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Congressmen Like This.

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Ara-anna
Post subject: Congressmen Like This.
Posted: Wed 16 Jan , 2008 10:41 pm
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080116/ap_ ... n_indicted

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WASHINGTON - A former congressman and delegate to the United Nations was indicted Wednesday as part of a terrorist fundraising ring that allegedly sent more than $130,000 to an al-Qaida and Taliban supporter who has threatened U.S. and international troops in Afghanistan

Mark Deli Siljander, a Michigan Republican when he was in the House, was charged with money laundering, conspiracy and obstructing justice for allegedly lying about lobbying senators on behalf of an Islamic charity that authorities said was secretly sending funds to terrorists.

A 42-count indictment, unsealed in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Mo., accuses the Islamic American Relief Agency of paying Siljander $50,000 for the lobbying — money that turned out to be stolen from the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Siljander, who served in the House from 1981-1987, was appointed by President Reagan to serve as a U.S. delegate to the United Nations for one year in 1987.

He could not immediately be reached for comment Wednesday. His attorney in Kansas City, J.R. Hobbs, had no immediate comment.

The charges are part of a long-running case against the charity, which had been based in Columbia, Mo., and was designated by the Treasury Department in 2004 as a suspected fundraiser for terrorists.

In the indictment, the government alleges that IARA employed a man who had served as a fundraising aide to Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaida leader and mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks.

The indictment charges IARA with sending approximately $130,000 to help Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, whom the United States has designated as a global terrorist. The money, sent to bank accounts in Peshawar, Pakistan, in 2003 and 2004, was masked as donations to an orphanage located in buildings that Hekmatyar owned.

Authorities described Hekmatyar as an Afghan mujahedeen leader who has participated in and supported terrorist acts by al-Qaida and the Taliban. The Justice Department said Hekmatyar "has vowed to engage in a holy war against the United States and international troops in Afghanistan."

The charges paint "a troubling picture of an American charity organization that engaged in transactions for the benefit of terrorists and conspired with a former United States congressman to convert stolen federal funds into payments for his advocacy," Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Wainstein said.

Siljander founded the Washington-area consulting group Global Strategies Inc. after leaving the government.

The indictment says Siljander was hired by IARA in March 2004 to lobby the Senate Finance Committee in an effort to remove the charity from the panel's list of suspected terror fundraisers.

For his work, IARA paid Siljander with money that was part of U.S. government funding awarded to the charity years earlier for relief work it promised to perform in Africa, the indictment says. Under the grant agreement, IARA was supposed to return any unused funds after the relief project was wrapped up in 1999.

Instead, Siljander and three IARA officers agreed to cover up the money's origins and use it on the lobbying effort, the indictment charges.

In interviews with the FBI in December 2005 and April 2007, Siljander denied doing any lobbying work for IARA. The money, he told investigators, was merely a donation from IARA to help him write a book about Islam and Christianity, the indictment says.

In 2004, the FBI raided the Islamic American Relief Agency-USA group's headquarters and the homes of people affiliated with the group nationwide. Since then, the 20-year-old charity has been unable to raise money and its assets have been frozen.

The charity has denied the allegations that it has financed terrorism. IARA in Columbia has argued that it is a separate organization from the Islamic African Relief Agency, a Sudanese group suspected of financing al-Qaida. A federal appeals court in Washington ruled in February that there was a link between the two groups.

In an indictment handed down in March, the charity and four of its officers were charged with illegally transferring $1.4 million to Iraq from March 1991 to May 2003 — when Iraq was under various U.S. and U.N. sanctions.

The indictment also alleges that on 11 separate occasions the defendants transferred funds from the United States to Iraq through Amman, Jordan, in order to promote unlawful activity that violated Iraq sanctions.

In all, Siljander, IARA and five of its officers were charged with various counts of theft, money laundering, aiding terrorists and conspiracy.

"By bringing this case in the middle of America, we seek to make it harder for terrorists to do business halfway around the globe," said John Wood, U.S. attorney in Kansas City.
I really don't know what to say.

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TheEllipticalDisillusion
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Posted: Thu 17 Jan , 2008 1:00 am
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Asshole?

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Jnyusa
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Posted: Thu 17 Jan , 2008 4:32 am
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During the 1980s the United States government was supporting Osama bin Laden and the Taliban, remember? The Russian invasion of Afghanistan, remember?

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Ara-anna
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Posted: Thu 17 Jan , 2008 6:09 am
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One more reason to distrust the GOP.

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TheEllipticalDisillusion
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Posted: Thu 17 Jan , 2008 6:32 am
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Don't you mean GOV ernment?

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Axordil
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Posted: Thu 17 Jan , 2008 1:55 pm
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In my experience with businessmen, it is usually safe to assume that for them what is rhetoric when applied to the "touchy-feely" is reality: all ethics are situational.

There was a survey taken a while back here in which leaders of businesses were asked about their religious and moral beliefs, which were as a rule mostly Christian in form, not surprisingly for the US Midwest. When they were then presented with various business ethics scenarios and asked what they would do, their responses were somewhat difficult to reconcile with their stated moral compass. Challenged about it, they replied, almost to a man, "But that's business!" as if God ignores them when they put on the green eyeshades. I suppose for some of them, their theology is built around the notion that they're forgiven, so it doesn't actually matter what they do.

Handy things, theologies.

Then again, I rather suspect that one could ask the same questions of any group of businessmen anywhere in the world and get similar responses. It's the nature of the beast.

"But Ax, we were talking about politicians, not buisnesspeople!"

Same difference and you know it. :P

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Dave_LF
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Posted: Thu 17 Jan , 2008 2:41 pm
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Axordil wrote:
I suppose for some of them, their theology is built around the notion that they're forgiven, so it doesn't actually matter what they do.

Handy things, theologies.
Maybe, but I think it's exactly what they say it is. One set of rules for at home with the family, another at work, and another at war. It's a compartmentalization much older than any theology.


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Ara-anna
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Posted: Thu 17 Jan , 2008 3:53 pm
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Dave_LF wrote:
Axordil wrote:
I suppose for some of them, their theology is built around the notion that they're forgiven, so it doesn't actually matter what they do.

Handy things, theologies.
Maybe, but I think it's exactly what they say it is. One set of rules for at home with the family, another at work, and another at war. It's a compartmentalization much older than any theology.
I agree..it seems, or I have seen it many times in business and government of exactly that.

And I would say government, but it's not the structure of the government, but the politicians. I was thinking about this last night and thought it's not the people or the constitution that are a foul but the elected officals and businessmen, which is partly the people's fault yes, but it's the stuff like this that makes one think is it the heart of the US i.e. the people that are bad or the leaders in the government and industry. I look around at my neighbors and other citizens and think the people might be lazy and watching the 'gladiators' but that only means they are too trusting. It's the assholes that are taking advantage of that trust that are ruining this country. I just hope some one steps up soon.

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halplm
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Posted: Thu 17 Jan , 2008 5:28 pm
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Ara-anna wrote:
One more reason to distrust the GOP.
The man is a traitor, but to say it has anything to do with the political party he would identify with is absurd.

There are plenty of valid reasons to distrust the GOP... no nead to fabricate new ones...

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Ara-anna
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Posted: Thu 17 Jan , 2008 9:02 pm
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Too true.

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Ara-anna
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Posted: Thu 17 Jan , 2008 9:03 pm
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DP

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The Watcher
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Posted: Thu 17 Jan , 2008 10:04 pm
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Ara -

I will add only one comment here, it is the need to feel superior and/or wield power. I think that that, especially when cloaked within "doing it as part of business" or "part of politics as usual" is the justification that far too many people use, as if their personal ethics can be turned off or on by whim. Well, I guess they are. But cynical old me, I never believe half of the crap that I am told by officials or "those that know" in the first place.

Just a few days back, I heard both Bush and Fred Thompson claiming that our economy was sound and could weather anything coming at it....

:LMAO: :LMAO:

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Ara-anna
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Posted: Thu 17 Jan , 2008 10:59 pm
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The Watcher wrote:
Ara -

I will add only one comment here, it is the need to feel superior and/or wield power. I think that that, especially when cloaked within "doing it as part of business" or "part of politics as usual" is the justification that far too many people use, as if their personal ethics can be turned off or on by whim. Well, I guess they are. But cynical old me, I never believe half of the crap that I am told by officials or "those that know" in the first place.

Just a few days back, I heard both Bush and Fred Thompson claiming that our economy was sound and could weather anything coming at it....

:LMAO: :LMAO:
Well they didn't think today was going to happen. :neutral:

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The OG Borry
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Posted: Fri 18 Jan , 2008 2:39 am
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today? If you're talking about DOW it has been dropping steadily for at least a week now.
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TheEllipticalDisillusion
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Posted: Fri 18 Jan , 2008 5:06 am
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Eh, the DOW always fluctuates. People make a big deal if goes down for a while, but then we hit record highs within a couple more weeks.

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The Watcher
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Posted: Fri 18 Jan , 2008 6:55 am
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TheEllipticalDisillusion wrote:
Eh, the DOW always fluctuates. People make a big deal if goes down for a while, but then we hit record highs within a couple more weeks.
TED -

I may be wrong, but at least I think this time it is different. It is not mere spookiness and jittery investors. The economic indicators are not good. There are serious bubbles bursting, and lots of real dollar losses that are resulting. Put it this way, w are not heading into good economic times. If you are so young to believe in the false promises that have been around since the dot.com bust a decade or so ago, well, then fine. I happen to know a bit about the subject. There has to be some sort of concrete underlying support for a true viable economy to exist upon, not speculation. Just as it was dot.coms back in the nineties, this latest "surge" was created by a false and greed inspired support in RE prices, and the whole thing has collapsed, and even more painful than it was when people got greedy a decade ago. It is not just stocks that are tumbling, it is loans and everything that goes along with it in terms of the underwriting, the viability, the resale market of those loans, etc. It is probably closer to the scandalous S&L bailouts that took place in the eighties, but much farther reaching and with the greed spread all around.

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Dave_LF
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Posted: Fri 18 Jan , 2008 1:18 pm
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If subprime were the only problem, it would be just another bump in the road. Subprime + negative savings rate + currency devaluation + peak oil + spending all our money on wars + an economy founded on shifting paper around rather than actual productive activities + a dumbed-down populace due to decades of educational failures + weak and/or criminal leadership in all walks of life + unfathomable amounts of foreign debt + who knows what else may be too much.

I started a thread on "American Theocracy" by Kevin Phillips in the books forum once upon a time (and never finished my review :oops: ). Since it becomes more and more relevant every day, let me reiterate: read this book! Read it read it read it! Don't be thrown by the unfortunate title; I think the publisher chose it just to drum up controversy, and Phillips distances himself from it in the first few pages. The book is about how trends in modern-day American mirror ones apparent in declining empires of the past; specifically, reliance on a key, depleting resource, growing religious zealotry, and an economic shift from production to finance. He draws on a wealth of historical data and makes a case that is difficult to argue with. If you can't get over the religion thing, just skip section two (it was the least interesting anyway, IMO). I really think it's that important.


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Axordil
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Posted: Fri 18 Jan , 2008 3:42 pm
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A quick perusal of Mackay's "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds" can't hurt either.

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The Watcher
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Posted: Sun 20 Jan , 2008 7:47 am
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Ax -

:neutral:

Well, we are only highly evolved social primates, after all. The rebels always get nay said. At least we do not kill the truth sayers any longer, we just conveniently ignore them. And will continue to do so, the reality is something that most of us refuse to deal with.

:( :help:

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Never under any circumstances take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.

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