Untitled Document
Jackals inside the U.S. government’s foreign hit squads recently
warned at least six of the major democratic leaders of South American countries,
in no uncertain terms, either “play ball or be killed.,” according
to John Perkins, best-selling author, whistle blower and self-proclaimed economic
hit man..
Perkins recently shocked America with a startling account about how government-sponsored
mafia-like hits and economic bribery are a mainstay in U. S. foreign policy,
used as dirty tools in order to “get what it wants when it wants”
no matter what the cost.
“Right now our government’s heavy-handed pressure, applied by hired
jackals, is worse today in Latin America then it was when I worked applying
pressure to foreign leaders years ago,” said Perkins in a telephone conversation
this week from his Florida home while recovering from colon surgery and preparing
to go on the road for an American and European speaking tour..
He is presently working on a second book, due to be released next year, a book
attempting to offer future solutions about how to the reverse America’s
destructive empire building tactics, including economic bribery and assassinations.
“We have the resources and we are the last powerful country able to change
the destructive course being taken now,” added Perkins. ”I am optimistic
and believe we will reverse the course being taken now, otherwise why would
I be writing these books.”
His first huge success, “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man,”
released last year and selling over 200,000 copies, immediately became a New
York Times best-seller. His shocking book, a must-read for anyone who wants
to know why America is hated around the world, reveals how foreign governments
are intimidated and uncooperative leaders assassinated while the U.S. masquerades
as a benevolent benefactor.
For more than 15 years, Perkins, the former corporate consultant, acting as
a third party intermediary between the U.S. and foreign leaders, lived in a
dangerous "political underworld" of deceit, bribery, loan sharking
and murder while advancing America’s shady foreign policy interests.
Perkins finally went public, detailing how he helped the U.S. "gets what
it wants" by using a mafia-style tactics, after being guilt-ridden from
taking a half million dollars from the Stoner-Webster Corp. to keep silent and
then being haunted by the memory of the 9/11 tragedy. He adds 9/11 is the result
of foreign retaliation based on years of U.S. aggression.
His book clearly shows the ugly side of America’s empire building, providing
a firsthand account why the "jackals" in the CIA and what he calls
“the corporatocracy” were responsible for the assassinations of
President Omar Torrijos of Panama and President Jaime Roldas of Ecuador.
Perkins said the same sort of mafia-like tactics are taking place today in
countries like Argentina, Chili, Brazil, Ecuador, Uruguay and Venezuela, citing
the recent coup ousting President Gutierrez of Ecuador as an example after the
former leader cut a one-sided deal with President Bush against the interests
of his own people.
“One month after he was elected, Gutierrez met with Bush in Washington,”
said Perkins. “He was originally elected by a mandate of the people based
on an anti-American and anti-globalist platform. But after getting in office
and being pressured by Washington, he agreed to a deal whereby Ecuador gets
about 10 percent of the profits from their oil and natural resources while 90
percent goes to American oil companies and to pay back debt owed to the World
Bank.”
“When word leaked out in his country what happened, the people of Ecuador
were furious. They ousted Gutierrez, replacing him with the Vice President,
but it is still up in the air whether anything will really change there. Put
yourself in their shoes. The pressure we exert is outrageous and the leaders
are essentially offered millions of dollars or a bullet in the head, with the
jackals reminding them of how other victims of obvious assassinations, like
President Torrijos of Panama and President Roldas of Ecuador, were dealt with
in the past.
Perkins said the American people need to be made aware, since the media is
ignoring the problem, that a majority of the Latin American countries in recent
years are putting democratically elected leaders in office, all running on anti-American
platforms. Claiming hatred runs deep among the Latin American people, Perkins
said leaders are finally starting to stand-up against American aggression due
to growing resistance at home.
Perkins used President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela as a perfect example of how
U.S. government-sponsored hit squads are attempting to kill him for not agreeing
to one-sided loans which would eventually bankrupt his country while turning
over all of Venezuela’s infrastructure, like water, gas and power, powerful
American owned and operated corporations.
Referencing Perkins’ book as evidence of U.S. attempts on his life, Chavez
is the most outspoken of all the leaders who is bucking the American system,
even publicly saying recently that he wouldn’t set foot on U.S. soil until
the people of America liberated themselves from Bush’s tyrannical rule.
Chavez has also publicly accused Bush of trying to have him killed for not
“doing business as usual” which means rich American corporations
profit while his countrymen starve. Venezuela has long been a target on the
U.S. imperialistic map, since it has large oil reserves and is the fourth largest
oil exporter to the United States, making it a prime target for the Bush administration’s
lopsided and heavy-handed foreign policy approach.
Last week Chavez also suspended all cooperation with the U.S. Drug Enforcement
agency, accusing its agents of spying and espionage. Further, Chavez has threatened
to discontinue U.S. oil shipments and Washington observers verify Perkins claims
that much of Latin America is rallying around Chavez becoming increasingly discontented
with Washington’s undiplomatic policies toward the region and its distrust
with the Bush administration in general.
“The Latin American people are obviously saying don’t meddle with
us, but the media and the government are keeping the real truth from the American
people,” said Perkins, citing a conspiracy among large corporate media
owners, wealthy international bankers and the government in manipulating public
opinion and the news for their own globalist agenda.
Perkins also cites his wildly popular book as another example of media suppression.
Although his book has hit the all the best seller lists, he has been relegated
to discussing it in the alternative media, saying he has systematically been
silenced by the major networks and newspapers, not granting him interviews or
bothering to discuss the book.
While CNN recently gave a pro Bush administration author with a relatively
obscure book 20 minutes of air time telling the public how Iran posed an imminent
nuclear threat, Perkins has never once been asked to appear on CNN.
He also has never been asked to appear or be interviewed on other major networks,
forcing him to tell his story on CSPAN, including outlets like Public Broadcasting
Radio as well as print and internet magazines like The American Free Press and
the Arctic Beacon.
“This is a big story in itself,” added Perkins. “Here I have
a best-selling book with truthful, important and controversial issues needing
to be dealt with, and the corporate-driven media has seen fit to ignore me and
keep my story from the American people. If anyone is going to save this democracy,
it is not the spineless mainstream media, but people in the alternative press
and on the internet who have had the courage in the face of much adversity to
expose the truth.”
Searching for reasons for telling his story and trying to explain to the American
people why he became a whistle blower, he added:
"I wanted and needed to expose what was going on. Most Americans have
no idea. I think that what we have is a world empire that’s controlled
by a few men I call the corporatocracy. These are the heads of the big banks,
the corporations and the government. You now they jump across these lines and
it is very dangerous, very undemocratic. MacNamara was a good example. He was
President of Ford and then became Secretary of Defense and then President of
the World Bank. Today we’ve got Dick Cheney who’s basically the
same picture. This has been going on for a long time and it not simply a republican
issue but it goes across party lines.
"I think our aggressive position of bringing other countries to their
knees has created a tremendous economic imbalance where now out of the 100 largest
economies in the world, 52 are corporations and 47 of those are American. Here
we have 5% of the world’s population reaching out like a giant octopus
and sucking in 25% or more of the world’s resources.
"But it’s not really 5% of the world’s population or the American
people. It’s really 1% of our population controlling more than 90 % of
the wealth while the rest of us support them through taxes, our purchases, through
our silence and through going along with the system."
Saying the imbalance of resource consumption can not be transferred to emerging
countries like China and others without having devastating effects, the problem
is thatthe Bush administration is clinging to the old ways.
“With the appointments of Paul Wolfowitz as President of the World Bank
and John Bolton in the United Nations, Bush is telling the world that the bank
is a not an international entity, but an American one used to advance only our
interests,” said Perkins about the financial institution which is likely
to get worse with its policies of saddling tremendous debt on third world countries
in order to insure allegiance to American imperialism.
Concerning the recent public announcements made by Bush about third world debt
forgiveness in 18 countries, Perkins said it is a “complete sham”
as the real motive is to forgive debt put at the same time make it contingent
on large American corporate interests taking over the gas, water, power, education
and telephone systems of the countries involved.
Saying the debt forgiveness initiative is just another clear example of American
economic blackmail at work, he claims the poor people of the developing countries
are the ones that really suffer at the expense of corporate greed.
Concerning this problem as well as the increase of world-wide terrorism, Perkins
offered his solution:
“The only way we are going to get security and stop terrorism is to address
and stop the problem of 20,000 people every day dying from hunger world wide.
We need to address and solve the problem of roughly 30,000 people, mostly children,
dying from curable diseases every day.
“There are more than 2 billion impoverished people in the world today.
These are staggering numbers that need to be addressed because as long as there
is extreme poverty, there will always be hatred, resentment and terrorism.”
And it’s the heavy-handed games played by the American government, often
times bankrupting third world countries causing poverty, starvation and death
that Perkins deals with his hard-hitting book.
How the "game is played" provides the main thrust of Perkins’
book and his role as the government’s "economic hit man" provides
the credibility behind the shocking details. Page by page, every step of the
way, he portrays America as a greedy villain, never taking "no" for
an answer when it comes to raping a country of its wealth and natural resources.
"In Indonesia, Panama, South America, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran, the
U.S. has used the same system of economic intimidation, assassination and then
ultimately war as a last resort to get what it wants," said Perkins.
Perkins remembers first recruited by the Boston consulting firm of Chas T.
Main in 1971 after a two year stint in the Peace Corp. The firm worked closely
with the National Security Agency and CIA, recruiting Perkins for his knowledge
of languages while working in Ecuador.
After being trained and given his first assignment in Indonesia, Perkins describes
his 10 year tenure with the consulting firm as "technically legal, but
morally and ethically bankrupt."
Essentially, no matter where he traveled or what leader he was hired to manipulate,
the modus operandi was the same. Perkins would meet with a leader of a targeted
country, encouraging him to accept a large loan for an inflated project that
both the CIA and the leader knew the country could not afford.
When the loan was accepted, usually through U.S. connections at The World Bank,
the money would be transferred to a bank in the U.S. and then funneled back
to U.S. companies through massive construction and engineering projects.
Perkins’s job was to provide inflated loan estimates, saddling the underdeveloped
country with a massive debt, impossible to repay and leaving the country at
the mercy of the U.S. to dictate repayment terms. These terms often times included
the right to construct a strategically important military base, a favored U.N.
vote in support of U.S. policy or cheap access and usage to a country’s
natural resources.
"Once the third world country was economically indebted to the U.S., the
CIA would then have its hooks into manipulating the course and direction of
the country’s political agenda," said Perkins.
Perkins added that if this type of loan was arranged between private parties,
it would be called extortion, but in the international arena it’s simply
dismissed as economic development.