>> I wouldn’t put much stock in anything Perkins says that can’t be substantiated by reliable sources <<
Agreed. This stuff looks to me like total garbage. Whatever the sins of NSA might be, that agency does not conduct operations whereby they would send “hit men” to foreign countries. Nor do they work in the “economic” realm. Their mission is two-fold:
1. Spying on the communications of foreigners. That’s their best-known role.
2. But they also are tasked with protecting the communications of U. S. gov’t entities, for example, by developing better encryption methods and technologies.
So I think “John Perkins” — if he actually exists — is probably a fraud and a charlatan. More likely, however, I think he is probably no more than the fruit of a somewhat skillful fiction writer’s imagination.
Well, before Snowden, perhaps I could believe you. After Snowden, you talk as a government employee.
Confessions of a professional liar
(This review mentions that Perkins also has written books and given seminars on "shamanic shapeshifting".)
Chapter 14: Junk Library Science
("we found that none of the writer’s claims that were not previously known could be independently verified")
PROFILE: John Perkins, self-confessed 'economic hit man'
(This reviewer notes that Perkins gives the wrong date for an attempted coup against Chavez, and summarizes, "I came away convinced not only that the work is a semi-fictional narrative (albeit one that aspires to address in this appealing way a larger truth), but that Perkins has woven into his Confessions of an Economic Hit Man about a dozen clues to point the reader to the work's true character.")