Modern Jihad: Tracing the Dollars Behind the Terror Networks, by Loretta Napoleoni, Pluto Press, London, 2003, 304 pages, hardcover $24.95.

"Show me the money," as the line goes in the movie Jerry McGuire. And in a different vein, this is a key refrain in the war on terrorism. When push comes to shove, terrorists need money-and lots of it-to carry out their operations and to sustain themselves between them. So when I came across Modern Jihad: Tracing the Dollars Behind the Terror Networks by economist and journalist Loretta Napoleoni, I was optimistic that I would find much in the way of information about the financial networks built and utilized by terrorist groups. Alas, this was not the case.


The author uses her ostensible investigation of terrorist financing as a springboard for her real agenda: trying "to show that, over the last 50 years, members of armed organisations have been hunted down like criminals at home by the same political forces that have fostered them abroad: the final aim being to serve the economic interests of the West and its allies..." Sadly, what few insights she provides into the money flow are like needles in the haystack of her effort to blame the West for the increase in terrorism in recent years. Napoleoni goes so far as to try to distinguish between "old and new terror," the former being the state-sponsored terrorism that has declined in recent years and the latter being the type of terrorism that funds itself (a la Osama bin Laden). As if the distinction matters!

Loretta Napoleoni has reduced terrorism to simply a facet of what she sees as "a clash between two economic systems," reverting to the flawed Marxist view of politics that has long been discredited. She justifies the acts of terrorists on the basis of their being economically exploited. It is a disappointing effort.

REVIEWED BY: Mayer Nudell, CSC, is an independent consultant on crisis management, contingency planning, and related issues.