I'm curious about why nobody from Chiquita went to prison for financing a terrorist group.
Random Afghans and Iraqis were kidnapped for Guantanamo or outright murdered for less.
Random Afghans and Iraqis were kidnapped for Guantanamo or outright murdered for less.
For the 2007 criminal case, the company came to the department of justice and disclosed the payments, saying they had been made under threat of violence. Specifically the AUC was threatening physical harm to employees of a Chiquita subsidiary in Columbia. The department of justice appears to have accepted that the payments were made under duress, but did not recognize that as a sufficient excuse, and decided to prosecute anyways. The company reached a plea agreement.
Honestly, it seems like the justice department came down pretty hard. Obviously giving money to terrorist groups under any circumstances shortly after 9/11 would be highly scrutinized, and the company could have dropped the columbian subsidiary, which they wound up doing eventually anyways, instead of continuing to pay the protection racket. But still it seems like they were victims in this too.
It’s also strongly analogous to an issue faced in tech: whether to pay the demands or ransomware gangs.
If the ransomeware gang has ties to terrorism, it’s a crime to pay the ransom.
It looks like the people who could be held individually criminally liable were in Colombia [1]. (I also imagine Chiquita gets points for notifying the DoJ versus getting caught.)
> Random Afghans and Iraqis were kidnapped for Guantanamo or outright murdered for less
To be fair, there is a world of difference between financing a foreign terrorist group and financing one that is attacking Americans. (That and we're cavalier with the lives of South Americans.)
[1] https://www.justice.gov/archive/opa/pr/2007/March/07_nsd_161...
A lot of Iraqi's were a big fan of toppling Saddam.
Note : not saying it was a good idea with what we know now.
And about Serbia. The bombing from "NATO" with a focus on military targets made it possible for it's population to overthrow Milosevic by the citizens a year later.
The boots on the ground in this case were the Serbs themselves. From my POV, NATO only provided air-support for them.
The real problem with statements like that is that we can say it about literally any leader.
Those were idiots under the hype of a wannabe dictator with propaganda influence very similar to Russia.
Great video about it here: https://www.vox.com/2018/8/31/17804104/strikethrough-lies-pr...
Yes, we get our share of Emperor Nortons [1] and sovereign citizens [2]. Those aren't coups. At best, they're idiotically-attempted coups.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Norton
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_citizen_movement
I am tempted to add an image of Jack Sparrow saying, But you've heard of me.
That aside, US would not fall for a coup because of the strong institutions in place. But these places are not that mature in its institutions. So they would fall. It doesn't mean that a similar sentiment is not present in US. And for all the talk of the freedom and democracy US always prefers demagogues and dictators in other parts of the world, as long as US can control them.
The Capitol insurgency and the stop the steal was pretty popular, but it is not a reason for another country to lie and invade this place. Same should have been applied to Iraq. That's all.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_green_men_(Russo-Ukra...
The CIA helped them, by overthrowing at least one gov’t. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d%2527%...]
Money has always been a national interest for every gov’t everywhere.
That's not how democracy works. /s
Companies do not have to obey the law and, when they are caught, nobody goes to jail. They just need to pay some protection money.
Want to be a criminal without fear of prosecution ? Join a company, preferably on a management position.