Premise: The economies of terrorist-sponsoring states are almost entirely dependent on the revenues, expertise and advanced equipment and technology provided by global publicly traded companies in which millions of Americans own stock. Accordingly, a basic premise of DivestTerror.org is that some, if not all, of these governments would likely choose to end their support for terrorism before suffering an economic collapse catalyzed by the withdrawal of these public companies. Such was the experience in an earlier application of financial leverage — the South African divestment campaign. Pressed by the withdrawal of public companies whose share value and reputations were under withering attack by anti-apartheid activists, the government in Cape Town ultimately abandoned its racist policies and surrendered power. Objective: To dissuade public companies from continuing to provide vital life-support (i.e., revenues, equipment, technology, etc.) to terrorist-sponsoring states, thereby forcing those governments to choose between their ongoing sponsorship of terrorism and an economic meltdown. It is a little-known fact that some 400 large multinational and American corporations have demonstrated their determination to place profits ahead of ethical and terrorism-related concerns. That calculation must be changed.
Slate opines:
While shareholder activists will surely welcome this new recruit to their cause, there are glaring omissions in Gaffney’s report. Of the 400 companies, it names only a dozen—including Alcatel, Hyundai, Siemens, and Total SA. Every one of the dozen is a foreign company, and each is in unquestioned compliance with its home government’s laws and regulations. Gaffney’s report tiptoes around the sleaziness practiced by American companies—including some with strong GOP ties such as Halliburton. While Gaffney’s report mentions that several U.S.-based companies conduct business with rogue states—especially Iran—it never names names of those companies or enumerates the holdings of pension funds in them. It only singles out foreign firms. Despite U.S. sanctions against terror states, a loophole in the law permits American companies to conduct operations in countries like Iran through foreign-based subsidiaries. Some public pension funds have already been making a stink about U.S. firms—and naming their names. Last spring, I wrote about how the pension fund representing New York City policemen and firefighters was pushing shareholder resolutions to get Halliburton, General Electric, and Conoco Phillips to reconsider doing business in Iran. In one instance, the pressure worked. In February, Conoco Phillips pledged to New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson Jr. that it would not start any new business in a sanctioned country. But others have continued to resist. General Electric defended its Canadian subsidiary, General Electric Hydro, which works in Iran. For 16 years, Iranian Hamkar Machine Co. has been the exclusive dealer of Caterpillar products in Iran. (It has an agreement with Caterpillar Switzerland.)
i second slate’s note that it’s annoying that they only provide the names of twelve targeted companies, despite claiming many more. they apparently ran their data past the Conflict Securities Advisory Group‘s risk analysis software — see below — in order to obtain the assessments. CSAG did the determination of who supports, etc. terrorist states. their web site is also not very helpful in telling me what companies are the criticized ones. if i had $12,500 i could pony up for the software. sadly, i’m not a fund manager, just an ordinary consumer, which makes it a bit hard to answer the DivestTerror call without more information.
The CSAG “Monitor” software blurb:This on-line service provides detailed profiles of those publicly-traded companies worldwide that have operations in — or ties to — six terrorist-sponsoring states, as designated by the U.S. Department of State (i.e., Iran, Iraq, Syria, North Korea, Sudan and Libya).
interestingly, i used to be invested in the IMRF — one of the retirement plans that comes up in the state-by-state report, claiming that they have a 34% exposure of the fund to companies which do business with or have ties to terrorist states — as a public-school employee of new trier township HS district 203.
