Americans’ refusal to look in the mirror

Makes a whole lot of sense. The US population only makes up five percent of the world, and both logistically and economically, it's impossible to be the noble country that saves the world. Only a fool would entertain such insane idea.

cicerone, America has power beyond the size of her population. Our corporations wield a big stick. They cpuld do the opposite of what they do if they so chose. Instead of installing a Saddam or a Pinochet for instance they could have backed someone sane.

Such as who? Give some examples.

How on earth is a US corp going to put someone in power in another country? I think you are giving US companies way to much credit.

Baldimo, you prove the case by refusing to look in the mirror. Like American policy is not set by corporations. Like Congress and the President are not influenced by corporations. We all know they are and it's a major cliche of American politics. "A Marxist threat to cola sales?
Pepsi demands a US coup."

Goodbye Allende. Hello Pinochet
link

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.

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man (ISBN 0-452-28708-1) is an auto-biographical book written by John Perkins and published in 2004. It tells the story of his career with consulting firm Chas. T. Main. Before employment with the firm, he interviewed for a job with the National Security Agency (NSA). Perkins claims that this interview effectively constituted an independent screening which led to his subsequent hiring by Einar Greve, a member of the firm (and alleged NSA liaison) to become a self-described "Economic Hit Man."

According to his book, Perkins' function was to convince the political and financial leadership of underdeveloped countries to accept enormous development loans from institutions like the World Bank and USAID. Saddled with huge debts they could not hope to pay, these countries were forced to acquiesce to political pressure from the United States on a variety of issues. Perkins describes how developing nations were effectively neutralised politically, had their wealth gaps driven wider and economies crippled in the long run. In this capacity Perkins recounts his meetings with some prominent individuals, including Graham Greene and Omar Torrijos. Perkins describes the role of an EHM as follows:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confessions_of_an_Economic_Hit_Man

Quote: "How on earth is a US corp going to put someone in power in another country?"

It's called the CIA with money; lots of it.

Within our oun country there is power in these corps and I wouldn't pretent that there isn't. But the amount of power they hold in other countries is what I doubt. Sure oil companies have dealings in other countries but can they pressure Saudi Arabia to make policy changes? Can Nike make a push in south east asia to put someone more favorable in power? These are the actions I doubt they have to power to make.

From an outsiders perspective, I would offer a few observations :

The more power one has, the larger the consequences of any decision. For a country with the power of the US, mistakes in foreign policy aren't likely to be minor.

The majority of Americans, due to their ignorance of the outside world, don't know much about US Foreign Policy. This 'ignorance' is due to a number of factors, including the lack of reporting in the media, lack of interest to find out, and Government spin (A similar situation exists here in Australia in regards to lack of interest in the outside world). This ignorance aids in the economic, and sometimes military subjugation of much of the world. I would think that it is this 'ignorance' is the reason for American's beliefs in their own nobility (aided by the fact that most people are good in their own way, and they extend that virtue to the people governing them...which doesn't always work)

American multi-nationals do have a great deal of clout with the US government. It can be seen in most of the wars that the US has fought in the 20th Century, and the economic foreign policy decisions made by the US government.

vikorr, Your perception is right on target. The local media and federal government are not the most reliable to telling us everything we need to know in order to make the right decisions for ourselves. Many remain ignorant of the facts even after they are publicly revealed.

There's no cure for it, because the majority of people are just too lazy to seek the truth.

For example, many Americans still think Saddam had something to do with 9-11.

After Bush tried to connect Al-Qaeda to Iraq (Prior to invading Iraq - that lasted about two weeks before Bush settled on WOMD), didn't your own Intelligence Agencies publicly state that there was no connection at all between Iraq and Al-Qaeda?

vikorr, There may have been some scant media info on this issue, but Bush and his administration were the talking points before and after the war started, and that's where the press went with it.

Saddam's al Qaeda Connection
From the September 1 / September 8, 2003 issue: The evidence mounts, but the administration says surprisingly little.
by Stephen F. Hayes
09/01/2003, Volume 008, Issue 48





KIDS KNOW exactly when it comes--the point when you're repaving a driveway or pouring a new sidewalk, right before the wet concrete hardens completely. That's when you can make your mark. The Democrats seem to understand this.

For months before the war in Iraq, the Bush administration claimed to know of ties between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's Iraq. For months after the war, the Bush administration has offered scant evidence of those claims. And the conventional wisdom--that there were no links--is solidifying. So Democrats are making their mark.

"The evidence now shows clearly that Saddam did not want to work with Osama bin Laden at all, much less give him weapons of mass destruction." So claimed Al Gore in an August 7 speech. "There is evidence of exaggeration" of Iraq-al Qaeda links, said Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, who recently launched an investigation into prewar intelligence. "Clearly the al Qaeda connection was hyped and exaggerated, in my view," said Senator Dianne Feinsten. Chimed in Jane Harman, the ranking Democrat on the House Select Committee on Intelligence, as reported in the National Journal, "The evidence on the al Qaeda links was sketchy." Jay Rockefeller, the ranking Democrat on the Senate side of that committee, agrees. "The evidence about the ties was not compelling."

Odd, I remember watching a speech by Bush connecting Iraq to Al-Qaeda, and I remember newspaper articles saying the intelligence Agencies were saying there wasn't any conncection, then I don't remember seeing anything more about such on Australian TV, instead all the coverage went to WOMD.

It's funny how the Media in different countries (even ones that both went to to the same war) show different material. That of course may have been because the Opposition govt here was arguing against the need for a war in Iraq, so such information may have been much more public in Australia. I'm not surprised that Australian news left out the little detail that Bush kept bringing it up though - God forbid that any news organisation should do anything to put them out of the loop with the biggest ongoing story of the year.