Blowback

We talk to activists and historians about Cuba, black radicalism, and how the Revolution attacked the problem of racism. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Interviews with history professor Michelle Chase and Cuban scholar Marta Nuñez Sarmiento. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Guatemala: an origin story, inspiration, and cautionary tale just a few hundred miles from our main story. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After the Kennedy assassination, US-Cuba diplomacy wanes and the embargo continues. To this day. Our story ends. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Castro, Khrushchev, and Kennedy take tentative steps toward the path of peace post-Crisis. Cuban exile groups, and their CIA sponsors, are not pleased. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The USA announces to the world there are missiles in Cuba. Fidel prepares for war. Khrushchev secretly haggles with Kennedy. Americans enjoy Betty Crocker Super Moist Cake Mix. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Fearing another American invasion — "the big one" — Soviet and Cuban leaders plot a secret response. Camelot never sees it coming. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Smarting from failure at the Bay of Pigs, the White House sets in motion a new plan to thwart the Cuban Revolution: Operation Mongoose. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The CIA and the Cuban exiles get their long-awaited shot at taking out Castro and the Revolution. The subsequent battle in Cuba sends shockwaves around the world. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

JFK outmuscles Richard Nixon on Cuba and into the White House. The CIA begins training Cuban exiles in Central America for an invasion. And Fidel pays a visit to Harlem. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Cuban Revolution takes power and the counter-revolution begins. The U.S. government, organized crime, and Cuban exiles carry out a campaign of terrorism, assassination, sabotage and psy-ops to turn back the clock. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A long short history of Cuba’s relationship with the United States, climaxing with the Cuban revolutionaries’ war to liberate the island from the dictator Batista and his backers in the United States. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome back. Brendan and Noah reveal this season’s subject, explore the USA’s unrelenting Cuba mania, and introduce the cast of characters. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

New episodes drop on April 19. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Author Naomi Klein joins us to discuss the American exploitation-fest in Iraq, her own experience coming up during the Bush years, the rehabilitation of the Bush administration, and its continuities with the Trump gang. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Brendan and Noah survey the underwhelming landscape of Iraq War cinema with special guest Matt Christman. They dissect both Hollywood's hits and flops — neither of which were very good — and recommend very few flicks worth watching. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this first bonus episode, Noah talks to author and journalist Dahr Jamail, one of the few journalists who covered the occupation of Iraq, on the ground, without being embedded with the US military or its allies. Dahr is the author of “Beyond the Green Zone,” “The Will To Resist,” and “The Mass Destruction of Iraq.” Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Invading Iraq means never having to say you’re sorry. The end of Bush, the broken promise of Obama, and the rise of ISIS and Donald Trump. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The empire strikes back. As Iraq deteriorates into civil war, the Bush administration taps a new man to lead a new American strategy. Which means saying goodbye to an old friend. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The American public votes to give Bush another term, right before a big dose of buyers’ remorse. In Iraq, the new "democracy" struggles to get elections off the ground as the situation careens toward civil war. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Somehow not expecting it, the Americans now face an insurgency problem, as both Sunni and Shi'a militants emerge to kick us out. War crimes and atrocities in Fallujah, Sadr City and Abu Ghraib fuel the flames of anti-American resistance. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Green Zone, where America rules from Saddam’s old palace. The US occupation begins the destruction of Iraq, Rudy Giuliani almost becomes Viceroy, and Halliburton hunts and kills baby kittens. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The media episode, breaking down some of the journalistic fuck-ups and pundit idiocy that steered us toward war in Iraq. Featuring special guest Will Menaker. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

America sends Colin Powell, Good Cop, to the UN for one last PR stunt before we invade Iraq. The portal to Gozer the Destructor is opened and the war begins. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

September 11th gives America the perfect excuse to finish our hit job on Iraq. We put together the Bush administration's case for war — WMD and al-Qaeda — and take it apart piece by piece. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Before George W. Bush, there was Daddy Bush and Bill Clinton, who killed thousands of Iraqis and pushed the country to the brink of famine. The Gulf War, brutal sanctions, and the End of History. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We trace the origins of America’s perverse relationship with Iraq, from the Cold War to the Iran-Iraq War in the 80s. Assassinations, coups, counter-coups, and the rise of Saddam. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Brendan and Noah drag the Iraq War out of America’s memory hole to see how it shaped our world today. Meet the rogues’ gallery of George W. Bush’s administration and Saddam Hussein’s family. Featuring special guests James Adomian and H. Jon Benjamin. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Iraq War did not take place. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices