Kleptocracy, Cronyism, and War Profiteering – Part Two

Part one can be found here

Going back to Pat O’Brien’s remarks, the first sentence should raise eyebrows. “One of the key missions of the U.S. Treasury Department is to safeguard the U.S. and international financial systems against financial crime.” Safeguard?! Somehow I don’t believe this rational line of thought because the government has rarely exercised rationality.

• The Bank Secrecy Act requires them to report suspected activity to the Treasury Department. Who determines what is “suspect activity”, and in this day and age of identity theft and fraud, how many people need to know how broke I am? Just imagine the potential problems this kind of open ended policy could create!
• The New York Times revealed a bank snooping plan that stirred up so much hate from Capitol Hill, there’s chat about bringing the journalists up on treason charges for illustrating how “big” Big Brother is becoming. Of course the professional politicians conveniently forget the American public doesn’t enjoy finding out their private information is being compromised at the proven inept hands of the government.
• The Terrorist Finance Tracking Program seems to be another strange tentacle emitting from the Bank Secrecy Act; it should make the average American pose the disturbing question: how many bank snooping programs does the federal government exactly need?
• If your hair doesn’t hurt with all the domestic spying, the CIA has got their sticky fingers on a cool 4.6 million British banking transactions handed over by Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, or Swift . Turns out they may be in trouble due to violating the Data Protection Act .

I’m not going to try and argue criminals do not use the banking system – of course they do and will continue to until mattresses pay interest. What I am going to argue is there are far fewer criminals using the U.S. banking system as opposed to Joe Q. Public, who puts in an honest day’s work. How do I justify this stance? Simple. No serious criminal wants to use the U.S. banking system when they can use an unnumbered Swiss account for large interest rates plus privacy, or they can use a Cayman Islands bank to launder terrorist funds . It’s not likely Osama Bin Laden’s going to maintain an account at Chase or Bank of America where the funds are subject to the aforementioned spying protocols – he’s not stupid to leave a bread crumb trail to his door. He likes his privacy as much as I do. The only difference is his accounts have zeros to the right, and my account has more zeros to the left than a loser’s convention.

So who realistically gets caught up in the Big Brother banking spy net? Joe Q. Public. If the majority of terrorist funding transactions are being executed outside of the country, why is the U.S. Government watching us? I’m tired of hearing the bogus tripe line of, “terrorists can look like you or me”, as if I’m going to buy into the scare tactic this late in the game. Please don’t insult my stupidity any further.

Of course terrorists inside this country need cash, but considering you can take up to $10,000 in cash in and out of America without raising any red flags, doesn’t it stand to reason a quick flight to the Caymans or some incoming friends could carry that amount like a “drug mule” and then hand it off to their cell connections? “Ten large” can be spread around without any paper trail and Uncle Treasury Department would never be the wiser.

I’m still slack jawed over Mr. O’Brien’s first sentence: “One of the key missions of the U.S. Treasury Department is to safeguard the U.S. and international financial systems against financial crime.” Excuse me? Has the Treasury Department ever heard of Halliburton? “The Bush administration has not moved to recover large sums in Iraq that have disappeared through fraud and price gouging, the Wall Street Journal reports today.” (01-17-06) What about this dandy of a “gang rape” to the tune of $8.8 billion missing in Iraq – who’s protecting the tax payer? At the very least Uncle Treasury Department should throw us a condom in the process!

"Iraq was awash in cash – in dollar bills. Piles and piles of money," says Frank Willis, a former senior official with the governing Coalition Provisional Authority. "We played football with some of the bricks of $100 bills before delivery. It was a wild-west crazy atmosphere, the likes of which none of us had ever experienced."

It sounds like these guys have too much time on their hands and need a porno theatre run by Paul “Pee Wee Herman” Reubens . Unfortunately, I bet most of the ticket holders are all FBI agents conducting “research” . Talk about exporting “western democracy” while giving John Ashcroft a heart attack – I’d pay real money to see him look at this image ! After all, wasn’t it worth it to spend $8,000 to cover up a nudie statue while people are dying in Iraq ? I can’t say it any better than Claire Braz-Valentine did: “You might not be able to find Bin Laden, but you sure as hell found the hooter in the Hall of Justice.” Seems to be poetic justice if you think about it – the boob over the boob . There are a million stories in a naked city, and you can bet the NSA is listening to them all .

What exactly is the Treasury Department doing to protect me from all the domestic threats to my lint filled wallet? I miss the days when dead presidents smiled back at me from my billfold. Osama baby hasn’t picked my pocket once, but all of President Bush’s cronies and war profiteering buddies have. The rule used to be, “buy me dinner and drinks first!” but sadly, even that has gone to the wayside when they come calling for their pound of flesh .