonds, emeralds, platinum, and gold combined. Illegal drugs are cheap to make but they return enormous amounts of
money.
Illegal drugs are marketable almost everywhere. The illicit drug trade is the most reliable source of income in the world, with a demand that is constant and continues to grow. Illegal drug money funds terrorist organizations and activities. The terrorists point to our willingness to consume these drugs as direct evidence of our society’s moral degeneracy. According to an estimate from the State Department Office for International Narcotics Matters, the production of 1 kilo of cocaine costs about $3,000. The wholesale price of that kilo is about $20,000. Cocaine production takes as long as the leaves grow, and in
Colombia, Peru, and especially Bolivia, they grow fast. Opium can be cultivated twice a year in Asia and the Middle East and at least three to four times in Mexico and Colombia because of the tropical climate.
The production of heroin is more expensive than cocaine. It costs about $4,000 to $5,000 to produce a kilo of heroin. That kilo will sell for $250,000 to $300,000 wholesale. The drugs are delivered only after the money for them is paid in full. Losing drugs in shipment does not affect the dealers because they have already been paid. Largely, the drug syndicates keep 80 percent of the revenues. According to figures released by the State Department (2001), there was over 5,000 metric tons of cocaine sold during 2001 at a street value of at least fifty billion dollars. Five hundred metric tons of heroin generated at least thirty billion dollars on the street during that same timeframe.
Since the Taliban took over Afghanistan, heroin production has soared each year. In 1999 alone, the world production of heroin was estimated at 500 metric tons with 400 of those produced by the Taliban, allowing the availability of funds to bin Laden and his associates worldwide.
The Taliban, Al Qaeda, and bin Laden do not and will not acknowledge the role of heroin as their major source of funding terrorism, if only because it contradicts Islamic tenets. However, bin Laden, as well as the Hizballah had issued special fatwas to justify and allow the use of the drug trade to their followers. Other illegal drugs such as cocaine, hashish, and methamphetamines that have the exact same role for worldwide terrorist organizations — many of which cooperate with bin Laden — are also not acknowledged as weapons in the terrorists’ arsenal.
Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda, like other terrorist organizations, uses the same methods and means as organized crime. The Italian Mafia, like the Russian Mafiya, and other criminal organizations are often cooperating with the terrorists. Their activities range from trading in illegal drugs, diamonds, counterfeit money, identification papers, pirated CD’s and videos, stolen cars, people smuggling, and prostitution rings, to manipulating the markets and orchestrating multi-million dollar fraud schemes. These and more were documented throughout the nineties by the British National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS).
Aviator
