There is something terribly wrong with how the US corporate/political/military alliance treats the rest of the world.  The moral superiority long claimed by the States is a sham; the tactics used to keep billions of people suppressed and marginalized are calculated and ruthless.  The ploy is right out in the open for those who wish to see it, of course most choose not to, brushing it off as conspiracy theories or socialistic rhetoric.  The basic plot is as follows:  Agents of the IMF or World Bank (puppets of Western nations) go into developing nations and dangle carrots consisting of multi-billion dollar loans in the face of their leaders.  Some of these leaders are corrupt to begin with and care not of the fate of their most defenseless people.  Some leaders are tricked into thinking that taking the loans is the best thing for their countries and some refuse and are in the target sight of the world’s most powerful country.  If the leader accepts the loans, expected economic growth and subsequent rise in tax revenues do not come.  Governments are quickly unable to pay back the loans, revenue that could be spent on social services such as health care, education, or infrastructure are now diverted to make payments on the loans.  Sometimes these payments are so high, that they make up the majority of the country’s annual budget.  Soon these governments become entangled in a cyclical trap of trying to pay off the debt.  Now they are vulnerable and indebted to the United States.  Military bases, access to natural resources, perks for American corporations, all of these and more are demanded by the US and usually received.

The economic data that supports such a system in inherently flawed.  The concept behind the justification of such immoral actions is that any economic growth is good for all.  This is simply not true.  After these loans are received, a small minority of the country’s citizens, the ruling powerful class see massive benefits.  The rest of its citizens see no benefits or even a decline in living standards.  However, with the influx of American corporations and the rape of natural resources it may appear on paper that the GDP of the nation is going up.  However,  GDP growth does not take into account the increase in pollution and the destruction of the natural environment and the economic growth is uneven and the gap between the minority rich and majority poor grows and grows.  People in foreign countries may not receive high education like we do in the West but they are not stupid.  They know that they are being screwed by this clandestine version of imperialism.  In many ways it is just as brutal of a system as the imperialism of the 18th and 19th century.  They realize this and the anger builds up and we wonder why we are a target of terrorists.  I don’t support any form of violence but I do understand the mindframe of someone who is so blinded by anger that terrorism seems like a sane and viable option.

Speaking of terrorism, the US has practiced it on many of a sovereign country who refused to play ball.  There is example after example of democratically elected leaders, mostly in central and South American, who refused to allow the American military/industrial complex to rape their land and were murdered for it.  From CIA led coups to outright assassination, the US oligarchy is brutal to those who oppose it.  The US will tolerate the most hideous, heinous, terrifying leaders, if they give preferential treatment to US corporations and will overthrow altruistic, moral, leaders if they don’t.  The US oligarchy, commonly referred to as the military/industrial complex is very real.  You see these men skip and jump from the private sector to high government positions and back again without missing a beat.  Dick Cheney, George HW Bush and countless others are part of an effort between banks, corporations, and governments to push the American agenda of capitalism, survival of the fittest, no mercy, economics on as much of the world as possible, regardless of how many people they enslave in the process.

‘Confessions of an Economic Hitman’ is a must read for anyone interested in this.