Cantor Doubles Down On Claim That White House Measure Will Fund Terrorism
GOP Rep Eric Cantor is refusing to let this one go.
Cantor is set to double down today on the claim that a measure sought by the White House and Congressional Dems for funding to the International Monetary Fund could end up funding terrorism.
Cantor will send a letter to Dem leaders Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer and Barney Frank today turning up the volume on the charge, saying that IMF money, which would be in the big war spending bill working its way through the House, “will, without question,” go to “state sponsors of terrorism and other rogue states.”
A source forwards an advance copy of the letter, and the crux of Cantor’s charge is that under current IMF policy, a long list of member countries have access to an IMF currency that can be exchanged by those countries for low-interest loans of hard currencies. That list of countries includes Iran, Venezuela, Sudan, and Syria.
Ergo, Cantor writes, IMF money will go to state sponsors of terror.
Check out the full letter here. As always, what’s striking is the GOP’s ability to take seemingly unrelated policy debates and find extraordinarily creative ways to link them to national security.
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Greg: Are you going to cover in any way the concern of House Democrats over the inclusion of IMF funds in the supplemental? Cantor and the Republicans are not alone and it’s possible that his concerns are related to House Democrats’ concerns regarding Democratic Process and Transparency. . . . .
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“Democratic Process. Currently, the IMF negotiates and obtains approval for loans from the executive branch of recipient countries, leaving little opportunity for democratic debate in recipient countries over the content and terms of IMF loans.
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Transparency. Some of the IMF’s most important documents are considered classified, strictly confidential, or secret. Among the secret documents are: 1) “side letters” containing policy conditions that the IMF requires a recipient government to implement as a condition of loan disbursements . . . In conference, we urge inclusion of language to ensure greater transparency and public availability of documents within a reasonable time period.”
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Good coverage here:
http://campaignsilo.firedoglake.com/2009/06/04/33-house-democrats-express-concern-over-imf-funds-in-supplemental/
sbj, in previous posts I’ve repeatedly noted that a few Dems have these concerns.
While Cantor and his cant is all about politics it is time to take a hard look at the way the IMF is run. Some very well paid “international” bureaucrats have imposed conditions on receiving countries that have resulted in lots of local hardship. An American has always headed the IMF and the French head a sister institution. This means that the IMF has been using political clout in some countries that have not always worked in favour of the local citizenry.
sbj – As I noted earlier, there’s nothing problematic regarding concerns on IMF policy. But of course, that isn’t the subject of Greg’s post, is it?
Claiming this will go to terrorists is as ridiculous as the claims that 5 billion of the recovery package was going directly to ACORN or whatever ridiculous number that was.
The Republicans are blessed: they have two wonderful leaders in Congress. One guy spends more time in his tanning room and on the golf course than in the House. The other: well Alan mentioned the word “cant”. I would add “can’t”.
@Bernie: I would argue that Greg’s purpose is to imply that the IMF funding is only in danger because of ridiculous claims and politics of the GOP. He has done this by noting that the funding is supported by Rice and Powell (while failing to name any names of bigwig Dems who oppose the funding). He has done this IMO (notwithstanding what he says to the contrary), by giving short shrift to the fact that upwards of 30 Democratic Reps oppose the funding increase as well. I would also argue that the Repubs are not the only ones playing politics here as, it is my understanding, Barney Frank had earlier been willing to give up either IMF funding or detainee fotos in order to pass the supplemental.
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This involves the supplemental/IMF funding increase/detainee foto amendment and I think it is disingenuous to claim that the Dems are standing on principal while the Repubs are the only ones playing political games.
Two things need to be considered. On the one hand, the amount of money we send to Saudi Arabia (one of the biggest private financial supporters for Islamic terrorist organizations) for petroleum puts more money in the hands of terrorist organizations than loans to Iran and Syria ever will.
On the other hand, the IMF doesn’t have a sterling history of actually doing anything that helps the people who need help. Rather their policies and conditions for loans invariably result in the rich getting richer at the expense of the underclasses. The biggest success stories have been those countries that told the IMF to take their conditions and shove them. That suggests that, although Cantor’s reasons are specious and blatantly false, not approving the money for the IMF might not be such a bad idea.
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Hi, I