Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Check your stock portfolio, you may be indirectly investing in terrorism.

Are you unknowingly investing in terrorism? I was!

Take a look at your stock portfolios you may be investing in terrorism and not even know it!

The U.S. State Department says terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda, Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as insurgent groups fighting U.S. troops in Iraq; get financial assistance from governments and private groups in Iran, Syria and Sudan. This support is so crucial for these groups that the U.S. government discourages companies from doing business in these countries.

By contributing to the economic growth and development of these countries, these companies are somewhat supporting terrorists, as well as insurgents that attack U.S. troops.

Here is the list of U.S. companies regularly do business in Iran, Syria or Sudan, all countries the State Department calls "state sponsors of terrorism": ConocoPhillips (COP, news, msgs), MasterCard (MA, news, msgs), Western Union (WU, news, msgs), energy equipment and services companies Schlumberger (SLB, news, msgs) and Natco Group (NTG, news, msgs), and Overseas Shipholding Group (OSG, news, msgs).

Here is the list for Foreign companies listed on U.S. exchanges doing business in these countries include: BP PLC (BP, news, msgs), Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A, news, msgs), Total (TOT, news, msgs), Eni (E, news, msgs), Petro-Canada (PCZ, news, msgs), Siemens (SI, news, msgs), Nokia (NOK, news, msgs) and Deutsche Bank (DB, news, msgs).

Well folks, as it turns out I owned stock in one of these companies and it was one of the worst offenders, Siemens. I took a loss of about 1,000 dollars to sell every last penny of it, but I don’t care. I refuse to invest in a company that does business with the enemy.

Siemens has been providing Iran with know-how and equipment to support power plant construction, power generation and distribution, rail transport and telecommunications.

The fact that Siemens is helping Iran with their military command and communications is appalling and disturbing especially when it is a real possibility that we might be at war with Iran in the future. It is also disturbing to think insurgents may be using Siemens communication equipment to blow up remote controlled IEDs used against our troops!

I urge you to take a look at your stock portfolio, and make sure you are not supporting terrorism.

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