Wednesday, June 28, 2006
“ACT ON ALL FRONTS, INCLUDING THE FINANCIAL ONE”
Via Power Line—currently all over the NYT’s treasonous hide—this New York Times editorial from September 24, 2001:
Organizing the hijacking of the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon took significant sums of money. The cost of these plots suggests that putting Osama bin Laden and other international terrorists out of business will require more than diplomatic coalitions and military action. Washington and its allies must also disable the financial networks used by terrorists.
The Bush administration is preparing new laws to help track terrorists through their money-laundering activity and is readying an executive order freezing the assets of known terrorists. Much more is needed, including stricter regulations, the recruitment of specialized investigators and greater cooperation with foreign banking authorities ...
If America is going to wage a new kind of war against terrorism, it must act on all fronts, including the financial one.
The despised Bush regime did exactly as requested, and the NYT responded by exposing the program’s details:
Under a secret Bush administration program initiated weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, counterterrorism officials have gained access to financial records from a vast international database and examined banking transactions involving thousands of Americans and others in the United States, according to government and industry officials ...
Data from the Brussels-based banking consortium, formally known as the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, has allowed officials from the C.I.A., the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other agencies to examine “tens of thousands” of financial transactions ...
Hey, they asked for it. Seems the NYT isn’t too keen on its own version of the what would you do game. Jim Treacher’s view:
More from Power Line, which notes this grateful NYT response to a fan’s email:
Thank you for your thoughtful - and very welcome - email.
We appreciate your taking the time and trouble to write!
Hit the link to see the email that provoked the NYT’s gratitude. Then read Jules Crittenden in the Boston Herald. And also—as you should do constantly—Iowahawk.