Wm. Rivers Pitt on Kerry's Record

[LibeMatt]

On www.truthout.org

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/093004A.shtml#

Salient paragraphs:

<snip>

John Kerry....served as a prosecutor in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, beginning in 1976. From 1977 to 1982 he served as First Assistant District Attorney, during which time he successfully battled organized crime, prosecuted and jailed the number two crime boss in New England, fought for victims' rights, and organized rape counseling programs.

<snip>

The best illustration of the man Senator John Kerry became, the man we now see standing for President, came when he decided to wage war against one of the most far-reaching and dangerous criminal enterprises ever seen in the world. In 1988, the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, or BCCI, was a highly respected international financial institution which catered to the most powerful of the powerful. BCCI had allies all through Washington D.C. and across the world.

The public reality of BCCI changed completely when John Kerry, fresh from his lead role investigating the Iran/Contra scandal, was tasked to run down Iran/Contra drug connections as chairman of the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics, and International Operations. Very soon, Kerry discovered damning BCCI connections not only to Noriega and the laundering of drug money, but to a massive international network of dirty cash moving to and from the most dangerous people in the world.

Immediately, Kerry met with opposition from power-players in Washington. Everyone - literally everyone, from both parties, including President George H.W. Bush, whose son George W. had enjoyed BCCI financing for one of his doomed oil businesses - pressured Kerry to back off. Instead, Kerry took the information he had gathered and gave it to New York District Attorney Robert Morgenthau. Morgenthau agreed to begin a criminal investigation into BCCI. By 1991, the investigation had blown up what Morgenthau described at the time as "one of the biggest criminal enterprises in world history."

<snip>

"By July 1991," continued Sirota and Baskin in their article, "Kerry's work paid off. That month, British and U.S. regulators finally responded to the evidence provided by Kerry, Morgenthau, and a concurrent investigation by the Federal Reserve. BCCI was shut down in seven countries, restricted in dozens more, and served indictments for grand larceny, bribery, and money laundering. A decade after Kerry helped shut the bank down, the CIA discovered Osama bin Laden was among those with accounts at the bank. A French intelligence report obtained by The Washington Post in 2002 identified dozens of companies and individuals who were involved with BCCI and were found to be dealing with bin Laden after the bank collapsed, and that the financial network operated by bin Laden today 'is similar to the network put in place in the 1980s by BCCI.' As one senior U.S. investigator said in 2002, 'BCCI was the mother and father of terrorist financing operations.'"

Here is a man who came from a level of privilege most Americans have never known. He could have become what so many children from the upper echelons of money and power become - callow, shallow, lazy, biding his time until he got everything he thought his position granted him, leaning on powerful family friends to make up for the shortcomings that arise from an idle life and the sense that the world owes him whatever he desires, believing that making money and enjoying position are the alpha and omega of life.

John Kerry went in the opposite direction. He was raised to believe that privilege has its duties, that public service is the alpha and omega of life, and has worked every day to fulfill the obligations his parents and his education and his own deeply-held beliefs instilled in him. In his fight against BCCI, he revealed himself to be a man of great purpose, of mission, who refused to bow before the altars of status quo and go-along-to-get-along that are all too worshipped in Washington.

<snip>

END OF ARTICLE EXTRACTS

In addition to chipping away at Bush's (inexplicable) advantage on security, it would be nice to see the Kerry campaign start really pushing the positive achievements of Kerry in ads and so forth.--M

np: Anthony Wilson "Goat Hill Junket"

[David Dunham]

1. Nice article.

[Poiuyt]

2. I've wondered why Kerry hasn't talked more about exposing BCCI

[gcomeau]

3. Hopefully...

..he'll spring it as an answer to one of the questions in the debates.

-Grant

[Maat]

4. Thanks for the link!