War on Terrorism

A Quote for Today

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colin powell on Meet the Press 9/12/04:

I have no indication that there was a direct connection between the terrorist who perpetrated these crimes against us on the 11th of September, 2001, and the Iraqi regime. We know that there had been connections and there had been exchanges between al-Qaida and the Saddam Hussein regime and those have been pursued and looked at, but I have seen nothing that makes a direct connection between Saddam Hussein, that awful regime, and what happened on 9/11.
Just in case someone continues to try to make this case.
Read the transcript.

Drug War Result

This entry was posted in Capitalism Domestic Terrorism Drug Laws Economics Law Enforcement Libertarianism US Foreign Policy War on Terrorism on by

Science and the market are hard at work in the drug war:

DRUG traffickers have created a new strain of coca plant that yields up to four times more cocaine than existing plants and promises to revolutionise Colombia�s drugs industry.
Why was it worthwhile to traffickers to spend �60,000,000 on this effort:
Such an investment by drugs traffickers is small compared to the earnings from what is the most lucrative business on earth. Traffickers can produce a kilogram of cocaine for less than �1,500. That kilogram will sell in Miami for �14,000, in London for �34,000 and in Tokyo would bring �50,000.
We can all thank the articial pricing created by ongoing domestic and international terrorist activities conducted by US and foreign governments for what promises to be a substantial improvement in both quality and quantity of cocaine on the market.
Via Jacob Sollum at Hit & Run.
NB: At the moment �1 equals $1.79

Global Terrorism

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There is good news and bad news on the state terrorism front. First the good news:

The downturn in weapons orders worldwide since 2000 has been notable. Global arms agreement values have fallen from $41 billion in 2000 to $25.6 billion in 2003.
And the bad news. First:
Global arms agreement values in 2003 were $25.6 billion.
and second, if you are a US citizen:
In 2003, the United States led in arms transfer agreements worldwide, making agreements valued at over $14.5 billion (56.7% of all such agreements), up from $13.6 billion in 2002.
These numbers are not big when compared to, for instance, the US war budget and to be fair the US has a lot of company in this business. The other top ten leading peace loving nations are Russia, France, Germany, United Kingdom, China, Israel, Ukraine, Sweden and Italy.
Read the entire report on Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations,1996-2003.
Via Secrecy News.

It’s Your Money

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What are the odds that these folks (R) are being payed the same or less then the troops they have replaced?

Stretched thin by troop deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan and security needs at home, the Army has resorted to hiring private security guards to help protect dozens of American military bases.
To date, more than 4,300 private security officers have been put to work at 50 Army installations in the United States, according to Army documents obtained by The Times.
I’ll bet this makes the personnel on these bases feel much more secure as well.
Oh, the process for awarding some major contacts for this service is pretty typical for the current administration.

Homeland Insecurity II

This entry was posted in Constitution Domestic Terrorism Election 2004 Law Enforcement Libertarianism Patriot Act War on Terrorism on by

A few days ago I linked to a story by a student in Seattle who ran afoul of what appears to be some overzealous law enforcement folks.
Via Pacific Views I see that there are some legs on the story. From the Seattle Times:

On Monday night, the volume of Internet traffic to Ian Spiers’ Web site � www.brownequalsterrorist.com � crashed his server. Strangers from Chicago and New Zealand offered him space on their servers to get his story back online.
There is more at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.