Former Republican Indicted for Aiding Taliban Warlord
According to breaking reports on CNN and other news media, former republican congressman and Reagan appointee to the UN Mark Deli Siljander has been indicted on charges of aiding terrorists.
The indictment charges IARA [Islamic American Relief Agency] with sending approximately $130,000 to help Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, whom the United States has designated as a global terrorist. The money, sent to bank accounts in Peshawar, Pakistan in 2003 and 2004, was masked as donations to an orphanage located in buildings that Hekmatyar owned.
Apparently Siljander lobbied for IARA and was paid $50,000 with funds stolen from the U.S. Agency for International Development. Republican lobbyists are truly shameless.
The new indictments, 42 counts, are a continuation of an investigation into the Islamic American Relief Agency since 2004 when the organization was designated by the State Department as a terrorist supporter.
[Columbia Missourian] The Treasury Department alleged that the overseas branches of the Islamic African Relief Agency and five of its officials — all listed as being outside the United States — provided "hundreds of thousands of dollars" to bin Laden in 1999. Treasury also believes that as early as 2003 the group was responsible for moving money to the Palestinian territories to support terrorist activities and served "as a conduit to Hamas in one Western European country."
I'm sure it was all just a mistake. I'm sure no republican could be that corrupt that they would launder money for Taliban warlords in Afghanistan through a children's charity. I'm simply not cynical enough to believe that any republican could be so foolish as to deal directly with terrorist organizations, to lobby for them even.
Then again, nothing surprises me anymore about the extent of greed and corruption in the republican party since the time of Reagan.
For more on who Mark Siljander really is, please see this piece on DailyKos.com.
Let's review. Mark Siljander was one of the original creations of the fundamentalist right wing. Had he won his seat from a less moderate area than Southwest Michigan, he might still be in Congress. Hell, he'd probably be in leadership. So he was shunted aside for a while, but he continued to move in the interconnected world of fundamentalist religion, rightwing politics, and lobbying and financial malfeasance.
In short, Mark Siljander is a archetypal radical rightwing politician. They espouse patriotism and fundamental values, but really, they're just ignorant, intolerant, greedy and don't care about America.