27-09-2008, 04:32 PM
(This post was last modified: 27-09-2008, 04:51 PM by Jan Klimkowski.)
David - you and I have discussed such deep black ops on many occasions.
As a way of approaching the "morality" of such operations, I'm going to veer off into fiction
In "Apocalypse Now", the Willard (Martin Sheen) character travels down the river into a Conradian "Heart of Darkness", and ultimately finds Marlon Brando playing Walter E Kurtz, the Special Forces Colonel who's "winning" the war his way.
The entire movie is worth unpicking.
The script was essentially a collaboration between, crudely, the Nietzschian right-wing libertarian, John Milius, and the more left-wing Francis Coppola. This tension plays out in many ways, including the various different endings of the movie (some of which exist in the DVD, or in released and subsequently withdrawn cuts).
The Vietnam War scenario is fascinating too. Kurtz's decision, whilst still a US Army Colonel, to execute those Vietnamese he suspected of collaboration, could easily have been a defacto Phoenix Program operation. The despatching of Willard to terminate Kurtz with extreme prejudice would also have been an archetypal Phoenix Program mission (even if most such missions targetted non-Americans).
Ultimately, the scenario is Phoenix on Phoenix, deniable black op on deniable black op.
Perhaps the person most convincingly described as the model for Kurtz is Anthony Poshepny (aka Tony Poe):
http://www.sfweekly.com/1999-11-17/news/...ovocative/
By some accounts, Tony Poe (who was known by Col Prouty), allegedly was involved in US intelligence narcotic smuggling operations in SE Asia.
Here is Poe's Namebase network diagram, which includes proximity to everyone from Colby & Shackley to the Dalai Lama (who he claimed to have spirited out of Tibet):
http://www.namebase.org/cgi-bin/nb06?_POSHEPNY_ANTHONY_
The establishment defence of black ops - be they in Vietnam, Northern Ireland or Iraq - is that "one has to fight fire with fire, old chap". I'm sure Milius would agree with this view - though not in the accent of an English toff.
The alternative view is that the End does not justify the Means. Particularly when the Means involves hiring psychopaths, and protecting them at the cost of entirely unnecessary and innocent civilian casualties. And - whether by design or weary inevitability - these black ops nearly always end up as criminal, drug- and gun-running enterprizes, with a bunch of strung-out, deluded, but very dangerous Dogs of War being declared to have served their usefulness and to be henceforth "disposable" by the real powers that be.
Kurtz and Willard empowered and then discarded by the secret rulers, like used condoms....
As a way of approaching the "morality" of such operations, I'm going to veer off into fiction
In "Apocalypse Now", the Willard (Martin Sheen) character travels down the river into a Conradian "Heart of Darkness", and ultimately finds Marlon Brando playing Walter E Kurtz, the Special Forces Colonel who's "winning" the war his way.
The entire movie is worth unpicking.
The script was essentially a collaboration between, crudely, the Nietzschian right-wing libertarian, John Milius, and the more left-wing Francis Coppola. This tension plays out in many ways, including the various different endings of the movie (some of which exist in the DVD, or in released and subsequently withdrawn cuts).
The Vietnam War scenario is fascinating too. Kurtz's decision, whilst still a US Army Colonel, to execute those Vietnamese he suspected of collaboration, could easily have been a defacto Phoenix Program operation. The despatching of Willard to terminate Kurtz with extreme prejudice would also have been an archetypal Phoenix Program mission (even if most such missions targetted non-Americans).
Ultimately, the scenario is Phoenix on Phoenix, deniable black op on deniable black op.
Perhaps the person most convincingly described as the model for Kurtz is Anthony Poshepny (aka Tony Poe):
http://www.sfweekly.com/1999-11-17/news/...ovocative/
By some accounts, Tony Poe (who was known by Col Prouty), allegedly was involved in US intelligence narcotic smuggling operations in SE Asia.
Here is Poe's Namebase network diagram, which includes proximity to everyone from Colby & Shackley to the Dalai Lama (who he claimed to have spirited out of Tibet):
http://www.namebase.org/cgi-bin/nb06?_POSHEPNY_ANTHONY_
The establishment defence of black ops - be they in Vietnam, Northern Ireland or Iraq - is that "one has to fight fire with fire, old chap". I'm sure Milius would agree with this view - though not in the accent of an English toff.
The alternative view is that the End does not justify the Means. Particularly when the Means involves hiring psychopaths, and protecting them at the cost of entirely unnecessary and innocent civilian casualties. And - whether by design or weary inevitability - these black ops nearly always end up as criminal, drug- and gun-running enterprizes, with a bunch of strung-out, deluded, but very dangerous Dogs of War being declared to have served their usefulness and to be henceforth "disposable" by the real powers that be.
Kurtz and Willard empowered and then discarded by the secret rulers, like used condoms....
"It means this War was never political at all, the politics was all theatre, all just to keep the people distracted...."
"Proverbs for Paranoids 4: You hide, They seek."
"They are in Love. Fuck the War."
Gravity's Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon
"Ccollanan Pachacamac ricuy auccacunac yahuarniy hichascancuta."
The last words of the last Inka, Tupac Amaru, led to the gallows by men of god & dogs of war
"Proverbs for Paranoids 4: You hide, They seek."
"They are in Love. Fuck the War."
Gravity's Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon
"Ccollanan Pachacamac ricuy auccacunac yahuarniy hichascancuta."
The last words of the last Inka, Tupac Amaru, led to the gallows by men of god & dogs of war