RESPONSE:

Dr. Khan Is Too Kind by Half

I have just finished reading John Perkin’s book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. This is the ultimate whistle-blower exposé. I read it after hearing his speech delivered in Santa Fe a couple weeks ago. I can’t see any ulterior motive behind his “confessions” except that he was planning for this moment his entire career. He never really believed in his job as chief economist for a consulting firm named MAIN, financed “off the books” by the US Treasury. He may not have the complete picture, but what he reveals is devastating. It could be a John LeCarré novel or a Graham Greene one, which, is fitting inasmuch as he met with Greene in dramatic fashion in Panama while Greene was finishing his book on Torrijos. There are some revelations in the book, but much just adds further detail to what we already know or suspect.

The Bush family-Saudi connections are further amplified and given context. The roles of defense contractors such as Bechtel, Halliburton, Stone and Webster and others are seen as an integral part of American foreign policy. He does spend a chapter or two on the special relationship between the Saudi monarchs and the US, which does have a name and an acronym, JECOR, which stands for the United States-Saudi Arabian Joint Economic Commission.

The beauty part of this “money laundering” enterprise (Perkin’s words) is that it is private and subject to no scrutiny whatsoever by Congress. In return for the petro-dollars we send to Saudi Arabia for their oil, they invest in US Treasuries, and all the interest is used to fund infrastructure projects which are performed by US contractors.

What Perkins doesn’t mention is that the strict Islamic codes of the Saudis do not allow them to earn interest, so it is perfect that it be paid back by bartering for airfields, electrification projects, office buildings and fast food franchises. Along the way, the Bush and Cheney families rake off commissions as facilitators. Perkins also reconfirms the genesis of radical Islamic terrorism in the Saudi kingdom, and 9-11 as one of the inevitable trade offs of the modernization of a culture steeped in Wahhabi-ism, an over-200-year tradition that formed the basis of the ruling families of Saudi Arabia. Anyway, it is a good read--in my case coming on the heels of a reading of Jim Hightower’s book, If the Gods Had Meant Us to Vote They Would Have Given Us Candidates. Actually, they are somewhat related in that nothing less than a populist revolution is likely to save this country from itself and the rest of the world from us. Freedom and liberty will take on a whole new meaning after reading these two gems, and it won’t engender a sudden urge to hoist up the red white and blue and parade it down the street, fireworks notwithstanding. The thought might more likely be--independence from what?