The Mexican Dirty War: A War to the Death w/ Alexander Aviña & Benjamin T. Smith

Guerrilla History

Henry

History, Education

4.8 • 622 Ratings

🗓️ 6 October 2023

⏱️ 80 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this episode of Guerrilla History, we bring on Benjamin T. Smith and his coauthor, returning fan favorite Alexander Aviña, to talk about an article that they just cowrote about the (ongoing) Mexican Dirty War for NACLA titled A War to the Death! This short article condenses the decades history of the Mexican Dirty War in advance of an upcoming Truth Commission report on state terrorism within Cold War era Mexico. As our guests highlight though, this dirty war never really ended. A great conversation, do us a favor and send it to comrades who are interested in Cold War Latin America, Mexican history, or state sponsored dirty wars, they will certainly find this useful!

Benjamin T. Smith is professor of Latin American history at the University of Warwick and author of several books, including The Dope: The Real History of the Mexican Drug Trade. Ben's website is available at thedope.co.uk, and he can be followed on twitter @benjamintsmith7

Alexander Aviña is associate professor of Latin American history at Arizona State University and author of Specters of Revolution: Peasant Guerrillas in the Cold War Mexican Countryside. Alex's website is available at alexanderavina.com, and he can be followed on twitter @Alexander_Avina

Help support the show by signing up to our patreon, where you also will get bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/guerrillahistory

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	You remember Den Van Boo?
0:09.0	No!
0:10.0	The same thing happened in Algeria, in Africa.
0:14.0	They didn't have anything but a rank.
0:17.0	The French had all these highly mechanized instruments of warfare, but they put some guerrilla action on.
0:27.2	Hello and welcome to guerrilla history, the podcast that acts as a reconnaissance report of global proletarian history and aims to use the lessons of history to analyze the present.
0:56.4	I'm one of your co-hosts, Henry Huckimacki, joined as usual by my two co-hosts, Professor Adnan Hussein, historian director of the School of Religion at Queen's University in Ontario, Canada. Hello, Adnan, how are you doing today? I'm doing great, Henry. It's a pleasure to be with you. Yeah, always nice to see you and joined also as usual by our other co-host, Brett O'Shea, host of Revolutionary Left Radio and co-host of the Red Menace podcast. Hello, Brett. How are you doing? Doing very good. It feels like it's been quite a while since all three of us have been together, so I'm happy to be back. Well, you know, you were traveling, lucky dog. So, you know, you'll have to tell us about how that was sometime.
1:13.8	But not today. So I'm happy to be back. Well, you know, you were traveling, lucky dog. So, you know, you'll have to tell us about how that was sometime.
1:14.9	But not today.
1:20.4	We've got a big topic on the table and two guests, including one returning fan favorite.
1:26.4	Before I, and he shrugs as if he doesn't know that, but of course he does.
1:32.5	And the listeners probably already know who we're talking about. But before I even introduce the topic and the guests, I want to remind the listeners that they can help support the show and allow us to continue
1:36.5	making new episodes like this by going to patreon.com forward slash guerrilla history. Gorilla
1:43.0	being spelled G-U-E-R-R-I-L-A history.
1:47.8	I know you and I are also running a Patreon-exclusive miniseries right now on the religious
1:53.0	cultures of the medieval Mediterranean.
1:54.9	So folks, if you sign up to support the show and help us to do episodes like this, you'll
2:00.2	also get some bonus episodes like those in like this. You'll also get some bonus
2:01.1	episodes like those in the process. You can also follow us on Twitter at Gorilla underscore Pod,
2:08.1	G-U-E-R-R-I-L-L-A-U-Skore pod. That's where you can find out all of the things that
2:13.5	Adnan, Brett, and myself are getting up to individually as well as what the show is doing
2:18.2	collectively. So on that note, I want to introduce our guests. We have, as I mentioned, two
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Henry, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Henry and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.