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(French Defense Minister) Alliot-Marie: Drugs Fund Terrorism (Even the French get it now!)
Insight Magazine ^ | 1/18/04

Posted on 01/18/2004 11:29:38 AM PST by areafiftyone

Drugs now are the principal source of funding for Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network, French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said.

Afghanistan's record opium poppy crop, from which most of Europe's heroin supply is derived, is fueling a resurgent Taliban and al-Qaeda, she said.


This situation, said the French minister, requires a "more muscular approach to eradication and to the surveillance of banking networks." The exchange of intelligence in real time is working "extremely well," she explained, "but it must be constantly reinforced."

Afghan drug production now is estimated to be contributing between $1 billion and $2 billion to warlords and drug lords. This is why Afghan warlords wish to keep their distance from Kabul's central authority, Alliot-Marie said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

"These vast amounts of drug money have the potential for funding the acquisition by terrorists of CBRN weapons -- chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear," she said. "The international weapons black market is also fueling terrorism and political upheavals in different parts of the world."

Western countries "must also fight against all the frustrations that are the source of terrorism -- despair, poverty and injustice -- that also lead to the recruitment of terrorists in universities who rebel against the injustices they perceive," she said.

Alliot-Marie said terrorists around the world were using the situation in U.S.-occupied Iraq and the unresolved Israeli-Palestinian dispute to gain supporters.

As much as France and other European countries want Iraq's transition to democratic stability to succeed, she said, the sine qua non for success is "a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," which is the Middle East's "principal source of instability."


Instability in Iraq and the festering Israeli-Palestinian crisis are being used as "a pretext by terrorists, both locally and globally," which is another reason "to move very fast on changing the environment that creates more terrorism," she said.

As for the long-running differences between the French government and the Bush administration, the French minister said they had been exaggerated but also "exacerbated today by certain radical neoconservative ideas, the very antithesis of European sensibilities."

She strongly denied France is trying to turn Europe into a counterweight to the United States in the world, "but certain differences and substantive changes are undeniable."

She listed them as:



TOPICS: News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: alliotmarie; moneytrail; wod; wodlist

1 posted on 01/18/2004 11:29:39 AM PST by areafiftyone
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To: areafiftyone
This situation, said the French minister, requires a "more muscular approach to eradication and to the surveillance of banking networks."

Muscular?

The only exercise the French get is doing jumping jacks while holding white flags, wearing jerseys with yellow stipes down the back.

2 posted on 01/18/2004 11:32:51 AM PST by Cobra64 (Babes should wear Bullet Bras - www.BulletBras.net)
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To: Cobra64
Well at least the French get it - Not like the Democreeps who think that the whole idea is some crazy Bush stunt!
3 posted on 01/18/2004 11:33:47 AM PST by areafiftyone (Democrats = the hamster is dead but the wheel is still spinning)
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To: areafiftyone
My personal favorite:

"Different historical and geographical experiences. These may lead the Europeans to search instinctively for dialogue and compromise."

Translation from French to English: "We're used to getting our as*es kicked, so we're kinda hand shy. Can't we all just get along?"

4 posted on 01/18/2004 11:35:17 AM PST by Gerasimov (Oh calm down ... it was a joke. **mostly**)
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To: areafiftyone; jmc813; *Wod_list
Drugs now are the principal source of funding for Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network, French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said.

By waging the War On (Some) Drugs, we only keep their price up and their sellers profiting. The way to defund al-Qaeda and other terrorist drug-sellers is to relegalize them.

5 posted on 01/19/2004 11:34:21 AM PST by Land of the Free 04
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To: Gerasimov
I don't know about that. Having lived in Europe for several years when I was younger I can see what she she is talking about here a little. Europeans are a little more gun shy about war because of the huge wars fought on their soil in relatively recent history and they are for the most part more open-minded when it comes to differences among people from different countries. We have such a huge country that many Americans go their whole lives without ever meeting anyone from a foreign country. We're much more isolated than Europeans who because they all live in relatively small countries jam packed together are much more likely to have contact in business and social settings with foreigners. This does tend to give them a different outlook on foreigners. I'm not saying it makes their views better than ours, just different.
6 posted on 01/19/2004 1:04:30 PM PST by TKDietz
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To: TKDietz
You are correct, I; however, was just being a smarta**. Something I excel at.

thanks
7 posted on 01/19/2004 3:48:28 PM PST by Gerasimov (Oh calm down ... it was a joke. **mostly**)
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