Doug Valentine reporting

[Jan Klimkowski]

Doug - would you say that My Lai grew out of the philosophy and culture of the Phoenix Program?

Or that it was a planned Phoenix operation?

Or that such atrocities happen in many wars where soldiers are grieving at fallen comrades, and have been subjected to propaganda which frames the enemy as less than human?

[Douglas Valentine]

Robert Ramsdell, the CIA Phoenix advisor in Quang Ngai Province, told task Force Barker that only VCI would be there that day, and a team of US MI guys and GVN special police went in to interrogate people, I believe right after or during the massacre.

It's important to differentiate the Phoenix concept from the Phoenix program.

Both target civilians.

the Phoenix Program had few forces of its own, just the advisors, but they could call upon troops - like Task Force Barker - to "block" off nationalist forces so the MI guys and Viet special police could do their thing.

And that's what happened.

[Keith Millea]

Sorry Doug,I was working on this at the My Lai thread,and I need to bring it here.I see that Jan has kind of started out with some similar questions,but mine is more about the Americal Division and it's soldiers.Because,for me that is where the buck stops,the actual shooters.


A question for Doug Valentine

Doug,
First let me explain that I never heard of the Phoenix Program until I joined this forum.That may seem strange because I'm actually a Vietnam Veteran.If you have read my other posts in this thread,you can get an idea of my feelings about My Lai,and the use of Phoenix in that operation.

I guess I question that the massacre at My Lai was perpetrated on purpose.I can't see that.I can't see a secret CIA operation (Phoenix),risking being exposed for the mass murder of 500 women and children.I gather that most Phoenix ops were nightime snatches,or just kill.But,My Lai was different.There was involvement by hundreds of soldiers,along with unit photographers.Surely,NOBODY would want this kind of horror to be archived.


My argument though,is blunted by said orders in this thread to "kill everything in the village".So,there is my perplexity.I cannot for the life of me understand how you can get an Army unit,which is made up of 30%-40%(?) draftees to actually participate in this kind of mass murder.I'm not naive to think that atrocities didn't happen.I know they did.


Doug,I'm hoping you can elaborate more about the use of Phoenix at My Lai,as I and the other soldiers who I have talked to from my unit have come to the conclusion that the Americal Division was a completely undisciplined outfit,with some pretty worthless officers.There is NO WAY that this could have happened in the very professional and disciplined unit that I was lucky enough to find myself in.It is just unthinkable,but we are all stained from it.

Question:

What could have made the Americal Division troopers participate in this slaughter?Any good soldier would have refused,and squealed their heads off.

[Jan Klimkowski]

Robert Ramsdell, the CIA Phoenix advisor in Quang Ngai Province, told task Force Barker that only VCI would be there that day, and a team of US MI guys and GVN special police went in to interrogate people, I believe right after or during the massacre.

It's important to differentiate the Phoenix concept from the Phoenix program.

Both target civilians.

the Phoenix Program had few forces of its own, just the advisors, but they could call upon troops - like Task Force Barker - to "block" off nationalist forces so the MI guys and Viet special police could do their thing.

And that's what happened.

Please can you expand a little on the difference between the Phoenix Program and the Phoenix concept?

Investigation of Operation Gladio (in its broadest sense) exposes an original programme of "stay behind" guerrilla cadres or cells, with access to weapons caches, conceived (according to the official narrative) as an underground army designed to "rise up" after (Soviet) communist invasion.

However, the practice and use made of Gladio cells was very different.

The philosophy of Gladio, as revealed in its actions, was one of atrocities against civilians, such as the Bologna railway station bombing, committed by a Gladio cell (Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari) but designed to be blamed on the opposition (in this case the Red Brigades).

Ultimately, the Gladio philosophy is the Strategy of Tension, the creation of fear amongst the civliian population achieved through false flag atrocities, designed to make the population welcome loss of freedom and embrace a police state.

Gladio is all about targeting, and breaking the will of, civilians.

In your answer, you suggest that the heart of Phoenix is also about targeting civilians.