DivestTerror.org launched

The Center for Security Policy released today a ground-breaking report entitled Terrorism Investments of the 50 States, which found that America’s 100 largest and most prominent public pension systems hold in their portfolios some $200 billion worth of stock in public companies that do business in terrorist-sponsoring states. The report makes clear that this investment translates conservatively into $73 billion worth of business with – and financial life-support for – the regimes in question, and vital resources for the terrorists they aid and abet. Fortunately, it also represents leverage for Americans and the public pension plans that represent millions of them, leverage that can be used to open a new, and potentially decisive financial front in the war on terror.

"We cannot hope to prevail in this war unless and until we cut off the billions of dollars flowing to terrorist-sponsoring regimes from America’s state pension funds via investments in companies doing business with such regimes," said Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., president of the Center for Security Policy. "This report should serve as a wake-up call to state officials who have the power to ensure that public pension funds invest so as to support – rather than undermine – our efforts to defeat the terrorists."

Gaffney added, "We are hopeful that this report and the accompanying DivestTerror.org campaign will catalyze close scrutiny of public pension funds at every level of government and, in turn, the portfolios of college endowments and other institutional and private stockholders. Where such investments are in companies that help terrorist-sponsoring nations, they should be divested."

Highlights of the Center’s report include the following:

• " On average, America’s leading pension systems invest between 15 and 23 percent of their portfolio in companies that do business in terrorist-sponsoring states.
• On average, the 100 pension systems analyzed invest in 101 companies that have business activities in terrorist sponsoring states. Some 39 were found to be invested in more than 100 companies with corporate ties to terrorist-sponsoring states.
• The $73 billion in projects being undertaken in terror-friendly states by companies that America’s pension systems hold in portfolio is almost certainly but a fraction of the actual total business being done there. Due to the fact that financial data is available for relatively few of the companies operating in terrorist-sponsoring states, the role being played by public companies in the viability of governments that sponsor terrorism is probably, if anything, even greater than indicated by this number.
• On average, the Nation’s leading public pension funds were invested in: 73 companies doing business in Iran; 24 companies doing business in Libya; 26 companies doing business in Sudan; 31 companies doing business in Syria; and 9 companies doing business in North Korea.

"As Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) has put it, the idea that any public pension plan would, in effect, be rendering assistance to nations that harbor, arm, train and otherwise support our enemies in the war on terror is ‘unconscionable.’ It is a particular affront, however, to all the police officers and firefighters – who are being asked to put their lives on the line each day for our security and well-being – that their pension funds are willing to hold the stock of companies, which, in turn, provide critical revenues, advanced technology and moral cover to countries that threaten both," Gaffney observed.

Along with the report’s release, the Center announced the launch of its DivestTerror.org website and an accompanying national grassroots campaign. The campaign will empower millions of American investors to play a role in the financial war on terror. Specifically, DivestTerror.org will educate elected officials, public employee beneficiaries, college students and professors and individual investors as to how they can enlist in and help wage that war.

"People across this country want to know what they can do to enhance the security of their families and communities in this time of war and mortal danger," Gaffney concluded. Terrorism Investments of the 50 States and DivestTerror.org provide how-to manuals for each of us to make a real contribution to defeating those who enable and engage in terror. I urge every American to go to DivestTerror.org to learn how to ensure that the leverage of their investments is employed to weaken and, wherever possible, to destroy governments and organizations that sponsor terrorism."

A full copy of the Center’s new report is available at www.DivestTerror.org