The State Department's favorite conspiracy theorist is back and this time he's pointing fingers at President Bush (and his sidekick the military-industrial complex, of course).

John Perkins last best-selling book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, earned the ire of the agency, which devoted a whole section of its website to debunking the author's various theories about global corruption. Now Perkins is about to debut his new one, The Secret History of the American Empire. In it, he takes aim at corporate globalization and lobs a few more bombs. Among them:

• George W. Bush's cocaine habit and womanizing ways caused the invasion of Panama in 1989. According to the book, Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega installed cameras on Contadora Island, which was a safe haven where American politicians and businessmen could schmooze with, and bribe, Latin American politicos. There were "rumors that George W. was photographed doing coke and having kinky sex during the time his father was president," Jose, a top adviser to Brazilian president Lula da Silva, tells Perkins. "There was a theory in Latin America that Noriega had used incriminating photos of the younger Bush and his cronies to convince the older Bush, then president, to side with the Panamanian administration on key issues. In retaliation, H.W. invaded Panama and hustled Noriega off to a Miami prison. The building housing Noriega's confidential files had been incinerated by bombs."

• The Bush Administration used the tsunami as a pretext to re-establish ties with Indonesia's repressive military, sending millions of dollars worth of equipment to Jakarta and training Indonesian officers.

• The U.S. military is conducting maneuvers on Colombian soil aimed at an invasion of Venezuela. The plan is to train Latin soldiers as part of a United States-commanded Southern United Army. "A former U.S. Green Beret officer told me that a mercenary army was being assembled in Guyana, along the Venezuelan border," Perkins writes.

• Former Ecuadoran president Lucio Gutiérrez, sitting in jail, threatened to sue Perkins for defamation for claiming that the leader had been coerced by economic hit men for American corporations.

• Marta Roldos, the daughter of former Ecuadoran president Jaime Roldos, told Perkins that her father had been assassinated by the CIA when his plane crashed in 1981. But once she ran for public office herself, she stopped talking to Perkins about her theory.