We Are the Bad Guys: The Global Cost of American Power (Unabridged‪)‬

A Marine combat pilot and Naval Academy graduate reveals what he learned about American power that the history books left out.

America tells one story about itself. The world sees another.

After serving across Asia and the Middle East, Michael T. Lester noticed a gap between what he was told and what he saw. The locals didn't look liberated. The missions didn't match the slogans. So he spent twenty years using his historian training to find out why.

We Are the Bad Guys connects what's usually kept separate: the coups, sanctions, covert operations, and media narratives that frame them. Drawing on declassified documents, leaked cables, and historians, this audiobook traces a century of U.S. intervention and asks: What if we're not the good guys?

What you'll discover:

How U.S. wars, coups, and covert ops reshaped Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, and Southeast Asia
How "freedom," "democracy," and "security" manufacture public support for intervention
Why the world sees America so differently—and what they know that we don't
Financial and intelligence tools used to destabilize countries without deploying soldiers


This isn't anti-American. It's pro-truth. Clear, direct language—no jargon, no ideology, just documented history most weren't taught.

Perfect for listeners who enjoyed Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, and Andrew Bacevich.

About the Author:

Michael T. Lester is a Naval Academy graduate and former Marine combat pilot who served across Asia and the Middle East. Now a cybersecurity executive, he researched U.S. foreign policy for two decades, examining the gap between America's stated values and actual behavior abroad.