WEALTH AND MONEY PART XVIII: THE POWER BEHIND THE “POWER”
“The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves.” – – Henry Kissinger, justifying the U.S. overthrow (and assassination) of Chile’s democratically elected president, Dr. Salvador Allende, in 1973.
“Even Kissinger, mad as he is, didn’t believe that Chilean armies were going to descend on Rome. It wasn’t going to be that kind of an influence. He was worried that successful economic development, where the economy produces benefits for the general population – not just profits for private corporations – would have a contagious effect.” – – Noam Chomski – Secrets, Lies, and Democracy
“make the[Chilean] economy scream.” – – President Richard Nixon discussing tactics to undermine the Allende presidency
“do all within our power to condemn Chile and the Chileans to utmost deprivation and poverty.” – – Edward Korry, U.S. Ambassador to Chile
Chile is one of many Latin and South American nations where the private banking cartel and international corporations used the government of the United States to advance their own agenda. Mexico, Panama, Nicaragua, Honduras, Venezuela, Bolivia, Brazil, Argentina, have all fallen prey to the same imperialism. Yet this doesn’t begin to address how the “war on terror” enabled the near total piracy of the U.S. government in service of moneyed interests in the Middle East.
Because the topic was systematically avoided by U.S. media, few Americans are aware of the CIA orchestrated coup that overthrew the Prime Minister of Iran in 1953, crushing that nation’s first democratically elected government. Dr. Mohammad Mosaddegh won the election in 1951 and soon began implementing social and political reforms to benefit the citizens of Iran. With the full support of his people and parliament, Mosaddegh nationalized the Iranian oil industry which had been under British control since 1913 through the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (now BP – British Petroleum). For 40 years the corporation had plundered the oil wealth of Iran, leaving her people with next to nothing.
Naturally, U.S. based corporations saw Iran’s actions as a potentially contagious threat to their own exploitation of people and nations around the world. Mossadegh had to go. A repressive dictator, the Shah of Iran, was returned to his throne.
In the words of Mosaddegh after the CIA coup:
“Yes, my sin — my greater sin and even my greatest sin is that I nationalized Iran’s oil industry and discarded the system of political and economic exploitation by the world’s greatest empire. This at the cost to myself, my family; and at the risk of losing my life, my honor and my property. With God’s blessing and the will of the people, I fought this savage and dreadful system of international espionage and colonialism.”
Unlike the coup of 1953, Americans were made fully aware of the Iranian revolution in 1979 when the Shah was overthrown. U.S. media used the situation to foment anti-Iranian opinion and unfortunately this revolt was not led by the democratic government the corporately directed United States had destroyed, but by fanatic, anti-western religious clerics. The connection of these historic events to the 1953 coup was meticulously avoided by the American press, but it was fresh in the minds of the people of Iran and surrounding nations. They knew what the United States had done.
Quoting from author Stephen Kinzer’s book, All the Shah’s Men, An American Coup And The Roots of Middle East Terror:
“it is not far-fetched to draw a line from Operation Ajax [the name of the coup] through the Shah’s repressive regime and the Islamic Revolution to the fireballs that engulfed the World Trade Center in New York.”
Critical lessons must be drawn from the events that took place in Iran, Chile and elsewhere:
The seeds of terrorism were not planted by Muslims, Islamists, Al Qaeda, the Taliban or ISIS. They were not planted by “socialists” or “communists.” The seeds of terrorism were planted by international corporations using the U.S. government as their front man.
The history of Iran, Chile and many other nations makes it clear – democracy will not be tolerated in “host” nations. The “will of the people” is a threat to profit making.
The impoverishment and murder of hundreds of thousands of innocent people is simply the cost of doing business for international corporations. The ends justify any means.
There is no military solution to terrorism. It is the product of imperialism and economic exploitation and will only be solved by ending both. But there is no intention of ever “winning” the war on terror. It is the perfect tool for “divide and conquer.” The world’s people must fear and hate one another.
The U.S. military no longer exists to “defend” Americans. Its function is to perpetuate the goals of the corporatocracy. Mercenaries – private contractors paid by the American public to do the bidding of the money makers – now make up a large percentage of “our troops.” The trillions of public dollars spent on wars and the military also line the pockets of corporations.
World corporations, using the U.S. military and CIA to topple legitimate national governments around the world while bombing these nations into rubble leaving millions homeless and starving, are now the world’s greatest terrorists.
Tragedies abound from this madness and while America may think it has avoided most of the destruction, John Perkins in The New Confessions of an Economic Hitman paints another picture:
“The list of practitioners [of imperialism] stretches back to the ancient empires of North Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, and works its way through Persia, Greece, Rome, the Christian Crusades, and all the European empire builders of the post-Columbian era. This imperialist drive has been and continues to be the cause of most wars, pollution, starvation, species extinctions, and genocides. And it has always taken a serious toll on the conscience and well-being of the citizens of those empires, contributing to social malaise and resulting in a situation where the wealthiest cultures in human history are plagued with the highest rates of suicide, drug abuse, and violence.”
It doesn’t have to be this way. Solutions abound and will be discussed in future articles. But the people of America must first understand how they – and their government and military – are being used.
Part XIX will discuss: America Becomes The Host
Please take the time to watch the following short TED Talk by economist John Perkins, author of Confession of an Economic Hitman, describing how corporations have taken control of our world and what we can do to bring about positive change.