Confessions of an economic hitman - John Perkins

The International Politics is controlled by few individuals and corporates in their quest to dominate the world commerce. It is a known fact that most of the political and military actions in the world has "economics" as the underlying reason rather than the stated and published issues. The quest to control the resources across the globe has started in the 2nd millennium. The earlier traders , where the need was to do trading of goods between communities and geographies, was later replaced with greed and countries , especially the European countries have started taking control of the world , people and the resources much early.

During the 20th century most of the countries have started rebelling and gained independence (or self rule) from the rulers from the west. The two world wars have changed the world political spectrum and soon had two superpowers and associated countries. For almost five decades, the effort was to curtail the spread of communism and to control the world both politically and commercially, by the capitalist countries.

US, the leader of the capitalist world , have used all its will to increase its influence over the rest of the world. Military power, political isolation, financial control over economies were few tactics deployed. World has also seen the raise of United States as a military and Economic super power and after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the communist world in general, put US in such an enviable position with no rivals.

The vision or greed to become a GLOBAL EMPIRE thus begun. There are multiple methods being deployed by the super power through military and deplomatic means. After the debacle in Korea and Vietnam, they have realised that the military might may not be the right approach. Alternate method of getting into the country and managing the affairs had begun, post this. The modus operandi is fairly simple. Agents gets into the country as consultants and will project inflated growth potential and demand requirement in their energy and resource requirements and will get the rulers to see the vision as required by the US corporates. In order to achieve this vision, the host country will have to go through a series of reforms and infrastructure changes, which will be then funded by World Bank or IMF ( both controlled by US). This money allocated will then be used to award mega contracts to US corporates, thus the money flows back to the US. The affected country will then spent years repaying the financial institutes ( usually forever in debt). If the country defaults or fails in repayment, this is then used as an arm-twisting tactics to get the UN votes, approval to establish military bases or other strategic needs of US.

While this has been in discussion for long ( by the anti-propaganda team), here is a first hand account by a person involved in these operations at Indonesia, Panama, Ecuador, Iran and Saudi Arabia. The economic hit men ( or EHM as there were called) have the responsibility until the local government is in agreement with the projections and in getting the lucrative contracts to their clients in building dams, highways, electric sub stations, reactors etc. John Perkins , narrates his story ( out of guilt, as he claim ) to reveal the steps and incidents in executing such activities across the globe. A first hand detailing, starting from his early years and his enrolment into the elite EHM team ( most of them does not even know what they are getting into) and his multiple engagements.

There are people who understood this and tries to defend their country from such an invasion, usually to end up in mysterious deaths, like Torrijos or Panama and Raldos of equador , or hanged ( Saddam , Najibulla(?) ), or will be captured and sentenced in US( Manuel Noriega). There are umpteen coup attempts and efforts to topple the democratically elected government, if they are not towing the US line. There are always justifications for such actions. They will be called a fascist or Nazi during and after the WW II , or a communist ( during the prime of USSR ), a Narcotic dealer ( Noriega and Columbia) , a Terrorist ( the newly found popular word ). The media is also manipulated, so that the common man believes the reasoning and echoes the official line.

Though this book is not very revealing to me, I found it very appropriate to read at this time when India is all about signing a nuclear treaty with the US for our energy supply ( energy security as the supporters calls it) , and as the recent news article says, most of the construction activities are being awarded to US firms.

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man

John Perkins
Ebury Press , Random House

250 Pages

INR 325/-