CIA Phoenix Program
Vietnam acted as the blueprint for the Phoenix program by the CIA that has since been expanded to different geographical regions on the globe. Through the program, the CIA managed to orchestra torture and assassinations within Vietnam with little or no information left to connect them with direct involvement. The program in recent years has also been related to the American bombings in Iraqi, Syria, Afghanistan, and Libya (Camp& Greenburg, 2020). Through the Phoenix program, CIA agents tend to create affiliations with informants from different countries that they rely on in expediting their mandate. Despite having been developed to promote corporation in war zones abroad, the program has not run without public outcry as it has been related to the deaths of innocent people in these areas ( Wege, 2020). In recent times the effect of the Phoenix program is equally being felt within American soil. As a result, Americans are developing different views on the role it plays in promoting world peace (Janney, 2016).
American people often view the Phoenix program as a new approach to both psychological and political warfare (Kim, Jeong & Lee, 2014). Through this program, the United States has managed to create fear across Middle East nations and other regions that tend to propagate extremism (Maxey, 2018). So stringent are the measures that after the 11t September 2001 bombing, the United States began to hunt its citizens who are involved in terror attacks and extremism (Valentine, 2016 p.58). Through this approach, just like the people accused of terror attacks in other countries, Americans have found themselves on the radar of the Phoenix program and are closely monitored unknowingly. One notable evidence regarding this monitoring is Kamal Derwish, an American citizen who was murdered through a drone strike on the accusation of involving himself with terrorism activities (Valentine, 2016 p.65). Different publications currently allude that the target list of those involved in terror attacks includes multiple Americans.
From reading Valentine’s work, works am persuaded that the Phoenix program managed to establish the ‘you are either “friend or enemy” concept, which has affected how the United States government views its citizens (Valentine, 2016 p.58). Initially, the government had preservations when it came to dealing with its people and held the utmost respect for human rights (Stevenson, 2020). However, in recent times the happenings currently being witnessed in the United States seem to depict that the country’s military engagement abroad is slowly transforming how the government views its citizens. The Mississippi burning is one example of the United States CIA’s approach to terrorize groups elsewhere that happened within the United States soil (Capote, 2020). The recent killing of George Floyd by the police shows that the government seems to be slowly viewing some of its citizens as enemies. The result is often riots that trigger the government to use more ruthless mechanisms that end up further changing the way the citizen view it (Fagan, J., & Richman, 2017).
In conclusion, the Phoenix program has changed how citizens view the CIA activities at home and abroad. They tend to associate them with terror rather than the essence of protecting the nation through intelligence.
References
Valentine, D. (2016). The CIA as Organized Crime: How Illegal Operations Corrupt America and the World. SCB Distributors.
Capote, R. A. (2020). Operation condor: The CIA is not innocent. Guardian (Sydney), (1908), 12.
Camp, J. T., & Greenburg, J. (2020). Counterinsurgency Reexamined: Racism, Capitalism, and US Military Doctrine. Antipode, 52(2), 430-451.
Wege, C. A. (2020). Overt Chronicle of Covert Operations: Annie Jacobsen: Surprise, Kill, Vanish: The Secret History of CIA Paramilitary Armies, Operators, and Assassins Little, Brown and Company, New York, Boston, London, 2019, 545 p., $18.57 (Hardcover).
Stevenson, J. (2020). CIA Agonistes. Survival, 62(3), 253-262.
Kim, T. Y., Jeong, G., & Lee, J. (2014). War, Peace, and Economic Growth: The Phoenix Factor Reexamined. In Economic Growth (pp. 263-278). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
Maxey, M. (2018). The Phoenix Program: From Vietnam to Black Sites-a Legacy of Torture. The University of Central Oklahoma.
Janney, P. (2016). Mary’s Mosaic: The CIA Conspiracy to Murder John F. Kennedy, Mary Pinchot Meyer, and Their Vision for World Peace. Simon and Schuster.