The Secret History of the American Empire: The Truth About Economic Hit Men, Jackals, and How to Change the World by Perkins John

Author:Perkins, John [Perkins, John]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Penguin Group
Published: 2007-06-04T16:00:00+00:00

32

Lebanon: “Stark Raving Mad”

A chauffeur drove me from the Beirut airport to the luxurious Phoenician Intercontinental. A young bellman greeted me enthusiastically, took my bag, and ushered me into the lobby. As I turned from the reservation desk, I crashed into another man. I stepped back and apologized, shocked by a familiar face that gave me a leering smile and the unforgettable voice that muttered, “It’s OK.”

The bellman grabbed my arm and hustled me away, then stopped. “Yes, Marlon Brando is your neighbor to night,” he said. He shook his head and added. “He’s got a terrible temper. Please don’t ask for his autograph.”

I could not help gawking as we headed for the elevator. Brando looked older than the last time I had seen him in a movie, but there was no doubt that he was indeed the actor I had long admired for his performances in On the Waterfront and A Streetcar Named Desire. I had read about his most recent film, Burn!—a performance he claimed was his best yet. I took it as a good omen that I had encountered—literally—the great actor and infamous rebel on this, my first trip to the Middle East. Years later when I finally saw Burn! I was deeply amused by the irony: Brando played the precursor of an EHM in this groundbreaking film about empire building.

The next morning, Charlie Illingworth’s friend picked me up in his car. He introduced himself as “Smiley,” although I could never quite figure out why since he was not by nature a jovial person and seldom exhibited the expression for which he apparently was named. As it turned out, he did not work for the embassy, but rather for the United States Agency for International Development. He had spent his entire professional life with USAID and now, approaching retirement, had requested Lebanon as his final assignment; he had grown up there, the son of missionaries, and had wanted to retire to the land of his youth. Now, however, he had changed his mind.

“Too much turmoil,” he told me as we drove along a spectacular stretch of the Mediterranean. “These damn Muslims are getting out of hand. Simply can’t be trusted. No matter what the deal we strike with them, they never keep their end of it.”

I asked him to show me some of the Palestinian refugee camps I had heard so much about. At first reluctant, he eventually agreed to drive me by one of them. Despite my recent experiences in Indonesia, I was shocked by the poverty and degradation. The camp consisted of a mass of hovels crowded together and surrounded by fences. I wondered aloud how the people living there maintained their sanity.

“They don’t,” Smiley assured me. “They’re stark raving mad. The lot of them.”

I asked him about water, sewage, and other basic ser vices.

He guffawed. “All you have to do is open the window and take a whiff to know that ‘sanitation’ ain’t in their vocabulary.” He gave me the closest thing I had seen to a grin, and pointed.

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