Can someome explain the BCCI matter?

I guess I am a little to young to remember this. I keep hearing that Kerry almost single handedly took down BCCI.....WHAT WAS THIS ALL ABOUT?

Bush did business with Bin Laden's bankers while Kerry was fighting to shut it down to terrorist and drug connections.

Long before September 11, 2001, George W. Bush got a 25 million dollar loan from the same bankers that dealt with bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, while John Kerry was fighting to stop this bank's global laundering of money for drug lords and terrorists. John Kerry shut it down. He's been fighting terrorism at its roots since before George Bush ran for office.

"The Bank of Credit and Commerce International was an institution of Middle East origins whose employees asked few questions of their wealthy and powerful customers, making it a favorite of arms merchants, drug dealers, such as Noriega, and intelligence agencies," according to the Boston Globe bio of Kerry. "At the CIA, which sometimes used the bank to launder its own activities, it was known as 'Bank of Crooks and Criminals.'"

In the late 80's, Bush got a loan for $25 million for his failing oil company, Harkin, from a Saudi banker who dealt through BCCI, thereby joining its other customers such as Noriega, Hussein and Osama bin Laden.

At the same time, Kerry was working to investigate it. He used his senate committee powers to shut down this fraudulent banking operation against great opposition from prominent people on both sides of the aisle, including some Democrats who had become involved.

(Kerry came across the bank's shadowy activities, btw, while investigating the Iran-contra scandal, and pursued it.)

Follow the Money is one of the best summaries.

His senate record has constantly been attacked by the GOP. In fact, he's done quite a bit as a senator. BCCI, Vietnam, POW-MIA, the list goes on.

He accomplished a hell of a lot more than Cheney ever did in congress.

I wrote the first two sentences of my post above:

"Bush did business with Bin Laden's bankers while Kerry was fighting to shut it down to terrorist and drug connections.

Long before September 11, 2001, George W. Bush got a 25 million dollar loan from the same bankers that dealt with bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, while John Kerry was fighting to stop this bank's global laundering of money for drug lords and terrorists. John Kerry shut it down. He's been fighting terrorism at its roots since before George Bush ran for office."

as a possible ad idea. Some of us keep hoping the campaign lurks here. ;-)

.

he was one of the strongest supporters during hsi time in the senate for legislation to help the environment and balancing the budget (which was not so popular with his own Dems).

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x741764

Investigating the octopus. Scary stuff.