Economic Terrorism: Was the 2008 Collapse Intentional?

The 2008 financial crisis was one of the worst the U.S. has ever seen. It was the culmination of several factors including poor investments, government intervention and crony capitalism. However, the confluence of these events has prompted some analysts to ask, “Was the 2008 collapse intentional?”

“The Pentagon released information that they had received a report -- right after 2008 -- that [the collapse] may be ‘economic terrorism,’” Glenn Beck said on his radio show.

“And then [the Pentagon report] was released to the public I think in 2011 (maybe late 2010?), and I wondered, ‘Why was this held? Who released it? Why did they release it at that time?’And we talked about it, I said, ‘I think this is a sign somebody in the pentagon wants somebody to know what is really, possibly happening here.”

Was the 2008 economic crash intentional? Is the U.S. the target of “economic terrorism”?

Kevin Freeman, the author of the aforementioned Pentagon report and Secret Weapon: How Economic Terrorism Brought Down the U.S. Stock Market and Why It can Happen Again, joined Glenn Beck to discuss what might have really happened back in 2008.

“There are others like George Soros that may be involved in this,” Beck said.

Who else may be involved in this supposed “economic terrorism”?

“Islamic terrorists,” Freeman said, “Osama Bin Laden has, or did, say forever, ‘Our intention is to attack the U.S. economic system. We know the cracks in the system like the lines in our own hand.’ That’s why they hit the World Trade Center towers. It was an attack on the economy as much as it was an attempt to kill people.”

“And it goes back even before that,” Freeman added. “The founder of the Muslim brotherhood created Sharia compliant finance and he termed it ‘financial jihad’ or ‘jihad with money.’”

“Boy man, I’m so glad to meet you Kevin, because we started looking into Sharia financing and there are hedge funds, gigantic hedge funds, that are all based in Sharia financing here in the United States and they’ve got some suspicious characters around them. Would you know anything about them or do you agree with that?” Beck asked.

“I do know something about them,” Freeman answered.

Watch Beck unravel some of the troubling circumstances surrounding the 2008 collapse:

Freeman went on to say that the odds of hedge funds like Bear Sterns “suddenly” collapsing the way that they did in 2008 were so low that it raises suspicions.

“Bear Stearns had some financial problems, but that panic caused the stock price to collapse,” he said.

Freeman also said that if America was under an attack of “economic terrorism,” it would have to happen in three phases (via glennbeck.com):

First, there is an attack on energy prices.

“That weakened our economy so substantially because people had a choice between paying their mortgages or paying their gas bill,” Freeman said.

“Phase 2 was the bear raids [it's like a bank run, but for stocks]. That panicked everybody out of the stock market,” he added.

The third phase, Freeman said, was an attack on currency and credit rating -- much like what is happening in Greece.

Because the discussion was so important and the implications of “economic terrorism” so great, Beck invited Freeman back on the show to continue their dialogue.

“Do you feel you have a culprit? Or is it a little bit of all of them?” Beck asked Freeman during a GBTV interview.

“It seems like they were all aware or in on it," Freeman said.

"Russia had approached the Chinese to destroy Fannie and Freddie. And so they seem like they were aware of what was taking place. And certainly Iran and Venezuela and Chavez and Ahmadinejad were celebrating when the market went down. And Bin Laden said -- repeatedly! – ‘attacking the U.S. economy is our most important target by all possible means."

“When I was first talking about this perfect storm (this was about 8 years ago or so) and I said, ‘There’s going to come a time when then the enemies of this country are not coordinated, they’ll just see opportunity,’" Beck said. "Somebody will start something or there will be an unraveling somewhere and that’s when multiple enemies of the country will say, ‘Go! Now! Now! Now! Now!'”

“Is it possible that this is what this is? That these people are dog-piling because they see a huge opportunity?” Beck asked.

“That’s how it works in the stock market,” Freeman answered. “If you see a stock going down, then people will pile in and since it was a financial attack that is very likely.”

“Somebody was actually making bogus shares of Bear Stearns, they were selling shares that didn’t exist,” Beck said.

“Right,” Freeman said, “That’s naked short selling.”

The term "short sale" refers to a type of bet investors can make in the financial markets when they believe a stock or bond will fall, reports Annalyn Censky. It becomes "naked" when the seller makes the bet without having the goods to back it up.

“Last night...you talked about three phases and you said we were in phase three,” Beck said later in the interview. “Do you want to go through these phases?”

“Sure, let’s explain those three phases. And these, again, may not have been coordinated. These may be by different actor at various points, but it’s all intended negatively against the United States,” Freeman responded.

Watch Beck and Freeman delve deeper into “economic terrorism” via GBTV: