posted 01-24-2004 12:01 PM
YES FOLKS...THEY ARE ADMITTING WHAT WE ALREADY KNEW.
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Friday, January 23, 2004 - Page updated at 12:00 A.M.
CEOs at forum assess al-Qaida as business
By Dafna Linzer
The Associated Press
DAVOS, Switzerland — In one of the more provocative sessions at this year's World Economic Forum, counterterrorism experts and U.S. chief executives yesterday looked at terrorism through the prism of business, as an enterprise with cash flow, employees and even marketing.
Bruce Hoffman, who has written extensively on terrorist groups, noted that "al-Qaida is one of the most recognizable brands in history."
He added that before going into terrorism, Osama bin Laden's training was in economics and public administration.
Al-Qaida's recruiting efforts were compared to those of large Western corporations with human-resources departments, and its public-relations campaign rivals that of any international company, said Jessica Stern, a terrorism expert who teaches at Harvard University.
Some people at the session made light of the comparison.
Robert Beauchamp, chief executive of BMC Software, got a laugh when he said that "terrorism is about the only thing American CEOs haven't been accused of in the last 18 months."
And Aart De Geus, CEO of Synoposis, said the biggest difference between business and terrorist management styles was that terrorists "get people to die for them."
"Some CEOS have tried that but without success," De Geus joked.
In related developments:
• In a speech to the forum yesterday, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft urged nations that rallied against terrorism after Sept. 11, 2001, to unite again to fight corruption, which is costing the world economy more than $2 trillion every year. Ashcroft attacked government officials who pocketed payoffs and deprived their people of money for better roads, cleaner water and more modern schools.
"We are winning the war on terrorism," he said, but corruption is threatening "the capacity of business and government to work together to end the plague of poverty and expand human achievement."
The World Bank estimates the cost of corruption represents 7 percent of the annual world economy, roughly $2.3 trillion.
Last month, Ashcroft signed a landmark U.N. anti-corruption treaty requiring politicians to disclose their campaign finances and countries to return tainted assets to the nation from which they were stolen.
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