WILL THE REAL ECONOMIC HIT MEN PLEASE STAND UP?
Meditations on 9/11 Truth
by Catherine Austin Fitts
fromthewilderness.com
Economic Hit Men
A "limited hangout" is a partial confession, a mea culpa, if you will,
that leaves the essence of a crime or covert reality hidden. "The
publicizing of a limited hang-out … acts like a release of a pressure
valve, satisfying some skeptics, maintaining the appearance of ongoing
investigation, and allaying building suspicions - while legitimating the
system that initiated the cover-up in the first place, and letting those
most responsible off the hook.''1
If you want to see an excellent limited hang out at work, pick up a copy
of the John Perkins' bestselling Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. In
his limited hangout confession, Perkins describes his career from 1971 to
1981 as a highly paid professional who helped defraud Third World
countries by helping syndicates make uneconomic loans as a means to
facilitate the eventual takeover of those economies by elite and corporate
interests.
Greg Palast, Anne Williamson and other first-rate investigative
journalists have brilliantly documented instances of such economic warfare
against sovereign governments and national economies - where nations are
taken over with their own money, in much the same way as a corporate
raider takes over a company through leveraged buy-out. I have documented a
similar process in US communities and mortgage markets. In writing about
this process, I use the concept of an "economic tapeworm" to explain the
negative return on investment financial system that operates globally and
relies on economic and military warfare to finance and subsidize itself.2
The phenomenon that Perkins writes about is well known. But his personal
"how to" account of an economic hit pertains to an apparently cold case,
far in the financial past. While this story is very instructive for those
who have not yet dealt with professional fraudsters or been targeted by
economic warfare3 (whether in the Third World or in the First World
nations) it is even more instructive for its omissions - and for its
timing as an apologia intended, we are led to believe, somehow to assuage
guilt for harm done: it relates to events occurring twenty-five or thirty
years ago, involving players who are, for the most part, dead or retired
from the business of economic warfare and companies that have morphed into
later incarnations.
In the process of providing a colorful account of a 1970s whodunit
(complete with low tech strategies devoid of the dazzling technology
toolkit that is now an essential part of the economic hit man's weaponry
of economic warfare), Perkins delivers to readers the "big lie": he
reveals the secret that there is no greater conspiracy. This is simply
globalization run amok, he would have us believe. Somehow, this particular
conspiracy theory seems charmingly credible as part of a "confession."
Perkins admits to what is known and then uses the credibility created by
his "limited hangout" to further obscure the reality of who's who in the
real governance of global investment and risk management. We are to
presume that the investment networks in and around the Harvard
Corporation, the City of London, the Vatican and investment managers and
bankers for the proceeds of transnational organized crime are simply
good-hearted fellows who let things get out of hand.
Nowhere does Perkins introduce the notion that cartels in a "New World
Order" (the phrase coined and promoted by George H. W. Bush) use covert
manipulation of the global financial system to centralize and concentrate
economic and political power. Assassinations by "jackals" aside, Perkins
barely hints that for fifty years the US military-industrial complex has
been developing and testing powerful black budget technology, satellite
and other invisible weaponry and surveillance technology and
insider-trading tools behind the veil of national security secrets.
Indeed, it was the need for a means of financing black budget operations
and weaponry outside the view and control of Congress and the
appropriations process - rather than the mere pursuit of corporate profits
- that provided the political air cover for Perkins to do what he did as
his covert counterparts marketed drugs in American and Third World
communities alike.
It's an old rule of economics. Sources and uses need to be in one
integrated financial statement to understand an enterprise. In Perkins'
world, we are never quite clear who got what cash and in what amounts when
all was said and done. Which means someone gets to keep the money and
remain socially acceptable - and we remain clueless as to who was really
running things two decades ago.
Economic Warfare in the 21st Century
The power of Perkins' book as a limited hangout can be understood by
observing the sales, support and kudos in mainstream media it has achieved
while the leading books on 9/11_4, arguably the most significant economic
hit in US history,5 have had a much harder time garnering attention. The
message seems to be that economic warfare is something that the corporate
mainstream will acknowledge, but only so long as it is low tech, long ago,
and far away.
Understanding and facing the economic warfare responsible for slowly
poisoning us and our families and wiping out our retirement savings is a
complex and very scary undertaking in comparison to Perkins' concerned
confessions. Perhaps we prefer to disassociate from our present
circumstances, live in a perpetual state of cognitive dissonance, and
focus on the study of yesteryear.
Complex and scary as it may seem, the growing body of evidence makes a
compelling case that officials of the US government, its contractors and
the military abetted the 9/11 attacks. With the help and complicity of the
US Congress and corporate media, they are engaged in the most profitable
war and enforcement profiteering in history. This is a terrifying picture
to contemplate.
Look how tough it has been for New Yorkers, the constituency most
adversely affected by the 9/11 tragedy. A recent Zogby poll indicates that
49.3 percent of residents of New York City hold the opinion that officials
"knew in advance that attacks were planned on or around September 11,
2001, and that they consciously failed to act." Yet, despite this
widespread conviction and the mounting evidence that sustains it, no
serious support has developed for the November 2004 citizens' complaint
requesting that Elliot Spitzer, the Attorney General of New York, finally
open a criminal investigation into the tragedy.
Although fifteen NYC legislators have also called for such an inquiry,
there has as yet been no effort locally to hold the New York Senate and
Congressional delegations accountable for failing to hold the executive
branch responsible for its failure to perform, or for its potential
complicity. While the New York firemen booing Hillary Clinton off the
stage at the 911 Concert was a start, the sentiment expressed has not
translated into political action or market action. How many New Yorkers
have cut off their subscriptions to, ads in or investments in the stock of
the New York Times when the Times helped to facilitate the 9/11 cover-up
by failing to ask probative questions or hold officials accountable?
The problem the average New Yorker has is the same that we all face - our
complicity is deep. We have an entire economy and culture financially
dependent upon too many things that harm people and the environment. This
is not new. Only the possibility that the war machine is blowing up
thousands of middle class Americans in American office buildings in broad
daylight is new.
The fact that the Bushes and the Clintons are on the same team - and have
been since their alleged Iran-Contra partnership in an airport operation
in Mena, Arkansas involving the transshipment of cocaine destined for the
streets of America - is not something that most Americans have yet
incorporated into our political equation.
The fact that current financial and commodity markets "clear" not through
the operation of changes in price generated by the legitimate free market
expression of supply and demand but rather by blowing up American office
buildings and the people and legal documents in them is not something that
most Americans saving for retirement or financing a home have incorporated
as risks in developing an investment strategy.
We cannot fathom that economic warfare is now conducted using high tech
software weaponry to silently invade the privacy of our banking and
purchasing relationships, our comings and goings, and the details of our
work and home lives. Nor have we incorporated this realization into our
decisions about who we share our lives with and what we say and do behind
closed doors.
The illumination of the truth of 9/11, however, could change most
Americans' paradigms and transactions in powerful ways. It could certainly
fuel an increase in demand for precious metals, alternative energy and
local self-sufficiency.
The Strong Dollar Policy
In the mid-1990s, the Clinton Administration, led by an economic team
comprised of Robert Rubin, Lawrence Summers and Franklin Raines,
instituted something called the "strong dollar policy." This policy was
maintained by the Bush Administration, which held over in the first term
many of the key players in policymaking positions, including George Tenet,
Jerry Hawke (Comptroller of the Currency 1998 - 2004) and Charles Rossotti
(45th Commissioner of the IRS).
The smoothness of the transition between administrations ostensibly led by
political parties in opposition to each other belies the ruse and
underscores the strategic nature of the centralization of economic and
politic power under way.
While the game of trying to figure out what in the world the strong dollar
policy really is has gotten increasingly Orwellian,6 the basics are pretty
simple. We have kept the dollar's value high relative to other currencies
- and far above what fundamental economics would warrant - by asking the
consumer and taxpayer to shoulder extraordinary and rising levels of debt
financed by increasing amounts of dirty money. This has enabled elites to
move off shore and into private hands virtually all the real financial
equity in the country. The US is not alone in experiencing "disappearing
equity" - it is part of a global equity-centralizing and asset-control
process.
The strong dollar policy was characterized by a series of financial and market manipulations:
Four Secretaries of the Treasury refused to produce audited financial
statements and reported a total of $4 trillion in "undocumentable
adjustments";7
The Clinton and Bush Administrations rejected policies that would build
American productivity and employment 8 in the face of the plan to move
employment abroad while permitting the growth of debt and immigration
quotas at home;
The Clinton and Bush Administrations promoted federal credit policies that
turned American homes into ATM machines and led to a mortgage market
characterized by increasing levels of fraud;
The Clinton and Bush Administrations in concert with the central banks
(most notably the Federal Reserve) and bullion banks (including JP
Morgan-Chase, Citibank and Goldman Sachs) manipulated the gold and silver
markets to suppress the price of precious metals while large inventories
were moved out of governments and central bank accounts worldwide and into
private hands;
US pension funds and 401k and IRA retirement savings accounts lost value
by waves of accounting and other financial frauds at widely held
corporations (such as Enron, Worldcom and Tyco);
US Congress and regulatory agencies like the Securities and Exchange
Commission adopted corporate controls, ostensibly to protect investors
from further acts of corporate fraud, that operate as a subtle form of
capital control, limiting the ability of entrepreneurs on Main Street to
raise capital in financial markets;
Military force was used to ensure that global investors would continue to
purchase US Treasury and mortgage agency securities and the US dollar
would prevail as the currency of international choice;
The federal budget, federal credit, and federal contracting were operated
to favor corporate profit making at the cost of small business and labor
productivity;
US Treasury and Federal Reserve market intervention was used to ensure low
cost of capital for favored global corporations; and,
The types and amounts of outstanding financial derivatives exploded, far
beyond the ability of most public and private leaders to understand or
explain.
No one has made a count of the deaths that resulted worldwide from these
various financial manipulations. The death toll from the pincer movement
of military warfare and economic warfare is far greater than is generally
understood.
9/11: Strong Dollar Policy Steroids?
While floating the global dollar economy on a sea of debt and easy money
worked well for the economic hit men and women through the end of the
1990s, by the summer of 2001 the game seemed to have run its course.
Defense appropriations had stalled that summer. Members of the media were
asking questions about $3.3 trillion missing from HUD and DOD. Shortly
before 9/11, Donald Rumsfeld admitted that DOD could not account for
trillions of taxpayer dollars. On September 9, 2001, From the Wilderness
issued an economic alert warning that the global financial system ran the
risk of meltdown.9
With the events of 9/11, however, the US government was able to garner
support for the extraordinary financial market interventions necessary to
continue the strong dollar policy and for keeping the lid on the various
financial frauds and manipulations. America and the global financial
system have stayed afloat for another three years.
The answer to the question Cui Bono? ("Who benefits?") from the strong
dollar policy suggests that allegations that members of the Bush
Administration fully expected, welcomed and even facilitated 9/11 should
be taken seriously. Trillions of dollars have been moved out of the US
economy under the umbrella of the strong dollar policy - much of it in
what appear to be criminal ways. The 9/11 tragedy conveniently
necessitated a sudden, centralized control over government and theretofore
private activities in the name of protecting national security interests
and addressing the threat of terrorism. 9/11 diverted attention from and
shut the door behind that money movement. It ushered in a wave of
legislation rushed through Congress that would make it much more difficult
for the American people to do anything about it. The events of 9/11 have
acted as a "lock-down" on a financial coup d'état at the core of the
"strong dollar policy."
In the Machiavellian tradition, it turns out that the "strong dollar
policy" is a policy that intentionally destroys the value of the dollar.
Justifying the End of Markets and Democracy
Traditionally, the faith of the US working class in democracy has been one
of the most powerful supports for democracy worldwide. It is not enough to
bankrupt the American middle class and the American government. The
current effort to move to more centrally controlled governance also
requires removing this faith that underpins support for global democracy.
Part and parcel of doing so is establishing popular support for the notion
that the economic supports for democracy - sound money, open and
transparent markets and government, and access to equity - are somehow
bad.
An example of this is Marjorie Kelly's The Divine Right of Capital, which
neglects to integrate the covert revenue streams into the equation and
instead attempts to explain problems and resolutions in terms of overt
cash flows only. According to Kelly, the editor of Business Ethics
magazine, free markets, not organized crime and black budgets, are the
problem. Hence, the problem is that shareholders want to make money, not
that insiders rip off small investors of their savings and retirement
investments using criminal means, protected, not obstructed, by
governmental intervention. Kelly's bio mentions her speaking engagements
at Harvard, without concern for Harvard's leadership in Enron, Harken, the
rape of Russia, HUD corruption and other criminal frauds.
In the latest escalation of the Orwellian nightmare, we have entire
networks of good-hearted progressives and socially responsible investors
promoting a framework of "problems-solutions" that provides the perfect
intellectual camouflage for their opponents' control over national and
international resources. Now that the so-called "New World Order" has
stolen all of the money, those who are most appalled at this state of
affairs unwittingly promote policies that will prevent the ordinary person
from communicating with integrity or creating and accumulating wealth.
Even worse, they crave the credibility conferred by the foundation, church
and university investment syndicates most richly rewarded by economic and
military warfare. Their behavior and the policies they promote --- if
allowed to triumph --will ensure our descent into a 21st century war
economy.
Lest these words give offense, I would encourage you to read one of the
most important and brilliant economic articles of 2004, "Shilling for a
New World Order" by Anne Williamson.
sandersresearch.com
Understanding Mr. Shiller and the
folks who finance and promote his effort tells us much about who profits
from fascism. Shiller provides the philosophical prerequisites for ending
democracy and markets for good and ensuring that no one can rise other
than through serving the war economy.
Getting to the truth of 9/11 offers an opportunity to ask and answer the
unanswered questions of who is running our world, and to illuminate how
the covert cash flows really work. Only with such a powerful understanding
can we appreciate the intellectual poison in Shiller's proposals and find
real solutions effective in decentralizing our financial systems. I am
reminded of a wonderful and very intelligent staff member of the CIA who
told me in 1997, "your problem is that you have not answered the question,
where does evil come from?" Indeed, this is the unanswered question of our
day; one that cannot be answered without a much richer and clear picture
than we now have of the economic warfare raging throughout our world and
the economic hit men and women leading it.
There is Hope - Two Stories
Story #1
In November 2004 I was at a precious metals investment conference and had
the opportunity to ask one of the speakers, the former head of a US
intelligence agency, why the Air Force "stood down four times on 9/11."
His answer surprised me. One of his major points during the speech had
been the importance of cooperation among all parts of military,
intelligence and enforcement on events like 9/11. He answered in a tone of
anger saying something like, "I wouldn't know, dear. I ran the
(intelligence agency), not the Air Force. You would have to ask the Air
Force."
Throughout the years of the strong dollar policy, precious metals
investors have held out hope that the price of gold and silver will rise
based on economic fundamentals. However, when supply and demand forces can
be artificially balanced through covert operations and black budget market
manipulations financed by warfare and organized crime, the price can stay
managed forever - as long as there are sufficient energy resources to do
so. This is a much darker and more subtle form of confiscation than was
previously thought possible. I saw and heard a dawning realization in that
audience that precious metal investors were being "had."
As global investors come to understand the truth of 9/11, a lot of
resources can shift in very decentralizing ways. I presume that the
speaker's fear before such an audience indicated that he understood this
too. He appreciates that the economic hit men's control of global markets
is much more vulnerable to the viral spread of truth than it seems.
Indeed, the following week, the speaker made a public statement that the
Internet needed increased controls.
It would seem the truth of 911 is quite powerful.
Story #2
Two weeks ago I visited a friend who has absolutely no interest in
politics. He is well into his seventies. He understands the extent and
seriousness of the corruption. Given his age, he has concluded that the
only thing he can do to help is live an upright life and pray. His
response to the truth of 9/11 is to withdraw from current events and
contribute spiritually. He mentioned that a group of his friends had
suggested that a recent event had been determined by covert means in
complete contradiction to accounts put forth by the mainstream media. He
spoke about our current leadership with sadness. It was clear from his
manner that he no longer takes them seriously. They have lost what the
Chinese call "the mandate of heaven." They are thugs - to be avoided in
public and laughed at in private.
While this may sound like a small thing, I saw something I have seen many
times since the Presidential election. Many Americans are quietly and
invisibly withdrawing our mandate from the current leadership - not from
America as a country, or from the notion of a democratic American
government or from the American people. We understand that our enemy is
not these things. This silent withdrawal in the hearts and minds of
millions and the use of spiritual warfare to effectively counter those
behind economic and military warfare has the power to shift power to more
legitimate leadership.
Enough hearts and minds on Main Street are silently withdrawing our
support to begin real cultural and economic change. Imagine if the truth
of 9/11 could illuminate the real economic hit men and women of our day
and age and - unleashed from the paralysis of not understanding the covert
flows around us and who we can trust - help us transform our situation in
a wealth creating way?
As Percy Bysshe Shelley once said, "Ye are many. They are few." |
