Bushbuckers and Lapdogs

Howard Kurtz lays out the feeding frenzy the right wing lapdogs are in over publication by the New York Times about the Federales tracking international financial transactiions through a clearing house in Belgium. Other papers, including the Wall Street Journal, reported the same thing, but, as the Dog, observed yesterday, after months of searching for a way to divert attention from their pefidy and incompetence, the Bushbuckers fell baying upon the Times. The Bushbuckers would have us believe that the report tipped off the terriors that they were being watched. Right.

If the lapdogs and Bushbuckers read anything, they would know that the terriors have turned to traditional 'informal money transfer systems,' as they are sometimes called, like the Indian hawala, precisely to avoid scrutiny. This February 2005 Congressional Research Service report on terrorist financing, one of several done since September 11, 2001, lays it out, chapter and verse. Martin A. Weiss, the report's author, calls them 'informal value transfer system,' and gives different names for different countries. He also talks about cooperative efforts the U.S. is engaged with to monitor financial transactions including those passing thorugh the infomal ones.
The Bushbuckers know where the action is in terrior financing, and it ain't the formal system.

But why not exaggerate and bash the Times, unless the rabid lapdogs on it. That's much easier and more fun than facing reality.