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| THE CIA AS ORGANIZED CRIME How Illegal Operations Corrupt America and the World Douglas Valentine ISBN 978-0-9972870-1-1 $28.95 446 pp EBOOK: ISBN: 978-0-9972870-2-8 $19.00 |
- We live in a world increasingly fearful of terrorism and
catalyzed by programmed events and developments
whose sources are often unclear. This book provides
insight into the paradigmatic approaches evolved by
CIA decades ago in Vietnam which remain operational
practices today in Afghanistan, El Salvador, Iraq, Syria,
Yemen and elsewhere.
Author of three books on CIA operations, Valentine’s
research into CIA activities began when CIA Director
William Colby gave him free access to interview CIA
officials who had been involved in various aspects of
the Phoenix program in South Vietnam. It was a
permission Colby was to regret. The CIA would rescind
it, making every effort to impede publication of The
Phoenix Program, which documented the CIA’s
elaborate system of population surveillance, control,
entrapment, imprisonment, torture and assassination in
Vietnam.
While researching Phoenix, Valentine learned that the
CIA allowed opium and heroin to flow from its secret
bases in Laos, to generals and politicians on its payroll
in South Vietnam. His investigations into this illegal
activity focused on the CIA’s relationship with the
federal drugs agencies mandated by Congress to stop
illegal drugs from entering the United States. Based on
interviews with senior officials, Valentine wrote two
subsequent books, The Strength of the Wolf and The
Strength of the Pack, showing how the CIA infiltrated
federal drug law enforcement agencies and
commandeered their executive management,
intelligence and foreign operations staffs in order to
ensure that the flow of drugs continues unimpeded to
traffickers and foreign officials in its employ.
Ultimately, portions of his research materials would be
archived at the National Security Archive, Texas Tech
University’s Vietnam Center, and John Jay College.
This book includes excerpts from the above titles along
with subsequent articles and transcripts of interviews
on a range of current topics, with a view to shedding
light on the systemic dimensions of the CIA’s ongoing
illegal and extra-legal activities. These terrorism and
drug law enforcement articles and interviews illustrate
how the CIA’s activities impact social and political
movements abroad and in the United States.
A common theme is the CIA’s ability to deceive and
propagandize the American public through its
impenetrable government-sanctioned shield of official
secrecy and plausible deniability.
Though investigated by the Church Committee in 1975,
CIA praxis then continues to inform CIA praxis now.
Valentine tracks its steady infiltration into practices
targeting the last population to be subjected to the
exigencies of the American empire: the American
people.
EXCERPT from the Introduction
In the wake of September 11, 2001, my articles about the Phoenix program
became more relevant than ever before. The third, “Homeland Insecurity,”
appeared on October 1, 2001, and predicted that the government would
establish Phoenix-style “extra-legal military tribunals that can try suspected
terrorists without the ordinary legal constraints of American justice.”
The United States soon established detention centers at Guantánamo in Cuba,
Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan, and at the infamous Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
And the CIA established “black sites” around the world. But I was referring to
plans by the Bush administration to rob American citizens of their right to due
process. And that is exactly what happened in January 2013 when President
Obama signed a National Defense Authorization Act that provides for the
indefinite detention of Americans.
These developments were easy to predict, given my background in Phoenix. In
the October 2001 article, for example, I explained that Phoenix would become
the bureaucratic model for the “homeland security” program that now envelops
America and subjects its citizens to the same blanket surveillance that the
Phoenix program imposed on the people of South Vietnam. Almost ten years
later, in July 2011, the Washington Post published its “Top Secret America”
exposé, which outlined America’s “heavily privatized military-corporate-
intelligence establishment.” Lead reporter Dana Priest calls it the “vast and
hidden apparatus of the war on terror.”
This Phoenix-style network constitutes America’s internal security apparatus,
and it is targeting you, under the guise of protecting you from terrorism. And
that is why, more than ever, people need to understand what Phoenix is really
all about.
When the CIA created Phoenix in June 1967, it was called ICEX-SIDE: Intelligence
Coordination and Exploitation—Screening, Interrogation and Detention of the
Enemy. The SIDE function is often ignored as journalists and propagandists
focus on the sensational aspect that involves the targeted assassination of
terrorists and their sympathizers, often by remote-controlled drones.
But in the first instance, Phoenix was a massive dragnet that packed South
Vietnam’s prisons, jails, and detention centers to overflowing. The foundation
stone of this network was a jerry-rigged judicial system based on Stalinist
security courts that did not require evidence to convict a person. People
charged with national security violations had no right to legal representation,
due process, or habeas corpus.
As Johan Galtung taught us, “Personal violence is for the amateur in dominance,
structural violence is the tool of the professional. The amateur who wants to
dominate uses guns; the professional uses social structure.”
It was perfectly clear, following the terror attacks of 9/11, that America’s elite
were creating exactly this kind of criminally legal social structure. Climate
change, overpopulation, income inequality, dwindling resources, and other
geopolitical factors are pushing the rich into gated communities in every nation
in the world.
The establishment is preparing for the dystopian future that lies ahead.
Douglas Valentine is an American journalist and
author of four works of historical non-fiction: The
Hotel Tacloban, The Phoenix Program, The
Strength of the Wolf (winner of the Choice
Academic Library Award), and The Strength of
the Pack. His articles have appeared regularly in
CounterPunch, ConsortiumNews, and elsewhere.
Portions of his research materials are archived at
the National Security Archive (both a Vietnam
Collection and a separate Drug Enforcement
Collection), Texas Tech University’s Vietnam
Center, and John Jay College. He provided expert
testimony at the King v Jowers trial on the Martin
Luther King, Jr. assassination at the request of
the King family.
author of four works of historical non-fiction: The
Hotel Tacloban, The Phoenix Program, The
Strength of the Wolf (winner of the Choice
Academic Library Award), and The Strength of
the Pack. His articles have appeared regularly in
CounterPunch, ConsortiumNews, and elsewhere.
Portions of his research materials are archived at
the National Security Archive (both a Vietnam
Collection and a separate Drug Enforcement
Collection), Texas Tech University’s Vietnam
Center, and John Jay College. He provided expert
testimony at the King v Jowers trial on the Martin
Luther King, Jr. assassination at the request of
the King family.
| TRANSNATIONAL CRIME IN THE NAME OF NATIONAL SECURITY |
"Doug Valentine courageously takes us inside some of the CIA’s most
shameful extralegal operations, exposing everything that is wrong with an
intelligence service gone rogue. He is a sentinel of the public interest, and
his book is a public service. I, for one, wouldn’t want to live in a country
that didn’t have patriots like Doug Valentine."
JOHN KIRIAKOU, author of The Reluctant Spy: My Secret Life in the CIA’s War
on Terror.
"[Douglas Valentine's] two books on the FBN/DEA are a major achievement."
PETER DALE SCOTT, author of The American Deep State.
"Doug Valentine was examining the dark underbelly of American foreign
policy years before people recognized the 'Dark Side' of torture camps and
secret wars."
ROBERT PARRY, Consortium News
photo credit: Michael S. Gordon/The Republicatn
- TABLE OF CONTENTS
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INTRODUCTION
Chapter 1:
How William Colby Gave Me the Keys to the CIA Kingdom
Chapter 2:
One Thing Leads to Another: My Rare Access in Investigating the War on Drugs
PART I:
THE CIA’S PHOENIX PROGRAM IN VIETNAM:
A TEMPLATE FOR SYSTEMATIC DOMINATION
Chapter 3:
The Vietnam War’s Silver Lining: A Bureaucratic Model for Population Control Emerges
Chapter 4:
The Systematic Gathering of Intelligence
Chapter 5:
What We Really Learned From Vietnam: A War Crimes Model for Afghanistan and Elsewhere
Chapter 6:
The Afghan ‘Dirty War’ Escalates
Chapter 7:
Vietnam Replay on Afghan Defectors
Chapter 8:
Disrupting the Accommodation: CIA Killings Spell Victory in Afghanistan and Defeat in
America
Chapter 9:
The CIA in Ukraine
Chapter 10:
War Crimes as Policy
Chapter 11:
New Games, Same Aims: CIA Organizational Changes
PART II:
HOW THE CIA CO-OPTED AND MANAGES THE WAR ON DRUGS
Chapter 12:
Creating a Crime: How the CIA Commandeered the DEA
Chapter 13:
Beyond Dirty Wars: The CIA/DEA Connection and Modern Day Terror in Latin America
Chapter 14:
Project Drugrunner
PART III:
THE PHOENIX FOUNDATION OF HOMELAND SECURITY
Chapter 15:
The Spook Who Became a Congressman:Why CIA Officers Cannot Be Allowed to Hold
Public Office
Chapter 16:
Major General Bruce Lawlor:From CIA Officer in Vietnam to Homeland Security Honcho
Chapter 17:
Homeland Security: The Phoenix Comes Home to Roost
PART IV:
MANUFACTURING COMPLICITY: SHAPING THE AMERICAN WORLDVIEW
Chapter 18:
Fragging Bob Kerrey: The CIA and the Need for a War Crimes Tribunal
Chapter 19:
Top Secret America Shadow Reward System
Chapter 20:
How Government Tries to Mess with Your Mind
Chapter 21:
Disguising Obama’s Dirty War
Chapter 22:
Parallels of Conquest, Past and Present
Chapter 23:
Propaganda as Terrorism
Chapter 24:
The War on Terror as the Greatest Covert Op Ever
REVIEWS
"In order to shape this world order, the CIA and US military, which continue
to work together, murder innocent people in Afghanistan and Iraq, using
tactics acquired in Vietnam. In Vietnam, the CIA actively recruited hardened
criminals (p. 117) to do its dirty work, including drug-running. In Cuba, it
worked with local mafia as part of anti-regime activities (p. 138). Today, it
uses drones (p. 103). It hacks and infiltrates foreign businesses and
governments with its recent Digital Directorate (p. 157). It plays a hand in the
so-called Colour Revolutions (p. 169). It unconstitutionally assists in
blacklisting travellers (pp. 312-13). It works with the State Department’s
Agency for International Development to exploit ‘developing’ countries (p.
369). These are important themes and, building on his earlier works,
Valentine has compiled a kind of anti-CIA handbook, which will doubtless
inspire a new generation of researchers...the book remains essential
reading."
TIM COLES, Organization for Propaganda Studies
"Douglas Valentine's book is based largely on CIA insider information. He
has used that first-hand information to provide us with names, dates, and
documents regarding a continuous process of USG criminality, including
treason, against the interests of the American people. Additionally, facts and
knowledge Valentine has accumulated as an investigative journalist over
many decades are included in this book. I believe Valentine's collective
writing has shown him to be one of the most important journalists in US
history. If you haven't yet heard of Doug Valentine, it may be because
corporate media outlets have been doing the job envisioned for them by
elitist founders..."
SANFORD KELSEN, The Veteran, Vietnam Veterans Against the War
"Douglas Valentine writes books that rip the bloody veil off the criminal
enterprise known as the US government. When he does this, he combines
incredibly in-depth research, interviews and an inviting style of prose that
exposes the dark truth about the US nation and its national security state.
The CIA as Organized Crime continues that tradition and is an important and
crucial text. Its publication would be timely at any moment in recent history,
yet its publication in late 2016 seems even more so given the recent
campaign season and the accompanying destruction of any semblance of a
fair electoral process in the United States."
RON JACOBS, Counterpunch
"...in Valentine’s view, the CIA is the hit team for the worst elements of
American business — and those elements have their ideological hopes
pinned to the man in the Oval Office.So much for an intelligence counter-
revolution in response to the “Trump revolution,” responds Valentine. Far
more likely, in his view, that CIA provides the means and modes of
repression to keep those most likely to overturn the domestic political
applecart well in hand.
Why? Because, Valentine argues, this is precisely the CIA’s operational
stock-in-trade: the brutalization of local politics as phase one; blackmail and
murder as phase two (already, he says, institutionalized in the Phoenix
program expertise and refined to a near-clinical degree post 9/11 with the
rendition/black sites program globally) — and an American Phoenix program,
ready and waiting in the wings, he says, to be operationalized against those
on US soil who oppose the status quo."
The Daily Kos
"Taking on the CIA as a subject is a monumental task, as its tentacles delve
into myriad facets of empire and society. The CIA operates as a mafioso on a
grand scale, an imperial scale. Valentine’s depth of knowledge on the
subject is very apparent. The CIA is known as a surveillance and information
gathering apparatus of the USA that engages in various international
intrigues. That view of the CIA is superficial. The CIA as Organized Crime
presents the CIA as much more and in decidedly more sinister shades."
KIM PETERSEN, Dissident Voice
"But what the author has to say is important, and his analysis opens us to a
clearer understanding of the Big Picture. Interlocked with the State
Department and the military, not to mention all the other intelligence
agencies with vast funds at their command, the CIA has increasingly applied
social science to the plan for “controlling the natives” of every contested
land. Operation Phoenix, which we understand to be a mass murder project
of the 1960s in South Vietnam, failed at pacification but not at setting out a
blueprint still central to operations. Specialists of all kinds, most
emphatically working in universities as well as think tanks, are naturally
central...Thanks to extensive interviews, he has an almost intimate feel for
the operating mentality of the agency, why they operate the way they do—
not only their bloody-minded ruthlessness or their rationalizations,
important and interesting as these are—and why they are unbothered by
such distinctions as Republican or Democratic presidents."
PAUL BUHLE, Portside
"Valentine, a warrior of astute knowledge from his wanderings in the CIA’s
labyrinth, has reemerged with his new guidebook to the Minotaur’s deadly
ways. The CIA As Organized Crime is a tour de force, a counterpuncher’s no-
holds-barred passionate battle to reverse “the terrible truth . . . that a Cult
of Death rules America and is hell-bent on world domination.” Unlike many
writers, he holds back nothing. He names names. He is adamantine in his
accusations against those he considers accomplices—in particular, “the
compatible left”—“liberals and pseudo-intellectual status seekers who are
easily influenced”—in the CIA/media/elite’s efforts at domination and mind-
control."
Prof. EDWARD CURTIN, The Intrepid Report
"Valentine’s book is an exercise in giving critical questions, especially
from those who are less knowledgeable or experienced, the serious
answers they deserve. That is one very important approach in
teaching history, to restoring substance. Valentine is an excellent
history teacher and there are simply not enough like him."
T.P. Wilkinson, Dissident Voice
"Some books raise the curtain on the whole shit show, and this is one
of those books.... Valentine names all the perps and all the plans. He
weaves the comments of the people he interviews into his own prose
structure that creates a fascinating, page-turning narrative that never
lags. It often reminds me of Raymond Chandler and William
Burroughs, when they talk about the sordid and sad ways of the
world. He's never boring, even when he's detailing bureaucratic
structures, probably because the details are so damn sinister. His
sentences are deadly efficient, hard-hitting, dense with information
and always end with a stab to the heart of the beast he so clearly and
righteously despises. He is the real revolutionary."
Joe Balletti, Goodreads
"connecting the CIA’s geopolitical relativism to even more current
affairs, Valentine explores the recent failed support of the rebels in
Bashar al-Assad’s Syria. Valentine emphasizes that 'Iran publicly
backs Assad, as does Russia, and that Iran seeks to help Assad defeat
the rebels, many of whom are foreign mercenaries trained and
financed by the CIA, Israel, Jordan, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.' Never
have CIA loyalties been more confused and counterintuitive, Valentine
asserts, than in a world where factions of our sworn enemies al-Qaeda
and ISIS aid us in our failed attempt to depose Assad."
Brad Schreiber, Huffington Post
"traces how the CIA and U.S. counterinsurgency warfare operatives
adopted lessons from the Nazis’ fight against the partisans and
evolved into a dangerous law onto themselves."
retired JAG Major Todd E. Pierce, Consortium News
"In order to shape this world order, the CIA and US military, which continue
to work together, murder innocent people in Afghanistan and Iraq, using
tactics acquired in Vietnam. In Vietnam, the CIA actively recruited hardened
criminals (p. 117) to do its dirty work, including drug-running. In Cuba, it
worked with local mafia as part of anti-regime activities (p. 138). Today, it
uses drones (p. 103). It hacks and infiltrates foreign businesses and
governments with its recent Digital Directorate (p. 157). It plays a hand in the
so-called Colour Revolutions (p. 169). It unconstitutionally assists in
blacklisting travellers (pp. 312-13). It works with the State Department’s
Agency for International Development to exploit ‘developing’ countries (p.
369). These are important themes and, building on his earlier works,
Valentine has compiled a kind of anti-CIA handbook, which will doubtless
inspire a new generation of researchers...the book remains essential
reading."
TIM COLES, Organization for Propaganda Studies
"Douglas Valentine's book is based largely on CIA insider information. He
has used that first-hand information to provide us with names, dates, and
documents regarding a continuous process of USG criminality, including
treason, against the interests of the American people. Additionally, facts and
knowledge Valentine has accumulated as an investigative journalist over
many decades are included in this book. I believe Valentine's collective
writing has shown him to be one of the most important journalists in US
history. If you haven't yet heard of Doug Valentine, it may be because
corporate media outlets have been doing the job envisioned for them by
elitist founders..."
SANFORD KELSEN, The Veteran, Vietnam Veterans Against the War
"Douglas Valentine writes books that rip the bloody veil off the criminal
enterprise known as the US government. When he does this, he combines
incredibly in-depth research, interviews and an inviting style of prose that
exposes the dark truth about the US nation and its national security state.
The CIA as Organized Crime continues that tradition and is an important and
crucial text. Its publication would be timely at any moment in recent history,
yet its publication in late 2016 seems even more so given the recent
campaign season and the accompanying destruction of any semblance of a
fair electoral process in the United States."
RON JACOBS, Counterpunch
"...in Valentine’s view, the CIA is the hit team for the worst elements of
American business — and those elements have their ideological hopes
pinned to the man in the Oval Office.So much for an intelligence counter-
revolution in response to the “Trump revolution,” responds Valentine. Far
more likely, in his view, that CIA provides the means and modes of
repression to keep those most likely to overturn the domestic political
applecart well in hand.
Why? Because, Valentine argues, this is precisely the CIA’s operational
stock-in-trade: the brutalization of local politics as phase one; blackmail and
murder as phase two (already, he says, institutionalized in the Phoenix
program expertise and refined to a near-clinical degree post 9/11 with the
rendition/black sites program globally) — and an American Phoenix program,
ready and waiting in the wings, he says, to be operationalized against those
on US soil who oppose the status quo."
The Daily Kos
"Taking on the CIA as a subject is a monumental task, as its tentacles delve
into myriad facets of empire and society. The CIA operates as a mafioso on a
grand scale, an imperial scale. Valentine’s depth of knowledge on the
subject is very apparent. The CIA is known as a surveillance and information
gathering apparatus of the USA that engages in various international
intrigues. That view of the CIA is superficial. The CIA as Organized Crime
presents the CIA as much more and in decidedly more sinister shades."
KIM PETERSEN, Dissident Voice
"But what the author has to say is important, and his analysis opens us to a
clearer understanding of the Big Picture. Interlocked with the State
Department and the military, not to mention all the other intelligence
agencies with vast funds at their command, the CIA has increasingly applied
social science to the plan for “controlling the natives” of every contested
land. Operation Phoenix, which we understand to be a mass murder project
of the 1960s in South Vietnam, failed at pacification but not at setting out a
blueprint still central to operations. Specialists of all kinds, most
emphatically working in universities as well as think tanks, are naturally
central...Thanks to extensive interviews, he has an almost intimate feel for
the operating mentality of the agency, why they operate the way they do—
not only their bloody-minded ruthlessness or their rationalizations,
important and interesting as these are—and why they are unbothered by
such distinctions as Republican or Democratic presidents."
PAUL BUHLE, Portside
"Valentine, a warrior of astute knowledge from his wanderings in the CIA’s
labyrinth, has reemerged with his new guidebook to the Minotaur’s deadly
ways. The CIA As Organized Crime is a tour de force, a counterpuncher’s no-
holds-barred passionate battle to reverse “the terrible truth . . . that a Cult
of Death rules America and is hell-bent on world domination.” Unlike many
writers, he holds back nothing. He names names. He is adamantine in his
accusations against those he considers accomplices—in particular, “the
compatible left”—“liberals and pseudo-intellectual status seekers who are
easily influenced”—in the CIA/media/elite’s efforts at domination and mind-
control."
Prof. EDWARD CURTIN, The Intrepid Report
"Valentine’s book is an exercise in giving critical questions, especially
from those who are less knowledgeable or experienced, the serious
answers they deserve. That is one very important approach in
teaching history, to restoring substance. Valentine is an excellent
history teacher and there are simply not enough like him."
T.P. Wilkinson, Dissident Voice
"Some books raise the curtain on the whole shit show, and this is one
of those books.... Valentine names all the perps and all the plans. He
weaves the comments of the people he interviews into his own prose
structure that creates a fascinating, page-turning narrative that never
lags. It often reminds me of Raymond Chandler and William
Burroughs, when they talk about the sordid and sad ways of the
world. He's never boring, even when he's detailing bureaucratic
structures, probably because the details are so damn sinister. His
sentences are deadly efficient, hard-hitting, dense with information
and always end with a stab to the heart of the beast he so clearly and
righteously despises. He is the real revolutionary."
Joe Balletti, Goodreads
"connecting the CIA’s geopolitical relativism to even more current
affairs, Valentine explores the recent failed support of the rebels in
Bashar al-Assad’s Syria. Valentine emphasizes that 'Iran publicly
backs Assad, as does Russia, and that Iran seeks to help Assad defeat
the rebels, many of whom are foreign mercenaries trained and
financed by the CIA, Israel, Jordan, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.' Never
have CIA loyalties been more confused and counterintuitive, Valentine
asserts, than in a world where factions of our sworn enemies al-Qaeda
and ISIS aid us in our failed attempt to depose Assad."
Brad Schreiber, Huffington Post
"traces how the CIA and U.S. counterinsurgency warfare operatives
adopted lessons from the Nazis’ fight against the partisans and
evolved into a dangerous law onto themselves."
retired JAG Major Todd E. Pierce, Consortium News
| Excerpt from THE CIA IN UKRAINE |
AUDIO BOOK for Douglas Valentine's The CIA as
Organized Crime coming soon from Skyboatmedia
Organized Crime coming soon from Skyboatmedia
Interview: HISTORY CHANNEL Douglas Valentine The CIA As Organized Crime
