John Perkins and His Confessions of an
Economic Hit Man
By Julio
Severo
Economist
John Perkins said, “Economic hit men (EHMs) are highly paid professionals who
cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. They funnel money
from the World Bank, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and
other foreign ‘aid’ organizations into the coffers of huge corporations and the
pockets of a few wealthy families who control the planet’s natural resources.
Their tools include fraudulent financial reports, rigged elections, payoffs,
extortion, sex, and murder. They play a game as old as empire, but one that has
taken on new and terrifying dimensions during this time of globalization. I
should know; I was an EHM.”
Other
revelations by Perkins are equally impressive. According to him, in his 2004
book “Confessions
of an Economic Hit Man,” Saudi Arabia has a very special
relationship with the U.S. since mid-1970s. He says,
“The
evidence was indisputable: Saudi Arabia, America’s longtime ally and the
world’s largest oil producer, had somehow become, as a senior Treasury
Department official put it, ‘the epicenter’ of terrorist financing… Saudi
largess encouraged U.S. officials to look the other way, some veteran
intelligence officers say. Billions of dollars in contracts, grants, and
salaries have gone to a broad range of former U.S. officials who had dealt with
the Saudis: ambassadors, CIA station chiefs, even cabinet secretaries…”
Perkins
came to get such knowledge not only because he was a respected economist, but
also because of his involvement, decades ago, with NSA (National Security
Agency) and even designing massive projects in Saudi Arabia.
In
the 1960s and 1970s, NSA was not internationally known, but today, because of
the leaks
of former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, NSA’s stealthy activities
comprising surveillance and espionage have been exposed. Yet, ten years before
Snowden, John Perkins had already made a significant exposé, which remained
largely unnoticed, because apparently no one was willing to believe that the
mysterious NSA was a malignant octopus.
How
did Perkins come to know NSA? In 1967 he married to a woman whose uncle was a
top echelon executive at NSA. In 1968 he was profiled by the NSA as an ideal
economic hit man (EHM).
He
had been deliberately hired by NSA because of his non-conservative qualities
and a lack of moral values. A truly conservative, moral man would never do what
he was hired to do.
In 1981
he married to another woman whose father was chief architect at Bechtel
Corporation and was in charge of designing and building cities in Saudi Arabia
— work financed through the 1974 EHM deal.
About
his NSA training, Perkins said,
“First,
I was to justify huge international loans that would funnel money back to MAIN
and other U.S. companies (such as Bechtel, Halliburton, Stone & Webster,
and Brown & Root) through massive engineering and construction projects.
Second, I would work to bankrupt the countries that received those loans (after
they had paid MAIN and the other U.S. contractors, of course) so that they
would be forever beholden to their creditors, and so they would present easy
targets when we needed favors, including military bases, UN votes, or access to
oil and other natural resources. My job, [NSA agent] said, was to forecast the
effects of investing billions of dollars in a country. Specifically, I would
produce studies that projected economic growth twenty to twenty-five years into
the future and that evaluated the impacts of a variety of projects. For example,
if a decision was made to lend a country $1 billion to persuade its leaders not
to align with the Soviet Union, I would compare the benefits of investing that
money in power plants with the benefits of investing in a new national railroad
network or a telecommunications system. Or I might be told that the country was
being offered the opportunity to receive a modern electric utility system, and
it would be up to me to demonstrate that such a system would result in
sufficient economic growth to justify the loan. The critical factor, in every
case, was gross national product. The project that resulted in the highest
average annual growth of GNP won. If only one project was under consideration,
I would need to demonstrate that developing it would bring superior benefits to
the GNP. The unspoken aspect of every one of these projects was that they were
intended to create large profits for the contractors, and to make a handful of
wealthy and influential families in the receiving countries very happy, while
assuring the long-term financial dependence and therefore the political loyalty
of governments around the world. The larger the loan, the better.”
This
was in the 1970s. I remembered Brazil, my country. In the 1970s, the military
government in Brazil kept up massive investments in infrastructure — highways,
telecommunications, hydroelectric dams, etc. The military rule, under President
Ernesto Geisel, borrowed billions of dollars. Brazil was enjoying an investment
boom that had pushed annual GDP growth to over ten percent. Large-scale
infrastructure projects, such as the Itaipu and Tucuruí hydroelectric dams,
fueled growth, and Brazil emerged as the undisputed industrial leader in Latin
America, earning the title “the Brazilian miracle.” But the boom fell apart. By
1982, Brazil halted payment of its main foreign debt, which is among the
world’s biggest.
Brazil
was apparently the perfect field for EHMs’ activities. The Brazilian military
government, which made investments of billions of dollars in infrastructure,
ended with loans and massive debts. And these debts had no relation with
corruption, because the military government was corruption-free. Probably, in
the modern history of Brazil, Brazilians never had a so corruption-free
government as the military government was.
If
the job of EHMs (and their colleagues) was to persuade countries to take out
loans worth billions of dollars, often to pay for infrastructure projects that
the EHMs themselves recommend, as John Perkins wrote in his book “Confessions
of an Economic Hit Man,” then Brazil was probably a big victim.
As
Brazil, many of the nations put into debt in the 1970s and 1980s were ruled by
right-wing militarists and their debts were used by their socialist enemies as
a reason to put their nations into a socialist route. The economic explorations
made these military allies of the U.S. vulnerable before socialists.
The
Brazilian military rule in the 1980s was plagued by inflation, recession and
massive foreign debt. The International Monetary Fund was a daily subject in
the Brazilian news. Socialist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who in 2002 was
elected president of Brazil, agitated against the Brazilian government. His
main weapon was the economic crisis, which made the Brazilian people discontent
with the military presidents.
I
cannot imagine the military rule in Brazil running into massive debt because of
corruption. I only can imagine, by all the clues pointed by Perkins, that there
is a possibility that they fell into an economic hit man’s trap.
John
Perkins’ book was recommended to me by a U.S. conservative leader.
By
reading his book, you see NSA and other U.S. agencies as machines of economic exploitation
of nations. But often such exploitation is facilitated by political leaders of
these nations who also exploited economically their own people. I do not
believe that this was the case in Brazil, because the Brazilian military rule
was hard-working. When socialists overthrew U.S. allies in Latin America — an
overthrow facilitated by U.S. economic hit men —, they themselves became
exploiters, economically and also socially and religiously, because socialism
severely stifles speech and religious freedom.
Perkins
saw so much corruption among his professional peers in America exploiting the
poor in Third-World nations that he began to see favorably socialist ideas,
thinking that socialism was the only answer to the massive capitalist
corruption he saw coming from his own nation. Of course, he did not know the
Gospel, which is the only real answer to socialism and capitalist corruption.
The
human nature is wicked. If it occupies a high post, it explores people under
its control.
People
without the Gospel should be capable of not exploring other people, because
they have a conscience.
People
who have the Gospel are under a double responsibility not to explore, because
they have God’s conscience available to them (the Gospel) and their own
conscience.
It
not a sin to be wealthy. But God commands the rich to be also wealthy in
generosity. Yet, socialism sees all wealth (except for the wealthy socialist
establishment) as exploitation. The Bible does not see all rich as exploiters.
There are rich and there are exploiters. And there are wealthy exploiters.
In
his book, Perkins writes,
“‘We’re
a small, exclusive club,’ [NSA agent] said. ‘We’re paid—well paid—to cheat
countries around the globe out of billions of dollars. A large part of your job
is to encourage world leaders to become part of a vast network that promotes
U.S. commercial interests. In the end, those leaders become ensnared in a web
of debt that ensures their loyalty. We can draw on them whenever we desire—to
satisfy our political, economic, or military needs. In turn, these leaders
bolster their political positions by bringing industrial parks, power plants,
and airports to their people. Meanwhile, the owners of U.S. engineering and
construction companies become very wealthy… [NSA special agent] described how
throughout most of history, empires were built largely through military force
or the threat of it. But with the end of World War II, the emergence of the
Soviet Union, and the specter of nuclear holocaust, the military solution
became just too risky.”
Perkins
also shows how the U.S. changed profoundly Iran through stealthy economic
actions. He said,
“The
decisive moment occurred in 1951, when Iran rebelled against a British oil
company that was exploiting Iranian natural resources and its people. The
company was the forerunner of British Petroleum, today’s BP. In response, the
highly popular, democratically elected Iranian prime minister (and TIME
magazine’s Man of the Year in 1951), Mohammad Mossadegh, nationalized all
Iranian petroleum assets. An outraged England sought the help of her World War
II ally, the United States. However, both countries feared that military
retaliation would provoke the Soviet Union into taking action on behalf of
Iran. Instead of sending in the Marines, therefore, Washington dispatched CIA
agent Kermit Roosevelt (Theodore’s grandson). He performed brilliantly, winning
people over through payoffs and threats. He then enlisted them to organize a
series of street riots and violent demonstrations, which created the impression
that Mossadegh was both unpopular and inept. In the end, Mossadegh went down,
and he spent the rest of his life under house arrest. The pro-American Mohammad
Reza Shah became the unchallenged dictator. Kermit Roosevelt had set the stage
for a new profession, the one whose ranks I was joining.”
Of
course, the U.S. strategy in Iran eventually backfired, and today Iran has a
mortal hatred of America.
Perkins
also said,
“By
1968, the year I interviewed with the NSA, it had become clear that if the
United States wanted to realize its dream of global empire (as envisioned by
men like presidents Johnson and Nixon), it would have to employ strategies
modeled on Roosevelt’s Iranian example. This was the only way to beat the
Soviets without the threat of nuclear war. There was one problem, however.
Kermit Roosevelt was a CIA employee. Had he been caught, the consequences would
have been dire. He had orchestrated the first U.S. operation to overthrow a
foreign government, and it was likely that many more would follow, but it was
important to find an approach that would not directly implicate Washington.
Fortunately for the strategists, the 1960s also witnessed another type of
revolution: the empowerment of international corporations and of multinational
organizations such as the World Bank and the IMF. The latter were financed
primarily by the United States and our sister empire builders in Europe. A
symbiotic relationship developed between governments, corporations, and
multinational organizations.”
Perkins
explains more about their dirty work:
“Roosevelt-as-CIA-agent
problem had already been worked out. U.S. intelligence agencies—including the
NSA—would identify prospective EHMs, who could then be hired by international
corporations. These EHMs would never be paid by the government; instead, they
would draw their salaries from the private sector. As a result, their dirty
work, if exposed, would be chalked up to corporate greed rather than to
government policy. In addition, the corporations that hired them, although paid
by government agencies and their multinational banking counterparts (with
taxpayer money), would be insulated from congressional oversight and public
scrutiny, shielded by a growing body of legal initiatives, including trademark,
international trade, and Freedom of Information laws.”
Saudi
Arabia is “lucky.” Billions of its dollars in contracts, grants, and salaries
to U.S. officials have protected the Islamic nation from dark consequences of
EHMs.
Perkins
was related to Tom Paine (1737-1809), the American revolutionary leader who
fought for the U.S. independence from England. With his conscience, Perkins had
a motivation to write his book against the exploitations from NSA and other
U.S. agencies. He said,
“I
only had to return to the American Revolution and Tom Paine for a model. I
recalled that Britain justified its taxes by claiming that England was
providing aid to the colonies in the form of military protection against the
French and the Indians. The colonists had a very different interpretation.”
With information of Foreign Affairs and BBC.
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