"Confessions of an Economic Hit Man"

by soccerdad

John Perkins has a new book out entitled "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man: How the U.S. Uses Globalization to Cheat Poor Countries Out of Trillions". He was on DemocracyNow and was interviewed by Amy Goodman.

John Perkins, from 1971 to 1981, worked for the international consulting firm of Chas T. Main where he was a self-described "economic hit man." His offical title was chief economist. His job was to give huge loans to countries. The loans were so large that the country would have trouble paying it back. In addition, a condition of the loan was that most of it be given to a US company for the project usually some big infrastructure project. Companies such as Haliburton or Bechtel were usually involved. Typicaly the road project or electrical project would benefit relatively few in the country and would usually benefit the well off.

He describes the basic scam:

A country today like Ecuador owes over fifty percent of its national budget just to pay down its debt. And it really can’t do it. So, we literally have them over a barrel. So, when we want more oil, we go to Ecuador and say, “Look, you're not able to repay your debts, therefore give our oil companies your Amazon rain forest, which are filled with oil.” And today we're going in and destroying Amazonian rain forests, forcing Ecuador to give them to us because they’ve accumulated all this debt. So we make this big loan, most of it comes back to the United States, the country is left with the debt plus lots of interest, and they basically become our servants, our slaves.

He claims the the US worked out a deal whereby we promised to keep the House of Saud in power and in return, they would use their petro dollars to buy US securities. In addition they would hire US companies to run some of their major construction projects and keep the price of oil within reasonable limits.

Perkins also claims :

...... When the economic hit men fail in this scenario, the next step is what we call the jackals. Jackals are C.I.A.-sanctioned people that come in and try to foment a coup or revolution. If that doesn't work, they perform assassinations.

He also describes how Omar Torrijos, the President of Panama was assassininated. Torrijos had negotiated the Panama Canal Treaty with Carter. Torrijos was negotiating with the Japanese to build a sea level canal. Reagan then became president. George Schultz was the sectretary of State and Casper Weinberger was Secretary of defense. Both came from Bechtel, a major construction company. Perkins makes the claim that Schultz and Weinberger were very angry at Torrijos and asked him not to negotiate any more with the Japanese. He refused and later his plane blew up. According to Perkins it was the CIA.

Perkins also says that Kermit Roosevelt the grandson of Teddy Roosevelt could be considered the first economic hit man as he help raise the money which went towards the overthrow of Mossadegh in Iran in 1953 replacing him with the Shah. Other sources have claimed that the US was helping the British who were angry that Mossadegh had nationalized the oil companies.

If I had heard this story 2 years ago I wouln't have believed it. But looking at the current Iraq situation it seems logical. The only difference is that the CIA couldn't get to Saddam so they had to send the troops in.