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