The Price of Fear: The Truth behind the Financial War on Terror

by Ibrahim Warde

When the State Department claims to have struck a blow at the heart of the international terrorist finance network, even the most hardened of commentators takes the statement at face value. But as Ibrahim Warde argues in this myth-shattering book, the post-9/11 series of financial crackdowns initiated by the U.S. government has had virtually no impact on terrorism. This is because, as he demonstrates, these actions are based on a fundamental misconception of how terrorism works. Warde shows how operations such as the 9/11 attacks were actually financed, and he brilliantly juxtaposes the reality of shoestring budgets and envelopes of cash against the prevailing fantasy of a buzzing transnational network of seamless electronic transfers.

I.B.Tauris Books

Genres: History

261 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Ibrahim A. Warde is a scholar and consultant in the fields of international finance and global political economy. He is an adjunct professor of international business at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, where he previously served as the director of the Fares Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies. Warde is a Carnegie Scholar and the author of several books, which include The Price of Fear: The Truth Behind the Financial War on Terror and Islamic Finance in the Global Economy. He is also a writer for Le Monde Diplomatique. Warde currently serves the academic director of the Robinson Fund for business diplomacy between the United States and the Arab World.

Reviews

[Murtaza · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid overview of the misguided financial war against terrorism that has proceeded in tandem with the physical one. Although it has created less (apparent) body-bags, it has in fact become the front line of the "War Against Islam" (as it has been perceived), in that there is even less judiciousness in targeting individuals and organizations for censure, closure and imprisonment. By mistakenly applying the anti-money laundering framework to terrorist financing - searching for huge stashes of money when in reality terrorist acts are financed with small amounts and do not require "dirty money," the financial warriors have shut down some of the biggest charities and financial institutions in the Muslim world, and paradoxically helped fuel the political problems that are the real source of support for terrorism; not funding which is in fact byproduct of that support.

I first came across this book while researching another charity closure in the United States, but found many more egregious cases here. Indeed, there were so many spurious prosecutions in the years after 9/11 that one could spend years sifting through them. The author also documents well some of the outrageous and terrifying things that were done post-9/11 by the neoconservatives, a necessary remembrance of what type of criminal individuals enjoyed political power at that fateful time.

Solid book on the subject, will certainly keep this in mind the next time people start talking about "following they money" as a means of combatting terrorism. While many of the original assumptions of the terror war have been questioned, the fallacy of combatting this phenomenon through money controls continues to thrive unabated.