GLOBAL JIHAD
How money goes from your pocket to terrorists
Initiative urges Americans to ensure their investments not supporting jihadis

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Posted: March 13, 2007
10:39 p.m. Eastern



© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com


Americans can have a direct role in winning the war on terrorism by shutting down the flow of cash to terror-supporting nations through their investment decisions, according to an initiative presented in Washington yesterday.

Frank J. Gaffney Jr., president of the Center for Security Policy, says many Americans have been horrified to learn their money is being invested in publicly traded companies that do business with U.S.-designated state sponsors of terrorism, such as Iran, Sudan, Syria and North Korea.

"For too long, far too many Americans have felt powerless in the face of the terrorists who are determined to hurt this country and other freedom-loving people," Gaffney said a presentation at the National Press Club in Washington.

Gaffney said some of the ways American citizens are financing terror are personal investments, public pension funds, mutual funds, college endowments and life insurance portfolios.

A study issued by Gaffney's group two years ago showed about 100 of the leading American public pension funds had $188 billion invested in companies that partner with terrorist-sponsoring regimes. The study, "The Terrorism Investments of the 50 States", indicated approximately $73 billion of that total was flowing to American enemies.

A recent poll by Luntz Maslansky Strategic Research showed the American people overwhelmingly want terror-free investing, once they are aware of the facts, said Larry Moscow, the survey group's senior vice president.

"We found in our survey people actually want a choice, they want to know whether their investments are going to terror-sponsoring companies," he told reporters in Washington.

By and large, he said, people don't know where their money is going, but the situation is explained they have a "strong visceral reaction," he said.

Moscow said about 86 percent of Americans surveyed say their investments should not go to countries that sponsor terrorism. Some 76 percent said they would accept a lower return if it meant their money would be "terror free."

Moscow pointed out three companies have taken steps publicly to end their relationship with Iran and some other terror-sponsoring states – UBS, Credit Suisse and Daimler Benz.

With respect to Iran, other initiatives addressing the issue of terrorism financing have used a "targeted" approached, limited to the small number of companies assisting Iran's energy sector, Gaffney said. He argues this leaves out about 325 mostly foreign-owned and -operated companies also helping Iran's regime build its infrastructure and develop dual-use – military and civilian – industrial capabilities.

At the news conference, Sarah Steelman, the state treasurer of Missouri, explained how her state's investment trust achieved certified terror-free status last year.

More states are embracing the idea, she said, and legislation is now underway in Ohio, Georgia, Florida, Texas, New York and other states.

"It was shocking to me to learn that we are funding the very enemies we're fighting, and we're funding them to the tens of billions of dollars," Steelman said.

Steelman said cutting off the flow of cash through selective investments is the missing element in the war on terrorism.

"We can make a decisive difference in this fight, and every single American can take part," she said.

Steelman said that when she first began her effort she was told investment performance would suffer. But she points out the state's investment trust is performing four percentage points higher than its benchmark of 13 percent.

She noted one company in particular her trust avoids, the French bank BNP, which is "floating billions of dollars to the government of Iran" as well as having been involved in the U.N. oil-for-food scandal.

Steelman said she is currently pressing her state's legislature to pass a resolution that requires all of Missouri's public pension funds to be terror-free

"What we need most of all is for the people of this country to act," she said. "When they act we will find ourselves in a much safer world for our children and our children's children."



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