First Book Review

Killing Hope—William Blum

Here is my first book review, or maybe book recap. I figure a review will probably be able to go into a lot more detail than I do, but I’d still like to write something to help me process the material. If it inspires someone else to give it a read (or not give it a read), all the better. Here’s what a couple of people had to say about Killing Hope, by William Blum:

"Far and away the best book on the topic."
Noam Chomsky

"I enjoyed it immensely."
Gore Vidal

(Note—Gore Vidal is the utterer of one of my all time favorite quotes. . . “I never miss an opportunity to have sex or appear on television.”
“I enjoyed it immensely” seems pretty lame by comparison).

I finished this book a couple of days ago and found it, as I knew I would, appalling and depressing. The book, whose subtitle is “U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II,” consists of 392 pages of summaries of 55 such interventions. Mr. Blum acts as a kind of Ghost of Christmas Past, taking us by the hand as we visit all of the invasions, bombings, assassination attempts, and torture that are tax dollars have helped to fund.

The basic thesis of the book was this: Following WWII, the power brokers of the American government, presidents, CIA chiefs, DOD Secretaries, etc. were so infatuated with the idea of defeating the “international communist conspiracy,” that they undermined any government that even carried the whiff of progressive change. Possible infractions included: neutrality in foreign affairs, agrarian reform, income redistribution, and nationalization of industries. Even moderate regimes with outstanding human rights records and proven commitments to democracy were undermined and systematically subverted if any sign of independence or economic and political self-determination were manifested. The end result was that our tax money usually supported a right wing alternative that, no matter how undemocratic or brutal, deferred to the economic judgment of the United States and was therefore acceptable. This policy led to some of the most brutally repressive dictators and regimes the world has ever seen, all supported by the U.S.

My previous experience with this kind of material had come mostly from reading The Nation or the works of Noam Chomsky or Howard Zinn. Occasionally, these kind of things hit mainstream media for discussion. When Afghanistan and Iraq were targeted for liberation, it was noted every once in a great while that the U.S. had actively supported the Afghani Moujahedeen (“holy warriors”) throughout the 80’s in their battle against the Soviets. Or that the U.S. had given the same kind of support to Iraq itself (and by extension Saddam Hussein) in its war with Iran from 1980-1988, giving Michael Moore great images like the one above (of Rumsfeld and Hussein) to use for his movies:

So every once in a while you hear about things like this, but this was the first time I’ve ever read anything so comprehensive on the subject. I read it as an overview and introduction, but it should probably be used as more of a reference. The book is extremely dense with meticulous citations for each chapter. There are so many CIA plots, coup attempts, heinous warlords, and arms deals that looking back at a random chapter I say to myself “Wait, what kind of sordid things happened in Angola again? Or, “When was the coup attempt in the Seychelles?”

Here is a list of the chapters if you’re interested.

As a funny side note to this book, I heard an apocryphal story that Mr. Blum, a former CIA station chief, fought an extensive legal battle with the CIA for the rights to publish the book. He was able to publish the book but the proceeds would go to the CIA. At this point Mr. Blum requested that people check it out at their local library.

One more reason to support your local library. . .