posted on Sep, 25 2005 @ 04:10 AM
Taken from the book "Confessions of an Economic Hitman":
"There were two primary objectives of my work. First, I was to justify huge international loans that would funnel money back to MAIN [the firm for
which Perkins worked] 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 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. (p. 15.)
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. The fact that the debt burden placed on a country would deprive its poorest
citizens of health, education, and other social services for decades to come was not taken into consideration. (pp. 15, 16.)
The subtlety of this modern empire building puts the Roman centurions, the Spanish conquistadors, and the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European
colonial powers to shame. We EHMs [Economic Hit Men] are crafty; we learned from history. Today, we do not carry swords. We do not wear armor or
clothes that set us apart. In countries like Ecuador, Nigeria, and Indonesia, we dress like local schoolteachers and shop owners. In Washington and
Paris, we look like government bureaucrats and bankers. We appear humble, normal. We visit project sites and stroll through impoverished villages. We
profess altruism, talk with local papers about the wonderful humanitarian things we are doing. We cover the conference tables of government committees
with our spreadsheets and financial projections, and we lecture at the Harvard Business School about the miracles of macroeconomics. We are on the
record, in the open. Or so we portray ourselves and so we are accepted. It is how the system works. We seldom resort to anything illegal because the
system itself is built on subterfuge, and the system is by definition legitimate.
However – and this is a very large caveat – if we fail, an even more sinister breed steps in, ones we EHMs refer to as jackals, men who trace
their heritage directly to those earlier empires. The jackals are always there, lurking in the shadows. When they emerge, heads of state are
overthrown or die in violent “accidents.” And if by chance the jackals fail, as they failed in Afghanistan and Iraq, then the old models
resurface. When the jackals fail, young Americans are sent in to kill and to die.” (pp. xx, xxi.)