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From Overthrow to Blowback: How U.S. led Regime Change Has Historically Sown the Seeds of Instability and Backlash
“Global Blowback: Understanding the Long Tail of U.S. Intervention and Regime Change.” Happening at 118 Gallery, Elliot Street, Brattleboro.
As part of the America 250 series, Windham World Affairs Council in collaboration with Brooks Memorial Library, Vermont Independent Media and the Vermont Humanities is creating a two-year series around the theme of global blowback.
The first speaker in the series will be esteemed author and journalist – Stephen Kinzer.
Kinzer is an award-winning foreign correspondent who has covered more than 50 countries on five continents. His articles and books have led the Washington Post to place him “among the best in popular foreign policy storytelling.”
Kinzer spent more than 20 years working for the New York Times, most of it as a foreign correspondent. His foreign postings placed him at the center of historic events and, at times, in the line of fire.
This event is happening at 118 Elliot Gallery. There is a $10 suggested donation. No one, however, will be turned away for lack of funds.
Registration link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/global-blowback-the-long-tail-of-us-intervention-and-regime-change-tickets-1305915230609?aff=oddtdtcreator
More about the Global Blowback series:
“Why do they hate us?” That’s the question that many US citizens express in response to political and terrorist attacks on the U.S. Many students and citizens do not understand the ways that U.S. foreign policy, particular during periods of aggressive military intervention and regime change, have sowed long seeds of instability, authoritarianism, migration, and resentment. While we in the US have a short-term historical memory or lack knowledge of historic interventions, the rest of the world has a long memory for 20th century U.S. intervention and regime change.
Central to deepening a global understanding of these events is the concept of “blowback.” The US intelligence community defines blowback as the “unintended consequences resulting from covert or direct action.” In his 2000 book, Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire, the late Chalmers Johnson, who was a eminent scholar of Asia, former CIA consultant and self-described “cold warrior,” described the blowback concept:
Officials of the Central Intelligence Agency first invented [the term blowback] for their own internal use… [It] refers to the unintended consequences of policies that were kept secret from the American people. What the daily press reports as the malign acts of ‘terrorists’ or ‘drug lords’ or ‘rogue states’ or ‘illegal arms merchants’ often turn out to be blowback from earlier American operations.”
For example, the US covertly aided in the overthrow of a democratically-elected government in Iran in 1953, which led to the 1979 Iranian revolution and taking of the U.S. embassy and hostages –and two generations of instability.
Over the next two years, WWAC will host conversations around significant anniversaries of U.S. intervention and examples of long-term consequences or “blowback.” We propose a series of educational events, some tied to these anniversaries (but not rigidly).
