A recent Congressional Research Service report on international arms sales records that last year the United States delivered nearly $8 billion worth of weapons to Third World countries. This was about 40% of all such arms transfers. The United States signed agreements to sell over $10 billion worth of weapons, one-third of all arms deals with Third World countries.

$10 billon a year is the estimated cost of meeting the UN Millennium Development Goal for water and sanitation, which would reduce by half the proportion of people in the world without proper access to drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015. Today, about 1.1 billion people do not have access to a minimal amount of clean water and about 2.6 billion people do not have access to basic sanitation.

As the USSR collapsed, Mikhail Gorbachev made a concession that was astonishing in the light of recent history and strategic realities: he agreed to allow a united Germany to join a hostile military alliance. This “stunning concession” was hailed by Western media, NATO, and President Bush I, who called it a demonstration of “statesmanship ... in the best interests of all countries of Europe, including the Soviet Union.”

Gorbachev agreed to the stunning concession on the basis of “assurances that NATO would not extend its jurisdiction to the east, `not one inch’ in [Secretary of State] Jim Baker's exact words.” Strobe Talbott, the highest official in charge of Eastern Europe... reports that “Secretary of State Baker did say to then Soviet foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze, in the context of the Soviet Union's reluctant willingness to let a unified Germany remain part of NATO, that NATO would not move to the east.”

Clinton quickly reneged on that commitment, also dismissing Gorbachev’s effort to end the Cold War with cooperation among partners. NATO also rejected a Russian proposal for a nuclear-weapons-free-zone from the Arctic to the Black Sea.

Ralph McGehee, a senior CIA operations officer ... described the ousting of Sukarno in Indonesia as a "model operation" for the US-run coup that got rid of Salvador Allende in Chile seven years later. "The CIA forged a document purporting to reveal a leftist plot to murder Chilean military leaders," he wrote, "[just like] what happened in Indonesia in 1965." He says the Indonesian massacres were also the model for Operation Phoenix in Vietnam, where US-directed death squads assassinated up to 50,000 people.

The use of PMSCs also enables governments to cover their tracks and evade accountability... When campaign group Corporate Watch asked a US government official why the United States had awarded a contract to DynCorp to support the rebel Sudanese People s Liberation Movement in their negotiations, he replied: The answer is simple. We are not allowed to fund a political party or agenda under United States law, so by using private contractors, we can get around those provisions. Think of this as somewhere between a covert program run by the CIA and an overt program run by the United States Agency for International Development. It is a way to avoid oversight by Congress.

you'll see a pretty good coincidence of the enemies that Amnesty International goes after and the interests of both the United States and British governments. Let's take an older example – apartheid in South Africa under the former criminal regime in South Africa. Amnesty International refused adamantly to condemn apartheid in South Africa. Despite my best efforts while I was on the board, and other board members, they would not do it. They are the only human rights organization in the entire world to have refused to condemn apartheid in South Africa. Now they can give you some cock-and-bull theory about why they wouldn't do this. But the bottom line was that the biggest supporter, economic and political supporter of the criminal apartheid regime in South Africa was the British government, followed by the United States government. And so no matter how hard we tried, no matter what we did, they would not condemn apartheid in South Africa. Now I just mention that as one among many examples.

The 'best interests of the corporation' principle, now a fixture in the corporate laws of most countries... compels corporate decision makers always to act in the best interests of the corporation, and hence its owners. The law forbids any other motivation for their actions, whether to assist workers, improve the environment, or help consumers save money. They can do these things with their own money, as private citizens. As corporate officials, however, stewards of other people's money, they have no legal authority to pursue such goals as ends in themselves, only as means to serve the corporation's own interests, which generally means to maximise the wealth of its shareholders.
Corporate social responsibility is thus illegal - at least when it is genuine.

Pilger: What right have you - and I mean, you, the CIA, the United States Government - or any foreign power - what right do you have to do what you do in other countries?
Clarridge: National Security interests
Pilger: but... the people that you do it to have no say in this
Clarridge: Well... that's just tough. We are going to protect ourselves, and we're going to go on protecting ourselves, cos we end up protecting all of you. And let's not forget that. We'll intervene whenever we decide it's in our national security interests to intervene. And if you don't like it - lump it. Get used to it world: we're not going to put up with nonsense.

It is firm and continuing policy that Allende be overthrown by a coup. It would be much preferable to have this transpire prior to 24 October but efforts in this regard will continue vigorously beyond this date. We are to continue to generate maximum pressure toward this end, utilizing every appropriate resource. It is imperative that these actions be implemented clandestinely and securely so that the USG [United States Government] and American hand be well hidden...,