AFSCME 3357-HOF'S BLOG

The Phoenix Program and Homeland Security

I recently talked to a vietnam vet who is suffering from accute post-traumatic stress disorder relating to participating as a soldier in an operation called Operation Phoenix, or the Phoenix Program.

I did a spot of research on the Phoenix program, this was a CIA sponsored anti-insurgency operation designed to rob the Viet Cong of their support in rural villages. The goal was to get local people to rat out the VC operatives through bribery, intimidation, torture, whatever it took. In some cases it took burning the whole village down. It was in the context of this operation that Senator Bob Kerrey (Not candidate John Kerry) confessed to brutal behavior during his tour of duty in Viet Nam. One source places the number of vietnamese dead at 50,000 for this operation alone.

How is this important to us today? Well, consider this, we have already faced scandals in regards to the treatment of prisoners both in Iraq and at Guantanamo Bay. Prisoners claim that they aren't terrorists, but they were ratted out for selfish reasons by others who sometimes were terrorists. As it turns out, this phenomenon was not only encountered in the Phoenix operations but special interrogation techniques were developed to try to identify it. These techniques were not always successful.

An author named Douglas Valentine, who wrote a book on the Phoenix Project sees disturbing paralells between the abuses of the Phoenix Project and the Bush Administration's Homeland Security approach. I don't buy everything Mr. Valentine is saying, but I do agree that the Bush administration has had a cavalier disregard for civil liberties, and in general does not understand that it is the exercise of liberty that keeps us free and not the exercise of police power.

Douglas Valentine - Articles & Poems