The Indonesian Mass Killings of 1965–66 are presented as a case of mass violence that unsettles claims of consistent moral judgment. An army supported by the United States took control of Indonesia in 1965, and hundreds of thousands of people, mostly landless peasants, were killed. In the book’s account, the killings also reveal a wider asymmetry: violence by a favored government could be met with Western enthusiasm and later obscured, while the language used to condemn violence was more readily directed at enemies.

Seizure of Power and Mass Killing

The account places the killings within the army’s assumption of control of Indonesia in 1965. It describes the army as supported by the United States and identifies the victims principally as landless peasants. The scale is given as hundreds of thousands killed; the evidence presented here does not specify a more exact total or detail the course of the violence.

The killings recur as a reference point in the book’s discussion of political responsibility. The author rejects the idea that mass violence should be judged differently when its perpetrators are aligned with powerful states. Indonesia’s case is thus presented not as an isolated episode, but as a test of whether the same standards are applied to violence committed by allies and adversaries alike.

Western Response and Public Memory

The book contrasts the killings with the moral response they received in the West. It says the massacre was reported in detail and met with unrestrained euphoria in Western media and elsewhere. In a later discussion, the author describes this response as retrospectively embarrassing and argues that the episode was effectively erased from collective memory.

That contrast carries the account’s central force: the killings did not prevent Indonesia from becoming a favored state in American policy. Suharto remained an ally described by the Clinton administration as a friend, despite the book’s account of the violence and abuses associated with his rule. The episode therefore links mass killing not only to the moment of seizure of power, but also to the subsequent political relationship and the selective remembrance that accompanied it.

Terrorism, Political Language, and Moral Consistency

The killings are set against the book’s challenge to the selective use of political labels. The author distinguishes the literal definition of terrorism—calculated violence or threats intended to achieve political, religious, or ideological aims—from a propagandistic usage that reserves the term for violence by enemies. The argument is that official condemnation is not a consistent measure of conduct: actors may denounce terrorism while treating comparable violence by themselves or their allies differently.

Indonesia also serves as evidence against presenting political conflict as a simple clash between civilizations. The author points to the United States’ close relationship with Indonesia after Suharto took power, even though the country was the world’s most populous Islamic state and the killings had been carried out by an army supported by the United States. In this framing, political alignment—not a clear civilizational boundary—helps explain which violence is condemned, celebrated, or forgotten.

The book further emphasizes that judgments of responsibility should not be softened merely because crimes arise within ordinary institutional and ideological structures. Applied to Indonesia, that principle requires considering the killings and the support surrounding the army on their own terms, rather than allowing alliance or official vocabulary to displace the victims from view. The account’s lasting emphasis is the tension between the mass death of mostly landless peasants and the Western response: enthusiasm at the time, followed by an effort of forgetting.