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Vincent Bevins Biography

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“locals came to him, time and time again, and asked, with genuine mystification: 'We just don't understand America. You were once a colony. You know what colonialism is. You fought and bled and died for your freedom. How can you possibly support the status quo?”

FreedomColonialismIndonesiaCapitalism Vs CommunismCapitalism Vs DemocracyDiplomatic HypocrisyUs Government Hypocrisy
Book:The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World
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“The United States, a Western European settler colony in North America, emerged from World War II as by far the most powerful state on Earth. This was a surprise to most Americans and to most of the world. It was a young country. It was only about a hundred years previously that the government set up in former British colonies finished incorporating former French and Spanish territories into the new country, giving its leaders dominion over the middle strip of the continent. In comparison, their cousins back in Europe had been conquering the globe for almost five centuries. They had sailed around the planet, carving it up for themselves. To say that the United States is a settler colony means that the land was overtaken by white Europeans over the course of several centuries in a way that differed from the way that most countries in Africa and Asia were conquered. The white settlers came to stay and the native population was excluded by definition from the nation they built. In order for the new white and Christian country to take form, the indigenous population had to get out of the way. As every American boy and girl learns, there was a strong element of religious fanaticism involved in the founding of the United States. The Puritans, a group of committed English Christians, did not travel across the Atlantic to make money for England. They sought a place for a purer, more disciplined version of the Calvinist society they wanted to build. One way to put this is that they wanted religious freedom. Another is that they wanted a society that was even more homogenous, fundamentalist, and theocratic than the one that existed in 17th century Europe.”

HistoryCommunismAnti Communism
Book:The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World
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“Washington took Howard Jones' advice and moved closer to the Indonesian armed forces to construct an anti-communist front. In 1953 and 1954, there were about a dozen Indonesian officers training in the United States, and that number dropped to zero in 1958, the year Alan Pope bombed Ambon. In 1959, Zero became 41, and by 1962, there were more than 1,000 Indonesians studying operations, intelligence, and logistics, mostly at the Fort Leavenworth Army Base. This new approach dovetailed with a growing consensus within the United States that the military should be given more power and influence in the third world, even if it meant undermining democracy.”

MilitaryIndonesiaAnti Communism
Book:The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World
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“The CIA began conspiring with right-wing military officers and funding a group of radicals that would grow into Patria y Libertad, an anti-communist terrorist group known for its hideous geometric spider logo and sympathies with fascism.”

Cia
Book:The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World
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