August 29, 2006
IS THERE ANYTHING PEOPLE *WON'T* SAY TO GET THEIR 15 MINUTES?
David Frum is talking about the Hezbollah Hundreds again. And he's talking out of his ass. For example:
Only one thing was missing--the thin wire security strip that runs from top to bottom of a genuine US$100 bill. The money Hezbollah was passing was counterfeit, as should have been evident to anybody who studied the photographs with due care.
I assume he's talking about the one single picture that shows a $100 bill with light passing through it, which I discussed in a previous post
As I said before, I don't think the picuture is clear enough to be definitive.
He goes on to brag about how "SnappedShots.com, MyPetJawa and Charles Johnson's Little Green Footballs" pointed out the counterfeiting:
These [blog] sites magnified photographs and showed them to currency experts and detected irregularity after irregularity in the bills.
I'm calling bullshit. Other than the questionable "absence" of a security strip, there was nothing in any of the pictures I saw which indicated that those notes were counterfeit. American currency is subject to wide variations in ink color and seal placement, and all the notes I saw were within spec.
I'm putting out a challenge: if there's anyone who can point out any "irregularites" BESIDES the crispness of the notes, the security strip in that ONE picture, ink color, or seal placement, (all of which I address in the earlier post mentioned above) please bring it to my attention, I'll tell you whatever I can based on my considerable currency-handling experience.
And for heaven's sake, use direct URL's that work.
A final thought, because I want to be very clear on this point. I'm NOT saying these bills are genuine. I'm saying that I haven't seen enough evidence to declare them counterfeit. Unlike these so-called "currency experts" who are, in my opinion, simply taking advantage of the situation to gain a little ego-stroking from the media.
[Hat tip to reader Larwyn for pointing out Frum's article to me]
Posted by: Harvey at
06:08 AM
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I don't think I know anyone who has claimed the Hezbollah bills to be counterfeit. What I have seen is the posed question of suspicion and the examination of web pix, which at 72 dpi is pretty lousy reference. Then, for me, that spurred research on who might be responsible IF the money were found to be fake - possibilities of course Iran and Korea. That led to research on Supernotes, which Treasury and State has been pursuing.
But known supernotes smuggling or laundering may be an entirely different thread of counterfeiting than money that shows up in Lebanon.
For me, the question became one of hoping the MSM or people in position to obtain Hezbollah bills might raise this to a level of examination. (That's why I emailed Israeli bloggers, closer the situation.)
I know when I looked at a lot of bills on the Internet, I could make comments, about signatures but not about true authenticity.
The question was always - where did they get those crisp bills?
Posted by: Sticky Notes at August 29, 2006 06:46 PM (+aC/q)
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Looked to me like David Frum was claiming that the blogsphere had proven that the bills were fakes, flatly stating, "The money Hezbollah was passing was counterfeit".
And you're right about the important question: where's is coming from. There are two possible answers - they're making it themselves OR they have backing from folks who have hundreds of thousands (perhaps millions) in cash just laying around, and prefer to spend it on supporting terrorists.
I'm not sure which answer is more disturbing.
Posted by: Harvey at August 29, 2006 10:34 PM (L7a63)
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August 26, 2006
MY CONCLUSION ON THE "HEZBOLLAH HUNDREDS"
I've been chatting with
Sticky Notes about whether Hezbollah is passing out fake $100's, and,
as I said earlier, I'm not inclined to believe they're fake.
But if that money IS genuine, that leads me to another thought:
That cash is a few years old, and it's still in like-new condition. Whoever is bankrolling this operation is well-funded enough to let large stacks of US currency sit around untouched for years.
This is no grass-roots relief effort. There's a major player involved. Who that might be, I don't have enough information to speculate on, but it narrows down to a question of "what source of Hezbollah funding could afford to sit on hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars in cash without needing to spend it?"
Whoever it is needs to have their assets frozen until they decide that terrorism is not a good investment.
Interestingly enough, Sticky Notes speculates that if they ARE fake (which I admit they might be - I can't tell for sure without actually touching them), she might have a guess as to their source.
Posted by: Harvey at
12:44 PM
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Replace "freeze their assets" with "make them need that money to replace the infrastructure wiped out courtesy of the USAF" and I agree wholeheartedly.
Posted by: Graumagus at August 26, 2006 11:35 PM (C99u6)
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Oh... that's what I
meant... sorry about the typo :-)
Posted by: Harvey at August 27, 2006 09:30 AM (L7a63)
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Harvey,
I just noticed this article, so sorry for not responding sooner. I don't think it's fair to characterize the posts at Snapped Shot as being made "just for the sake of 15 minutes" of fame. I raised a question about this latest "charity" based on Hezbullah's potential criminal history, and followed up as more information came in.
As you'd see, if you looked over the website, I quickly retracted *every single one* of my allegations about the counterfeiting, as you and others who are more knowlegable about currency than I am commented and provided counter-examples. (I don't readily carry $100 bills, so I wasn't in a position to do any comparisons by myself.) The fact that Frum cited my website as definitive proof that the money was counterfeit had nothing to do with me—he did so for reasons which only he can explain. He certainly made no attempt to contact me before publishing his article!
Check out the latest article on Snapped Shot—a journalist *in Lebanon* has written with details about Hezbullah's financial operations which further invalidate my suppositions about counterfeiting—all of which has been posted as breaking news on Snapped Shot.
(your blog is mis-interpreting my URL and rejecting it as spam. Replace the "----" in the following hostname with "shot" to hit the link
http://www.snapped----.com/archives/115-Mike-Hornbrook-from-CBC-Hezbullah-Cash-is-REAL.html
15 minutes, indeed...
Regards,
Brian
Posted by: Brian C. Ledbetter at August 31, 2006 02:05 PM (Pkdud)
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Urgh. Good ol' browser address cache.
I meant to reply to your OTHER article, "IS THERE ANYTHING PEOPLE *WON'T* SAY TO GET THEIR 15 MINUTES?"
http://badexample.mu.nu/archives/194455.php
Sorry for the mixup!
Regards,
Brian
Posted by: Brian C. Ledbetter at August 31, 2006 02:08 PM (Pkdud)
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