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kuangningJohn Kerry: the right man in the right place at the right time
By Tim Ashby
I have been a lifelong Republican. I proudly served as a senior political appointee in the Reagan and elder Bush administrations. But today I am supporting John Kerry for president because I personally witnessed his courage, tenacity and leadership when he waged war against a dangerous international criminal enterprise. Because of that experience, I believe that he is best qualified to lead our country in an era of fundamental threats to our national security.
In 1988, Kerry began an investigation of international drug connections as chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics, and International Operations. He discovered that the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, a powerful global financial institution, was laundering drug money for Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega and serving as banker for some of the world's most notorious terrorists, criminals and despots, including Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.
At that time, I was the U.S. Commerce Department official responsible for Panama and other Latin American countries involved in the drug trade. I held a top-secret security clearance and read CIA reports bluntly describing the bank's role in drug-money laundering and other illegal activities. I was aware of Kerry's efforts to stop BCCI's activities.
I witnessed how Kerry met with opposition in Washington from powerful figures in both political parties. Even President George H.W. Bush, whose son George W. Bush received a $25 million BCCI loan for one of his oil businesses, pressured Kerry to drop the investigation. Finally, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Democratic Sen. Claiborne Pell, formally asked Kerry to end his probe.
Instead, Kerry gave his information to New York District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, who launched a criminal investigation into BCCI. By 1991, the investigation exposed what Morgenthau described as "one of the biggest criminal enterprises in world history."
According to the Washington Monthly, "As Kerry's subcommittee discovered, BCCI catered to many of the most notorious tyrants and thugs of the late 20th century, including Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, the heads of the Medellin cocaine cartel, and Abu Nidal, the notorious Palestinian terrorist ... It also did business with those who went on to lead al-Qaida. By July 1991, Kerry's work paid off. That month, British and U.S. regulators finally responded to the evidence provided by Kerry, Morgenthau, and a concurrent investigation by the Federal Reserve. BCCI was shut down in seven countries ... and served indictments for grand larceny, bribery, and money laundering."
A decade after Kerry helped shut the bank down, the CIA discovered bin Laden was among those with accounts at the bank. A French intelligence report obtained by The Washington Post in 2002 identified dozens of companies and individuals who were involved with BCCI and were found to be dealing with bin Laden after the bank collapsed, and that the financial network operated by bin Laden today "is similar to the network put in place in the 1980s by BCCI."
As one senior U.S. investigator said in 2002, "BCCI was the mother and father of terrorist financing operations." The Washington Post aptly noted: "Years before money laundering became a centerpiece of antiterrorist efforts ... Kerry crusaded for controls on global money laundering in the name of national security."
Unlike the current President Bush, Kerry believes that privilege has its duties and that public service means putting oneself in the line of fire, whether literally in the jungles of Vietnam or metaphorically in the political minefields of Washington, D.C.
I came to admire Kerry during his battle against BCCI, where he revealed himself to be a man of integrity who refused to back down under the pressure of special interests who could have ruined his political career.
Kerry is a person of depth and intelligence who can see all sides of an issue and incorporate all available data before making a decision. The opponents he has faced and defeated during his career have characterized him as vacillating. Such a mistaken view is to be expected in a cynical political landscape where a politician who is contemplative and thorough may seem alien, because such attributes are now rare in our political environment.
In a dangerous epoch — made more so by a president who sees the world in stark black and white because simplicity polls better and fits into sound bites — John Kerry may seem out of place. He is, in fact, in exactly the right place at the right time to lead our country.
During the Reagan and first Bush administrations, Tim Ashby served as director of the Office of Mexico and the Caribbean for the U.S. Commerce Department and acting deputy assistant secretary of commerce for the Western Hemisphere. Ashby, who holds a Ph.D. in international relations, works at the Seattle law firm Hagens Berman, and is studying for his law degree at Seattle University.
By Tim Ashby
I have been a lifelong Republican. I proudly served as a senior political appointee in the Reagan and elder Bush administrations. But today I am supporting John Kerry for president because I personally witnessed his courage, tenacity and leadership when he waged war against a dangerous international criminal enterprise. Because of that experience, I believe that he is best qualified to lead our country in an era of fundamental threats to our national security.
In 1988, Kerry began an investigation of international drug connections as chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics, and International Operations. He discovered that the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, a powerful global financial institution, was laundering drug money for Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega and serving as banker for some of the world's most notorious terrorists, criminals and despots, including Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.
At that time, I was the U.S. Commerce Department official responsible for Panama and other Latin American countries involved in the drug trade. I held a top-secret security clearance and read CIA reports bluntly describing the bank's role in drug-money laundering and other illegal activities. I was aware of Kerry's efforts to stop BCCI's activities.
I witnessed how Kerry met with opposition in Washington from powerful figures in both political parties. Even President George H.W. Bush, whose son George W. Bush received a $25 million BCCI loan for one of his oil businesses, pressured Kerry to drop the investigation. Finally, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Democratic Sen. Claiborne Pell, formally asked Kerry to end his probe.
Instead, Kerry gave his information to New York District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, who launched a criminal investigation into BCCI. By 1991, the investigation exposed what Morgenthau described as "one of the biggest criminal enterprises in world history."
According to the Washington Monthly, "As Kerry's subcommittee discovered, BCCI catered to many of the most notorious tyrants and thugs of the late 20th century, including Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, the heads of the Medellin cocaine cartel, and Abu Nidal, the notorious Palestinian terrorist ... It also did business with those who went on to lead al-Qaida. By July 1991, Kerry's work paid off. That month, British and U.S. regulators finally responded to the evidence provided by Kerry, Morgenthau, and a concurrent investigation by the Federal Reserve. BCCI was shut down in seven countries ... and served indictments for grand larceny, bribery, and money laundering."
A decade after Kerry helped shut the bank down, the CIA discovered bin Laden was among those with accounts at the bank. A French intelligence report obtained by The Washington Post in 2002 identified dozens of companies and individuals who were involved with BCCI and were found to be dealing with bin Laden after the bank collapsed, and that the financial network operated by bin Laden today "is similar to the network put in place in the 1980s by BCCI."
As one senior U.S. investigator said in 2002, "BCCI was the mother and father of terrorist financing operations." The Washington Post aptly noted: "Years before money laundering became a centerpiece of antiterrorist efforts ... Kerry crusaded for controls on global money laundering in the name of national security."
Unlike the current President Bush, Kerry believes that privilege has its duties and that public service means putting oneself in the line of fire, whether literally in the jungles of Vietnam or metaphorically in the political minefields of Washington, D.C.
I came to admire Kerry during his battle against BCCI, where he revealed himself to be a man of integrity who refused to back down under the pressure of special interests who could have ruined his political career.
Kerry is a person of depth and intelligence who can see all sides of an issue and incorporate all available data before making a decision. The opponents he has faced and defeated during his career have characterized him as vacillating. Such a mistaken view is to be expected in a cynical political landscape where a politician who is contemplative and thorough may seem alien, because such attributes are now rare in our political environment.
In a dangerous epoch — made more so by a president who sees the world in stark black and white because simplicity polls better and fits into sound bites — John Kerry may seem out of place. He is, in fact, in exactly the right place at the right time to lead our country.
During the Reagan and first Bush administrations, Tim Ashby served as director of the Office of Mexico and the Caribbean for the U.S. Commerce Department and acting deputy assistant secretary of commerce for the Western Hemisphere. Ashby, who holds a Ph.D. in international relations, works at the Seattle law firm Hagens Berman, and is studying for his law degree at Seattle University.
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no subject
Date: 2004-10-17 07:01 pm (UTC)"Even President George H.W. Bush, whose son George W. Bush received a $25 million BCCI loan for one of his oil businesses, pressured Kerry to drop the investigation."
"BCCI catered to many of the most notorious tyrants and thugs of the late 20th century, including Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, the heads of the Medellin cocaine cartel, and Abu Nidal, the notorious Palestinian terrorist ... It also did business with those who went on to lead al-Qaida."
Now why do I think this is not a coincidence...
There's yet more to this I bet.