Scott interviews journalist Vincent Bevins about his latest book, The Jakarta Method, in which he lays out some of the history of the U.S. government’s support for violent right-wing coups all over the world. During the Cold War, America backed brutal extremists in Indonesia, Brazil, Chile, Iraq, and elsewhere, who were responsible all told for the deaths of millions of civilians—all in the name of defeating the threat of communism and socialism. Unlike the well-known and well-publicized crimes of left-wing dictators like Pol Pot in Cambodia, almost nobody in the United States today knows much about their government’s role in the coups in places like Indonesia and Brazil. These episodes pose a serious challenge to America’s view of itself as a force for good—in reality, many people the world over have good reason to resent American hegemony.
Discussed on the show:
The Jakarta Method: Washington’s Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World
“How ‘Jakarta’ Became the Codeword for US-backed Mass Killing” (The New York Review of Books)
Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media
The Bandung Conference concludes
“The Trials of Henry Kissinger (2002)” (IMDb)
1964 Brazilian coup d’état
1973 Chilean coup d’état
Operation Condor
The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World
Devil’s Game
Native Son
“Thy Will Be Done: The Conquest of the Amazon” (Abe Books)
Trilateralism: The Trilateral Commission and Elite Planning for World Management
Vincent Bevins is an award-winning journalist and correspondent whose work has appeared in the New York Times, The Atlantic, The Economist, the Guardian, and many others. He is the author of The Jakarta Method: Washington’s Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World. Follow him on Twitter @Vinncent.
This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: NoDev NoOps NoIT, by Hussein Badakhchani; The War State, by Mike Swanson; WallStreetWindow.com; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; Listen and Think Audio; TheBumperSticker.com; and LibertyStickers.com.
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Scott Horton is director of the Libertarian Institute, editorial director of Antiwar.com, host of Antiwar Radio on Pacifica, 90.7 FM KPFK in Los Angeles, California and podcasts the Scott Horton Show from this website. He’s the author of the 2017 book, Fool’s Errand: Time to End the War in Afghanistan. Visit https://scotthorton.org