transportation. Profiling that comes down to the idea that people have to look a certain way in order to be a terrorist is really increasingly ridiculous. Dave: Lets move on to the real topic of our discussion. Are the terrorist directly targeting Western economies and markets, or is it just a byproduct of the planned chaos? For instance, did they know the twin towers were a hub of the financial system or did they simply see them as a symbolic icon of the west? Dr.Ben-Dak: When you really look at their websites and explanations, as they call them analysts, you can see that they come up with three different directions. For the long run, they want to destroy the economy of the west and foundation of the west because it is antithetical to Islam and the way it should be. As the media has sex on it, and movies that project submissiveness???, so long as the economy of the world is independent as it has been and will be, economics becomes a major area of destruction particularly with regards to communications, transportation, and energy. This is the dominant area right now. The two other dimensions of projected actions are, the first one is advocated by the liberal left in America, is that if the west gets out of the Muslim territories, the problem will be resolved and any terror that will accomplish this goal is justified. I consider this very naïve. Unfortunately, there are quite a few people who believe this in the west since they only read the English version of the terroristâs websites. The original Arab versions actually say the opposite, and makes the plight that is supposed to fall on the west much bigger than they think. Nobody talks about this since it is concerned with the end of the world. The connection between Islam and the war in Iraq, for example, is definitely there. To cut a long story short, there is a very strong interest to destroy the symbolic places in the west where money and the American economy reside. They are trying to have us accept radical Islam and they believe by attacking these crucial areas will force the west to accept them and follow their lead. According to them, we are already in the beginning stages of their victory. Only God knows where this will end. Dave: Do they have a time frame to accomplish this agenda? Are the operating under time constraints to usher in this supposed new era? Dr. Ben-Dak: Basically the time frame these people are operating under is very different from ours. The bottom line is they have time working for them, they believe. They will do the testing slowly and methodically. They are not in any hurry and they want to observe very carefully how the west prepares and reacts to these tests. They apply their wisdom, so to speak, and technological knowledge to every situation. When you look at their military situation, what is amazing to me is how much agility is involved in the fight, for example in Iraq. You are talking about people from different groups coming together. An example, is that they learned the weak spots in the HumVees, and until recently was very effective in taking them out, by hitting the middle of the vehicle with a arrow head type projectile. The US has solved this problem by armoring the vehicles in that spot, but now the terrorists are going to move onto the next area of weakness. The new area looks to be using shoulder fired missles against planes.
Dave: Interesting. Letâs get back into the financial markets. What I find most interesting is the fact that the London bombings seemed to have very little if any effect on the markets. What do you attribute this to? Is it because we are now expecting the attacks so they have lost their effectiveness? Dr. Ben-Dak: Well, itâs really too early to say. On one hand, there is no question at all that two major effects exist today. One is just what you said, that the markets donât get too effected by the terror activities. What is the event that will put us in the next explosive ( in more than one way) situation? There will be a situation like this, they are looking at whatever will kill the westâs financial system. Dave: Please allow me to interrupt you here, I have a theory that it is the novelty rather than the severity of a terrorist event that causes large tremors in the markets. Is this what you are saying? Dr.Ben-Dak: On the negative side, novelty was not really there in London. You may be completely correct. Interestingly enough, when you talk about 9-11, its amazing to me that many people look at it as a new phenomena. Actually, its not new at all. Back in 1994, attacking airlines was conceived by terrorists in the??? pacific??? No one seems to remember this. Another situation occurred in Paris in 1995 when a plane was supposed to be filled with explosives and crashed. The attack was stopped and had no effect on the markets even though it was a novel idea at the time. It was not connected to terrorism as it would be now. What I find most interesting is not much has been done by the terrorist organizations to take advantage of that they have created. Particularly, when we talk about the stock exchange, money and fortune. Dave: Whoa, wait a minute! I remember hearing about large short positions in both stocks and options taken in the airline stocks just days before 9-11. Obviously, someone knew what was going to happen and profited wildly from the event. Dr. Ben-Dak: Yes, there were a few stories about several investment groups and suspicious activity occurring. This was supposed to be reported by the brokerage houses on their SAR (suspicious activity reports) but it was not. Nothing was actually reported before or after September 11th. Dave: These stories are simply unsubstantiated rumours? Is this what you are saying? Dr. Ben-Dak: I would say this, clearly we can definately say that these are all stories without any valid background. However, remember how we started this conversation, the reason you have suicide bombers is because some people are taking advantage of others for their selfish economic reasons. These very same people can decide and they may well have already decided to create a situation where their trading can be effected by the very same situation and they will control it. It will be to their advantage to know when it is going to happen and not have anyone else know. The fact that there is relative calm in the United States presently, to me suggests that this may be in the workings. Dave: I have not heard this theory. Very original, what do you base it on? Dr.Ben-Dak: It occurred to me after reading numerous interviews with the suicide bombers. It never really boiled down to money. The money their families make is peanuts compared to the amount of money that could be made when one completely controls the situation. Once again, this is not simple stuff for someone to benefit from an action like this, the planning needs to be very carefully orchestrated. edit Dave: This will enable economics to takeover the lead rule from religious dogma? Dr.Ben-Dak: Yes, exactly. One thing that is missed recently is that in the Middle Eastern area of Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon by infusion the area with major economic structure and some spiritual elements that can really get the people looking at what can be built, they will take up the challenge. It may be premature now, but it does not have to be forever. At this point, investments will be the cause of the day. Once government puts money into it, the private sector will have to follow. The private sector is most important for the success of the economy. Government never succeeds when the private sector is not involved. Dave: I just wrote a brief article on the Iraqi stock exhange. There seems to be great opportunity emerging as well as corresponding risk. Is this what you are talking about? Dr.Ben-Dak: The Iraqi stock exchange is run by people from all different Muslim and non Muslim groups in the region. This brings the differing groups together allowing for dialogue and creates a very real possibility of growth. Dave: OK, itâs a first step. What else can solve the issue in Iraq? edit
The actual cost of terrorism to the world economy has been trivial. The cost of Bush's exploitation of the fear of terrorism, OTOH, has cost the American taxpayer hundreds of billions of dollars.
================== Fortunately they really dont understand technical analysis; they have unknowingly helped the long term trends ,both up & down. And they have helped/mouthed the price of oil/gas stocks up; except that wasnt true last OCT... & supply & demand in the energy complex is much bigger than them. Technical & fundamental analysis can still be complex; meaning AMR is a great company but who would have figured that lasting uptrend. Airline businesss , even with the better like LUV has been tough to make a buck for decades before 9/11
I would suggest you take a look at some charts of world stock markets since 9-11, see what happened to them, and then see what they have done during the Iraq conflict. If you are open to what you see, I think you will find that terrorism played a much more substantial impact than the war in iraq. A very detrimental impact. If you are not open to what you might find, and I suspect you are not, you will just find another inane excuse to hurl accusations at Bush, not that I mind, as your party's Wellstone moments have been one of our party's greatest assets. I also think you will find changes in gdp pretty closely tracks stock market changes over that time period, so don't bother trying that one.
"The war on terror" has been the most effective excuse they've managed to dream up in order to justify deficit spending.
One thing to bear in mind is that terrorism did not start with 9/11 but has been around for decades if not longer outside the US. Therefore the costs involved are already built into the economic fabric for those countries. For those countries that do not have active terrorist problems, the cost is probably very small and confined to issues like more stringent border controls or cooperative policing with those nations that are troubled by terrorism. I would guess that for developed countries the direct economic cost is large in absolute terms but small relative to the total budget of these countries, because the response has generally been proportionate. If, say, the UK had responded to IRA terrorism by invading the Republic of Ireland in its own war on terrorism then the costs would have been much higher in both dollars and human lives. (The UK knows from first-hand experience in NI that occupation and force of arms doesn't bring peace, which perhaps is why many Brits were so against Iraq, not that Blair listened). However, the social cost of terrorism is huge for those areas worst affected. Society splinters along factional lines, business and investment are impeded due to lack of confidence in the future and so on, so there's a further indirect economic effect. We have seen this in Northern Ireland, now we see it in Iraq. Consider also Nepal, Mindanao, Sri Lanka, Kashmir, Rwanda - the list just goes on. One key question is whether, even conceptually, it is at all possible to quantify the impact of all this. I suspect it isn't. Suss