 Hello and welcome to People's Dispatch. Today we're joined by Vijay Prasad and he's going to talk about his new book Washington Bullets. The book is published by Leftward Books and it's a chronicle of the past, it's a chronicle of the present, it's a meditation, it's a path on the future, there's a lot of aspects to his book. Vijay, thank you so much for joining us. It's a pleasure to be with you Prasad. Yes, so to begin with one very interesting aspect you write about in this book is that it comes from the literature of light and now this book is of course about a century or even more of how imperialism is functioned. It's about the nuts and bolts of imperialism and its various aspects and it's my initial thoughts for like I was telling you it's a very easy book, it's to read in some senses, it's smooth, it's crystal clear but it's also in some senses a very difficult book to read because of the scope of the tragedy that imperialism and especially the United States has brought. So to begin with to ask a more general question before we go into some of the details of the book, how does a meditation or say a reflection of all these incidents of oppression, of torture, of murder, of destruction of people's movements, how do you approach it from the literature of light? It's a very good question. I just want to start by saying that today is a difficult day for me personally because we lost a great African intellectual and leader Ernest Wamba Diawamba born in 1942. Really tremendous intellectual force, Marxist of the most decent caliber and so on. That's a big loss for us. I want to start by saying that several years ago I met Ernesto Galliano for the first time and if you don't know his work, the work of Galliano there's a lot to read and I recommend him highly to people. Galliano wrote a book about torture in South America, you know in his home country of Uruguay but also Chile, Argentina, Brazil and so on and the book is really quite an amazing account day in light. It's an amazing account of something hideous. So I asked him, I said you know how is it Galliano that you are able to write a book about torture in this way and his answer stayed with me ever since. He said that you see a torturer takes a human body and puts it through terrible pain to try to extract either confession or just to punish the body and he said when a writer writes about something like that they should not reproduce the torture. The writer should be able to capture the human being who's being terrorized. What is in their mind? You know in other words you must write about torture but the text that writes on torture from a left standpoint must tell the story from the standpoint of human resilience. The very fact that the human being who's being tortured that person must be the subject of the story not the torturer and I think too often books about imperialism books about war tell the story from the standpoint of you know the aggressor and we should really try to find another way. So I wanted to tell the story of essentially US imperialism not necessarily from the standpoint of the victim because I wanted to document what US imperialism is like but it must have the sensibility of the struggleers the fighters the survivors I mean human resilience has to set the terms for the prose and this is a lesson again that's I'm I don't claim originality here I learned this lesson from Galliano who I think you know really charted a path for how to write about the hideous side of history but keeping the luminous side the side of light in focus. Right absolutely and quickly to go to the book there are three components three parts in the book the first in some senses is a overarching view of say like I said maybe a century or more and it's also an institutional look into imperialism itself the kind of global context over the past 50 to 100 years what are the kind of institutions that were built up what were the moments of hope when resistance where resistance fled up and it looked like there would be a change so that's the first part and a very interesting thing you write about is that the whole idea that the last 50 or 60 years was about the cold war between the communist USSR led block and the capitalist US block of course there's an element of truth to it but it was also about imperialism and led by the US versus the global south so could you talk a bit about that aspect? You see the great process that we have before us for the past hundred years is the process of decolonization that is the really the triumphant process of the human spirit for the past hundred years people who had been under the yoke of colonialism of one kind or the other have fought very hard to break free of that yoke and you know this of course is manifest in the Americas in the fights led by Simón Bolivar in the early 19th century this is manifest in the plantations of Haiti where the you know essentially plantation proletariat the people whose bodies whose lives had been commodified you know they had become you know articles of commerce what are otherwise known as slaves the great rebellion of Haiti is an act of decolonization if you go all the way from Haiti to the contemporary struggles of the Palestinian people this is Prashant one long arc of struggle from Haiti to Palestine is an unfinished process in fact the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution in 1961 which I really love I love one sentence of the resolution it says the process of liberation is irresistible you know it's such a poetic phrase coming from a UN resolution the process of liberation is irresistible but of course it has been resisted and it was resisted essentially from the imperialist bloc initially of course the old European colonial empires from Great Britain to Portugal and Spain you know the the arc of anti the anti-decolonization process or the the the kind of maintenance of colonialism runs from the early rebellions you know including Haiti all the way out to the 1960s because people forget and 70s people forget the Portuguese fought tooth and nail to maintain the empire until 1974 the British fought military campaigns in Malaya in Kenya after World War II the Dutch fought in Indochina I mean in Indonesia and the French and the Americans fought against Indochina later Vietnam you know to prevent decolonization it's interesting the Soviet Union was in my opinion or the Russian Revolution was a part of the decolonization process because after all Lenin theorized the revolution as a revolution of national liberation as much as anything you know that is why they had self-determination for the minorities that is why it was called the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics including the republics in Central Asia and so on so I mean this idea of the great process of the 20th and into the 21st century is the battle between decolonization the right of people to command their own lives you know this comes right down to today Venezuela the Venezuelan people want to command their own resources they would like to use the oil the way they would like to not the way multinational corporations would like to and so that to my mind if I was to take this long arc what the defining feature of this long arc is not the cold war the post-cold war era the this the that it's a long battle between the forces of colonialism and the forces of decolonization absolutely and to sort of look at the first chapter at first part in the between the interesting point you mentioned is that if you stood at 1979 and looked back there was there was an amazing potential there was a spirit of revolution in the air like you said most of the decolonization process had been completed they were of course setbacks but they were also what what really marks the shift as in what were the processes that led to that shift it is interesting I mean the place to have stood Prashant in 1979 is at a high peak of the Hindu Kush mountains that would have been a really interesting place to observe everything because you would have seen you know the revolutionary process in Iran which in 78 79 could have gone anywhere need not have gone in a theocratic religious direction it could have been a communist revolution in Afghanistan there was in 1978 august the saw revolution in Afghanistan in Pakistan there was a military coup in 77 but the struggles against that coup were quite fierce you know in Baluchistan there was armed struggle and so on in India the emergency was thrown out in 1977 I mean if you stood at the Hindu Kush and looked at this area of great population it could have gone anywhere you know the direction and this is why the US intervention into Afghanistan is so significant it's not just about Afghanistan or later the creation of al-Qaeda or anything it's how the United States used Pakistan as a innocence lily pad to crush what was happening in Afghanistan to really take out the possibility of a left resurgence in that part of the world if you go out then to Central America another place of great potential you know the Sandinistas had taken power they'd come into Managua and then the Carter administration minds the harbor of Managua you know the viciousness of the US intervention again using Honduras as a lily pad you know Pakistan here Honduras there in the central part of Africa you know the immense pressure against Ethiopia you know anywhere in Sudan you know immense pressure against the left and so on the United States from the late 70s this is the Carter administration mind you this is not yet Reagan the Carter administration and then Reagan even more used immense military force alliances with the worst kind of oligarchic militaries arms sales and so on to crush the left in this belt this tropical belt at the same time by lifting up US interest rates you know the Volcker shock in 1979 the debt crisis is triggered in the third world so combination of massive military force with the debt crisis really crushes the aspirations which were at a very high point in 73 74 when in Algiers the countries of the world came together and they said we're going to have a new international economic order I mean an extraordinary idea it was crushed by military force and the debt crisis and the consequences of what happened then are with us today and to sort of move on to the second part of course we'll come back to some of these aspects later so the second part is a manual of regime change so to speak it's a it's an interesting read in some senses because although the stories are from 30 or 40 years ago there's of course a story of Guatemala from the 50s this Chile is Indonesia but we see it actually happening almost every day right now when it comes to Bolivia when it comes to Venezuela when it comes to so many in the countries so in some senses there's an essential continuity of these regime change processes these imperialist processes but could you talk also a bit about how the idea of hybrid war is also evolved a bit in these times yeah you see the second part of these nine chapters so called for regime change it's like you as you said this I call it a manual because these are really important integral parts of how governments are overthrown you know how they should be delegitimized how the military needs to be brought to your side how propaganda must function and none of these coups happened without so called mass support you know what later gets called color revolutions these go back you know 70 80 years this this kind of technique is well established the idea of hybrid war takes on I think a sharp you know form during the period when everything is digital you know when information is digital banking is digital and so on but the very notion of hybrid war is an ancient notion in other words from early battles you would conduct information warfare to delegitimize the enemy and so on you'd conduct sabotage economic warfare you know you try to sanction a place this goes back to the old Greek epics you know you'd put your ships and you'd blockade a city you know what was a medieval siege we even use the term sanctions against Iraq was a medieval siege it's true that was a medieval siege so these ideas of warfare are old but when you put these techniques with the kind of technological sophistication today you know whereby hacking into a computer system you can destroy the electricity grid of a country you know the technological advances have made it much easier to do hybrid war in other words you can attack a country without bombing it and you can attack it fatally you can cut it off from international financial systems that's a fatal attack at a country you can prevent it from you know accessing commercial aircraft you know Venezuela wants to buy at market price oil from Iran you can prevent it and then it's a big act of politics for the Iranians to send five tankers to Venezuela that was a mere commercial transaction you know by the law of capitalism it wasn't free oil and yet it can be blocked so hybrid war today is the very sophisticated set of instruments generally used by the United States government to destabilize a country as they attempting to do with Venezuela destabilize the government delegitimize it have it diplomatically sanction cut it off from financial markets and so on and do it without dropping a bomb and therefore you can say we're not doing anything we're not actually at war with you we're just following you know international law but this law has been weaponized and corrupted and I think that's the nature of 21st century hybrid war it's very old techniques but because of technological advancement they have a much sharper and much deadlier you know effect much more than in fact aerial bombardment what the US can do to Venezuela today by hybrid war techniques is actually much more threatening than aerial bombardment because aerial bombardment the world can see and they can condemn they're not condemning the kind of techniques used by the US and the impact is nonetheless very much like a complete full-scale bombardment absolutely and the key aspect you're mentioning both these parts is of course the role of international institutions so of course we have the most classic example being the organization of American states whose role has been very thoroughly exposed in your focus quite a bit on it but there's also of course NATO the Seattle Pacific Alliance and we see examples today also so the interesting thing of course was that there were alternatives that did emerge against many of these options there was a non-line movement you mentioned the the new international economic order there was of course tri-continental which was to the most to the left and which actually exerted pressure on the non-line movement so could you talk a bit about how these worked against each other and what maybe led to some of the resistance groups so to speak being unable to sort of maintain it? Well you know imperialist countries from before the United States becoming the main imperialist force in the world have always attempted to speak in a universal voice you know the British said that they are in India not for British interests but to help Indians and help humanity you know to civilize the civilizing mission that's a French term French were always on a civilizing mission they were not there for French parochial French gains imperialists always claim universal you know a universal understanding of their project and I think it's a part of the work of our work to parochialize their claim you know saying no no wait a minute United States is not in Bolivia for human rights which is a universalizing claim you're there for the lithium you're there for the indium let's face it guys you know let's be frank okay you're not out there to promote human rights that's the parochializing of the universal aspect when the non-aligned movement was created in 61 and tri-continental in 66 that was part of the agenda to say that listen you can't define reality we want to also define reality we have our own ideas we want to put them on the table we are not just recipients of your universal judgment I think that's a very important part of the NAM the NAM still exists the non-aligned movement still exists it still meets but it's much weaker and its weakness comes from the reality that many of its constituent member states damaged by the debt crisis with new class configurations in power in their countries like India is a good example real leader founder of the non-aligned movement now you know it's a follower of the United States in fact the Indian government is a bhakth of the United States it's a it's a devotee of the United States government it doesn't have an independent attitude to world affairs and so it accepts the US narrative on China for instance as a universal story not as a parochial American story about trade wars because United States terrified that the Chinese will have a technological advantage over two or three generations you know that's a reasonable understanding of why the US is in a trade war but the Indian government will say no no they have a universal understanding so that was the fight NAM was created to create independent institutions that reflect the independent assessment of world affairs by these newly emergent decolonised states and that was simply not allowed to exist so their independence had to be destroyed right and the other key aspect of course you may look at in this manual is how definitions are so important so a protest in favour what you call supporting Maduro is seen as the stage managed where is a protest or a couple of people gathering and gathering around Guaido becomes an expression of the free will of the Venezuelans so there's a lot of there's a lot of definitions that come into play that including the question of freedom itself but one key aspect of course has been the role of the media and you're didn't quite extensively about it starting from 1954 in Guatemala when some of the most significant media organisations of the time went there and rubber-stamped the US version to say the Iraq war and weapons of the past study so in these times also how do you see the media functioning and continuing to function in this way you see Prashant it's quite shameful that we have on record that the head of the director of the CIA calls the New York Times and says I don't like that reporter get him out of there send this person and they do it I mean we have it on record in the CIA documents that major news organisations that exist today that exist today were basically taking orders from the CIA about how to cover something in Guatemala, Australian newspapers, how to cover matters in Indonesia and so on we have this on record and these papers A have not apologized for that publicly you know they make a big deal of the fact that you know they are guardians of the truth all the news fit to print but they haven't apologized for that and it's very clear that today their reporters I don't know if they're getting calls from the CIA maybe they are we don't know that but it's very clear that they have they persist with this you know the sense that they are spokespersons for the US State Department it's very clear I mean on Venezuela the New York Times for instance is indistinguishable from the US State Department reporting you know we did a story which was published at People's Dispatch on the claim made by William Barr that the leadership in Venezuela including President Nicolas Maduro are drug traffickers and it's stunning that the New York Times and others just reproduced Barr's press release and what he said in the press conference they didn't ask a simple question the drug enforcement agency of the United States government its own current reports say that more than 90 percent of cocaine comes from Colombia yet Barr says it's coming from Venezuela in New York Times doesn't even raise this contradiction in its reporting that to me demonstrates this is a spokesperson for the state department it's not an independent media outfit and the same with Bolivia also where now of course every they're printing reports saying that yes there was probably no electoral fraud but at that point of time they were in the forefront of peddling some of these theories it's scandalous I mean this is the Bolivia story is a scandal and I'm extraordinarily proud that President Evo Morales Aima wrote the preface to Washington Bullets it makes me very proud because he was in a sense the last person who faced the Roth in our time of Washington Bullets I mean he was the victim of an illegal US backed coup which the New York Times the Washington Post and several western so-called left media outlets totally supported this coup against Evo Morales at the time when we were all writing saying this is a coup they said no no it's democracy and so on yes this is exactly what happens these governments do a coup the media supports the coup and then later to burnish their credentials to brush off the stain of having supported a coup they say well you know now but now it's too late Mr. Morales is in exile in Argentina the current government is essentially destroying any democratic process it's going after militants of the movement to socialism nobody is reporting that I mean if the New York Times was a genuine media outlet it would say yes it was actually wrong in November of 2019 it was not electoral fraud and by the way now we're going to report earnestly about the human rights violations from the government so-called government of Jeanette Annez they're not doing that and because they're not doing that the so-called apology for the reporting in November is to me worthless it's not worth the New York Times in which it's printed absolutely and two other key aspects also one of course you've mentioned say some sections of the left and in this context there's a small section you dedicate to conspiracy theories about the idea of how talking about imperialism in some senses equated to being a conspiracy theorist whereas you know talking about say talking about leaders from afar or talking about countries where which are charting a different path you know your scene is somebody who is just being strange so we are elaborated on that aspect also because I think it's very essential in today's debate it's very interesting I mean the the CIA and the US State Department spent many many reports going over how best to influence public opinion I was very interested in this you know how to delegitimize the left essentially and one way to delegitimize the left is to treat them as nutcases you know as conspiracy theorists tin foil wearing people to equate people who believe for instance that aliens have come to earth and have captured a government with somebody who talks government forming a conspiracy to overthrow the government in Guatemala you see Guatemala is very interesting Prashant that's why I spend a lot of time there because we have documentary evidence of the United States government with for no reason other than the fact that the Guatemalan government of Jacob are bends was expropriating some lands of United Fruit it's very important he was not throwing United Fruit out of Guatemala he was expropriating some land from United Fruit in Washington the people at the CIA and so on they had actually a pecuniary interest in Washington United Fruit they were either board members or they had shares and so on they had a very parochial interest in what was going on okay that's fine but here's what it is is we have all the evidence of a conspiracy constructed in Washington DC to overthrow the government in Guatemala we have evidence of a conspiracy to overthrow the government in Iran in 1953 we have a conspiracy to overthrow the government in Chile from 1970 to 73 the elements of the conspiracy are there it is not possible to say that did not happen now if I say there is a conspiracy to overthrow the government of Venezuela which there is because unlike in 1953-54 they are saying it in plain daylight they are saying we are conspiring through the Lima group through this organ to overthrow the government of Nicholas Maduro they are saying it it is a conspiracy of them by me reporting their conspiracy doesn't make me a conspiracy theorist it makes me a journalist it's their conspiracy it's not my concocted thing in my head but a liberal journalist at the New York Times will say come on guys there's all kinds of interest no there isn't actually actually what William Barr did when he came out there and said that there is a narco trafficking cell in the Venezuelan government total nonsensical indictment that the US government brought genuine reporters around the world should have said these are a crazy conspiracy these people are not credible instead they report that as if it's real and they say that then somebody like myself I am a conspiracy theorist I have made up no conspiracy they are conspiring in broad daylight I'm merely reporting on the conspiracy the idea of conspiracy theory is very clever it delegitimizes people who criticize power exactly absolutely and in this context since you mentioned Barr as well I'll talk a bit about the United States also because there's a very interesting line you mentioned where you say that US imperialism was not born in the harbours of Havana or Manila but within what is now called the United States itself it was what from the very beginning the earliest settlers the so-called the founding fathers what they were involved in was imperialism itself but a question at this point of time when we're looking at it today of course also is that in this age of Trump in this age of a declining United States in terms of economic power at least how do how are some of these strategies still continuing to work of course we know examples like Venezuela and Bolivia but how do you say some of these more structural aspects continue to work well firstly the United States government military is not declined at all its ability to bomb any country its you know global basing is very significant and the US has always created a hub and spokes methodology you know where it is the hub of this imperial geography and it creates spokes you know Japan South Korea you know Colombia and so on India and these are the spokes to exert its power territorially it also has bases and so on but importantly in many countries around the world small oligarchies that have power are feeling extraordinary vulnerable as more and more people are not only you know being thrown out of permanent employment and therefore permanently unemployed but they are deeply dissatisfied with the state of the world and you've seen protests and demonstrations and rioting take place globally the United States comes in as the protector of oligarchies and that is how it maintains its power I mean whether it's an oligarchy in the democratic republic of the Congo or it's an oligarchy you know in in in Colombia you know the government of Ivan do came in so oligarchs government you know let's be clear this is not a government of the people it's an oligarchs government you know the government in Egypt I mean the government led by Abdul Fatah El Sisi is an oligarchs government the United States government ultimately is the is the is the backer the underwriter of these oligarchs governments and as long as the class basis of these oligarchs is there they will welcome us you know intervention and help they will welcome arms sales they will welcome training military training they will welcome joint exercises I mean the very fact Prashant along the Sahel region of Africa that French special forces are operating in Niger in Mali etc with the consent of those governments tells you a lot about the structure of imperialism it's not that the US needs to unilaterally come and bomb somewhere they work with these oligarchies see the United the French government is not working with the people of Mali it's working with an oligarchic government you know it's it's not a popular project that they have to construct they just need to work with the oligarchies you know in Niger the same thing and I think that's what one needs to look at it's very befuddling because you say oh Mali invited them in well what is Mali? Exactly and we say finally to conclude two aspects really stand out when we read the book in in totality one of course is the machine of imperialism so to speak this very bloody the bloody gears the tools that are involved which almost seems to march with some kind of precision on the other hand what is inspiring for some people may be surprising but maybe even natural is the fact that it has never really managed to stop resistance and resistance is fresh waves have come up again and again even in countries where you know the boot of imperialism was severely pressed fresh waves of imperialism are coming and in this context it's very interesting of course that you when one of your line the part two for instance ends with Thomas Sankara saying that we must dare to invent the future which is an amazing line in some senses sums up I think also what you're trying to write so in this context at this point of time we have the pandemic and we have some so many process happening how do you see or where do you see this future being invented who are the people who are daring I just want to say three quick things three little images I'll leave you with Prashant one is in the naval office school in the naval school in Buenos Aires Argentina in the basement where the tortures took place during the time of the junta there is a photo exhibit there one of the prisoners was a photographer and he was asked to photograph everybody who came in to be tortured killed and thrown some of them live from helicopters into the Atlantic Ocean is a time of great tragedy there is a picture that struck me it's a woman young woman who's brought in and there's two photographs of her the look she gives the camera is a look of such immense defiance that it stopped me and I felt you are such a courageous person I don't know your name but your courage is incredible and I want to celebrate the fact of human resilience you know she knew she was going to be tortured she knew that she was going to be killed but she was not going to give that camera you know the opportunity to pity her or to to be powerful over her she looked straight into the lens and she looked at it with such great defiance that I want to just say that the possibilities of human resilience are epic and we should actually hold fast to that secondly Thomas Sankara was murdered in 1987 he was a great leader of the country of Burkina Faso a man beloved by my generation of people I mean I well well remember the day on May 5th 1987 when he was killed you know it's not something you forget easily it was a very great man just a few days ago in the middle of the pandemic in the building across from where he was killed in Uwaga Dugu the capital of Burkina Faso a massive statue was erected of our commandant Thomas Sankara massive statue you know you kill him in 1987 but in 2020 we will erect statues to him it's not to him that the statue is elected it's to the possibility of daring that we'll build a future that's the second image I want to have us the third is in the middle of this pandemic when country after country in the capitalist world is falling apart you know we see a country like Laos and I just did a story for you know which was in People's Dispatch on Laos Laos a country of seven million people with a socialist government landlocked country borders China not one death confirmed by the Red Cross and Red Crescent Society not one death how were they able to do this because it was a government and a people that treated their own public with compassion there are people's movements trade unions women's organizations peasant around the world that understand that our movement is not about efficiency our movement is about humanity and compassion if you don't create structures that treat people with humanity and compassion you will fail them you don't we don't want efficient organizations efficient organizations cut the fat and then they just don't care about people the principle way in which we want to organize society's compassion and I think that's a lesson related to human resilience you know and by the way somebody rolling their eyes as I'm saying that saying this guy is a utopian nutcase thanks for that because I am an utopian nutcase and utopia is in our movements it's alive absolutely thank you so much Vijay for talking to us it is a pleasure thanks a lot that's all we have time for today you can buy the book from the left side keep watching people's dispatch