Financial terrorism suspected in 2008 economic crash
Pentagon study sees element The
Washington Times | February 28, 2011
vidence outlined in a Pentagon contractor report suggests that financial
subversion carried out by unknown parties, such as terrorists or hostile
nations, contributed
The unclassified 2009 report “Economic Warfare: Risks and Responses”
by financial analyst Kevin D. Freeman, a copy of which was obtained by
The Washington
While economic analysts and a final report from the federal government's
Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission blame the crash on such economic factors
as high-risk
“There is sufficient justification to question whether outside forces
triggered, capitalized upon or magnified the economic difficulties of 2008,”
the report says,
Suspects include financial enemies in Middle Eastern states, Islamic
terrorists, hostile members of the Chinese military, or government and
organized crime groups in
Michael G. Vickers, assistant secretary of defense for special operations, said the Pentagon was not the appropriate agency to assess economic warfare and financial terrorism risks. In an interview with The Times, Mr. Freeman said his report provided enough theoretical evidence for an economic warfare attack that further forensic study was warranted. “The new battle space is the economy,” he said. “We spend hundreds of
billions of dollars on weapons systems each year. But a relatively small
amount of money
“This is the equivalent of box cutters on an airplane,” Mr. Freeman said. Paul Bracken, a Yale University professor who has studied economic warfare,
said he saw “no convincing evidence that ‘outside forces’ colluded to bring
about the
“There were outside players in the market” for unregulated credit default
swaps, Mr. Bracken said in an e-mail. “Foreign banks and hedge funds play
the shorts all
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