Abdel Rahman al-Rashed, ARAB NEWS 9 September 2004
The Secret Islamic Terror Network in the United States
"Nearly three years after 9/11, the war on terror is far from over. In fact, a leading terrorism expert argues that despite the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the efforts of the Department of Homeland Security, we're not really any safer at all.
Harvey Kushner, a respected adviser to the FBI, the FAA, the INS, and other government agencies, offers frightening new evidence of a unified Islamic terrorist network that is operating inside the United States and planning new opportunities to strike.
Kushner identifies and assesses the violent plans of these Islamic organizations and individuals who take advantage of our reluctance to engage in ethnic profiling. He supports his claims with never-before-seen documents from top-level government sources, exposing a secret network of Arab intelligence agencies, terrorists, university professors, corrupt imams and other religious leaders, and violent criminals.
Some members of this network are recent immigrants; others have been American citizens for years. Some are laundering money from abroad through seemingly innocuous charities and mosques. Some have even infiltrated our military as Arabic translators and Muslim chaplains..."
The influential Washington-based Center for Security Police recently unveiled a groundbreaking report entitled, "Terrorism Investments of the 50 States." This report analyzes the investment portfolios of America's leading public pension funds. The key finding of the report is that America's 87 largest and most influential pension systems invest some $200 billion in companies that provide revenues, advanced technology, equipment and moral cover to governments that enable terrorism. (This detailed report and related materials can be obtained at www.DivestTerror.org.)
To be sure, there is nothing illegal about investing in any of the roughly 400 companies that partner with our enemies' friends. Nor is it illegal for such companies to do business with terrorist-sponsoring regimes. Whether the law prohibits such activities or not, however, we believe most Americans will agree with us that they are wrong â?" wrong morally, wrong strategically and wrong financially.
Consequently, DivestTerror.org offers a "how-to" manual showing ways in which investors, taxpayers and other citizens can bring pressure to bear to convert this $200 billion investment into leverage that can be used to help defeat terrorism. Reduced to its essence, the idea is this: By divesting the stock of these companies, public pension systems, university endowments and even individual investors can send a powerful message to the companies that provide life-support to many of the planet's most dangerous regimes. You can choose to continue to partner with rogue state regimes that aid and abet terrorism. Or you can do business with American investors and capital markets. But you can no longer do both.
As the DivestTerror.org website makes clear, divestment campaigns have already proven to be highly effective instruments. In fact, over the last twenty years, institutional and private investors have repeatedly used their financial leverage to initiate social change. For instance, these efforts have been used to bring pressure on stocks of companies involved in tobacco, alcohol, gambling, guns and environmentally insensitive behavior. Arguably, the best-known example to date was the shareholder activism that used divestment to force the apartheid government of South Africa to abandon its heinous apartheid policy. Subsequently, that government was forced to surrender power.
By applying this model to companies doing business in terrorist-sponsoring states, we hope to achieve a success no less momentous than that accomplished in South Africa. All it will take is for Americans like you to feel empowered to play a role in the war on terror, to make known your views against investment in terrorist-sponsoring states and to use tools like those provided by DivestTerror.org to target and maximize the effectiveness of your activism. Please visit this informative and useful site and to join in the campaign it is now waging to defeat those who threaten not only our lives, but those of our children and grandchildren, as well.