What if America's greatest blind spot is the way we see ourselves?
For generations, we’ve been told a familiar story about U.S. power. But after serving across Asia and the Middle East, Marine combat pilot and Naval Academy graduate Michael T. Lester began to notice a troubling pattern: the missions didn’t match the rhetoric, and the people we claimed to help didn’t feel liberated at all.
That contradiction launched a twenty-year investigation into the parts of American history most of us were never taught.
We Are The Bad Guys pulls together what is usually kept apart—the coups, covert operations, economic pressure campaigns, and the media narratives that justify them—and reveals how they form a decades-long strategy of dominance. Drawing on declassified documents, leaked cables, and respected scholarship, this book asks a question few Americans have ever been encouraged to consider:
What if the world sees U.S. power more clearly than we do?
What You’ll Learn Inside
- How U.S. wars, coups, and covert operations reshaped nations across Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia
- How ideas like “freedom,” “democracy,” and “security” are used to manufacture consent
- Why much of the world distrusts American motives—and what they know that we don’t
- The financial, intelligence, and diplomatic tools that destabilize countries without deploying a single soldier
What Readers Are Saying
“A courageous, deeply researched examination of the stories Americans grow up believing—and the realities the rest of the world has lived.”
“Readable and unsettling. Lester connects the dots between events most of us have only seen in headlines.”
“One of the clearest explanations of how American power actually works behind the scenes.”
“A necessary contribution for readers who sense something is broken in our foreign policy but struggle to articulate it.”
“A must-read for anyone willing to look beyond slogans and confront what U.S. interventions have meant for ordinary people.”
“If you’ve ever wondered why America is revered in some places and resented in others, this book gives you the missing context.”
This book isn’t anti-American. It’s pro-truth. Written in clear, accessible language with no jargon or ideological agenda, it is for readers who want to understand how power works—and how much of that story has been hidden in plain sight.
Perfect for readers of Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, Andrew Bacevich, Craig Whitlock, or anyone rethinking America’s role in the world.
About the Author
Michael T. Lester is a former Marine Corps combat pilot and U.S. Naval Academy graduate who served across Asia and the Middle East. His experiences overseas—where the official narrative often conflicted with what he witnessed—sparked a twenty-year investigation into the realities of American power.
Today, Michael is a cybersecurity and national-security professional who has spent decades studying U.S. foreign policy, intelligence strategy, and the gap between America’s ideals and actions abroad. His work combines the discipline of a military officer, the lens of a historian, and the curiosity of someone who believes a nation grows stronger when its citizens are willing to ask hard questions.
He writes for readers who want clarity, not partisanship—people who love their country enough to examine it honestly and believe that understanding our past is the only way to build a more principled future.
