Funding Evil: How Terrorism Is Financed--and How to Stop It

by Rachel Ehrenfeld

Conservative analyst and pundit Ehrenfeld contends that our image of terrorism is all wrong. Rather than shadowy cells of young, religious martyrs, the true face of terror, she says, is an international network of corrupt state leaders, superwealthy contributors, and drug and crime kingpins. Without money, especially laundered U.S. dollars, there would be no terror, and this lively, well-documented primer reveals the sources, the amounts and the armed terror organizations they support. Not surprisingly, the author of Narco-Terrorism is at her best on the ironies of the West's appetite for drugs, which terror groups exploit for funding, arms and recruiting those who would undermine a degenerate Western society. Some readers might be alienated or distracted by the author's exhaustive yet fascinating description of the activities and funding of the PLO, Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which takes up nearly half the book. Reigniting the drug war and supporting Israel are Ehrenfeld's clear national security priorities, as are other policy initiatives like regime removal and economic sanctions for states sponsoring terrorism. But the Bush administration and a succession of U.S. and Western leaders are taken to task for "a willful blindness" to the role of the international oil and drug trades in funding terror and for "lacking the political will" to confront Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan and other states for their "anti-Western agenda." Ehrenfeld's prescription for ending terrorism might depend on an unrealistic hope for immediate international cooperation, but this timely expos‚ should heat up public demand for real progress in the war on terrorism.

Recommendation thanks to Andrew Ian Dodge who says:

I can quite understand the claim on the front of this book that this is The Book the Saudis don’t want you to read. Its pretty explosive stuff detailing how terrorists get their money to carry out attacks. Needless to say the Saudis do not come off to well as they are a great source of funds for Islamic terrorists world-wide. The books also demonstrates that goverments world-wide have been slow to deal with the problem of terrorist financing whether it be through drug & arms smuggling or misdirection of funds through curruption and fake charities. Not one country on earth is immune to criticism on this matter.

It's true - the more I learn about terrorism, the more I realize that support of these homicidal weasels comes from many nations and sources. Some forms of support are intentional and some are not. Some are avoidable, and some are not.

Some Muslims may support, or tolerate terrorists in their midst because they hope to gain power from them, but many others do so because they're afraid of them.

It's the old 'let he who is without sin throw the first stone' problem. We've got to stop throwing stones, and we should stop the sin of allowing terrorists to live and thrive in our midst. If we want to win a war against worldwide terrorism, we should think globally, act locally.