{"id":2981,"date":"2004-11-09T11:28:19","date_gmt":"2004-11-09T16:28:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/2981.html"},"modified":"2004-11-09T11:28:19","modified_gmt":"2004-11-09T16:28:19","slug":"another-discouraging-sign-from-the-tough-on-terror-gang","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/another-discouraging-sign-from-the-tough-on-terror-gang\/","title":{"rendered":"Another discouraging sign from the ‘tough on terror’ gang"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve always thought it was a mistake for the Bush administration to emphasize state-sponsorship of terrorism over recognition of a broader insurgency throughout the Middle East. Going after networks like Al Queda is not, as Spencer Ackerman recently explained<\/a>, “state-centric.”<\/p>\n

But as it turns out, Bush can’t even get his mistake right<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Despite the Bush administration’s pledge to battle terrorist financing, the government’s average penalty against companies doing business with countries listed as terrorist-sponsoring states fell sharply after the Sept. 11 attacks, an Associated Press analysis of federal records shows. <\/p>\n

The average penalty for a company doing business with Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Sudan or Libya dropped nearly threefold, from more than $50,000 in the five years before the 2001 attacks to about $18,700 afterward, according to a computer-assisted analysis of federal records.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yep, penalties were worse before<\/i> 9\/11 than after.<\/p>\n

In some ways, this makes sense considering the administration’s leadership. Dick Cheney, for example, opposed economic penalties<\/a> against countries like Iran before he became VP because he wanted to help Halliburton make more money.<\/p>\n

Making matter worse:<\/p>\n

Nineteen executives or directors of companies fined by [the Office of Foreign Assets Control] for dealing with state sponsors of terrorism were top campaign fund-raisers for Bush.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Who could have seen that one coming? Oh right, everyone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve always thought it was a mistake for the Bush administration to emphasize state-sponsorship of terrorism over recognition of a broader insurgency throughout the Middle East. Going after networks like Al Queda is not, as Spencer Ackerman recently explained, “state-centric.” But as it turns out, Bush can’t even get his mistake right. Despite the Bush […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2981"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2981\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}