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.

Donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal, or Bitcoin: 1KGye7S3pk7XXJT6TzrbFephGDbdhYznTa.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVMa5SECI8I

The following is an automatically generated transcript.

Show TranscriptScott Horton 0:10

All right, y'all welcome it's Scott Horton Show. I am the director of the Libertarian Institute editorial director of antiwar.com, author of the book Fool's Errand: Time to End the War in Afghanistan. And I've recorded more than 5000 interviews going back to 2003, all of which are available at ScottHorton.org. You can also sign up to the podcast feed. The full archive is also available at youtube.com/ScottHortonShow. All right, you guys introducing Vincent Bevins And he wrote about Brazil for the LA Times and Indonesia for The Washington Post. And he's got this brand new book out the Jakarta method. Washington's anti communist crusade and the mass murder program that you shaped our world. And unfortunately, I just don't have the time to read the thing right now. I'm very busy. But I did read this great excerpt adapted from it. At the New York Review of Books, that's ny books.com. It's called how Jakarta became the code word for us back mass killing. Welcome back to the show. Vincent, how are you doing?

Vincent Bevins 1:27

Good. How are you?

Scott Horton 1:28

I'm doing great. And yeah, I'm really sorry. I don't have time to get to the whole book right now. But that's fine. I really do appreciate the work that you've done here. And what an important article, this is here at the New York Review of Books,