regime change


Greg Grandin in his book "Empire's Workshop"


"I have first-hand information that the [United States] empire, through the U.S. Southern Command, made the coup d'etat in Honduras."

Bolivian President Evo Morales, July 2009



Nicolas J.S. Davies


"The trigger for military coups in Latin America was less the elite fear of Soviet encroachment or guerrilla threats than fears of popular demands for social reform and democratic change."

J. Patrice McSherry in the book "Predatory States: Operation Condor and Covert War in Latin America"


"It is unlikely the Honduras coup took place without the knowledge of the U.S. military, which has a base in that country... The coup is a message from Latin American and U.S. 'ultraconservatives' to keep leftist governments in line."

Ecuador's President Rafael Correa. July 2009


"The Americans who engineered countless military coups, death squads and massacres in Latin America never paid for their crimes - instead they got promoted and they're now running the 'War on Terror".

author Naomi Klein


"The democratically elected president [of Honduras Manuel] Zelaya, had called for a new constitution to replace the old one that was really set up by the oligarchy in favor of the very wealthy and the international companies. He also called for a 60 percent increase in the bottom wage rate, which had a huge impact on Dole and Chiquita, two of the biggest employers in that company. They, along with a number of companies that have sweatshops in Honduras, strongly objected, very much the same way that they had objected to Aristide in Haiti, when he did something similar, and called in the military. The general in charge of the military was a graduate of our School of the Americas, this, you know, school that's famous for creating dictators, and they overthrew Zelaya. It was a classic CIA-sponsored type of coup, very similar to what United Fruit had done in Guatemala in the early '50s. And, of course, United Fruit became Chiquita."

John Perkins, 2009


"The coups in Iran, Guatemala, South Vietnam, and Chile ... were not rogue operations. Presidents, cabinet secretaries, national security advisers, and CIA directors approved them ... The first thing all four of these coups have in common is that American leaders promoted them consciously, willfully, deliberately, and in strict accordance with the laws of the United States."



"Coups do not happen in Latin America without the support of those with power in the US."

Bill Quigley and Laura Raymond, 2010


" It was under Johnson that Washington began either to organize or patronize a cycle of coups starting in Brazil in 1964, continuing through Uruguay, Bolivia, and Chile, and ending in Argentina in 1976."

Greg Grandin in his book "Empire's Workshop"



Bill Fletcher, Jr, 2004


"The United States... supported authoritarian regimes throughout Central and South America during and after the Cold War in defense of its economic and political interests.
In tiny Guatemala, the Central Intelligence Agency mounted a coup overthrowing the democratically elected government in 1954, and it backed subsequent rightwing governments against small leftist rebel groups for four decades. Roughly 200,000 civilians died.
In Chile, a CIA-supported coup helped put General Augusto Pinochet in power from 1973 to 1990.
In Peru, a fragile democratic government is still unraveling the agency's role in a decade of support for the now-deposed and disgraced president, Alberto K. Fujimori.
The United States had to invade Panama in 1989 to topple its narco-dictator, Manuel A. Noriega, who, for almost 20 years, was a valued informant for American intelligence."

John Perkins in his book "Confessions of Economic Hit Man"


"Jean-Bertrand Aristide's second term as President of Haiti would end the same way as had his first had, cut short in a U.S.-backed coup d'état. Aristide's opposition to neoliberalism, his defiant stance towards the U.S. and France, and his enduring popularity with Haiti's poor had made him a marked man from the very beginning of his term in February 2001."

Nik Barry-Shaw, 2008


Bill Quigley and Laura Raymond, 2010


"History is repeating itself in Haiti, as democracy is being destroyed for the second time in the past fifteen years. Amazingly, the main difference seems to be that this time it is being done openly and in broad daylight, with the support of the "international community" and the United Nations
... The US Agency for International Development and the International Republican Institute (the international arm of the Republican Party) had spent tens of millions of dollars to create and organize an opposition ... and to make Haiti under Aristide ungovernable.

Mark Weisbrot, 2005


"In March 1982, General Efrain Rios Montt seized power in Guatemala in a military coup. An avowed fundamentalist Christian, he immediately impressed Washington where President Reagan hailed Rios Montt as "a man of great personal integrity." But under Rios Montt, the slaughter in the countryside and selective assassinations in the cities only grew worse.
By July 1982, Rios Montt had begun a new scorched-earth campaign called his "rifles and beans" policy. The slogan meant that pacified Indians would get "beans," while all others could expect to be the target of army "rifles." In October, he secretly gave carte blanche to the feared "Archivos" intelligence unit to expand "death squad" operations. Based at the Presidential Palace, the "Archivos" masterminded many of Guatemala's most notorious assassinations.
The U.S. embassy was soon hearing more accounts of the army conducting Indian massacres. However, during a swing through Latin America, Reagan discounted the mounting reports of hundreds of Mayan villages being eradicated. On December 4, 1982, after meeting with dictator Rios Montt, Reagan hailed the general as "totally dedicated to democracy" and asserted that Rios Montt's government was "getting a bum rap."
On January 7, 1983, Reagan lifted the ban on military aid to Guatemala and authorized the sale of $6 million in military hardware. Approval covered spare parts for UH-1H helicopters and A-37 aircraft used in counterinsurgency operations. Radios, batteries and battery chargers were also in the package. State Department spokesman John Hughes said political violence in the cities had "declined dramatically" and that rural conditions had improved, too.

Robert Parry in his book "Secrecy & Privilege"


"President of Haiti Jean-Bertrand Aristide did not resign. He was abducted by the United States in the commission of a coup."

Randall Robinson, the founder and former director of TransAfrica, 2004



cable outlining CIA objectives in Chile to the station chief in Santiago


"In Indonesia in 1965 a group of young military officers attempted a coup against the U.S.-backed military establishment and murdered six of seven top military officers. The Agency seized this opportunity to overthrow Sukarno and to destroy the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI), which had three million members... Estimates of the number of deaths that occurred as a result of this CIA ... operation run from one-half million to more than one million people."

Ralph McGehee in his book "Deadly Deceits"


"At the time of the Rios Montt coup d'etat in March 1982, the Israeli press ... referred to the Montt coup as "the Israeli connection" because that group was "trained and equipped by Israel"
... Rios Montt himself told ABC News reporters that his coup had been successful because "many of our soldiers were trained by the Israelis."

Bishara Bahbah in her book "Israel and Latin America: The Military Connection"



James Petras interview, 2002


"80 percent of the officers who carried out the 1964 coup against President Goulart [Brazil] had been trained by the United States."

Penny Lernoux in her book "Cry of the People"


"The moment of Arbenz's fall is the moment history stopped in Guatemala or took another course, the army withdrawing support for an elected government that had relied upon it, joining in a CIA-supported coup replacing democrat with dictator, and beginning forty years of military repression."

Kate Millett in her book "Politics of Cruelty"

"Documents clearly show knowledge of the detailed plans for the coup against Chávez, written by the CIA... financial and advisory agencies like the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the International Republican Institute (IRI), the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE) financed all the groups, NGOs, trade unions, businesspeople, political parties and the media involved in the coup."

Eva Golinger, 2008


"In Guatemala, United Fruit supported the CIA-backed 1954 military coup against President Jacobo Arbenz, a reformer who had carried out a land reform package. Arbenz' overthrow led to more than thirty years of unrest and civil war in Guatemala."

Nikolas Kozloff, 2009


"On September 11, 1973, General Augusto Pinochet orchestrated a coup d'état, with the aid and participation of the CIA, against the Allende government of Chile, overthrowing it and installing Pinochet as dictator. The next day, an economic plan for the country was on the desks of the General Officers of the Armed Forces who performed government duties. The plan entailed "privatization, deregulation and cuts to social spending," written up by "U.S.-trained economists." These were the essential concepts in neoliberal thought, which, through the oil crises of the 1970s, would be forced upon the developing world through the World Bank and IMF."

Andrew Gavin Marshall



Nicolas J.S. Davies


"The United States has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It's a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis. Brutal, indifferent, scornful and ruthless it may be, but it is also very clever."

Harold Pinter's acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2005



Andrew Gavin Marshall


"The coups in Iran, Guatemala, South Vietnam, and Chile were all "what the President ordered." They were not rogue operations. Presidents, cabinet secretaries, national security advisers, and CIA directors approved them, authorized by the 1947 law that created the CIA and assigned it "duties related to intelligence affecting the national security." The first thing all four of these coups have in common is that American leaders promoted them consciously, willfully, deliberately, and in strict accordance with the laws of the United States."



"Right wing [American] ideologues and shell NGOs based out of Washington played a critical role in the coup [in Honduras in 2009 ... and are hell bent on stopping the growing populist movements throughout Latin America from gaining more influence and power."

Bill Quigley and Laura Raymond




Noam Chomsky



U.S. Ambassador to the UN Madeleine Albright when asked whether she considered the deaths of half a million Iraqi children a reasonable result of U.S. sanctions


"The United States and its officials aided and abetted by others engaged in a continuing pattern of conduct from August 6, 1990 until this date to impose, maintain and enforce extreme economic sanctions and a strict military blockade on the people of Iraq for the purpose of injuring the entire population, killing its weakest members, infants, children, the elderly and the chronically ill, by depriving them of medicines, drinking water, food, and other essentials in order to maintain a large US military presence in the region, and dominion and control over its people and resources including oil.
... The United States, its President Bill Clinton and other officials, the United Kingdom and its [former] Prime Minister John Major and other officials have committed a crime against humanity as defined in the Nuremberg Charter against the population of Iraq.
... The United States, its President Bill Clinton and other officials, the United Kingdom and its Prime Minister John Major and other officials have committed genocide as defined in the Convention against Genocide against the population of Iraq including genocide by starvation and sickness through use of sanctions."

International Court On Crimes Against Humanity Committed by the UN Security Council, Madrid, November 1996


"American air power pounded the hell out of Iraqi armor and buildings with depleted uranium rounds... I have been in and around buildings destroyed by depleted uranium rounds, as well as vehicles, armored personnel carriers, tanks and corpses... During the invasion, we were also exposed to severe sandstorms, which meant that we were breathing in sand for days, sand that more than likely contained depleted uranium."

James Gilligan, United States Marine Corps, 2008


"The Charter of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg was the institution that tried Nazi war leaders for their crimes [WWII]. Among the crimes listed in the charter were "crimes against peace," "war crimes," and "crimes against humanity" Crimes "against peace" were defined as "planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances, or participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the foregoing."

David Swanson in his book "War Is A Lie"



"In spite of the U.S. embargo, Cuba has managed to provide its citizens with what the United States so far has not: free top-notch health care, free university and graduate school education, and subsidized food and utilities. Cuba compares favorably to the United States on a number of basic social factors:
*Housing: There is virtually no homelessness in Cuba. Thanks to the 1960 Urban Reform law, 85% of Cubans own their own homes and pay no property taxes or interest on their mortgages. Mortgage payments can't exceed 10% of the combined household income.
* Employment: Cuba's unemployment rate is only 1.8% according to CIA data, compared with 7.6% (and rising) in the United States. One factor contributing to Cuba's low unemployment is undoubtedly the 350,000 jobs that have been recently created by the burgeoning sustainable urban agriculture program, one of the most successful in the world, according to U.S.-based economist Sinan Koont.
* Literacy: The adult literacy rate in Cuba (99.8%) is higher than the United States' rate (97%), according to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
* Infant mortality: Cuba has a lower infant mortality rate (4.7 per 1000 live births) than the United States' (6.0).
* Prisons: Cuba even does better on prisons. Its rate of incarceration - estimated at around 487 per 100,000 by the UNDP - is among the highest in the world, yet it is considerably lower than the U.S. rate of 738 per 100,000."

Margot Pepper, 2009


"That Cuba has survived at all under these circumstances [total U.S. economic embargo] is an achievement in itself. That it registered the highest per capita increase in gross social product (wages and social benefits) of any economy in Latin America-and almost double that of the next highest country-over the period 1981-1990 is quite remarkable. Moreover, despite the economic difficulties, the average Cuban is still better fed, housed, educated and provided for medically than other Latin Americans, and-again atypically-the Cuban Government has sought to spread the burden of the new austerity measures equally among its people."

Noam Chomsky


The U.S. policy toward Cuba has been consistent with its longstanding policy of trying to subvert any country that pursues an alternative path in the use of its land, labor, capital, markets, and natural resources. Any nation or political movement that emphasizes self-development, egalitarian human services, and public ownership is condemned as an enemy and targeted for sanctions or other forms of attack. In contrast, the countries deemed "friendly toward America" and "pro-West" are those that leave themselves at the disposal of large U.S. investors on terms that are totally favorable to the moneyed corporate interests."

Michael Parenti


"During the late 1970s & 1980s and continuing to the present, the most visible, the most vocal, the most active terrorists in the United States have been a small group of Cuban exiles, based primarily in southern Florida and in New Jersey, operating under several names and generally well known to local authorities. This group originally was dedicated to the overthrow of the Cuban Government and concentrated its efforts in hundreds of attacks against Cuba and Cuban-related offices and personnel around the world. They were all involved in the Bay of Pigs fiasco. They were all trained, supplied and encouraged by the CIA."

Ellen Ray and William H. Schaap, 2003


"The majority of Cubans support Castro. The only foreseeable means of alienating internal support is through disenchantment and disaffection based on economic dissatisfaction and hardship... Every possible means should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba. We should take a line of action which makes the greatest inroads in denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government."

Lester D. Mallory, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, in an internal memorandum, April 6, 1960


"The truth beyond Western philanthropy is that every time weaker nations have attempted to reallocate their resources and undertake land reform [to feed starving populations], powerful interests emanating from the rich world and its multilateral bodies have thwarted their efforts.
By means of economic strangulation, proxy armies, or outright invasion, as the peasants of Chile, Nicaragua, Vietnam, El Salvador, Cuba and Haiti among many others know only too well. The reason for the opposition to local, self-preserving initiatives is simply that the goal of the Western powers is not, and never was, to feed today's undernourished or starving millions, but to perpetuate poverty and dependence for altogether "valid" political and economic reasons."

David Pepper


"The clearest case of a media-inspired war - the 1898 Spanish-American War to get the Spanish out of Cuba - was pretty much an invention of William Randolph Hearst, aided and abetted by Joseph Pulitzer."

Ben Bagdikian


"Cuba is one of the poorest countries in the world and it has approximately the same quality of life index, in terms of health and so on, that the United States has."

Noam Chomsky


"There is no question that Cuba has the best health statistics in Latin America. Cuba is the only country on a par with developed nations."

World Health Organization's representative in Cuba in 1980


"Cuban life expectancy rose from fifty-five years in 1959 to seventy-three years by 1984. Infant mortality has dropped to the lowest in Latin America, on a par with developed countries. Cuba's per capita food consumption is the second highest in Latin America. It has a free public-health system... The literacy rate is over 95 percent, the highest in Latin America and higher than in the USA; almost all children under sixteen are attending school. In Cuba, the paint may be peeling off some of the buildings, but unlike so many other Latin American countries, there are no hungry children begging in the streets."

Michael Parenti


"The U.S. travel ban and the distorted portrayal of Cuba in both popular and scholarly media ensure that the majority of North Americans do not learn that a poor, Third World country, gripped by economic crisis, and under constant attack from the most powerful nation in the world, is still able to achieve health standards higher than those in the capital of that powerful nation, Washington, DC."

Aviva Chomsky


... Washington's nearly 50-year-old trade embargo prevents U.S. tourists from visiting Cuba and prohibits nearly all trade. But a law passed by the U.S. Congress in 2000 allows the Cuban government to buy U.S. food and agricultural products with direct cash payments.
... The U.S. has been the island's top food source since 2003."

Will Weissert, Associated Press, 2008



Cato Institute


"The U.S. embargo against Cuba, one of the few that includes both food and medicine, has been described as a war against public health with high human costs."

Brian Cloughley, 2010


"Cuba registered the highest per capita increase in gross social product (wages and social benefits) of any economy in Latin America - and almost double that of the next highest country - over the period 1981-1990. Despite the economic difficulties, the average Cuban is still better fed, housed, educated and provided for medically than other Latin Americans."

Noam Chomsky




Eugene Debs , Canton, Ohio, June 16, 1918



Eugene Debs , Canton, Ohio, June 16, 1918



Eugene Debs , Canton, Ohio, June 16, 1918


"It is the ruling class ... alone declare war and they alone make peace. "Yours not to reason why; Yours but to do and die.' That is their motto, and we object on the part of the awakening workers of this nation."

Eugene Debs , Canton, Ohio, June 16, 1918



Eugene Debs , Canton, Ohio, June 16, 1918



Eugene Debs , Canton, Ohio, June 16, 1918




The problem with the economy of every nation on earth has the same root - national debt - debt that is totally unnecessary... All nations can get out of debt and not incur any more debt. Any nation that did this would immediately stabilize their economic situation - that is, incur neither significant inflation, nor deflation - by design. Human societies run best on stability - a stable economic platform - one that can be predicted in the long term. Once the money power is taken away from the big banks and returned into the hands of we, the people, then economic common sense can return, and the nation's legislature can once again become responsive to the voting electorate instead of the bankers...In other words, what we need is a new human rights movement for the next generation based upon No More National Debt.
The economic problems that most people became aware of in the fall of 2008 are not reversing. Unemployment is still rising. Foreclosures are still rising. The world's economic death spiral into a deflationary depression must continue until the real problem is addressed. Our entire global economic system is at a tipping point."

Bill Still, No More National Debt



Milton Friedman



Andrew Gavin Marshall, Global Research


"Once the government reclaims the power to create money from the banks, it will no longer need to sell its bonds to investors. It will not even need to levy income taxes... Government-issued money would actually be less inflationary than the system we have now; and it is precisely because power and money corrupt, that money creation needs to be done by a public body, exercised in full view and with full accountability... What has allowed government to be corrupted today is that it is actually run by the money cartel. Big business holds all the cards, because its affiliated banks have monopolized the business of issuing and lending the national money supply, a function the Constitution delegated solely to Congress."

Ellen Brown, Web Of Debt


"Central banking ... needs to expand its control over industry, nations and people through the expansion of debt, continually needing to bring more individuals, nations and industries under debt bondage. Debt is the source of all power and wealth for the central banking system - as they do not actually produce any tradable good, such as industry; nor do they provide any necessary service, such as government. Interest on debt is the source of income and authority for the central banking system, and thus, it needs to continually advance credit and expand debt."

Andrew Gavin Marshall, Global Research


"Central banking functions on the expansion and creation of money and debt, which is lent at interest, thus serving as the source of income for the central banking system."

Andrew Gavin Marshall, Global Research



Gabriel Donohoe


"When governments fall into the trap of accepting loans in foreign currencies, they become "debtor nations" subject to IMF and BIS [Bank for International Settlements] regulation. They are forced to divert their production to exports, just to earn the foreign currency necessary to pay the interest on their loan."

Andrew Gavin Marshall, Global Research


President Woodrow Wilson


"The organizational structure for creating means of payment out of nothing, we call credit."



"The Western banking system controls a worldwide electronic banking network. The control of money creation at a world level constitutes the ultimate instrument of economic and social domination. The creation of fiat money provides a command over the real economies of countries worldwide. The ultimate lever of the U.S.-NATO imperial design is to override and destroy national currencies."

Michel Chossudovsky


"One of the primary motivations for the [American] Revolution was the control of currency by a foreign imperial power, with the ability to control inflation and devaluation, essentially controlling the entire economic conditions of the colony from abroad. The Founding Fathers of the United States understood the necessity of controlling one's own currency if one was to preserve sovereignty and independence."

Andrew Gavin Marshall, Global Research



Paul Craig Roberts



Michael Hudson and Jeffrey Sommers, 2008


" America is the largest debtor nation, and at the same time it is the world's creditor. "Creating money out of thin air", while at the same time imposing the U.S. dollar as a global currency constitutes the ultimate instrument of conquest and imperial domination.
The U.S. monetary system is supported by the most powerful military power on earth. The dollar is backed by U.S. military might, which constitutes a means for displacing national currencies and imposing the U.S. dollar. In this regard, the Federal Reserve's overwhelming powers of money creation constitute an essential lever of an imperial monetary agenda.

Michel Chossudovsky in the book "The Global Economic Crisis"



"The term 'Deep State' describes a system composed of high-level elements within the intelligence services, military, security, judiciary and organized crime.

former congressional staff member Mike Lofgren



Peter Dale Scott


"The deep state is alleged to be a group of influential anti-democratic coalitions within the political system, composed of high-level elements within the intelligence services (domestic and foreign). The notion of deep state is similar to that of a "state within the state". For those who believe in its existence, the political agenda of the deep state involves an allegiance to nationalism, corporatism, and state interests. Violence and other means of pressure have historically been employed in a largely covert manner to manipulate political and economic elites and ensure that the needs of specific interests are met within the seemingly democratic framework of the political landscape.
The outlook and behavior of the elites who constitute the deep state, and work to uphold national interests, are shaped by an entrenched belief that the country is always "on the brink"."

Wikipedia (excerpted)


"The "deep state" consists of individuals across all elements within and external to the government, who in the aggregate are able to leverage government capabilities while violating, with impunity, all Constitutional checks and balances. Related to this is the matter of funding and reach - if you follow the money, where do you end up? From New York banks to Texas energy to global drugs, there is a criminal network that is above the law and above the state."

Daniel Sheehan


"America's deep state is something of a hybrid creature that operates along a New York to Washington axis.
... The U.S.-style deep state includes key players in the police and intelligence agencies, the military, the treasury and justice departments and in the judiciary. It is structured to materially reward those who play along.
... Even though government is needed to implement desired policies, the banksters comprise the truly essential element, capable of providing genuine rewards for compliance. As corporate interests increasingly own the media, little dissent comes from the Fourth Estate as the process plays out while many of the proliferating Washington think tanks that provide deep state "intellectual" credibility are similarly funded by defense contractors.
... The cross fertilization that is essential to make the deep state system work takes place through the famous revolving door whereby senior government officials enter the private sector at a high level. In some cases the door revolves a number of times, with officials leaving government before returning in an even more elevated position.

Philip Giraldi, 2016


"The New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, NPR, etc. all are stenographers for the deep state."

Edward Curtin



Douglas P. Horne, 2014


"The long-time tendency of business and government to become more intricately and deeply involved with each other has now reached a new point of explicitness. The two cannot now be seen clearly as two distinct worlds."

John Stuart Mills in his book The Power Elite


"Fifty men have run America, and, they have within their power, by reason of the wealth which they control the ability to paralyze the whole country, for they control the circulation of currency and can create a panic whenever they will."



"The power of The Secret Team derives from its vast intra-governmental undercover infrastructure and its direct relationship with great private industries, mutual funds and investment houses, universities, and the news media, including foreign and domestic publishing houses. All true members of the Team remain in the power center whether in office with the incumbent administration or out of office with the hardcore set. They simply rotate to and from official jobs and the business world or the pleasant haven of academe."

L. Fletcher Prouty, who served as a liaison officer between the Pentagon and the CIA from 1955 to 1963 - in his book The Secret Team


"The "Deep State" is a parallel secret government, organized by a covert faction of the intelligence agencies, operated by a splinter cell of the United States military-industrial complex, financed through both the major banks, and the sale of illegal drugs, weapons, and human trafficking. They are international in their reach, owe no allegiance to any particular country, and are unbelievably ruthless in the protection of their interests."



"The Deep State has a life of its own, like the government itself. It's composed of top-echelon employees of a dozen Praetorian agencies, like the FBI, CIA, and NSA, top generals, admirals, and other military operatives, long-term congressmen, senators, and directors of important regulatory agencies. But Deep State is much broader than just the government. It includes the heads of major corporations, all of whom are heavily involved in selling to the State and enabling it. That absolutely includes Silicon Valley, although those guys at least have a sense of humor, evidenced by their "Don't Be Evil" motto. It also includes all the top people in the Fed, and the heads of all the major banks, brokers, and insurers. Add the presidents and many professors at top universities, which act as Deep State recruiting centers, all the top media figures, of course, and many regulars at things like Bohemian Grove and the Council on Foreign Relations. They epitomize the status quo, held together by power, money, and propaganda."

Doug Casey, financial analyst


"There is another government - a Deep State - concealed behind the one that is visible at either end of Pennsylvania Avenue, a hybrid entity of public and private institutions, ruling the country according to consistent patterns in season and out, connected to, but only intermittently controlled by, the visible state whose leaders we choose."

former congressional staff member Mike Lofgren


"The deep forces dominating both political parties [in the United States] are now so powerful, so affluent, and above all so invested in the profits from war-making, that a president is farther than ever from challenging this power - even as it becomes more and more clear that America's era of world dominance, like Britain's before it, is drawing to a close."

Peter Dale Scott


"There is an amorphous group of unelected corporate lawyers, bankers, and intelligence and military officials who form an American "deep state," setting real limits on the rare politicians who ever try to get out of line. They collaborate with and nurture their deep state counterparts in other countries, to whom they feel far more loyalty than their fellow citizens. The minions of the deep state hate and fear even the mildest moves towards democracy, and fight against it by any means available to them. They're not all-powerful and don't get exactly what they want, but on the issues that matter most they almost always win in the end. And while all this is mostly right there in the open, discernible by anyone who's curious and has a library card, if you don't go looking you will never hear a single word about it."

Jon Schwarz



Philip Giraldi, 2016


"John Stuart Mills wrote in his 1956 masterpiece The Power Elite, that America was ruled by those who control the "strategic command posts" of society-the big corporations, the machinery of the state, and the military establishment. These dominant cliques were drawn together by their deep mutual stake in the "permanent war economy" that had emerged during the Cold War.
Though political tensions could flare within the power elite, Mills wrote, there was a remarkable unity of purpose among these ruling groups. The top corporate executives, government leaders, and high-ranking military officers moved fluidly in and out of one another's worlds, exchanging official roles, socializing in the same clubs, and educating their children at the same exclusive schools.
... Within this system of American power, Mills saw corporate chiefs as the first among equals. Long interlocked with the federal government, corporate leaders came to dominate the "political directorate" during World War II. The United States had largely become a democracy in form only. More than half of a century before the John Roberts-era Supreme Court that legally sanctioned corporate control of the electoral process."

David Talbot



former congressional staff member Mike Lofgren


"One factor linking Dallas, Watergate, Iran-Contra, and 9/11, has been the involvement of personnel involved in America's highest-level emergency planning, known since the 1950s as Continuity of Government (COG).

Peter Dale Scott


"The United States of America is not exactly deep state Turkey, but any democracy can be subverted by particular interests hiding behind the mask of patriotism buttressed by phony international threats. Ordinary Americans frequently ask why politicians and government officials appear to be so obtuse, rarely recognizing what is actually occurring in the country. That is partly due to the fact that the political class lives in a bubble of its own creation but it might also be because many of America's leaders actually accept and benefit from the fact that there is an unelected, un-appointed and unaccountable presence within the system that actually manages what is taking place from behind the scenes. That would be the American deep state."

Philip Giraldi, 2016


"The Deep State is a hybrid entity of public and private institutions ruling the country.

former congressional staff member Mike Lofgren


"Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld were a part of the permanent, though hidden, national security apparatus of the United States, inhabitants of a world in which Presidents come and go, but America always keeps on fighting."

Peter Dale Scott




columnist Edward Zehr


"The political institutions of the West, saturated as they are with contributions from free-floating global wealth, are more efficient at resisting than generating a visionary alternative to the status quo."



"An important characteristic of the Chinese model has been the idea of strong government and the eschewing of the notion of democracy... In contrast to the now discredited Washington Consensus, it rejects shock therapy in favour of a process of gradual reform based on working through existing institutions. It is predicated upon a strong developmental state capable of steering and leading the process of reform."

Martin Jacques in his book "When China Rules the World"



Mark Weisbrot


... It is increasingly clear that, in the twentieth century, the expert will replace the democratic voter in control of the political system. Hopefully, the elements of choice and freedom may survive for the ordinary individual in that he may be free to make a choice between two opposing political groups (even if these groups have little policy choice within the parameters of policy established by the experts). In general, his freedom and choice will be controlled within very narrow alternatives."

Carroll Quigley in is book Tragedy and Hope


"Crowds have always undergone the influence of illusions. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim."



"There is little demand for democracy from within China. Indeed, if anything, there has been a turn away from democracy since Tiananmen Square. A combination of a fear of instability following the events of 1989, the disintegration of the Soviet Union, and what are seen as the difficulties experienced by Indonesia, Thailand and Taiwan as democracies - and also the Philippines and India - have reinforced the view of most Chinese that this is not an immediate issue: that, on the contrary, it is liable to represent a distraction from the main task of sustaining the country's economic growth. Implicit in this is the not misplaced view that any move towards democracy is likely to embroil the country in considerable chaos and turmoil. This is a key reason why democracy, for the great majority of Chinese, commands little support."

Martin Jacques in his book "When China Rules the World"


"The elites know that once we stop thinking we become a herd. We react to every new stimulus as if we were rats crammed into a cage. When the elites push the button we jump. It is collective sadomasochism. And we get a good look at it on Election Day."

Chris Hedges


"I don't think [democracy is] worth a damn .... People say, 'If the Congress were more representative of the people it would be better.' I say the Congress is too damn representative. It's just as stupid as the people are; just as uneducated, just as dumb, just as selfish."

US Secretary of State Dean Acheson


"The West had failed to bring a better way of life to China. Foreigners had plundered the country for more than a century under the doctrine of free enterprise, leading more and more Chinese to reject the doctrine of individual liberty because they came to believe it was a weapon of the strong to oppress the weak... Today the Communist Party is often still seen within China not as a decaying elite feeding off a brutalized populace but as a political force that retains considerable legitimacy for the radical changes it has spearheaded."

James Peck in his book "Ideal Illusions: How the U.S. Government Co-opted Human Rights"


"All the news we get every day and every hour is all about the bankers, while presidents, prime ministers and other elected leaders of the world have been reduced to the role of mere commentators who are expected to supply taxpayers' money whenever it is needed to bail out the wealthy.

Tony Benn, 2008



"Depleted Uranium is a low level alpha radiation emitter which is linked to cancer, and chemical toxicity causing kidney damage. Short term effects of high doses can result in death, while long term effects of low doses have been implicated in cancer."

US Army in a 1990 study on depleted uranium



Dr Ginan Hassen, pediatrician in Basra, Iraq, after the first Gulf War


"In Iraq childhood mortality spiralled. Cancers soared, linked to the depleted uranium weapons used in the 1991 Gulf War bombardment."

Special Rapporteur to the United Nations Martti Ahtisaari


"After the start of the Iraq war, rates of cancer, leukemia and birth defects rose dramatically in Najaf. The areas affected by American attacks saw the biggest increases. We believe it's because of the' illegal' weapons like depleted uranium that were used by the Americans. When you visit the hospital here you see that cancer is more common than the flu."

Iraqi physian Dr. Sundus Nsaif



Tom Eley, WSWS



Denis Halliday, United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq, 1997-1998


"Since the 1991 US-NATO war aggression against Yugoslavia using highly toxic and radioactive uranium projectiles, the enormity of this war crime becomes clear: In Serbia, aggressive cancer among young and old has reached epidemic proportions.
... Every day a child suffers from cancer. The entire country is contaminated. By harming the genetic material (DNA) generation after generation, malformed children will be born.
... Due to the long degradation process of radioactivity and toxicity, waste from the uranium and nuclear industries - mainly DU from isotope 238 - are stored in secure landfills for a very long time. To reduce the high cost, DU is given free of charge to interested parties such as the military. DU has characteristics that are particularly attractive for the defense industry: The DU projectiles - developed according to German technology - have a high penetrating power because of the high density of the metallic uranium and are particularly suitable for breaking steel armor and underground concrete bunkers. DU is also a flammable material that ignites spontaneously when penetrating an armor plate and at 3000 degrees Celsius burns to uranium oxide dust while releasing highly toxic and radioactive substances (uranium oxide).
This uranium oxide aerosol with particle sizes in the Nano scale reaches the human body through the air, water and, in the long term, through the food chain.
... In the lungs, the DU dust particles are also attached to the red and white blood cells and thus reach all organs of the body, including the brain, the kidney and the testes, so that in many organs cancer is produced and the genetic material (DNA) irreversibly damaged. The strong carcinogenicity of DU is due to the synergistic effects of chemo- and radio toxicity. Through the placenta, the DU can also reach an unborn child and cause serious harm to it. Potential long-term damage includes genetic defects in infants, childhood leukemia, cancer and kidney damage."

Dr. Rudolf Hänsel, 2017


"It is clear that the Pentagon knew about the health risks long before Operation Desert Storm (1991) emanating from uranium-containing ammunition. Numerous military reports have acknowledged that uranium-238 can cause kidney damage, lung and bone cancer, lung disease, skin diseases, neurocognitive disorders, chromosome damage and birth defects."

Dr. Helen Caldicott in her book "The New Nuclear Danger" (2002)


"The US government sought to prevent the World Health Organization [WHO] from surveying areas in southern Iraq where depleted uranium had been used and caused serious health and environmental dangers."

Hans von Sponeck, former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations


"Many believe DU [depleted uranium] is responsible for Gulf War Syndrome, which has killed and permanently injured many US soldiers who fought in the Persian Gulf theater. Since 2000, nearly 11,000 US Gulf War veterans have died from Gulf War Syndrome."

Dean Henderson


"In 2010, a study of cancers, leukemia's and birth defects linked to the use of DU (depleted uranium) proved that there were massive increases in cancer, a 38-fold increase in leukemia, 10-fold increase in breast cancer and infant mortalities were staggering."

author Felicity Arbuthnot


"Depleted uranium [DU] is a war crime. It's that simple. Once you've scattered all this stuff around, and then refuse to clean it up, you've committed a war crime."

Dr. Doug Rokke, University of Illinois health physicist


"The exact amount of depleted uranium used in the bombing of Iraq is not known but it has been estimated to be greater than the 340 tonnes in the 1991 Iraq war. The radiation from these weapons does not discriminate between military personnel and civilians. Depleted uranium may be a contributing factor to cases of "Gulf War Syndrome" affecting American veterans of the 1991 bombing of Iraq."

author David Model


"Laws which are breached by the use of DU [depleted uranium] shells include: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; the Charter of the United Nations; the Genocide Convention; the Convention Against Torture; [and] the four Geneva Conventions of 1949, which expressly forbid employing "poison or poisoned weapons" and "arms, projectiles or materials calculated to cause unnecessary suffering." All of these laws are designed to spare civilians from unwarranted suffering in armed conflicts."

UN Subcommission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights


"Something is very, very wrong in southern Iraq. At Basra's Children's and Maternity Hospital, doctors display a large photo album of hundreds of children born with horrible birth defects.
One study conducted by Iraqi doctors indicated that 0.776 percent of Basra-area children were born with birth defects in 1998, compared to just 0.304 percent in 1990, before the Gulf War. Another study showed a rise in childhood cancers and other malignancies of 384.2 percent from 1990--2000.
Iraqi doctors, and an increasing number of western scientists, attribute the rise in diseases and birth defects to the U.S. and British use of depleted uranium. Iraqi doctors said they have found highly elevated rates of cancers in those parts of Basra where depleted uranium ammunition was used. The Pentagon confirms firing 320 tons of DU ammunition during the Gulf War."

author Norman Solomon


"In Iraq after the Gulf War, childhood mortality spiralled. Cancers soared, linked to the depleted uranium weapons used in the 1991 bombardment."

Special Rapporteur to the UN Martti Ahtisaari


"Do American leaders really believe the utterances that emanate from their mouths? When the words "god" and "prayer" are regularly invoked in their talks, while American Hellfire missiles are sent screaming into a city center or a village marketplace teeming with life ...when they carry on endlessly about democracy and freedom, while American soldiers are smashing down doors, dragging off the men, humiliating the women, traumatizing the children... when they proclaim the liberation of a people and the bringing forth of a better life, while vast quantities of American depleted uranium are exploding into a fine vapor which will poison the air, the soil, the blood, and the genes forever."

author William Blum


"In April 1991, the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority claimed that U.S. ground forces fired between 5000 and 6000 rounds of depleted radiation ordnance in Iraq. In addition, U.S. and British aircraft launched approximately 50,000 DU rockets and missiles. DU weapons burst into flames creating uranium oxide that spreads and contaminates bodies, equipment, and the ground. The uranium-238 that is used to make the weapons causes cancer and genetic defects. According to the report of the UK Atomic Energy Authority, 40 tonnes of radioactive debris could kill 500,000 people."

author David Model



James Gilligan, United States Marine Corps


"The US military's decision to heavily deploy depleted uranium in the assault on Fallujah, Iraq in 2004 was a wanton act of brutality, poisoning an entire generation of children not yet born in 2004."

Tom Eley, WSWS


"The US dropped 88,000 tons of bombs on Iraq during the Gulf War [1991] and has rained down countless more bombs since. Many bombs were tipped with armor piercing depleted uranium (DU) warheads, which may account for chronic Iraqi health problems... Three hundred tons of DU ammunition was deployed during the war."

Dean Henderson


"In a 2004 WHO expert report on the long-term health of Iraq's civilian population resulting from depleted uranium (DU) weapons.
The study by three leading radiation scientists cautioned that children and adults could contract cancer after breathing in dust containing depleted uranium [DU], which is radioactive and chemically toxic. But it was blocked from publication by the World Health Organization (WHO), which employed the main author, Dr Keith Baverstock, as a senior radiation advisor. He alleges that it was deliberately suppressed, though this is denied by WHO.
Almost nine years later, a joint WHO-Iraqi Ministry of Health Report on cancers and birth defect in Iraq was to be released in November 2012. It has been delayed repeatedly and now has no release date."




Science and Applications International Corporation report: ' Kinetic Energy Penetrator Environment and Health Considerations', July 1990
[These documents state clearly and equivocally that the US army was well aware of the radioactive and toxic dangers of Depleted Uranium ammunition long before the first shots of the war were fired.]




Michael Parenti

"Congress passed three pieces of legislation between 1917 and 1919 to suppress all forms of dissent.
The third piece of legislation, passed in 1918, decreed that "any alien who, at any time after entering the United States, is found to have been at the time of entry, or to have become thereafter, a member of any one of the classes of aliens"-anarchists, anyone who advocated revolution or assassinations of public officials-would be "taken into custody and deported."

Annie Zirin, 2002


"On October 23 2007 the House of Representatives passed the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Bill.
... The bill is designed to identify which ideas are likely to radicalize the American people and promote dissenting activity. A nationwide network of academic researchers is charged with the responsibility of identifying certain ideologies and the thoughts that underpin them. Thus, it is a pre-criminal thought control piece of legislation amending the Homeland Security Act, and has moved stealthily through two committees of the House of Representatives. While not criminalizing "thought crime" at this juncture, it sets up an elaborate foundation for that move in the future."




Michel Chossudovsky, 2010



Gary Allen in his book "None Dare Call It Conspiracy"


"[The] process of incrementally closing down what is left of an "open society" has been a part of the political program of every dictatorship. Control over the major sources of mass information through an elaborate filtering system, ultimately presided over by compliant editors, is essential to creating homogenous views in a population who, in many instances, are already conditioned not to want to know. Allowing peripheral dissent still affords rulers the opportunity to claim that other views are allowed. The reality is that it is a fringe activity, irrelevant to the dominant system of control."




Michel Chossudovsky in his book "America's War on Terrorism"



"The single, integrated, multinational cartel which runs the international drug trade is properly referred to as "Dope, Inc.".




Michel Chossudovsky in his book "America's War on Terrorism"


"From Colombia to Miami, from the Golden Triangle to the Golden Gate, from Hong Kong to New York, from Bogota to Frankfurt, the drug trade, and more especially the heroin trade, is big business and it is run from the top down by some of the most "untouchable" families in the world... It is not a street corner business, and it takes a great deal of money and expertise to keep it flowing smoothly.

John Coleman in his book "Conspirators' Hierarchy: The Story of the Committee of 300"


"The British Crown Colony of Hong Kong, with the British Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) at the top, is considered the number-one money-laundering center for the heroin trade ... Illegal drugs are the biggest business in the Far East -and close to being the biggest business in the world - but in Hong Kong, drugs do not merely dominate the economy: They are the economy."




Andrew Gavin Marshall


"[Drug money was] the only liquid investment capital" available to banks on the brink of collapse, with roughly $325 billion in drug money absorbed by the financial system. Without identifying specific countries or banks, Costa stated that, "Inter-bank loans were funded by money that originated from the drugs trade and other illegal activities... There were signs that some banks were rescued that way."

Antonio Maria Costa, the head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, 2009





The world illegal drug traffic is controlled by a single group of men whose intimate ties of ownership, family, and political collaboration go back 200 years." "How the Drug Empire Works"


"The large international banks that finance the drug trade, get it and launder it, using it to prop up their bankrupt international financial system."



"The mafia and the CIA are the same group at the upper levels. In Britain, the MI-6 drug money is laundered through the Bank of England, Barclays Bank and other household name companies. The drug money is passed from account to account until its origins are lost in a huge web of transactions.
These diamonds are then sold and the drug money is clean."

James Casbolt


"Under U.S. law, banks must report all cash deposits of $10,000 or more. Traffickers have turned to high cash-turnover businesses - such as hotels, casinos, restaurants, and sports events-to launder their money. Since banks don't have to report deposits made by these businesses, drug profits are simply mixed in with legal cash flows.
Cash is also frequently shipped out of the United States. Often planes which fly cocaine into the U.S., fly back loaded with $20, $50, and $100 bills. The bills can then either be deposited directly in offshore banking centers - where no questions are asked -or in remote bank branches in the drug-producing countries. These funds are then wire-transferred out to the offshore banks, into secret accounts where there is no government supervision."



"Cocaine is indeed clearly the most profitable article of trade in the world."

Economist magazine, August 1989


"Some of the world's leading private financial institutions [are] deeply implicated in the witting laundering of hundreds of billions of dollars a year in illegal dope money... [Illegal drugs are] the largest commodity in international trade, with the exception of petroleum, and the annual revenues of the narcotics traffic exceed[s] the national product of most of the world's nations, and the revenues of the largest multinational companies."




Peter Dale Scott, 2003


"The drug activities of the US - and the US-led NATO - are tightly linked with the NATO expansion and the creation of US military bases in the protectorates established along the drug-trafficking and pipeline routes. The best example is the supervised state of Kosovo used by drug lords to relay narcotics from Afghanistan to Europe via the Balkan route. The Albanian drug mafia's throughput is estimated at four to six tons of heroin of the Afghan origin monthly, the annual revenues being as high as $2 billion. According to the UN, Europe which is the key market for Afghan opiates absorbs up to 150 tons of heroin annually, with 35-50 tons going to Russia. The Albanian mafia is responsible for 75% of heroin supplies to West Europe and 50% - to the US."

Elena Ponomareva


"All empires since the Renaissance have been driven by the search for foreign resources, and nearly all-including the British, the French, and the Dutch-used drugs as a cheap way to pay for overseas expansion. When the United States decided to preserve Western influence in Southeast Asia, it inherited a social structure of former colonial regimes that had coexisted in one way or other with powerful Chinese Triads engaged in the drug traffic."

Peter Dale Scott, 2003





"The United States has become more and more committed to exclusive domination of the world oil economy, both to secure its increasing oil needs and to preclude this power from passing into the hands of anyone else. The consistent U.S. recourse to actions that have built up the global drug traffic raises an analogous question: Did the United States seek to maintain control over the global drug economy to ensure that its riches would strengthen the U.S. economy and to deny them to communist enemies?"

Peter Dale Scott, 2003


"The U.S. military intervention in Afghanistan in 2001 was accompanied by restoration of opium for the world market, a recreation of what happened with the earlier U.S. intervention of 1979-1980, and before that with the U.S. intervention in Indochina after 1959, and in Southeast Asia in 1950."

Peter Dale Scott, 2003


"The strengthening of the global narcotics traffic has fueled other smuggling and related criminal activities, leading to the consolidation of an international criminal milieu. Chinese Triads, Japanese Yakuza, Russian gangs, and the Mafias of Italy, America, and Colombia have now combined into a "worldwide criminal consortium."

Peter Dale Scott, 2003


... The drug-related illegal economy is the biggest business in the world.
... The British monarchy organized most of the Far East to conform to the drug traffic.
... The Anglo-Dutch "offshore" banking system and related precious metals and gems trade were designed around illegal money.
... The world drug traffic is a top-down operation under the immediate control of the British and allied monarchies." "How the Drug Empire Works"

"The heroin epidemic that ravaged our cities during the fifties and sixties originated with the CIA out of Southeast Asia. Almost from the moment of their founding in 1947, the CIA was giving covert support to organized drug traffickers in Europe and the Far East, and eventually the Middle East and Latin America. During the Vietnam War, heroin was being smuggled into this country in the bodies of soldiers being flown home."

Jesse Ventura in the book "American Conspiracies"



Dennis Dayle, a forms DEA agent in the Middle East


"A huge chunk of international banking and related financial operations have been created solely to manage dirty money.
... The Anglo-Dutch banking operations control illegal drug and related trade.
... The Anglo-Dutch oligarchy's banking operations have the following qualifications:
They have run the drug trade for a century and a half.
They dominate those banking centers closed off to law enforcement agencies.
Almost all such "offshore," unregulated banking centers are under the direct political control of the British and Dutch monarchies and their allies.
They dominate all banking at the heart of the narcotics traffic; the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, created in 1864 to finance the drug trade, is exemplary.
They control world trade in gold and diamonds, a necessary aspect of "hard commodity" exchange for drugs.
They subsume the full array of connections to organized crime, the pro-drug legislative lobby in the USA, and all other elements of distribution, protection, and legal support. "How the Drug Empire Works"



Michel Chossudovsky in his book " America's War on Terrorism"


"Britain has been involved in the China opium trade for over two centuries. No one is going to be so foolish as to rock the boat when millions upon millions of dollars flow into the bank accounts of the British oligarchists, and more gold is traded on the Hong Kong gold market than the combined total traded in London and New York."

John Coleman in his book "The Committee of 300"



Michel Chossudovsky in his book " America's War on Terrorism"


"The main heroin supply routes from the NATO-dominated Afghanistan [are a] land heroin route through Turkey, Bulgaria, Kosovo or Bosnia, [and a] maritime heroin route via Mediterranean trade lines to the island of Corsica.
... How many tons of heroin were intercepted on merchant vessels in Mediterranean during more than ten years of the operation Active Endeavour? ... Not a single gram... In 2003-2009 155 merchant vessels were boarded and checked by NATO inspection teams. They did not find anything.
... Why is NATO is wasting stupendous resources on a purposeless operation [Operation Active Endeavor]? The answer is evident: both NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and Active Endeavour are perfectly complying with their real mission: to ensure total control over production, transportation and distribution of illegal drugs.", 2012



Michel Chossudovsky in his book " America's War on Terrorism"


