Rape rampant in US military Rape rampant in US military

Statistics and soldiers’ testimonies reveal a harrowing epidemic of sexual assault in the US military.

Dahr Jamail

Sexual assault within the ranks of the military is not a new problem. It is a systemic problem that has necessitated that the military conduct its own annual reporting on the crisis.
A 2003 Air Force Academy sexual assault scandal prompted the department of defense to include a provision in the 2004 National Defense Authorization Act that required investigations and reports of sexual harassment and assaults within US military academies to be filed. The personal toll is, nevertheless, devastating.

Military sexual trauma (MST) survivor Susan Avila-Smith is director of the veteran’s advocacy group Women Organizing Women. She has been serving female and scores of male clients in various stages of recovery from MST for 15 years and knows of its devastating effects up close.

“People cannot conceive how badly wounded these people are,” she told Al Jazeera, “Of the 3,000 I’ve worked with, only one is employed. Combat trauma is bad enough, but with MST it’s not the enemy, it’s our guys who are doing it. You’re fighting your friends, your peers, people you’ve been told have your back. That betrayal, then the betrayal from the command is, they say, worse than the sexual assault itself.”
On December 13, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and other groups filed a federal lawsuit seeking Pentagon records in order to get the real facts about the incidence of sexual assault in the ranks.
The Pentagon has consistently refused to release records that fully document the problem and how it is handled. Sexual assaults on women in the US military have claimed some degree of visibility, but about male victims there is absolute silence.

Pack Parachute, a non-profit in Seattle, assists veterans who are sexual assault survivors. Its founder Kira Mountjoy-Pepka, was raped as a cadet at the Air Force Academy. In July 2003 she was member of a team of female cadets handpicked by Donald Rumsfeld, at the time the secretary of defense, to tell their stories of having been sexually assaulted. The ensuing media coverage and a Pentagon investigation forced the academy to make the aforementioned major policy changes.

Report reveals alarming statistics
Mountjoy-Pepka often works with male survivors of MST. She stated in a telephone interview that four per cent of men in the military experience MST. “Most choose not to talk about it until after their discharge from the military, largely because the post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in over 60 percent of MST cases is too overwhelming,” she informed Al Jazeera.

Last week the Pentagon released its “annual report on sexual harassment and violence at the military service academies”. At its three academies, the number of reports of sexual assault and harassment has risen a staggering 64 percent from last year.

The report attributes the huge increase to better reporting of incidents due to increased training and education about sexual assault and harassment. Veteran’s Administration (VA) statistics show that more than 50 percent of the veterans who screen positive for MST are men.
According to the US Census Bureau, there are roughly 22 million male veterans compared to less than two million female vets.

In Congressional testimony in the summer of 2008, Lt. Gen. Rochelle, the army chief of personnel, reported the little known statistic that 12 percent (approximately 260) of the 2,200 reported rapes in the military in 2007 were reported by military male victims.
Due to their sheer numbers in the military, more men (at a rough estimate one in twenty), have experienced MST than women.

Shamed into silence
Billy Capshaw was 17 when he joined the Army in 1977. After being trained as a medic he was transferred to Baumholder, Germany. His roommate, Jeffrey Dahmer, by virtue of his seniority ensured that Capshaw had no formal assignment, no mail, and no pay. Having completely isolated the young medic, Dahmer regularly sexually assaulted, raped, and tortured him.

Dahmer went on to become the infamous serial killer and sex offender who murdered 17 boys and men before being beaten to death by an inmate at Columbia Correction Institution in 1994.
Capshaw reflects back, “At that young age I didn’t know how to deal with it. My commander did not believe me. Nobody helped me, even though I begged and begged and begged.”
The debilitating lifelong struggle Capshaw has had to face is common among survivors of military sexual assault.

Later during therapy he needed to go public. Since then he says, “I’ve talked to a lot of men, many of them soldiers, who are raped but who won’t go public with their story. The shame alone is overwhelming.”
In 1985 Michael Warren enlisted in the navy and for three years worked as a submarine machinist mate on a nuclear submarine. One day he awoke to find another soldier performing fellatio on him.
He recollects with horror, “I was paralyzed with fear. I was in disbelief... shame. When I reported it to the commander he said it was better for me to deal with it after being discharged. Nobody helped me, not even the chaplain. The commander at the processing centre wouldn’t look me in the face. When I filled out my claim later they didn’t believe me. It’s so frustrating.”
Armando Javier was an active duty Marine from 1990 to 1994. He was a Lance Corporal at Camp Lejeune in 1993 when he was raped.

Five Marines jumped Javier and beat him until he was nearly unconscious, before taking turns raping him. His sexual victimization narrative reads, “One of them, a corporal, pulled down my shorts and instructed the others to ‘Get the grease’. Another corporal instructed someone to bring the stick. They began to insert the stick inside my anus. The people present during this sadistic and ritual-like ceremony started to cajole, cheer, and laugh, saying “stick em’ – stick-em’.”

Extreme shame and trauma compelled him not to disclose the crime to anyone except a friend in his unit. He wrote in his account, “My experience left me torn apart physically, mentally, and spiritually. I was dehumanized and treated with ultimate cruelty, by my perpetrators… I was embarrassed and ashamed and didn’t know what to do. I was young at that time. And being part of an elite organization that values brotherhood, integrity and faithfulness made it hard to come forward and reveal what happened.”

The reality of being less equal
Women in America were first allowed into the military during the Revolutionary War in 1775 and their travails are as old. Drill instructors indoctrinate new recruits into it at the outset by routinely referring to them as “girl,” “pussy,” “bitch,” and “dyke.”

A Command Sergeant Major told Catherine Jayne West of the Mississippi National Guard, “There aren’t but two places for women - in the kitchen or in the bedroom. Women have no place in the military.”
She was raped by fellow soldier Private First Class Kevin Lemeiux, at the sprawling Camp Anaconda, north of Baghdad. The defense lawyer in court merely wanted to know why, as a member of the army, she had not fought back.

The morning after the rape, an army doctor gave her a thorough examination. The army’s criminal investigation team concluded her story was true. Moreover, Lemeiux had bragged about the incident to his buddies and they had turned him in. It seemed like a closed case, but in court the defense claimed that the fact that West had not fought back during the rape was what incriminated her. In addition, her commanding officer and 1st Sergeant declared, in court, that she was a “promiscuous female.”
In contrast, Lemeiux, after the third court hearing of the trial, was promoted to a Specialist. Meanwhile his lawyer entered a plea of insanity.

He was later found guilty of kidnapping but not rape, despite his own admission of the crime. He was given three years for kidnapping, half of which was knocked off.

The long term affects of MST
Jasmine Black, a human resources specialist in the Army National Guard from June 2006 to September 2008 was raped by another soldier in her battalion when she was stationed in Fort Jackson, South Carolina. She reported it to her Sexual Assault Response Coordinator (SARC) and the Military Police, but the culprit was not brought to book.

After an early discharge due to MST and treatment at a PTSD Residential Rehabilitation Treatment Program (PRRTP) facility, she was raped again by a higher-ranking member of the air force in February 2009.
Administrator for a combat engineering instruction unit in Knoxville, Tennessee, Tracey Harmon has no illusions. “For women in the military, you are either a bitch, a dyke, or a whore. If you sleep with one person in your unit you are a whore. If you are a lesbian you are a dyke, and if you don’t sleep with other soldiers you are a bitch.”

Maricela Guzman served in the navy from 1998 to 2002 as a computer technician on the island of Diego Garcia. She was raped while in boot camp, but fear of consequences kept her from talking about it for the rest of her time in the military. “I survived by becoming a workaholic and was much awarded as a soldier for my work ethic.”

On witnessing the way it treated the native population in Diego Garcia, she chose to dissociate from the military. Post discharge, her life became unmanageable. She underwent a divorce, survived a failed suicide attempt and became homeless before deciding to move in with her parents. A chance encounter with a female veteran at a political event in Los Angeles prompted her to contact the VA for help. Her therapist there diagnosed her with PTSD from her rape.

The VA denied her claim nevertheless, “Because they said I couldn’t prove it … since I had not brought it up when it happened and also because I had not shown any deviant behavior while in the service. I was outraged and felt compelled to talk about what happened.”

While it will go to any length to maintain public silence over the issue, the military machine has no such qualms within its own corridors. Guzman discloses, “Through the gossip mill we would hear of women who had reported being raped. No confidentiality was maintained nor any protection given to victims. The boys’ club culture is strong and the competition exclusive. That forces many not to report rape, because it is a blemish and can ruin your career.”

The department of defence reported that in fiscal year 2009, there were 3,230 reports of sexual assault, an increase of 11 percent over the prior year.

However, as high as the military’s own figures are of rape and sexual assault, victims and advocates Al Jazeera spoke with believe the real figures are sure to be higher.
Veteran April Fitzsimmons, another victim of sexual assault, knows what an uphill battle it is for women to take on the military system. “When victims come forward, they are ostracized and isolated from their communities. Many of the perpetrators are officers who use their ranks to coerce women to sleep with them. It’s a closely interwoven community, so they are safe and move fearlessly amongst their victims.”
Her advice to women considering joining the US military?

“The crisis is so severe that I’m telling women to simply not join the military because it’s completely unsafe and puts them at risk. Until something changes at the top, no woman should join the military.”

This is the first in a two part series on sexual harassment in the US military.

Source:  http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2010/12/2010122182546344551.html
(Aljazeera)

Israeli 'nuclear offer' to S Africa

Israel offered to sell apartheid-era South Africa nuclear warheads in 1975, the UK's Guardian newspaper says quoting a forthcoming book. According to documents obtained by the newspaper, a secret meeting between the then-Israeli defence minister, Shimon Peres, and his South African counterpart, PW Botha, ended with an offer by Jerusalem for the sale of warheads "in three sizes". The Guardian claimedon Sunday that those "sizes" referred to conventional, chemical and nuclear weapons. The documents provide evidence that Israel has nuclear weapons despite its policy of "ambiguity" in neither confirming nor denying their existence. The classified documents surrounding the agreement between the countries and cited by the Guardian were uncovered by Sasha Polakow-Suransky, an American academic, during research for a book, the newspaper said. The defence ministers also signed a broad-ranging agreement governing military ties between the two countries that included a clause declaring that "the very existence of this agreement" was to remain secret. Sunday's report said that the documents were proof that Pretoria wanted the weapons to keep neighbouring states and other enemies from attacking them. The report also said Israeli authorities attempted to keep the South African government from declassifying the documents. Israeli denial A statement issued on Monday by the office of Peres, now Israel's president, rejected the newspaper's report. "There exists no basis in reality for the claims published this morning by The Guardian that in 1975 Israel negotiated with South Africa the exchange of nuclear weapons," it said. "Unfortunately, The Guardian elected to write its piece based on the selective interpretation of South African documents and not on concrete facts. "Israel has never negotiated the exchange of nuclear weapons with South Africa. There exists no Israeli document or Israeli signature on a document that such negotiations took place." However, Ian Black, Middle East editor of the Guardian, says the significance of the revelation is that it provides documentary proof that Israel was prepared to sell nuclear warheads to South Africa. "This shows that Israel was prepared to be a proliferator of nuclear weapons and encourage the spread of them around the world," he told Al Jazeera. "We have had definitive evidence since the 1980s that Israel certainly has nuclear weapons, but it's one thing to have weapons, this shows that Israel was going to sell weapons to another country. "Something that was previously known perhaps as a rumour or suspicion, has now been confirmed as fact - that the Israeli government had strong relations with the apartheid government and that Israel was planning to sell nuclear weapons." Documentary proof According to the Guardian, the minutes of the meeting on March 31, 1975, record that: "Minister Botha expressed interest in a limited number of units of Chalet subject to the correct payload being available." The document then records: "Minister Peres said the correct payload was available in three sizes. Minister Botha expressed his appreciation and said that he would ask for advice." in depth Factfile: The world's nuclear stockpile Inside Story: A world without atomic weapons Riz Khan: Global nuclear disarmament Israel's 'nuclear arsenal' Nuclear double standard Polakow-Suransky is also quoted as saying that Israel's offer to equip South Africa with atomic weapons was the result of the regime's need for a military deterrent and for potential strikes against neighbouring states. "South Africa's leaders yearned for a nuclear deterrent - which they believed would force the west to intervene on their behalf if Pretoria were ever seriously threatened - and the Israeli proposition put that goal within reach," the Guardian quoted Polakow-Suransky as writing in his book  published in the US this week, The Unspoken Alliance: Israel's secret alliance with apartheid South Africa. But the alleged deal did not go through, according to Polakow-Suransky, although Israel did reportedly provide South Africa with 30 grams of tritium, the substance which provides thermonuclear weapons with a boost to their explosive power. The delivery, according to the Guardian, was enough to build several atomic bombs. Waldo Stumpf, a former chief executive officer of South Africa's Atomic Energy Commission, told Al Jazeera that Botha "was quite adamant that the South African nuclear weapons programme was there for political reasons and was never there for technical reasons". No surprise Allister Sparks, a political commentator and former editor of South Africa's Rand Daily Mail newspaper, told Al Jazeera that the confirmation of a relationship between Israel and the apartheid regime came as no surprise. "Israel will obviously come out and deny this evidence and label anyone who takes it seriously as being anti-Semites," he said, "but this makes it more difficult for Israel to hold the respect of the world." Documents show South Africa wanted missiles as a 'deterrent' [The Guardian]  The documents confirm accounts by Dieter Gerhardt, a former South African naval commander, jailed in 1983 for spying for the Soviet Union. After his release following the collapse of apartheid, Gerhardt said there was an agreement between Israel and South Africa called "Chalet", which involved an offer by Israel to arm eight Jericho missiles with "special warheads". According to the paper, Gerhardt said these were atomic bombs. But until now there has been no documentary evidence of the offer. The existence of Israel's nuclear weapons programme was revealed by Israeli whistleblower Mordechai Vanunuto the Sunday Times in 1986. He provided photographs taken inside the Dimona nuclear site but provided no written documentation. Israeli 'pressure' According to the Guardian, Israel "pressured" the present South African government not to declassify documents obtained by Polakow-Suransky. "The Israeli defence ministry tried to block my access to the agreement on the grounds it was sensitive material, especially the signature and the date," he told the Guardian. "The South Africans didn't seem to care; they blacked out a few lines and handed it over to me. The ANC government is not so worried about protecting the dirty laundry of the apartheid regime's old allies." Israel is widely believed to be the only nuclear-armed power in the Middle East, with around 200 warheads, but it has a policy of neither confirming nor denying that. It has refused to sign the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty or to allow international surveillance of Dimona in the southern Negev desert. View original source

How Bush's grandpa helped Hitler's rise to power!

Guardian Online

George Bush's grandfather, the late US senator Prescott Bush, was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from their involvement with the financial backers of Nazi Germany.
The Guardian has obtained confirmation from newly discovered files in the US National Archives that a firm of which Prescott Bush was a director was involved with the financial architects of Nazism.

His business dealings, which continued until his company's assets were seized in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act, has led more than 60 years later to a civil action for damages being brought in Germany against the Bush family by two former slave labourers at Auschwitz and to a hum of pre-election controversy.
The evidence has also prompted one former US Nazi war crimes prosecutor to argue that the late senator's action should have been grounds for prosecution for giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

The debate over Prescott Bush's behaviour has been bubbling under the surface for some time.
There has been a steady internet chatter about the "Bush/Nazi" connection, much of it inaccurate and unfair.
But the new documents, many of which were only declassified last year, show that even after America had entered the war and when there was already significant information about the Nazis' plans and policies, he worked for and profited from companies closely involved with the very German businesses that financed Hitler's rise to power. It has also been suggested that the money he made from these dealings helped to establish the Bush family fortune and set up its political dynasty.

Remarkably, little of Bush's dealings with Germany has received public scrutiny, partly because of the secret status of the documentation involving him.

View Source

An Interview: With John Perkins (Must Read)

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man: How the U.S. Uses Globalization to Cheat Poor Countries Out of Trillions

We speak with John Perkins, a former respected member of the international banking community. In his book Confessions of an Economic Hit Man he describes how as a highly paid professional, he helped the U.S. cheat poor countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars by lending them more money than they could possibly repay and then take over their economies. [includes rush transcript]

John Perkins describes himself as a former economic hit man–a highly paid professional who cheated countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars.

20 years ago Perkins began writing a book with the working title, "Conscience of an Economic Hit Men."
Perkins writes, "The book was to be dedicated to the presidents of two countries, men who had been his clients whom I respected and thought of as kindred spirits–Jaime Roldós, president of Ecuador, and Omar Torrijos, president of Panama. Both had just died in fiery crashes. Their deaths were not accidental. They were assassinated because they opposed that fraternity of corporate, government, and banking heads whose goal is global empire. We Economic Hit Men failed to bring Roldós and Torrijos around, and the other type of hit men, the CIA-sanctioned jackals who were always right behind us, stepped in.

John Perkins goes on to write: "I was persuaded to stop writing that book. I started it four more times during the next twenty years. On each occasion, my decision to begin again was influenced by current world events: the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1980, the first Gulf War, Somalia, and the rise of Osama bin Laden. However, threats or bribes always convinced me to stop."

But now Perkins has finally published his story. The book is titled Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. John Perkins joins us now in our Firehouse studios.

• John Perkins, from 1971 to 1981 he worked for the international consulting firm of Chas T. Main where he was a self-described "economic hit man." He is the author of the new book Confessions of an Economic Hit Man.

Rush Transcript

AMY GOODMAN: John Perkins joins us now in our firehouse studio. Welcome to Democracy Now!
JOHN PERKINS: Thank you, Amy. It’s great to be here.
AMY GOODMAN: It’s good to have you with us. Okay, explain this term, "economic hit man," e.h.m., as you call it.
JOHN PERKINS: Basically what we were trained to do and what our job is to do is to build up the American empire. To bring—to create situations where as many resources as possible flow into this country, to our corporations, and our government, and in fact we’ve been very successful. We’ve built the largest empire in the history of the world. It’s been done over the last 50 years since World War II with very little military might, actually. It’s only in rare instances like Iraq where the military comes in as a last resort. This empire, unlike any other in the history of the world, has been built primarily through economic manipulation, through cheating, through fraud, through seducing people into our way of life, through the economic hit men. I was very much a part of that.

AMY GOODMAN: How did you become one? Who did you work for?
JOHN PERKINS: Well, I was initially recruited while I was in business school back in the late sixties by the National Security Agency, the nation’s largest and least understood spy organization; but ultimately I worked for private corporations. The first real economic hit man was back in the early 1950’s, Kermit Roosevelt, the grandson of Teddy, who overthrew of government of Iran, a democratically elected government, Mossadegh’s government who was Time's magazine person of the year; and he was so successful at doing this without any bloodshed—well, there was a little bloodshed, but no military intervention, just spending millions of dollars and replaced Mossadegh with the Shah of Iran. At that point, we understood that this idea of economic hit man was an extremely good one. We didn't have to worry about the threat of war with Russia when we did it this way. The problem with that was that Roosevelt was a C.I.A. agent. He was a government employee. Had he been caught, we would have been in a lot of trouble. It would have been very embarrassing. So, at that point, the decision was made to use organizations like the C.I.A. and the N.S.A. to recruit potential economic hit men like me and then send us to work for private consulting companies, engineering firms, construction companies, so that if we were caught, there would be no connection with the government.

AMY GOODMAN: Okay. Explain the company you worked for.
JOHN PERKINS: Well, the company I worked for was a company named Chas. T. Main in Boston, Massachusetts. We were about 2,000 employees, and I became its chief economist. I ended up having fifty people working for me. But my real job was deal-making. It was giving loans to other countries, huge loans, much bigger than they could possibly repay. One of the conditions of the loan—let’s say a $1 billion to a country like Indonesia or Ecuador—and this country would then have to give ninety percent of that loan back to a U.S. company, or U.S. companies, to build the infrastructure—a Halliburton or a Bechtel. These were big ones. Those companies would then go in and build an electrical system or ports or highways, and these would basically serve just a few of the very wealthiest families in those countries. The poor people in those countries would be stuck ultimately with this amazing debt that they couldn’t possibly repay. 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. It’s an empire. There’s no two ways about it. It’s a huge empire. It’s been extremely successful.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to John Perkins, author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. You say because of bribes and other reason you didn’t write this book for a long time. What do you mean? Who tried to bribe you, or who—what are the bribes you accepted?
JOHN PERKINS: Well, I accepted a half a million dollar bribe in the nineties not to write the book.

AMY GOODMAN: From?
JOHN PERKINS: From a major construction engineering company.

AMY GOODMAN: Which one?
JOHN PERKINS: Legally speaking, it wasn’t—Stoner-Webster. Legally speaking it wasn’t a bribe, it was—I was being paid as a consultant. This is all very legal. But I essentially did nothing. It was a very understood, as I explained in Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, that it was—I was—it was understood when I accepted this money as a consultant to them I wouldn’t have to do much work, but I mustn’t write any books about the subject, which they were aware that I was in the process of writing this book, which at the time I called "Conscience of an Economic Hit Man." And I have to tell you, Amy, that, you know, it’s an extraordinary story from the standpoint of—It’s almost James Bondish, truly, and I mean-–

AMY GOODMAN: Well that’s certainly how the book reads.
JOHN PERKINS: Yeah, and it was, you know? And when the National Security Agency recruited me, they put me through a day of lie detector tests. They found out all my weaknesses and immediately seduced me. They used the strongest drugs in our culture, sex, power and money, to win me over. I come from a very old New England family, Calvinist, steeped in amazingly strong moral values. I think I, you know, I’m a good person overall, and I think my story really shows how this system and these powerful drugs of sex, money and power can seduce people, because I certainly was seduced. And if I hadn’t lived this life as an economic hit man, I think I’d have a hard time believing that anybody does these things. And that’s why I wrote the book, because our country really needs to understand, if people in this nation understood what our foreign policy is really about, what foreign aid is about, how our corporations work, where our tax money goes, I know we will demand change.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to John Perkins. In your book, you talk about how you helped to implement a secret scheme that funneled billions of dollars of Saudi Arabian petrol dollars back into the U.S. economy, and that further cemented the intimate relationship between the House of Saud and successive U.S. administrations. Explain.
JOHN PERKINS: Yes, it was a fascinating time. I remember well, you’re probably too young to remember, but I remember well in the early seventies how OPEC exercised this power it had, and cut back on oil supplies. We had cars lined up at gas stations. The country was afraid that it was facing another 1929-type of crash—depression; and this was unacceptable. So, they—the Treasury Department hired me and a few other economic hit men. We went to Saudi Arabia. We—

AMY GOODMAN: You’re actually called economic hit men—e.h.m.’s?
JOHN PERKINS: Yeah, it was a tongue-in-cheek term that we called ourselves. Officially, I was a chief economist. We called ourselves e.h.m.'s. It was tongue-in-cheek. It was like, nobody will believe us if we say this, you know? And, so, we went to Saudi Arabia in the early seventies. We knew Saudi Arabia was the key to dropping our dependency, or to controlling the situation. And we worked out this deal whereby the Royal House of Saud agreed to send most of their petro-dollars back to the United States and invest them in U.S. government securities. The Treasury Department would use the interest from these securities to hire U.S. companies to build Saudi Arabia—new cities, new infrastructure—which we've done. And the House of Saud would agree to maintain the price of oil within acceptable limits to us, which they’ve done all of these years, and we would agree to keep the House of Saud in power as long as they did this, which we’ve done, which is one of the reasons we went to war with Iraq in the first place. And in Iraq we tried to implement the same policy that was so successful in Saudi Arabia, but Saddam Hussein didn’t buy. 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. or try to. In the case of Iraq, they weren’t able to get through to Saddam Hussein. He had—His bodyguards were too good. He had doubles. They couldn’t get through to him. So the third line of defense, if the economic hit men and the jackals fail, the next line of defense is our young men and women, who are sent in to die and kill, which is what we’ve obviously done in Iraq.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you explain how Torrijos died?
JOHN PERKINS: Omar Torrijos, the President of Panama. Omar Torrijos had signed the Canal Treaty with Carter much—and, you know, it passed our congress by only one vote. It was a highly contended issue. And Torrijos then also went ahead and negotiated with the Japanese to build a sea-level canal. The Japanese wanted to finance and construct a sea-level canal in Panama. Torrijos talked to them about this which very much upset Bechtel Corporation, whose president was George Schultz and senior council was Casper Weinberger. When Carter was thrown out (and that’s an interesting story—how that actually happened), when he lost the election, and Reagan came in and Schultz came in as Secretary of State from Bechtel, and Weinberger came from Bechtel to be Secretary of Defense, they were extremely angry at Torrijos—tried to get him to renegotiate the Canal Treaty and not to talk to the Japanese. He adamantly refused. He was a very principled man. He had his problem, but he was a very principled man. He was an amazing man, Torrijos. And so, he died in a fiery airplane crash, which was connected to a tape recorder with explosives in it, which—I was there. I had been working with him. I knew that we economic hit men had failed. I knew the jackals were closing in on him, and the next thing, his plane exploded with a tape recorder with a bomb in it. There’s no question in my mind that it was C.I.A. sanctioned, and most—many Latin American investigators have come to the same conclusion. Of course, we never heard about that in our country.

AMY GOODMAN: So, where—when did your change your heart happen?
JOHN PERKINS: I felt guilty throughout the whole time, but I was seduced. The power of these drugs, sex, power, and money, was extremely strong for me. And, of course, I was doing things I was being patted on the back for. I was chief economist. I was doing things that Robert McNamara liked and so on.

AMY GOODMAN: How closely did you work with the World Bank?
JOHN PERKINS: Very, very closely with the World Bank. The World Bank provides most of the money that’s used by economic hit men, it and the I.M.F. But when 9/11 struck, I had a change of heart. I knew the story had to be told because what happened at 9/11 is a direct result of what the economic hit men are doing. And the only way that we’re going to feel secure in this country again and that we’re going to feel good about ourselves is if we use these systems we’ve put into place to create positive change around the world. I really believe we can do that. I believe the World Bank and other institutions can be turned around and do what they were originally intended to do, which is help reconstruct devastated parts of the world. Help—genuinely help poor people. There are twenty-four thousand people starving to death every day. We can change that.

AMY GOODMAN: John Perkins, I want to thank you very much for being with us. John Perkins’ book is called, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man.

Source: http://www.democracynow.org/2004/11/9/confessions_of_an_economic_hit_man

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man

Author: John Perkins
Concise summary below

About John Perkins:
John Perkins was for many years one of the world's top economists. He worked directly with the heads of the World Bank, IMF, and other global financial institutions. He quit his work about 20 years ago because morally and ethically, he felt it was wrong to play such a key role in creating world empire at the expense of the less advantaged around the world. After being persuaded and even bribed not to write a book about his experiences, Perkins states, "When 9/11 struck, I had a change of heart." The book, Confessions of an Economic Hitman, spent many weeks on amazon.com's bestseller list and has been widely acclaimed. Below is a summary of this landmark book.

General Overview:
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man is John Perkins’ fast-paced autobiography, which reveals his career as an economist for an international consulting firm. Perkins says he was actually an “Economic Hit Man.” His job was to convince countries that are strategically important to the United States to accept enormous loans for infrastructure development and to make sure that the lucrative projects were contracted to U.S. corporations.

Perkins takes the reader through his career and explains how he created economic projections for countries to accept billions of dollars in loans they surely couldn’t afford. He shares his battle with his conscience over these actions and offers advice for how Americans can work to end these practices which have directly resulted in terrorist attacks and animosity towards the United States.
What Is An Economic Hit Man?

Perkins defines economic hit men as “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.”

In Perkins’ case, he was hired as an economist for the international consulting firm of Chas. T. Main, Inc. (MAIN). He was told in confidential meetings with “special consultant” to the company Claudine Martin that he had two primary objectives:

1. He was supposed to justify huge loans for countries. These loans would be for major engineering and construction projects, which were to be carried out by MAIN and other U.S. companies such as Bechtel, Halliburton, Stone & Webster and Brown & Root.

2. He was supposed to help bankrupt the countries that received these loans after the U.S. companies involved had been paid. This would make sure that these countries would remain in debt to their creditors and would then be easy targets when the U.S. needed favors such as military bases, UN votes and access to natural resources like oil.

Perkins’ job was to produce economic growth projections that would make the case for a variety of major projects. If the U.S. decided to lend a country money, Perkins would compare the economic benefits of different projects such as power plants or telecommunications systems. He would then produce reports that showed the economic growth the country would experience due to these projects. These economic growth projections needed to be high enough to justify the loans. Otherwise, the loans would be denied.

The gross national product (GNP) was always the most important factor in these economic projections. The project expected to increase the GNP the most would be chosen. In the cases where there was only one project under consideration, it needed to be shown that the project would greatly benefit the GNP. Luckily for the economic hit man, GNP figures can be quite deceptive. “For instance, the growth of GNP may result even when it profits only one person, such as an individual who owns a utility company, while the majority of the population is burdened with debt.”

All of these projects were meant to make huge profits for the contractors. The U.S. engineering and construction companies involved would be assured of great wealth. At the same time, a few wealthy families and influential leaders in the receiving countries would become very happy and very rich thanks to these loans. The leaders of these countries would also have bolstered political power because they were credited with bringing industrial parks, power plants and airports to their people.

The problem is that these countries simply cannot handle the debt of these loans and their poorest citizens are deprived of health, education and other social services for several decades as these countries struggle economically to overcome their huge debts. Meanwhile, the huge American media conglomerates portray these projects as favors being provided by the United States. American citizens in general have no trouble believing these messages, and in fact are led to perceive that these actions are unselfish acts of international goodwill.

Ultimately, due to the large debts, the U.S. is able to draw on these countries for political, economic and military favors whenever desired. And of course, the U.S. corporations involved with the expensive projects become extremely wealthy.

The U.S. Government’s Role
Economic hit men [EHM] don’t actually work for a United States government organization such as the Central Intelligence Agency. The risk with such a direct association is obvious. For example, if an EHM was working to put a country in debt to the U.S. with the main reason being for favorable military and political positions against the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union would be quite likely to take military action against the U.S. if that EHM were found to be working for the U.S. government. In the 1960s, America found a way to use economic hitmen without directly implicating Washington.

It was during the 1960s that we saw the empowerment of international corporations and multinational organizations such as the World Bank. This allowed for governments, corporations and multinational organizations to form mutually beneficial relationships. United States intelligence agencies were able to use these relationships to their advantage.

Government organizations such as the National Security Agency (NSA) were now able to screen for potential economic hitmen (as they did with Perkins) and then have them hired by international corporations such as MAIN.

“These economic hitmen 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.”

Perkins’ Story of Being Recruited as an Economic Hit Man
Perkins married a former college classmate in 1967. A good friend of her father’s, referred to as “Uncle Frank”, was a top-echelon executive at the NSA. Uncle Frank immediately took a liking to Perkins and informed him that a job with the NSA would make him eligible for draft deferment, meaning he could avoid fighting in the Vietnam War.

After extensive interviews with the NSA, Perkins was offered a job, but declined it to instead join the Peace Corps. Surprisingly, Uncle Frank supported this decision, largely because it meant that Perkins would have the opportunity to go to Ecuador and live with the indigenous people of the Amazon region.
It was with the Peace Corps in Ecuador when a vice president of Chas. T. Main, Inc. approached Perkins about working for MAIN. The man explained that he sometimes acted as an NSA liaison, which made this job opportunity a perfect fit for Perkins, who had intended on accepting the NSA job when his Peace Corps tour was over.

Upon returning to the U.S., Perkins was hired as an economist for MAIN. He was told that MAIN’s primary business was engineering, but that their biggest client, the World Bank, had insisted that the company keep economists employed in order to produce the “critical economic forecasts used to determine the feasibility and magnitude of engineering projects.”

Shortly after being hired, Perkins was trained confidentially by Claudine Martin, a special consultant to MAIN. It was Martin who explained to Perkins what his real job was. It was Martin who explained that he was now an “Economic Hit Man” and that once he accepted this job, he could never leave it.

Indonesia 
Perkins’ first assignment took him took to Indonesia. Indonesia was an oil-rich country and had been described as “the most heavily populated piece of real estate on the planet.” Perkins’ job was to produce very optimistic economic forecasts for the country, showing that by building new power plants and distribution lines, the country’s economy would explode. These projections would allow USAID and international banks to justify huge loans for the country, which would then be paid to U.S. corporations to build the projects.
In 1971, Indonesia had become even more important to the U.S. in its battle against Communism. Potential withdrawl from Vietnam had the U.S. worried about a domino effect of one country after another falling under Communist rule. Indonesia was viewed as the key. If the U.S. could gain control of Indonesia (with the debts that would incur thanks to the loans for these huge projects), they believed it would help ensure American dominance in Southeast Asia.

While spending three months in Indonesia to conduct interviews and study the economic potential for the country, Perkins was exposed to the drastic discrepancy between the wealthy and the extremely poor in Indonesia. While there were certainly signs of a striving economy with first-class hotels and mansions, Perkins also personally saw the tragic side of Indonesia where women and children bathed in wretched, sewer-filled water and beggars packed the streets. He also met some of the country’s native citizens and learned of their resentment of American greed and extravagance in the face of their starving children.

These close encounters with the Indonesians created a struggle of conscience for Perkins. He wondered if American capitalism was really the answer for the people of Indonesia. He wondered if the population as a whole would really benefit from the infrastructures the U.S. wanted to build in Indonesia, or would it only be a wealthy few who became even wealthier while the rest of the country became more entrenched in poverty and became even more anti-American?

While conducting his studies in Indonesia, Perkins was encouraged by his superiors to create strong forecasts for economic growth. He was told that growth rates of 17 percent per annum were expected. Also providing economic forecasts for MAIN was an older employee named Howard Parker. Parker told Perkins not to be pressured by his superiors, he told him not to buy into the game, not to create unrealistic projections. He told Perkins that the electrification project could not create economic growth rates of more than 7-9 percent.
Conversations with Parker led to more conscience battles for Perkins. Ultimately, he told himself that the decision wasn’t really his to make, it would be up to his bosses and they could simply choose between his high economic forecast and Parker’s lower forecast. When the final projections were presented to the executives at MAIN, Perkins’ figures pleased his bosses with 17-20 percent growth rate projections while Parker’s forecast came in at eight percent. Parker was promptly fired and Perkins was promoted to Chief Economist at MAIN and received a nice raise.

Panama
In 1972, Perkins was sent to Panama to close the deal on MAIN’s master development plan with the country. “This plan would create a justification for World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, and USAID investment of billions of dollars in the energy, transportation, and agricultural sectors of this tiny and very crucial country. It was, of course, a subterfuge, a means of making Panama forever indebted and thereby returning to its puppet status.”

Again, Perkins experienced the enormous differences between the wealthy and the poor. However, in Panama, the differences were most extreme in one area, the Canal Zone. In the Canal Zone, Americans lived in beautiful homes and enjoyed golf courses and firstclass shopping. Just outside of the Canal Zone, Panamanians lived in wooden shacks and among overflowing sewage. These harsh differences created high levels of animosity between the Americans living in the Canal Zone and the natives of Panama. It was not uncommon to see graffiti messages demanding that the U.S. leave Panama.

On his trip, Perkins met with Panama’s president and charismatic leader, Omar Torrijos. Perkins was very impressed with Torrijos and became friends with the leader. Torrijos was well aware of the EHM practices and knew fully how the game was played. He knew that he could become a very wealthy man by cooperating with the U.S. companies that wanted to build their projects in his country, but he worried about Panama losing its independence and not taking care of its many citizens living in poverty.

Torrijos made a peculiar deal with Perkins and MAIN. He wanted Panama to take back control of the Panama Canal and in doing so he wanted to build a more efficient canal, a sea-level one without locks that would allow for bigger ships. The Japanese, the Canal’s biggest clients, would be interested in financing this construction, which would anger Bechtel Group, Inc. Bechtel was a company closely connected to Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush.

Omar Torrijos was concerned that these actions might send the wrong signals internationally. He wanted to make sure that Panama was recognized as an independent country and was not dictated by Russia, China or Cuba. He did not want Panama to be perceived as against the United States. Instead, he wanted it known that they were simply protecting the rights of the poor.

Torrijos did want to invest in huge advancement projects in electricity, transportation and communications for Panama, but he wanted to make certain that these projects benefited his entire country, including those living in extreme poverty. To do so would require huge amounts of money from the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank. Torrijos worried that his commitment to taking back the Canal would anger the top people at Bechtel so much that it would make it nearly impossible to achieve his plans for these projects.
So, Torrijos made a deal with Perkins and MAIN. He told Perkins that if he could secure the financing for these projects, MAIN could have all the work they wanted on this master development plan. Perkins agreed to the deal and would do Torrijos’ bidding.

Saudi Arabia
In response to the power of the international oil companies, which collaborated to hold down petroleum prices, a group of oil-producing countries formed OPEC in the 1960s. The huge impact OPEC was capable of became evident to the world with the 1973 oil embargo. This embargo was a result of the United States’ support of Israel when Egypt and Syria launched attacks on the country.

As the U.S. provided Israel with more financial aid, Saudi Arabia and other Arab oil producing countries imposed a total embargo on oil shipments to the U.S. While the embargo was short-lived, its impact was huge as Saudi oil prices jumped from $1.39 per barrel on January 1, 1970 to $8.32 on January 1, 1974.
As a result, Wall Street and Washington became obsessed with protecting American oil supplies and the U.S. was forced to recognize Saudi Arabia’s importance to its economy. “For Saudi Arabia, the additional oil income resulting from the price hikes was a mixed blessing.” Suddenly, the country’s conservative religious beliefs were being replaced with a sense of materialism.

Washington recognized this movement and negotiated with Saudi Arabia for assurance that there would never again be an oil embargo from the country. The result of these negotiations was the United States-Saudi Arabian Joint Economic Commission, known as JECOR. The unprecedented agreement was the opposite of the norm, where countries had to borrow from the U.S. until it could never get out of that debt. Instead, this agreement relied on Saudi Arabia’s own money to hire American firms to build up the country.
The U.S. wanted Saudi Arabia to guarantee to maintain oil supplies at prices that would be acceptable to the U.S. and its allies. Due to Saudi Arabia’s vast petroleum supplies, this guarantee would protect the U.S. even if other countries threatened oil embargos.

In exchange for the guarantee, the U.S. offered the House of Saud a commitment to provide complete political and military support (this would guarantee that the royal family would continue to rule in Saudi Arabia). The condition would be that the Saudis buy U.S. government securities with their petrodollars and that the interest earned on these securities would be used to pay U.S. companies to convert Saudi Arabia into a modern industrial power.

Perkins was brought in as an adviser in the early stages of these negotiations. His job was “to develop forecasts of what might happen in Saudi Arabia if vast amounts of money were invested in its infrastructure, and to map out scenarios for spending that money.” He was told that not only would this job result in huge profits for MAIN, but that it was also a matter of national security.

This job was different for Perkins as the final objective was not to burden Saudi Arabia with debts it could never repay, but instead to “assure that a large portion of petrodollars found their way back to the United States.” Basically, MAIN and other U.S. corporations needed to convince Saudi Arabia of the importance and benefits of transforming their country to a more modern nation. This would ultimately make Saudi Arabia more dependent on U.S. corporations and make U.S. corporations extremely wealthy.

For his part, Perkins convinced a key player within the House of Saud, a man he calls Prince W., that these projects would benefit his country as well as him personally. Perkins was able to eventually persuade Prince W. by arranging for a beautiful prostitute to live with him. By arranging for the prostitute to live with Prince W., Perkins was able to gain his trust and eventually convinced him of the value of the deal. The entire package was finally approved by the royal family of Saudi Arabia and MAIN was rewarded with one of the first highly lucrative contracts, which was actually administered by the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
“The deal between the United States and Saudi Arabia transformed the kingdom practically overnight.” It also marked the beginning of an ongoing relationship between the House of Saud, the bin Laden family and the Bush family, which benefited greatly from a financial standpoint thanks to the deal.

Struggling with His Conscience
Perkins saw his career take off as he was promoted again and became the youngest partner in the history of MAIN. He would go on to head major projects all over the world while taking home a huge salary. However, Perkins could not stop struggling with his conscience over the negative outcomes he believed he was causing as an EHM. In 1978 and 1979, the consequences of EHM empire building became clear to Perkins by what he saw happen in Iran.

While the U.S. had supported the shah, the results had led to class wars and passionate animosity towards the “corporatocracy” being implemented in Iran. Perkins had seen this hostility first-hand in several of the countries where he had helped to create similar situations with his EHM practices. Citizens of these countries hated U.S. policy and blamed it for their corrupt leaders and despotic government. In Iran, the situation escalated and led to the shah fleeing the country for his own safety and Iranians storming the U.S. Embassy and taking 52 hostages.

It was then that Perkins fully realized that “the United States is a nation laboring to deny the truth about its imperialist role in the world” and he became overwhelmed with guilt over his role in this global movement. Perkins sank into a depression and quit his job at MAIN in 1980.

The Impact of the Economic Hit man Continues
Perkins would continue to be haunted by the impact of economic hitmen even as he started his own company (a company that committed to producing environmentally friendly electricity), did special consulting for MAIN and other corporations, and became involved with nonprofit organizations and their efforts to work with and help indigenous people in Latin America.

In 1981, Perkins became deeply disturbed by the death of his friend and the leader of Panama, Omar Torrijos. Perkins believes that his friend Torrijos’ death in a plane crash was a CIA assassination because of his positions on the Panama Canal (Torrijos had achieved his goal of taking back the Canal) and his unwillingness to cooperate with American corporations.

Torrijos was replaced by Manuel Noriega, who “became a symbol of corruption and decadence.” Eventually, in 1989, the United States attacked Panama. The reigns of power were returned to the pre-Torrijos oligarchy, which had served as U.S. puppets from the time when Panama was torn from Columbia until Torrijos took over.

Perkins also watched closely throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s as the U.S. tried to get Iraq and Saddam Hussein to buy into the EHM scenario as Saudi Arabia had done before. Hussein refused and when he invaded Kuwait, the U.S. wasted little time and attacked Iraq. The economic hitmen failed again in their efforts following the invasion of Iraq and in 2003, the U.S. invaded Iraq once again.

Perkins began to write Confessions of an Economic Hit Man on several occasions, but stopped due to bribes or threats. But after 9/11, Perkins knew he could no longer wait and felt he had to expose these practices and the devastating consequences they create.

What to Do Now
Perkins now spends his life trying to educate people about the role of the economic hit man and how we can end their practices and achieve more global peace and prosperity by transforming our institutions. He believes “we have convinced ourselves that all economic growth benefits humankind, and that the greater the growth, the more widespread the benefits.” We must realize that the American capitalism we are trying to push on other countries may not be what’s best for the rest of the world.

We can’t just blame this movement on a conspiracy. “The empire depends on the efficacy of big banks, corporations, and governments – the corporatocracy – but it is not a conspiracy. This corporatocracy is ourselves – we make it happen – which, of course, is why most of us find it difficult to stand up and oppose it. We cannot bring ourselves to bite the hand of the master who feeds us.”
Perkins offers several ways to help stop “the corporatocracy and to end this insane and self-destructive march to global empire.”

• Read between the lines of each and every media report and help others do the same. The majority of our media outlets – newspapers, magazines, publishing houses, television stations, radio stations, etc. – are owned by huge international corporations and these corporations aren’t afraid to manipulate the news they deliver. Always seek the truth and encourage others to do the same.
• Cut back on oil consumption and shopping. When you are shopping, be very aware of the products you buy and the companies you’re supporting.
• Downsize your personal possessions, including your home, your car and your office.
• Protest against unfair free trade agreements.
• Protest against companies that exploit desperate people in sweatshops.
• Protest against companies that pillage the environment.
• Look for ways to educate others about what is going on in the world. This can be done by writing letters and emails to friends, newspapers, school boards and local organizations.
• And finally, ask yourself the following questions:
Why have I allowed myself to be sucked into a system that I know is unbalanced?

What will I do to help our children, and all children everywhere, to fulfill the dream
of our Founding Fathers, the dream of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?

What course will I take to end starvation, and make sure there is never again a day
like September 11th?

How can I help our children understand that people who live gluttonous, unbalanced
lives should be pitied but never, ever emulated, even if those people present
themselves, through the media they control, as cultural icons and try to
convince us that penthouses and yachts bring happiness?

What changes will I commit to making in my attitudes and perceptions?

What forums will I use to teach others and to learn more on my own?
These are the essential questions of our time.

Note: The above is a slightly edited version of the summary published by CapitolReader.com. Perkins has written many other books including The World Is As You Dream It and The Stress-Free Habit. To educate yourself as recommended by Perkins, click here.

Source: http://www.wanttoknow.info/johnperkinseconomichitman

Foreign Aid: The Path to Slavery

Elite capitalist nations, such as America, UK and Canada, portray aid packages to Muslim countries as charity. But, in reality, this money is an investment that enables the colonial powers to maintain their influence in the Muslim lands. Foreign aid is a tool of control. We must call on the Ummah to reject the continued subordination of our affairs to these colonial nations. We must call on the people of influence in the Muslim lands to reject foreign aid and set a course that is subordinate to none but Allah (swt).In October, US President Barack Obama signed into law the Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act of 2009. The bill, also known as the Kerry-Lugar Bill, promises to send $7.5 billion in “aid” over a period of 5 years. However, the conditions attached to the bill are a cause of concern for many, including the Pakistani army, who see the bill as an infringement on national security.

Foreign Aid: “No Free Lunch”
When analyzing the actions of nations that adopt the capitalist ideology, such as America, it is important to recognize that they do not provide assistance – monetary or otherwise – for free. A closer look at the Kerry-Lugar Bill will reveal that the aid package comes with the following conditions:

US can inspect Pakistan’s nuclear programs on demand.Washington must confirm military promotions and appointments made by the Pakistani civilian leaders.Pakistan must accept American and British blame – without dispute – for their failures in Afghanistan.Pakistani military must cease support for extremist and terrorist groups – which include Muslims who resist occupation in Kashmir and Afghanistan – and prevent them from undertaking any operations in neighboring countries.“Pakistani national, regional, and local officials and members of Pakistani civil society and local private sector, civic, religious, and tribal leaders” must implement projects as dictated by the US. Pakistan must change its curricula for Madrassas.
Pakistan is also expected to sacrifice its troops – the sons of this noble Ummah – for the sake of America’s brutal occupation of Afghanistan. This is in addition to the lives that will be lost from America’s bombing campaign conducted by its unmanned drones.

The Kerry-Lugar Bill is not the first foreign aid package sent to Pakistan. According to the U.S. Agency for International Development, the US alone has sent $16.7 billion from 1946-2007 in economic and military assistance. Despite this “aid” being sent, the situation in Pakistan has not improved.

Where does the money go?
The money sent by the US, UK, Canada and other capitalist nations mostly ends up in the pockets of the multi-national corporations. According to the New York Times, 45% of the aid sent by the Bush administration to Pakistan eventually reached the hands of American private contractors. A similar trend exists in Afghanistan. According to Action Aid, as much as 60% of aid is considered “phantom aid”, which does not even make it to Afghanistan. Instead, it is funneled directly to the bank accounts of American corporations. Aid is also a means to support the puppet government: it was reported in the Telegraph that the Karzai government depends on foreign countries for 90% of its revenues. The bulk of this comes from the US (who pledged about $10 billion in 2008). The article notes that without this money, the Karzai government would not be able to stand against the Taliban. The aid money is used to fund the local puppet government, who in turn implements the foreign policies of the sponsor country. In other words, this money is not intended to help the poor people of Afghanistan. Rather it is being used to prop up the puppet government that is a tool of America.

The arrangement of “paying-off” the local ruling class is routine amongst the colonial capitalist nations. Take, for example, the submarine deal between Pakistan and France. A French company was hired to build submarines for the Pakistani army. In 2002, 11 French engineers who worked for this company were killed in a bomb blast that occurred in Karachi, Pakistan. Initially, the blame was put on Al-Qaeda. However, an investigating judge from France claims that the bombing actually traced back to a deal-gone-sour between the French government and the Pakistani government. The judge alleged that the Pakistani army killed the French nationals because France stopped paying “commissions” to Pakistani army officials on the sale of submarines.

In Egypt, a comparable relationship exists between the country’s ruling elite and their American paymasters. A 2006 article in Al-Ahram Weekly noted that Egypt received $1.3 billion in foreign military financing and $1.2 billion in international military education and training. By paying the army directly, its dependence on America is ensured. Through its training initiatives, America can also recruit agents. The article noted that David Welch, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, saw Egypt as a key tool in America’s foreign policy in terms of exerting American influence in Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Sudan, and Iran.

America is not alone in using aid to wield their influence in the Muslim lands. Canada partakes in this game as well. In Afghanistan, Canada funnels the aid through non-governmental organizations (NGOs), including Oxfam and CARE Canada. The Canadian government does not want to give the aid money to the Karzai regime and prop-up America’s puppet. Furthermore, Karzai is mired in so much corruption that the money will be “diverted” before it is used in the manner that would achieve Canada’s interests in Afghanistan.

Colonialism: Emanating from the Capitalist Aqeedah
The Western nations vying for influence in the Muslim lands is colonialism in disguise. The colonial policy emanates from the capitalist aqeedah, which maintains that the sole criterion for action is “benefit and harm”. According to the capitalist formulation of foreign policy, nations conduct foreign policy by furthering their interests and protecting them abroad. Of course the main interest of the capitalist nations is economic. This means that these nations will compete with each other to access cheap natural resources at the expense of the weaker nations. The Ummah witnessed this policy with the American invasion of Iraq; the invading American army protected the oil ministry, but left the people to fend for themselves. Furthermore, the capitalist economic system depends on the procurement of cheap resources and cheap labor to pad the bottom line of its corporations and drive the stock prices and the stock market indices higher.

When comparing the rulers of Muslim lands and their supporters to the Sahaba (ra), we see a stark contrast. The Sahaba (ra) were loyal to Allah (swt) and RasulAllah (saw). For example, when Ka’ab Bin Malik (ra) was boycotted by the Ummah – by the command of Allah (swt) – he received a letter from a pro-Roman King of Ghassan (who had deep hatred for Islam), inviting him to leave Madinah and live in “comfort and consolation” with the Christians. After reading the letter, Ka’ab (ra) simply burned it. However, today is a different story. We see the rulers and their supporters running after America and Britain in a manner that is void of any izzah (dignity). One wonders how the Ummah fell from such heights of honor and dignity to the current pitiful state.

Intellectual Slavery: How did we get here?
Although the intellectual decline had been in progress for centuries, it was the fall of the Khilafah and the onset of the European occupation that led to the emergence of these tyrants and elites that rule the Ummah today. Through this direct occupation, the Europeans were able to secure the institutions of power. They were able to change the ruling system, the judicial system, the education system, the eco-nomic system and the social system throughout the occupied Muslim lands. These systems – along with the common emotions and common thoughts of the people – are what bind the society together, and, through them, the Europeans were able to corrupt the Ummah. Any Islamic alternatives that were offered by the Ummah during these times of colonial rule were eliminated. For example, in Algeria, scholars attempted to preserve the Islamic culture, heritage and language. However, they were continually harassed, arrested, and persecuted by the French occupation until they were silenced.

The present rulers and intellectuals (e.g. civil servants, educators, etc) grew up in this environment. They were immersed in European thoughts and concepts. They were taught about European history and European wars, but were not taught the Seerah of the Prophet (saw) or the history of the Khilafah. Consequently, they knew more about European philosophers than about Mus’ab ibn Umayr (ra), Saad ibn Mua’dh (ra) or the other Sahaba (ra). The colonized personality became the model of their thoughts through the European education system. This vision for engendering a colonized mentality was articulated in 1854 by Mountstuart Elphinstone, who said ”we must not dream of perpetual possession, but must apply ourselves to bring the natives into a state that will admit of their governing themselves in a manner that may be beneficial to our interests…”.

As a result of this process, the ruling class within the Muslim countries today looks solely to America and Europe for solutions – because that is all they are familiar with. It has become natural for these people to have cordial relations with the very enemies that once occupied them! By extension, it is natural for this segment of society to accept the continued intervention of America, Britain, France and other elite capitalist nations, in the affairs of the Ummah – be it through foreign aid, economic assistance or direct intervention.

Political Independence: A Vital Issue for the Ummah
As demonstrated above, “foreign aid” is really a means for the capitalist nations to enslave the Muslim countries, and more importantly, it is haram for Muslim countries to allow themselves to become colonized by other nations. Allah (swt) revealed:

"And never will Allah grant to the disbelievers a way (to triumph) over the believers."
[TMQ 4:141]

It is important to link the issue to halal and haram, as this is the only criterion that is valid before Allah (swt). Connecting the issue of halal and haram to Allah (swt) and the akhira is a core aspect of dawah as the hukm (ruling) of Allah (swt) is the correct way to measure the issues we face – as opposed to the criterion of “benefit and harm” used by the capitalists.

Once the correct criterion is established, we must also convince the Ummah that such an approach is politically disastrous. We must lobby the people of power and influence them to make themselves independent of foreign aid. We must raise the points and evidences discussed above and demonstrate how this policy leads the country to become subordinate to the capitalist nations. Alhumdullilah, Allah (swt) has blessed the Ummah with the Qur’an and Sunnah, offering comprehensive Guidance in all of life’s affairs and for all times – we do not need their “theories” or “solutions”. Allah (swt) has blessed our Ummah with good people and blessed our lands with tremendous wealth – we do not need their paper dollars that steadily lose their value every day.

Islam was revealed to be a beacon of light for all of humanity. But this cannot happen until the Ummah becomes intellectually and politically independent of the secular-capitalist system, and establishes its thoughts and systems on the guidance of Islam.

May Allah (swt) guide this Ummah, restore our izzah, and grant us a righteous leadership that will implement upon us Islam and rid us of the interference of the colonial powers.

“We revealed the Book to you in explanation of every thing, and as guidance, mercy, and good tidings to those who believe.”
[TMQ 16:89]

posted by The Politically Aware Muslim at http://awaremuslim.blogspot.com/search/label/Capitalism on Nov 6, 2009

Robert Fisk: Even I question the 'truth' about 9/11

Published: 25 August 2007

Each time I lecture abroad on the Middle East, there is always someone in the audience – just one – whom I call the "raver". Apologies here to all the men and women who come to my talks with bright and pertinent questions – often quite humbling ones for me as a journalist – and which show that they understand the Middle East tragedy a lot better than the journalists who report it. But the "raver" is real. He has turned up in corporeal form in Stockholm and in Oxford, in Sao Paulo and in Yerevan, in Cairo, in Los Angeles and, in female form, in Barcelona. No matter the country, there will always be a "raver".

His – or her – question goes like this. Why, if you believe you're a free journalist, don't you report what you really know about 9/11? Why don't you tell the truth – that the Bush administration (or the CIA or Mossad, you name it) blew up the twin towers? Why don't you reveal the secrets behind 9/11? The assumption in each case is that Fisk knows – that Fisk has an absolute concrete, copper-bottomed fact-filled desk containing final proof of what "all the world knows" (that usually is the phrase) – who destroyed the twin towers. Sometimes the "raver" is clearly distressed. One man in Cork screamed his question at me, and then – the moment I suggested that his version of the plot was a bit odd – left the hall, shouting abuse and kicking over chairs.

Usually, I have tried to tell the "truth"; that while there are unanswered questions about 9/11, I am the Middle East correspondent of The Independent, not the conspiracy correspondent; that I have quite enough real plots on my hands in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Iran, the Gulf, etc, to worry about imaginary ones in Manhattan. My final argument – a clincher, in my view – is that the Bush administration has screwed up everything – militarily, politically diplomatically – it has tried to do in the Middle East; so how on earth could it successfully bring off the international crimes against humanity in the United States on 11 September 2001?

Well, I still hold to that view. Any military which can claim – as the Americans did two days ago – that al-Qa'ida is on the run is not capable of carrying out anything on the scale of 9/11. "We disrupted al-Qa'ida, causing them to run," Colonel David Sutherland said of the preposterously code-named "Operation Lightning Hammer" in Iraq's Diyala province. "Their fear of facing our forces proves the terrorists know there is no safe haven for them." And more of the same, all of it untrue.

Within hours, al-Qa'ida attacked Baquba in battalion strength and slaughtered all the local sheikhs who had thrown in their hand with the Americans. It reminds me of Vietnam, the war which George Bush watched from the skies over Texas – which may account for why he this week mixed up the end of the Vietnam war with the genocide in a different country called Cambodia, whose population was eventually rescued by the same Vietnamese whom Mr Bush's more courageous colleagues had been fighting all along.
But – here we go. I am increasingly troubled at the inconsistencies in the official narrative of 9/11. It's not just the obvious non sequiturs: where are the aircraft parts (engines, etc) from the attack on the Pentagon? Why have the officials involved in the United 93 flight (which crashed in Pennsylvania) been muzzled? Why did flight 93's debris spread over miles when it was supposed to have crashed in one piece in a field? Again, I'm not talking about the crazed "research" of David Icke's Alice in Wonderland and the World Trade Center Disaster – which should send any sane man back to reading the telephone directory.

I am talking about scientific issues. If it is true, for example, that kerosene burns at 820C under optimum conditions, how come the steel beams of the twin towers – whose melting point is supposed to be about 1,480C – would snap through at the same time? (They collapsed in 8.1 and 10 seconds.) What about the third tower – the so-called World Trade Centre Building 7 (or the Salmon Brothers Building) – which collapsed in 6.6 seconds in its own footprint at 5.20pm on 11 September? Why did it so neatly fall to the ground when no aircraft had hit it? The American National Institute of Standards and Technology was instructed to analyse the cause of the destruction of all three buildings. They have not yet reported on WTC 7. Two prominent American professors of mechanical engineering – very definitely not in the "raver" bracket – are now legally challenging the terms of reference of this final report on the grounds that it could be "fraudulent or deceptive".

Journalistically, there were many odd things about 9/11. Initial reports of reporters that they heard "explosions" in the towers – which could well have been the beams cracking – are easy to dismiss. Less so the report that the body of a female air crew member was found in a Manhattan street with her hands bound. OK, so let's claim that was just hearsay reporting at the time, just as the CIA's list of Arab suicide-hijackers, which included three men who were – and still are – very much alive and living in the Middle East, was an initial intelligence error.

But what about the weird letter allegedly written by Mohamed Atta, the Egyptian hijacker-murderer with the spooky face, whose "Islamic" advice to his gruesome comrades – released by the CIA – mystified every Muslim friend I know in the Middle East? Atta mentioned his family – which no Muslim, however ill-taught, would be likely to include in such a prayer. He reminds his comrades-in-murder to say the first Muslim prayer of the day and then goes on to quote from it. But no Muslim would need such a reminder – let alone expect the text of the "Fajr" prayer to be included in Atta's letter.

Let me repeat. I am not a conspiracy theorist. Spare me the ravers. Spare me the plots. But like everyone else, I would like to know the full story of 9/11, not least because it was the trigger for the whole lunatic, meretricious "war on terror" which has led us to disaster in Iraq and Afghanistan and in much of the Middle East. Bush's happily departed adviser Karl Rove once said that "we're an empire now – we create our own reality". True? At least tell us. It would stop people kicking over chairs.

Part - 4 - RUSHDIE & Satanic Verses - Did you know

SATANIC INSPIRATION

Susan Sontag, a white woman, relished her reading of "The Satanic Verses". So did her admirers. One young listener was inspired! He was waiting for an opportunity to put Rushdie´s idea into action. It didn´t take long. Soon afterwards with five others - the gang of six - one Muslim and five Christians were prowling at night in Central Park, looking for adventure.

They saw a "WHITE WOMAN" jogging. She triggered their imagination! They went a "W-I-L-D-I-N-G"as the "Times" magazine, of 8th May, 1989, reports. They bashed the poor woman into unconsciousness, and fell on their prey like a pack of wolves.

WOVES DON'T GO A "WILDING"!They gang-raped her one by one in turn which no wild beast ever does. The blood and the sweat and the gore titillated their libido!

That poor jogger was an innocent victim. It should have been Susan Sontag, or Marriane Wiggins (Rushdie´s second wife) who says that if she was not Rushdie's wife then she too would have read "The Satanic Verses" to her clientele, in public from city to city.

TVS SHOULD BE READ TO ALL BLACKS!

If I was a sadistic racist, I would have liked to have "The best of Rusdie" read in Harlem, New York; and in every ghetto in America and in Notting Hill in the U.K. and among all the blacks of the world, in Africa and in Asia and in Eskimo-land. Let the non-Whites of the world know that according to Rushdie's new Bible - "WHITE WOMEN - NEVER MIND FAT, JEWISH, or NON-DEFERENTIAL15 WHITE WOMEN - WERE FOR FUCKING AND THROWING OVER"!
You, Peter Mayar! Director of viking/Penguin, you son of a bitch, you gave Rushdie 800,000.00 Dollars as advance money for this filth.

All those whites - Poets and Playwrights, Essayists and Editors, Novelists and Newsmen who are in support of Rushdie's smut, let them read the above quotation from the shit of Rushdie to their mothers, to their wives and daughters. Make their mouths water, that Rushdie wants them to be fucked by black people and thrown away. Rushdie has already set the example, he has FUCKED AND THROWN AWAY (one British girl, his first wife) and perhaps before you get this into your hands, he would have done the same to another (American girl - Marriane Wiggins) also FUCKED AND THROWN AWAY

I am asking all those sons of bitches who rushed to Rushdie´s support without really reading his TVS, the real reason for their unqualified support. Did they not come across these "tasty eats"?

"MOTHER-FUCKING AMERICANS" TVS p 80
"MOTHER-FUCKING SPARKS" TVS p 85
"MOTHER-FUCKING DREAMS" TVS p 122
"BHAENCHUD17 NIGHTMARE" TVS p 109.
COMPARED WITH WHORES

There is no end to Rushdie´s shit. He has 547 pages full of it. Though he has some brilliant things to say at times. He equates himself, and all the writers, authors, novelists etc. With hookers and harlots, prostitutes and pimps. He makes one of his characters to utter:
"WRITERS AND WHORES. I SEE NO DIFFERENCE HERE." TVS p 392

TRIBUTE TO RAJIV

Before I end this most agonising little essay I had ever written, I must thank Rajiv Gandhi for being about the first (?) country in the world to ban "The Satanic Verses." Stop attributing motives to people! My own country, the Republic of South Africa, was in the forefront on banning the book, as well as debarring Rushdie from entering the country. This was in early October 1988! Long before many a Muslim nation!

I congratulate the Prime Minister of India for his sagacious move. The devilish book would not only have wounded his Muslim subjects in India but it would have also seared his Hindu coreligionists as well. The devil Rushdie has spared no one.

RAMA REVILED

Nobody has yet drawn the attention of Rushdie's Hindu admirers as to what he has to say about the gods and goddesses of their faith. "HERE WAS A LECHEROUS, DRUKEN RAMA AND A FILGHTY SITA: WHILE RAVANA, THE DEMON KING, WAS DEPICTED AS AN UPRIGHT AND HONEST MAN "GIBREEL (that's Rushdie himself again in this TVS) IN PLAYING RAVANA," GEORGE EXPLAINED IN FASCINATED HORROR. "LOOKS LIKE HE'S TRYING DELIBERATELY TO SET UP A FINAL CONFRONTATION WITH RELIGIOUS SECTARIANS, KNOWING HE CAN'T WIN, THAT HE'LL BE BROKEN TO BITS." TVS P539.

Rama the 7th incarnation of god, according to the Hindu religion, venerated and worshipped by hundreds of millions of Hindus in India, is character - assassinated as a lecher, one given to excessive sexual cravings and debauchery, and the demon-king is portrayed here as a righteous man. And Sita is painted as a flirt. This is typical Rushdie. He turns gods into devils and devils into saints! And the Swiney confesses that the likes of him "WILL BE BROKEN TO BITS!" - "GUY SEEMS HELL - BENT ON A SUICIDE COURSE." TVS page 538. He has uttered here words of wisdom, but alas, he has learnt nothing from them himself.

BEFITTING END

Mired in misery, may all his filthy lucre choke in his throat, and may he die a coward's death, a hundred times a day, an eventually when death catches up with him, may he simmer in hell for all eternity.

Source: CAN YOU STOMACH THE BEST OF RUSHDIE?

"The Satanic Verses" unexpurgated By Ahmed Deedat