The New Confessions of an Economic Hit Man

by John Perkins

  That drone was controlled by a new breed of jackal. As I listen to people like Jafar, and as I read reports about drone strikes, I am filled with feelings that I find hard to describe. I grew up on stories of World War II heroism — images of US GIs rescuing children from flaming buildings, storming the beaches of Normandy, and liberating Nazi concentration camps. I saw the 1950s, I Led Three Lives type of FBI agent, who infiltrated Communist cells, as incredibly courageous. So, too, did I view the CIA agents who penetrated secret Soviet networks, and the jackals who flew into Seychelles. Even those who did things I opposed, such as planting bombs on the planes of Roldós and Torrijos, took huge personal risks.

  But drone operators! They don’t risk their lives; they don’t hear the screams of the wounded and dying or witness the suffering of innocent victims. They sit at computer monitors. They aren’t brave. There is nothing heroic about their jobs. Nor is there anything heroic about a nation that inflicts such suffering on other people.

  Certainly, I feel ashamed by what we are doing in the world today. But, perhaps more than anything, I feel a profound confusion, a sense of utter bewilderment. I keep asking myself those questions that had come to me in the Hanoi prison: What are our leaders thinking? Can’t they see that such ruthless disregard for life destroys the reputation of a nation that gained the world’s respect during World War II?

  Although there are frequent news stories about the drone assassinations of the leaders of al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups, it is impossible to obtain statistics about all the mistakes that are made, what the Pentagon refers to as “collateral damage” — innocent civilians killed. The best anyone can do is estimate, and these estimates are shocking.

  “At least 6,000 people’s lives have been unjustly taken by United States drone attacks in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, the Philippines, Libya, and Syria,” says a June 2015 letter released by dozens of US military veterans.1 The letter goes on to urge drone operators to refuse to fly missions or to support such activities in any way. These veterans understand that indiscriminate drone strikes on civilians are defined by most of the world as acts of terror.

  Many veterans have seen firsthand that the actions of drone operators and many other modern jackals fill the pockets of corporate magnates who profit from war, destruction, reconstruction, and the oil fields and other resources that are at the heart of so many conflicts. At the same time, these actions undermine US credibility, are contrary to the interests of American citizens, and foster the continuation of a fear-based economy.

  President Obama’s former top military intelligence official, retired US Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, described the use of drones as a “failed strategy” that only encourages violence and terrorism. “When you drop a bomb from a drone . . . you are going to cause more damage than you are going to cause good,” he said. And Flynn should know; he headed up the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency until the summer of 2014.2

  Jackals today wear many disguises and perform tasks that those in my time would have considered inappropriate, cowardly, or even counterproductive. Documents recently released by WikiLeaks and Edward Snowden reveal an alarming increase in the use of CIA torture and extraordinary rendition sites, paramilitary forces hired by governments and global corporations, and CIA and Special Forces “high-value target” assassination programs.

  Unlike the loner secret agents who depend on their wits and physical prowess, an entirely new genre of “pack jackals” is supported by airstrikes, satellites, and other modern technologies. Although Americans are kept in the dark about the operations of the Pentagon’s specially trained military teams — primarily Navy SEAL and Army Delta Force personnel — they are no secret to the communities where they strike.

  The New York Times lamented the veil of secrecy that surrounds such units, in an article published in June 2015, “SEAL Team 6: A Secret History of Quiet Killings and Blurred Lines”:

  Around the world, they have run spying stations disguised as commercial boats, posed as civilian employees of front companies and operated undercover at embassies as male–female pairs, tracking those the United States wants to kill or capture.

  Those operations are part of the hidden history of the Navy’s SEAL Team 6, one of the nation’s most mythologized, most secretive and least scrutinized military organizations. Once a small group reserved for specialized but rare missions, the unit best known for killing Osama bin Laden has been transformed by more than a decade of combat into a global manhunting machine.

  The article went on to decry the fact that so much of current US policy is conducted in secret. One of the conclusions reached by the Times investigative team:

  Like the CIA’s campaign of drone strikes, Special Operations missions offer policy makers an alternative to costly wars of occupation. But the bulwark of secrecy around Team 6 makes it impossible to fully assess its record and the consequences of its actions, including civilian casualties or the deep resentment inside the countries where its members operate.3

  Concern for that resentment is not limited to veterans’ groups and the media. It is also expressed by students in US colleges where I speak. They refer to men and women their age who travel from Australia, the US, and Europe to the Middle East to join ISIS and other militant Islamist organizations. They speculate that resentment and desperation drive these young people to take such actions. They worry that US policies encourage terrorism.

  Students often mention that most of the countries where potential terrorists are recruited have long histories of advocating violence as the solution to problems, and that even the language used by US policy makers for programs that would seem to have nothing to do with violence are couched in terms like “fighting poverty,” “conquering hunger,” and “the war on drugs.” They point out that movies and TV shows eulogize guns and the tough guy approach to dealing with difficult situations.

  The jackals in my day usually were assigned to foreign lands, with the exception of those involved in counterinsurgency and infiltrating Communist cells inside the United States. That, too, has changed. In the aftermath of 9/11, fear drove Americans to agree to sacrifice privacy and freedom and give the NSA, the CIA, the FBI, and other agencies unprecedented powers. Tools perfected overseas, including drones and surveillance aircraft, are now used to spy on us in the United States.

  Documents released by US federal authorities in response to a Freedom of Information lawsuit reveal that at least sixty-three drone sites, located in twenty states, were active in the United States (as of 2012). Many were operated by soldiers and were deployed from stateside military installations. Others were manned by law enforcement agencies and the US Border Patrol. Some, if not all, are designed to assassinate people.4

  In June 2015, the Associated Press reported that the FBI has a “small air force with scores of low-flying planes across the US carrying video and, at times, cellphone surveillance technology — all hidden behind fictitious companies that are fronts for the government.” The article went on to say that these flights are usually conducted without a judge’s approval and that “in a recent 30-day period, the agency flew above more than 30 cities in 11 states across the country.”5

  When I read these articles, I thought about the commitment I’d made after meeting with Howard Zinn. I’d promised to be more diligent, to watch more closely what was going on in my own community, my country, and the world. I began to see a change in the public’s attitudes. September 11, 2001, had terrified the nation into giving up its freedoms, but continuing reports of torture at military bases and CIA rendition sites, attacks on whistle-blowers, police brutality, and eavesdropping on personal phone calls was turning the tide of opinion. Increasingly, the media and blogs were pointing out that such activities were inconsistent with laws intended to protect our privacy. According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation:

  News reports in December 2005 first revealed that the National Security Agency (NSA) has been intercepting Americans’ phone call
s and Internet communications. Those news reports, combined with a USA Today story in May 2006 and the statements of several members of Congress, revealed that the NSA is also receiving wholesale copies of Americans’ telephone and other communications records. All of these surveillance activities are in violation of the privacy safeguards established by Congress and the US Constitution.6

  The draconian, jackal measures revealed in the thousands of pages released by WikiLeaks and Edward Snowden tell a shocking, disturbing, and sad story. Many Americans have come to understand that the democracy their government was supposed to protect has been betrayed by that government, that the very foundations of Lincoln’s “government of the people, by the people, and for the people” were buried in the ashes of Ground Zero.

  I was shocked to learn that the NSA monitors about two hundred million text messages each day and has surreptitiously planted spy software in some one hundred thousand computers, allowing it access to the information in those computers.7 Perhaps it’s just ego, but I wonder if my computer is one of those . . .

  As jaded as I’ve become about the immoral and criminal (even if technically legal) activities of our jackal agencies, I was outraged by revelations that the organization that had recruited me — the NSA — had eavesdropped on the phone conversations of thirty-five world leaders, including listening to confidential discussions held at the highest levels of the governments of Argentina, Brazil, France, Germany, the UK, and many of our other allies. According to the Guardian, “The NSA encourages senior officials in its ‘customer’ departments, such as the White House, State and the Pentagon, to share their ‘Rolodexes’ so the agency can add the phone numbers of leading foreign politicians to their surveillance systems.”8

  This struck me as unacceptable, but it also was incredibly stupid diplomacy. Among the repercussions: German chancellor Angela Merkel objected strongly, and Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff postponed a state visit to Washington.

  Another tool at the disposal of the modern jackal is that of character assassination. Every president, every politician and government official, is aware that a scandal can bring him or her down. President Clinton served as a warning to all leaders, present and future. Whether Linda Tripp was hired to set up Monica Lewinsky — as many suspect — or not, Clinton was impeached (politically assassinated) because of a sex scandal. In my day, everyone knew that President Kennedy was having multiple affairs, and nobody thought it was the public’s business; it took a bullet to assassinate him. Today, people in powerful positions around the world know that modern eavesdropping technology can be used to destroy them — or to plant incriminating evidence that will destroy them.

  In many parts of the world, today’s jackals are supported by a growing class of mercenary forces — hired guns who do not answer to the same rules and standards as military personnel. By 2012, there were almost 110,000 contracted mercenary forces in Afghanistan alone, compared with 68,000 US military personnel. To place this in perspective: in Vietnam, there were 70,000 mercenaries and 359,000 military forces.9

  Although information is not available about the number of active mercenaries worldwide who are paid with US taxpayer money, we know it is in the millions. In a 2014 survey that ranked the thirty most powerful private security companies, the number one spot went to G4S, a firm that employs more than 620,000 people and earned more than $12 billion in 2012. In addition to supplying soldiers, G4S sells state-of-the-art spying and monitoring equipment to governments and corporations. Interestingly, Black-water (renamed Academi), the mercenary firm best known to the general public, due to the company’s alleged involvement in the killing of Iraqi civilians, came in at number thirty.10

  The use of mercenaries allows Washington to claim that the military is winding down, that US death tolls are decreasing, and that the government is not responsible for torture and other war crimes. Mercenaries avoid the need for an unpopular draft like the one during the Vietnam War that incited the antiwar movement. They support the jackals’ illegal activities without reporting to the Pentagon, the president, or Congress. They are accountable to no one.

  The ability and willingness of the corporatocracy to spy on our every movement and to take action — including imprisonment without habeas corpus, or assassination — when we do anything perceived as a threat to its greed-driven power is virtually unlimited. And totally undemocratic. Its lobbyists own our elected officials. Its special operations teams conduct illegal assassinations. Its low-flying pilots and robot jackals monitor our phone and Internet conversations. All of this is part of the corporatocracy’s determination to do whatever it deems it will take to maintain control.

  Recently, however, the corporatocracy’s actions have escalated to near-panic levels. To a large degree, this is driven by its fear of a new superpower, China.

  CHAPTER 45

  Lessons for China

  In 2015, a top Ecuadorian official told me, “We’d rather accept loans from Beijing than Washington. After all, China has never overthrown or killed our leaders — unlike the US.”

  When I pointed out that China had a history of invasions in Asia, he replied, “Yes. They’ve seen those places as part of their ancient kingdom. But they haven’t done it in Latin America, or Africa, or the Middle East. The US has.”

  We were discussing the debt audit commission that had reviewed the legitimacy of the loans taken on by Ecuador’s CIA-supported dictators during my EHM days. The commission’s findings had convinced President Correa to default on loans worth more than $3 billion. In retaliation for the president’s initial refusal to pay $30.6 million that was due on $519 million of outstanding global bonds in 2012, Standard and Poor’s Rating Services and Fitch Ratings slashed Ecuador’s credit rating.1

  Correa turned to Beijing. China offered Ecuador a $1 billion loan, which soon was increased to $2 billion.2 As his government repaid that loan, Correa reestablished Ecuador’s global credit standing, but he also made his country beholden to China and its version of EHMs. By April 2015, Ecuador’s debts to China had risen to almost $5.4 billion — representing 28 percent of its external debt.3

  In the summer of 2015, I returned to Ecuador. Fundación Pachamama had been legally dissolved, but there had been no attempt to inhibit the work of the US-based Pachamama Alliance. I joined Bill and Lynne Twist and Daniel Koupermann on our annual trip to lead a group of supporters to Achuar territory.

  As we made that spectacular trip from Quito to the airstrip in Shell, from which planes would take us deep into the jungle, I once again stared at the massive concrete wall of the Agoyan hydroelectric dam — for me, a symbol of the legal crimes I’d committed, and one that evoked memories of the assassinated Jaime Roldós and the very recent attempted coup that had changed Correa.

  I thought about how the abuses of the World Bank, the IMF, Wall Street, the credit rating services, and the rest of the US/European banking community have driven Ecuador and its oil resources into the arms of China. When I traveled past this dam in 2003, it was assumed that most of the country’s oil would go to the United States. By 2015, that had totally changed; China was buying almost 55 percent of Ecuador’s oil. Exports to the United States, meanwhile, had decreased from about 75 percent of Ecuador’s oil to none.4 I realized that, perhaps more than anything else, China’s role — not just in Ecuador but in the entire world — offers insights into the future.

  China’s expansionism, like that of the United States and the other empires of history, revolves around lending money to countries, plundering their resources, and paralyzing their leaders with fear. China is playing off the fears of men like Correa and citizens of countries such as Ecuador and Honduras — and just about everywhere else.

  Whereas we in the United States are taught to fear China, Russia, and terrorists, a large part of the world fears us. They fear the Pentagon and the military presence that Washington has established in more than one hundred countries. They fear the CIA, the NSA, and all the other US spy agencies. They fear the drones
, the missiles, and the bombs. They fear our dollarized, debt-based money system.

  In addition to the obvious physical fears are the more subtle ones. Economically developing countries fear their vulnerability to global corporations. Because of the trade agreements and conditionalities imposed on them through the debt agreements, their economies seem dependent on those corporations. They fear they can’t survive without the corporations. They fear that the corporations will go somewhere else to locate their production facilities, but they also fear that if those facilities are built within their borders, the corporations will bury the country in pollution and force workers to accept unlivable wages. They fear that the corporations will eventually leave them for another country with even less stringent environmental and social regulations, dooming to extreme poverty or starvation the people who abandoned their subsistence farms to work in the now-vacated factories.

  A system based on fear and debt may seem effective; yet, history has shown that empires never last. The tragedy of America’s rise and fall in the modern world represents a colossal failure on the part of corporate and government leaders.

  After the demise of the Soviet Union, the new corporate barons believed they had license to do whatever they deemed it would take to realize their goal of maximizing profits, including corrupting politicians and manipulating the legal system. “Aid” organizations such as the World Bank increased the interest rates on loans, made political demands, and imposed conditionalities on the debtor countries, influencing the way they governed themselves and related to the United States and the corporations.

  It did not take long for people in those nations to recognize that they were being exploited. However, they had nowhere to turn, no counterbalancing power. The Soviet Union was gone. The economically developing countries had no choice but to give in and feel abused and resentful.