by EDWARD HERMAN
Several decades ago, in The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism (with Noam Chomsky, 1979) and The Real Terror Network (Herman, 1982), we gave great weight to the demand for a “favorable climate of investment” as a driving force in explaining U.S. policy in Third World countries. If the business community and its interests have played a very significant role in shaping foreign policy—which I am confident is true—this helps explain why a democracy like ours could regularly align with dictators and regimes of torture, given its nominal commitment to democracy and human rights. U.S. companies, expanding steadily overseas, have always wanted friendly and cooperative leaders in areas of investment interest who would help assure their profitability and security from any “populist” threat. A Suharto in Indonesia would do this as would a Mobutu in Zaire, a Pinochet in Chile, and a Marcos in the Philippines.
Truly democratic governments in those countries might well threaten to serve the local majority after many decades or centuries of colonial and comprador exploitation. This would never do, as even our leaders have acknowledged, especially behind the scenes. Thus, a National Security Council Policy Statement of 1953 on “United States Objectives and Courses of Action With Respect to Latin America” (a document never cited in the New York Times, believe it or not) expressed open hostility to “nationalist regimes maintained in large part by appeals to the masses” that sought an “immediate improvement in the low living standard of the masses.” This document is clear that democracy and “populism” (i.e., majority welfare-oriented policies) are dangerous and bad. It is explicit in its heavy weight given to “a political and economic climate conducive to private investment.”
Unfortunately, quelling “populist” tendencies often requires harsh measures. For many decades these were regularly provided by U.S.-sponsored and supported military dictatorships and regimes of state terror. Latin America became a hotbed of “national security states” (NSS) in the 1950s-1980s, right in the U.S. backyard (the real terror network). But somehow the mainstream media and liberal America never saw a causal relationship between U.S. dominance, interests, aid, military training, and diplomatic support, and the rise of the NSS, as they did with the character of the puppet regimes in the Soviet Union’s backyard in Eastern Europe. The Frontispiece of The Washington Connection, entitled “The Sun and Its Planets,” showed that an estimated 26 of the 35 countries using torture on an administrative basis in the 1970s were U.S. client states, all receiving military aid and training, most of them getting police training as well, with dollar flows shown on lines running from the sun to the 26 planets. This book and The Real Terror Network also gave tabular data on the strong relationship between U.S. (and IMF-World Bank) military and economic aid and negative human rights conditions: increases in torture and death squads, repression of labor, increases in numbers of political prisoners.
Egypt: A U.S. Protected Dictatorship
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