Details the Jakarta Method as practical McCarthyism by the CIA from the 50s onward. The apex of this approach hinges on the the shift of US support from Sukarno -> Suharto & destruction of PKI in Indonesia.

Without engaging in "both-sides-ism," this book offers ZERO nuance; nuance of controversy is possible, see Robert Caro.

Guy says that the book is not going to make any a priority judgments about who the good or the bad guys, but then does the exact opposite. Now, I’m a big boy, I don't have a hard on for the MIC/intelligence efforts, but the presentation of information in this book is partial at best, outright disingenuous at worst. (In the concluding chapter), he says that he omitted/glossed over Communist atrocities bc 1) they’re so well known and 2) we don’t live in a world constructed by those atrocities in the same way that we do for the US’ which makes it seems as though the US was doing this shit for fun and not to oppose (at first reactionarily to Nazi Germany, then Stalinist Sussia) those communist atrocities. Don’t disrespect the reader with any sort of preface of this shit, certainly not if you’re going to glaze the likes of Minh and Mao, or gloss over Pol Pot gtfo.

The book begins with a history of the United States from a utterly liberal perspective of white supremacy, Puritan theocracy, and nothing in the way of democracy or freedom or ideals. And then he picks up the other side of the Cold War of Russia in the year 1941, which is hilarious. Russia had not engaged in international imperialism wow how benevolent of them – it's because they were fucking incapable of keeping up.

Says that first world countries got wealthy by engaging in colonialism. This comes right after explaining how the United States had a 50% share of global GDP as a result of industrialization ramping up for World War II, which was not an instance of colonialism. That's literally because by definition that can't happen under communism, but anytime capitalism spreads it's because of colonialism.

After World War II, post-colonial countries inherited economies that were much less wealthy than the first world ones.

Are they expecting to have better economies without participating in capitalism?

Argues that the only way to win was to play the game: "At the level of government, everyone who remain was a staunch anti-communist"

is just not true, the book is about the people who succeeded as communists in government, until they were thwarted by the CIA.

Measure the number of deaths under Ho Chi Minh or Mao against the number of deaths carried out by the United States government in the most generous read of the situation possible and the forces of capitalism are still less fucking evil.

Blames the Bengal famine on British policies which "caused 42 million people to die." This is not true.

In a discussion with the author of the book which popularized this myth (Churchill's Secret War), the Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen, the world’s foremost expert on famine in India, said:

Mukerjee “seems satisfied with little information” and that her data came from only two rice research stations, and those in only two out of 27 districts in Bengal. “The analysis I made,” countered Sen, “using data from all districts…indicated that food availability in 1943 (the famine year) was significantly higher than in 1941 (when there was no famine). There was indeed a substantial shortfall compared with demand, hugely enhanced in a war economy…but that is quite different from a shortfall of supply compared with supply in previous years…. Mukerjee seems to miss this crucial distinction, and in her single-minded…attempt to nail down Churchill, she ends up absolving British imperial policy of confusion and callousness.”

Attribute not to the malice of capitalism or even anti-communism that to which could be better attributed to incompetence.

It's also very telling that this book never mentions that a stated goal of communism was the destruction of United States of America

HCM’s land “reform” policies saw thousands (13.5k by conservative estimates executed) for redistribution
Viet Minh killed 100-150k civilians during the 1954 Indo china war vs French 60k-250k

Ah, yes, utopian Communist Land reform: the process by which one is subject to death for achieving that very same ideal which Minh paid lip service to: pursuit of happiness (property).

Under communism, land lords as enemies of the people. Mao saw 5m landlords killed. Very ideal.

Mao described this violence saying “it is fine. It’s not ‘terrible’ at all.”

but it’s too convenient to just not mention any of this at all and instead focus on the RACIST, WHITE, COLONIAL, IMPERIALIST, U.S.A.

Landlords wives/daughters/women get redistributed as concubines as part of land reform btw, but the class identity is number one in these discussions.

but yeah let’s focus on how the united states, in the 1900s was a nation of slave traders.

Not saying that any of this is a defense of the USA/CIA’s own murder campaign, but to omit it is dishonest at best

there’s no “imperialism” in China btw. They’re not killing “settlers” there’s no justification other than "gimmedat"

things the book does well:

• chart Sukarno’s rise to power amidst global surge in communism (and corresponding counter anti-communist efforts worldwide) during the Cold War
• suffering (his word, not mine) in a post-communist society and being told that it’s illegal to hope for something better.
• Shedding light on Black Ops which are not described at all in the patriotic U S of A – TIL Michael Townley killing Chilian diplomat Orlando Letelier's in DC with a car bomb – that's actually crazy.

Popularization of the phrase “amok” a Malay word for ritualized suicide but misused to describe general wanton violence by the Yellow-fevered NYT

Jakarta Method pre-Sukarno referred to "third world country that the US need not worry about in terms of cold-war balance." Afterwords, it meant anti-communist intervention, state sponsored mass murder to install capitalist regime, disappearances of non-cooperatives

According to the UN commie dope which Bevis profiles, "Jakarta" means "brutal elimination of people organizing for a better world" which is a flowery way to describe communist land seizure programs.

UN guy calls free market economics "radical" (instead of UN-appointed economic policy, historically great programs).

For these people:

• Self determination is psychological warfare instead of ~people asking for democratic rule (Pinochet is an admittedly bad example, but the author's framing allows for no other read than "communists are victims", which is less than one sided)
• All instances of capitalism outside the US are Crony capitalism and resource extraction. The Middle East does not exist at all, because it's an example of resource rich resistance of the US. Other non-communist Asian countries (Japan, Korea - though not un-besmirched by cold war efforts) also don't want to spend too much time talking about their post-war growth.

Author himself stated that China (independent of US cold war intervention) is basically still poor as shit, despite communist party reform under singular leadership AND adaption of some degree of capitalism.

Author says it’s “white countries” which is kind of a grossly reductive thing to say, casts an umbrella of white imperial colonialism as a cure-all explanation for other failed governments stripping non-white countries of agency bc of Ibid psych warfare, jakarta’ing, etc.

Admits that the US won the Cold War not because of anticommunist mass murder but bc of soviet incompetence.

Then in post WWII when aforementioned OMITTED communist atrocities were unfolding, it’s like US is the bad guy because they won, instead of the conventional framing: that if the US did not win, everyone in the world (victims of capitalism) would be living in the failed post-communist societies like China and incompetent Russia.

Mine is a flakier argument because I have not written the book, but his is disingenuous to the point of rhetorical failure. If the book presented itself as a Marxist read, and went mask off it would have been a strong seven verging on eight, but he kneecaps himself by trying to convince himself that he could convince the median fencesitter. His target audience is people who have never read another book.

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