McCain takes $2 million from firm convicted of funding terrorists

William Ayers, that's the guy.

$200, or two million. Doesn't matter. Or is there a monetary amount attached to this?

It's OK for Obama, since it was only $200. McCain is a criminal since it was two million.

Terrorism is terriorism. If you think that there's a difference, you're dumber than a second coat of paint.

[edit on 2-7-2008 by jerico65]

actually

a second coat of paint tends to brighten things up quite a bit, so thanks for the compliment


McCain recieved money from a terrorist organization. $2,000,000 dollars in fact. An organization that woudl benefit greatly from having an inside as the president


What the hell would a guy who donated 200 dollars to a senator campaign benefit from it?
Honestly.

Do you not think Obama seen his 200 dollars and laughed?

This guy should have saved his 200 bucks and bought himself a new haircut.

reply to post by Andrew E. Wiggin



So $200 is OK? How about $500? Is that OK? $700? What about $10,000? Is that your limit to associate with terrorism? What about $100,000? Or is that too much???

If you're going to whine about McCain and his supports, you whine about Obama's. As I said, terrorism is terrorism.

reply to post by tomfrusso


But everything bad about Obama is Gods word, right?

Ha, you, along with all the other anti-Obama people, are a joke who believe anything as long as it's pro McCain and/or anti Obama.

Originally posted by evanmontegarde
This is a legitimate concern. While people are afraid of Barack Obama... the McCain campaign is literally accepting money from those who fund terrorism. Imagine if Obama had accepted money from the President of Iran!

I think most people would see a vast difference between what Chiquita/Banadex did and recieving money from Ahmedinejad. In mind of those behind Chiquita/Banadex, they were not funding terrorist for the purpose of terrorism*, but paying off groups in what amounts to a protection racket. Even the prosecutors acknowledge this:

Prosecutors said the company made the payments in exchange for protection for its workers.

SOURCE

And though Chiquita/Banadex was convicted of giving money to AUC, they gave money to other groups, depending on who controlled the area at the time.

Chiquita made payments to the National Liberation Army, or ELN, and the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, as control of the company’s banana-growing area shifted.

Nor is this anything beyond-the-pale for companies operating in Colombia:

Leftist rebels and far-right paramilitaries have fought viciously over Colombia’s banana-growing region, though the victims are most often noncombatants. Most companies in the area have extensive security operations to protect employees...Colombia has one of the highest kidnapping rates in the world. Arrangements between companies and either guerrillas or paramilitaries are not uncommon, but it is impossible to know how much money is paid each year.

While what Chiquita/Banadex did was illegal, most people can and do see a vast difference between making payments to protect their workers, and someone such as Ahmedinejad funding a group for the sole purpose of hurting innocents. I think most reasonable people, right or left, would acknowledge that difference.

(*But let's be honest here, while Chiquita made the payments to protect their workers, AUC or any other group were not using the money for any noble purpose.)




[edit on 3-7-2008 by SaviorComplex]

From the article in the OP:

Black, as the Huffington Post reported on Tuesday, has represented other controversial clients with operations in Colombia. From 2001 through 2007, his work brought his firm more than $1.6 million in lobbying fees from Occidental Petroleum, a company whose security arm was accused of bombing a Colombian village and killing 17 civilians in 1998.

Let's not forget the other high-profile politician making a "killing" off the misery brought by Occidental...Al Gore.*

Meanwhile, an international campaign opposing Occidental's plan is also picking up steam. On April 28 about 100 demonstrators turned up at Occidental's annual meeting in Santa Monica and called on the company to halt the project. Activists...criticized Vice President Al Gore, whose family owns at least a quarter of a million dollars' worth of Occidental stock.

But government backing for Occidental's Colombia proposal runs far deeper than the Gore family's stock portfolio. The Nation has learned, from a government source and the internal memos of an Occidental lobbyist, that the Clinton Administration has been quietly helping the company--a generous donor to the Democrats in recent years--to win support in Colombia for its drilling plans. While Gore has strong ties to Occidental, the Administration's point man on the issue is Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, who last year traveled to Cartagena and met with government officials on the company's behalf. Richardson has also hired a former Occidental lobbyist to work in a key international-policy position at the Energy Department.
SOURCE

Gore is in a unique position to act. He inherited $500,000 worth of Occidental stock from his father, a former US senator who served on Occidental's Board of Directors. As a major stockholder, Gore's voice could make a difference. Unfortunately, Occidental has been careful to make sure that its voice is heard--in the form of large campaign contributions.

Simon Billenness, senior analyst at the socially responsible Trillium Asset Management Fund, told the Boston Globe that Gore and Fidelity CEO Edward C. Johnson III could play a critical role. "Both of them could easily pick up a phone and talk to the CEO of Occidental, which could send a very strong message that this project ... is going to be counterproductive. SOURCE

...But none of that has given pause to Occidental or the politician who helped engineer the sale of the drilling rights to the federally-owned Elk Hills. That politician is Al Gore.

Gore recommended that the Elk Hills be sold as part of his 1995 "Reinventing Government" National Performance Review program... Within weeks of the announced purchase Occidental stock rose ten percent.

That was good news for Gore...before the Elk Hills sale, Al Gore controlled between $250,000-$500,000 of Occidental stock..after the sale, Gore began disclosing between $500,000 and $1 million of his significantly more valuable stock.
SOURCE

Gore has held these apocalyptic views about the environment for some time. So why, then, didn't Gore dump his family's large stock holdings in Occidental (Oxy) Petroleum? As executor of his family's trust, over the years Gore has controlled hundreds of thousands of dollars in Oxy stock. Oxy has been mired in controversy over oil drilling in ecologically sensitive areas. SOURCE

The corporate media has heaped praise on Al Gore following the international rock gig Live Earth. But to ask the U’wa people, from the tropical cloud forests of north-eastern Colombia, what they thought about Gore and Occidental Petroleum (Oxy), the oil company from which his personal fortune is derived, would be to receive a very different opinion. SOURCE

Environmentalists and human rights activists are accusing Vice President Al Gore of hypocrisy over his shareholding in Occidental Oil, a company that plans to drill in Colombia’s rainforests over the objections of local indigenous communities. SOURCE

Meanwhile, as detailed in today's Washington Times, Vice President Al Gore's family profits are up due to positive returns on his stock investments in Oxy valued at between $500,000 to $1 million. Despite repeated requests from environmental and human rights organizations, Gore has refused to divest his family from Occidental or to support the rights of the U'wa before his family's profits. "Mr. Gore cannot pretend to be any better than Bush when his hands have the blood of the U'wa on them, " said Shannon Wright, of the Rainforest Action Network. SOURCE

(*Most of the articles cited are a few years old. It is possible that Gore has divested from Occidental since then. However, he owned stock and used his status to help Occidental at the time of the Cano Lamon Massacre)

Originally posted by SaviorComplex
Chiquita stuff

You raise a very good point - Not all "terrorists" are the same.

However, Chiquita is still probably one of the most evil companies to exist. They keep their workers in virtual slavery and have partially funded a Colombian Civil War for 40 years so they can make a profit.

A court case from last year brought it all to light:

Doe vs. Chiquita

As for Al Gore, I'm sure he's donated a lot of money to Obama and has a rather dirty record, but at least he didn't directly fund the murder of hundreds (possibly thousands) of innocent civilians.

reply to post by evanmontegarde


My point is this:

200 dollars. Whoopty frecking doo.

What is the guy going to get out of it?

TWO MILLION DOLLARS?!

Oh come on. You're blind not to see the difference behind the numbers.

A man donates 200 dollars to a cause he believes in

A company (known to sponsor terrorism) is now sponsoring a conservative candidate for the presidency.

If that doesnt raise your eyebrows, nothing will.

The world isnt "black and white"

like oh so many anti-obama want it to be

Originally posted by Andrew E. Wiggin
My point is this:

200 dollars. Whoopty frecking doo.

What is the guy going to get out of it?

TWO MILLION DOLLARS?!

Oh come on. You're blind not to see the difference behind the numbers.

A man donates 200 dollars to a cause he believes in

A company (known to sponsor terrorism) is now sponsoring a conservative candidate for the presidency.

First, they did not "sponsor" terrorism; there is a difference between sponsoring terrorism and paying into a protection scheme.

Second, Chiquita did not give McCain two million dollars. Re-read the article in the OP. Carl H. Linder, Jr, who was CEO of Chiquita (1984 - 2001) co-hosted a $25,000 per-person fundraiser for McCain that raised $2 million.

Third, if taking money from someone who sponsored or engaged in terrorism is wrong, then it wrong no matter how much money they gave, even if it's just a penny, $200 or $2 million.

Originally posted by evanmontegarde
As for Al Gore, I'm sure he's donated a lot of money to Obama and has a rather dirty record, but at least he didn't directly fund the murder of hundreds (possibly thousands) of innocent civilians.

Let's not split hairs here. There is no moral difference between funding a terrorist act or profiting from it, as Gore has.

It is well-documented that oil companies, including Occidental, Exxon and BP, have used paramilitary groups to force indigenous Colombians off their land to be “re-settled” in the Amazon, where disease, starvation and violence exact a fearful toll. SOURCE

Originally posted by Andrew E. Wiggin
A.)he does not have to accept the money


B.) how do you account for the fact that the head of this terroist funding organization is on McCains staff?

Does McCain know what he did? I doubt McCain knew, because it is political suicide for a politician to have ties like that. Hillary had people with bad ties like that, she promptly fired them all when she learned what they did even though she was close friends with them and probably didn't want to fire them.

Now that everyone knows what McCain's staffer did, I'm sure McCain knows now too and he will probably fire him.

Originally posted by OrangeAlarmClock
Does McCain know what he did? I doubt McCain knew, because it is political suicide for a politician to have ties like that.

There is no way for McCain to not know. The case was big news.

But like I said, most people draw a distinction between sponsoring terrorism and paying into a protection scheme, even if the outcome is the same.

[edit on 3-7-2008 by SaviorComplex]

Personally I don't think our votes matter one way or the other. We can vote for Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse or no one at all, the the Republicans and Democrats will still find a way to put who they want in office. Tah Dah, so vote or not vote, it matters not one ioda.

.... after 29 minutes …

Originally posted by jimmyx
where are all the obama haters for this one...

And five minutes later …

Originally posted by jimmyx
i wonder where all those self-rightous right-wingers are.

I can tell ya' where most everyone is - right wing AND left wing ... They are at the beach, they are having picnics, they are with families, they are playing crochet in the neighbors yards…. Etc etc

It’s a MAJOR holiday and most folks are out celebrating it and are not playing on internet chat forums. If you all wanted to get ‘action’ on a chat forum, then posting it on a Friday during a major holiday three day weekend was not the time to do it. Next time, you might want to hold the story until Monday.

Originally posted by Andrew E. Wiggin
The sound of silence is music to my ears

It's the sound of people out enjoying a beautiful summer national HOLIDAY and 3 day weekend.

Originally posted by evanmontegarde
While people are afraid of Barack Obama for having a funny name and being a little bit darker than the rest of the candidates,...

No. People are afraid of Obama because he’s going to disarm America (he said so), because he is totally inexperienced, and because his economic policies would be disastrous for our country.

OY!!!

To the OP … Good information to discuss. The problems with Chiquita are becoming more known to Americans. But more needs to be done to alert Americans to what is going on with them. I DO NOT KNOW if Americans were aware of the connections back 8 years ago when some of this fundraising took place (if I read the article correctly .. and I may have missed something).

As far as McCain and terrorist money/associations …. ANY politician being involved with these sorts of things doesn’t surprise me anymore. McCain … Obama … Hillary…. All with their shady connections. They are all the same. They are all bamboozling Americans – politics as usual.

reply to post by FlyersFan


So...people were celebrating the FOURTH of July on the SECOND?

Not to mention that at the time of creation of this thread, there were "anti-obama" posters running rampantly about posting in other threads and avoiding this one


i guess you had to be there

though - by your standards - you know everything, and didnt have to be anywhere around at the time of creation of this thread to have an opinion

So yeah - lets omit the facts, and go with what you want everyone else to see.....typical GOP non-sense.

....okay, have fun wearing that "i love ignorance" button on your sleeve :shk:

[edit on 7/4/2008 by Andrew E. Wiggin]

Originally posted by Andrew E. Wiggin
So...people were celebrating the FOURTH of July on the SECOND?

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! OMG! I totally missed that!
I thought it was posted this morning !

lets omit the facts, and go with what you want everyone else to see.....typical GOP non-sense.

Guess YOU missed the part where I complimented the OP and said that more needs to be done to expose chiquita, etc etc.

Guess YOU missed the part where I wasn't in lock step with the GOP and I didn't issue excuse after excuse (like the Obamamites do for their messiah).

BTW .. omitting the facts and just going with what you want everyone else to see .. that's typical Obamessiah disciple non-sense behavior. (And I'm NOT a GOP-er)

Originally posted by Andrew E. Wiggin
....okay, have fun wearing that "i love ignorance" button on your sleeve :shk:

... okay, YOU have fun wearing that 'I love ignorance' button as well.

I missed the date ... I didn't look close enough and thought it was posted this morning... what the hell is YOUR excuse?

:shk: right back atchya!

Go out and blow off some fire crackers or something ...

Originally posted by evanmontegarde
Despite how biased Huffington Post generally is, this is 100% facts and I cannot find anything untrue about it.

The co-host of a recent top-dollar fundraiser for Sen. John McCain oversaw the payment of roughly $1.7 million to a Colombian paramilitary group that is today designated a terrorist organization by the United States.

Carl H. Lindner Jr., the billionaire Cincinnati businessman, was CEO of Chiquita Brands International from 1984 to 2001, and remained on the company's board of directors until May 2002. Beginning under his tenure, Chiquita executives paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (known by the Spanish acronym AUC), which is described by
as an "illegal right-wing anti-guerrilla group tied to many of the country's most notorious civilian massacres."

McCain's $2 million fundraiser

This is a legitimate concern. While people are afraid of Barack Obama for having a funny name and being a little bit darker than the rest of the candidates, the McCain campaign is literally accepting money from those who fund terrorism. Imagine if Obama had accepted money from the President of Iran!

[edit on 2-7-2008 by evanmontegarde]

[edit on 2-7-2008 by evanmontegarde]

Some clarifications if you please:

1- What fir was convicted of funding a terrorist organization? If possible, in which court, what was the verdict and is there any appeal pending?

2- Of what crimes has Mr. Carl H. Lindner Jr. benn convicted for and, if possible, what was the sentence and where id he serving it?

3- Isn't the George Washington University's National Security Archive just an Academic Think Tank? And, since when did think tanks become courts of law that can convict people (the date this started happening would be very important to me).

Thank you for your time, I await answers in case you think it relevant to give them.

While it seems a rather compelling story, before we all resort to emotional responses and childish name-calling, let's reflect. First of all, we might want to look at how Mrs. Huffington checked her sources. Not being able to disprove something does not imbue it with truth, or 90% of the cockamamy stories posted here would have to be accepted as true. (Which they are not) The onus of a journalist is to verify their sources. The responsibility of the public is to analyze what journalists tell them. I don't see a lot of that going on here. If it's proven that some terrorist organization contributed to his campaign, McCain would be left in a position that was untenable--he would condemn the organization and return the money; he'd have to. As far as Mrs. Huffington goes, though, she has had to apologize in the past for inaccurate statements about Rudy Guliani and actor George Clooney...so I'd suggest going to an alternate source and checking her story for veracity. But I commend your bringing the story to our attention here at ATS.