Quotes

(including quotes from the book The Real Terror Network, South End Press, publisher)

by Edward Herman

 

The Real Terror Network

" ... there is a system of terroristic states -- the real terror network -- that has spread throughout Latin America and elsewhere over the past several decades, and which is deeply rooted in the corporate interest and sustaining political-military-financial propaganda mechanisms of the United States and its allies in the Free World."

***

" ... the operative principles dictating U.S. support and hostility in the Third World have been business criteria first, military convenience second, and any humanistic considerations third and thus effectively irrelevant. In fact, they are less than irrelevant -- they are in conflict with the first two criteria, and therefore ... humanizing forces [become] 'threats'."

***

"... the establishment can't admit [that] it is human rights violations that make ... countries attractive to business - so history has to be fudged, including denial of our support of regimes of terror and the practices that provide favorable climates of investment, and our destabilization of democracies that [don't] meet [the] standard of service to the transnational corporation..."

***

"The immiseration of the majority is an integral part of the Free World package for the Third World, the unsavory aspects of the package -- the terror, the direct spoilation of people and resources, and western complicity -- must be rationalized and, as far as possible, kept under the rug."

***

"... U. S. business wants a "favorable climate of investment" abroad, and ... military regimes that will crush labor unions and otherwise serve foreign business meet that demand."

***

" There is ...a huge tacit conspiracy between the U.S. government, its agencies and its multinational corporations, on the one hand, and local business and military cliques in the Third World, on the other, to assume complete control of these countries and "develop" them on a joint venture basis. The military leaders of the Third World were carefully nurtured by the U.S. security establishment to serve as the "enforcers" of this joint venture partnership, and they have been duly supplied with machine guns and the latest data on methods of interrogation of subversives."

***

" Claiming a new dedication to fighting "terrorism", this administration [Ronald Reagan] has rushed to the support of the world's leading terrorists, including the rulers of the most torture prone NSSs [National Security States] and assorted other right-wing governments with a marked proclivity to violence."

***

" The NSS [National Security State] represents and serves the interests of a tiny elite. Its economic policies of "trickling-up", enforced by the machine gun, are rationalized on the ground that growth in the long run will trickle down to the lower orders. This is a self-serving ideology designed mainly to allow the western public to think well of themselves and their own country."

***

" Communism is an enormously serviceable tool for achieving morally dubious goals under a morally acceptable cover. It is not acceptable to destabilize a country, overthrow its democratically elected government, and institute a reign of terror in order to lower taxes and wages for one's own multinational firms. It is necessary to put forward a higher moral imperative."

***

" Among Latin American elites, a peasant asking for a higher wage or a priest helping organize a peasant cooperative is a communist. And someone going so far as to suggest land reform or a more equitable tax system is a communist fanatic. There is no word or act suggesting the desirability of elite generosity toward the poor, or the need for education, organization or material advance for the majority, that has not been branded communistic in Latin America in recent decades. The Pope himself, having urged both greater generosity and significant reforms on the local elites, was also denounced in Latin America as a tool o f communism."

***

"Since communism is the enemy, and peasants trying to improve themselves, priests with the slightest humanistic proclivity, and naturally anyone seriously challenging the status quo, are communists, they are also, by definition, enemies. In the National Security State, "enemies" are evil, a threat to "security," and must be treated accordingly. No form of violence is excessive in a war between the forces of good and evil. This is why in every NSS in Latin America, Church people having any dealings that involve trying to elevate the status of the poor are suspect and potential victims of unlimited violence ..."

***

" The really massive and significant growth of terrorism since World War II has been that carried out by states. And among states, the emergence and spread of the National Security State (NSS) has been the most important development contributing to state terrorism and thus to the growth of overall world terrorism, using the word in its basic sense-intimidation by violence or the threat of violence. "

***

" ... the NSS [National Security State] is an instrument of class warfare, organized and designed to permit an elite, local and multinational, to operate without any constraint from democratic processes. This allows the bulk of the population to be treated as a mere cost of production."

***

" ... with Reagan-Haig-Kirkpatrick U.S. policy has reached this stage: (1) there is indifference at best to democratic forms and civil liberties in the Third World; (2) there is active hostility and repugnance toward any manifestations of non-elite and human needs objectives oriented to the majority; (3) there is a pro-fascist bias in a literal sense, in which warmth and understanding appear to be roughly but directly proportional to the ruthlessness of the controlling elite and the magnitude of its terroristic behavior as measured by body count."

***

" The Reagan-Haig team ... have shown themselves to be not only quite comfortable with rule by the most ruthless killers in the hemisphere but entirely unconcerned with the indiscriminate and wholesale murder of civilians."

***

" ... the failure to provide relevant context, the acceptance and dissemination of myths, the application of double standards as virtual standard operating procedure, and participation in ideological bandwagons and campaigns, have been extremely important in [New York] Times coverage of foreign affairs."

*****

 

If we assume that the purpose of the economy is to serve and improve the welfare of the entire body of citizens, the U.S. model has clearly been a major failure. It has served a minority, and the majority have not only failed to share in the income gains yielded by the model, they have suffered from reduced benefits, greater job instability and stress, and a diminution of expectations and sense of hope for the future.

***

Economists have provided capitalists with a comforting concept called the "free market." It does not describe any part of reality, at any place or time. It's a mantra conveniently invoked when it is proposed that government do something the faithful don't like, and just as conveniently ignored whenever they want government to do something for them.

***

No market is "free," all markets are regulated. The question is how they will be regulated, for whose benefit, not whether they are "free."


Edward Herman page