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A review by adam_mcphee
The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program That Shaped Our World by Vincent Bevins
5.0
What officials in the embassy and the CIA decided the (Indonesian) Army really did need, however, was information. Working with CIA analysts, embassy political officer Robert Martens prepared lists with the names of thousands of communists and suspected communists, and handed them over to the Army, so that these people could be murdered and “checked off” the list.
As far as we know, this was at least the third time in history that US officials had supplied lists of communists and alleged communists to allies, so that they could round them up and kill them. The first was in Guatemala in 1954, the second was in Iraq in 1963, and now, on a much larger scale, was Indonesia 1965.
“It really was a big help to the army,” said Martens, who was a member of the US embassy’s political section. “I probably have a lot of blood on my hands, but that’s not all bad.”
While reading this I kept thinking about that montage from Bowling for Columbine set to It's a Beautiful World about American atrocities during the Cold War. I think people who have even a basic understanding of 20th century can name quite a few of them, but due to some, uhh, let's say deficiencies in our education system and public discourse, we have trouble making sense of them.
That's the value of Bevins' book, the way he ties these coups and atrocities together. Not as some grand overarching conspiracy but as a shared reactionary ideology that the CIA cultivated among ruling conservative elites and high ranking military members of the Third World.
Did a thread on the book here, but I gave up halfway through. It's a lot to take it and I'm thinking I'll revisit the book in a couple of months or so. Also wrote a slightly longer book review here.
As far as we know, this was at least the third time in history that US officials had supplied lists of communists and alleged communists to allies, so that they could round them up and kill them. The first was in Guatemala in 1954, the second was in Iraq in 1963, and now, on a much larger scale, was Indonesia 1965.
“It really was a big help to the army,” said Martens, who was a member of the US embassy’s political section. “I probably have a lot of blood on my hands, but that’s not all bad.”
While reading this I kept thinking about that montage from Bowling for Columbine set to It's a Beautiful World about American atrocities during the Cold War. I think people who have even a basic understanding of 20th century can name quite a few of them, but due to some, uhh, let's say deficiencies in our education system and public discourse, we have trouble making sense of them.
That's the value of Bevins' book, the way he ties these coups and atrocities together. Not as some grand overarching conspiracy but as a shared reactionary ideology that the CIA cultivated among ruling conservative elites and high ranking military members of the Third World.
Did a thread on the book here, but I gave up halfway through. It's a lot to take it and I'm thinking I'll revisit the book in a couple of months or so. Also wrote a slightly longer book review here.