Date: Mon, 03 Dec 2001 08:33:20 -0800 From: Carol Brouillet <•••@••.•••> Subject: Book Review- Dollars for Terror Here is an excerpt from an "expanded" book review. The entire review is at http://www.communitycurrency.org/vital.html A Vital Piece of the Puzzle- Dollars for Terror- The United States and Islam By Carol Brouillet (http://www.communitycurrency.org) Dollars for Terror- The United States and Islam (http://www.algora.com/Dollars.htm) by Richard Labeviere, Algora Publishing, New York, 2000, 392 pages (Translated from the 1999 French version by Martin DeMers) In 1994 Labeviere's friend, Ali, a Muslim, was assassinated by an Islamist organization. Ali was savagely opposed to the Islamists who are "mutilating their religion and betraying their country,"(1) he would tell anyone who would listen. Labeviere began his investigation to try to understand his friend's death. The path inevitably led to the financial circuits of terrorism- the banks, the businesses, both legitimate and illegitimate, to the official and secret structures of Saudi finance, the Muslim brothers, to the oil monarchies allied with the United States, to the intelligence agencies, the CIA, and its Saudi and Pakistani counterparts. Based on a hundred interviews, numerous journalistic investigations, years of archival research and travels, Labeviere painstakingly deconstructs the notion that the U.S. is a beacon of democracy. America's imperial intention is fed by an alliance with the Islamists, new worldwide circuits of organized crime, a transnational hybrid of business and politics. Islamist ideology blends perfectly and complements neoliberalism where the true god is "money." The subordination of everything, national borders, institutions, cultures, states, and nations, in pursuit of profits is the keystone of a totalitarian New World Order. This supranational order comprised of the richest and most powerful transnational corporations bullying governments through the World Trade Organization, International Monetary Fund, World Bank… Military coersion complements Islamism which mainly seeks to accumulate money and power, destroy the secularized state, turn citizens into subjects, and annihilate the rights of women. In his chapter- "The Mercenaries of Globalization" Labeviere writes- "This vast construction project requires local project superintendents, financiers, Mafias, private security companies and mercenaries engaged in Algeria, in Bosnia, in Chechnya, Afghanistan and the Phillipines, experimental laboratories that thrive, as Oliver Roy says, in 'the de-territorialized space at the margins of Islam.' At the dawn of the 21st century, new hotbeds of Islamist agitation are developing in Niger, Madagascar and Zanzibar and, through the proliferation of armed gangs, in South Africa as well as in Brazil… "Engaged in the infernal spiral of violence that wipes whole villages off the map, minor local delinquents --self proclaimed 'emirs' -- make no distinction between religious fanaticism and banditry. This alliance is aimed less at the contested state apparatuses than at the civil society -- artists, journalists, intellectuals, trade unionists, unveiled women -- chasing them out and then backing up their conquests with theft, racketeering and a wild takeover of territory. Focusing inward on the defense of their systems of emoluments from the oil and gas and the import-export sectors, the leaders of the security forces have given over the campaigns to private militia, so many vigilante groups that, likewise, end up pursuing their own particular interests…"(2) Weapons, and drug trafficking go hand to hand, and crop up wherever the CIA spends any time to finance covert wars. Violence encourages more violence and improves weapons sales, the heart of the global economy. "Far from raising obstacles to the new configurations of global capitalism, Islamist ideology is becoming part of its new superstructures. It provides…military-racketeering networks that merge very easily into the filaments of the networks of organized crime, the supreme stage of capitalism."(3) The stability of the international system might depend upon the "hot money" to replace the missing funds "between 1989 and 1997, some $800 billion dollars seems to have disappeared from the planet's accounts."(4) Money laundering is big business. New York, London, Switzerland handle petro-dollars as well as the volumes of dirty money, approximately $500 billion in n 1997 alone (according to the IMF). "Osama bin Laden is the perfect embodiment of the 'privatization' of Islamist terrorism. He enjoys a solid credit rating in the highest realms of international finance, where he controls a patrimony of more than $3 billion…"(5) In the chapter- "The CIA's 'Afghans' and Their Networks" he continues- "Successively a financier, a war lord, a political leader and a preacher, bin Laden is a pure product of the American intelligence services. Where does he get his immense resources? For whom is he working today? Has he really broken off with his former bosses?"(6) Labeviere paints a detailed panorama of the evolution of the special Saudi, US, Islamist movement relationship from the time when Roosevelt made his first deal with King Ibn Sa'ud in February 1945 on board the Quincy. The kingdom holds 26% of the world's proven oil reserves and agreed to provide the bulk of America's fuel needs at moderate prices for sixty years. The companies now are tenants and in the year 2005, the wells, installations and material will return to the monarch's possession. The premium paid to the king is 18 to 21 cents a gallon for each barrel of oil. In return the US agreed to unconditionally support the stability of the kingdom internally and externally. (A monarchy which beheads 200 people a year…) Not in the contract, but in return, the Saudi's have invested some $350 billion in the US and have developed an almost exclusive economic, commercial and financial partnership. Together they funded, trained, armed bin Laden, and helped to create the famed Al Qaeda network in Afghanistan through the Pakistan ISI, but they also met directly with bin Laden.
