Uncle Sam be damned in 'Nam

There will be another reason for why neither the CIA or the USG would want a book like this in wide circulation – it will give too many people a real insight into what they are capable of and what may be happening behind the scenes now in various hotspots of the world where America has a stake. Much in the same way that anyone familiar with the CIA's Operation Gladio in Europe would I suspect appreciate, for those who do read Valentine's book, the next time you hear any official from the USG or the CIA talking about "terrorism" or "terrorist groups", you will find it hard to take them seriously or understand how they can do so and keep a straight face. In short, it is difficult to see how what happened with Phoenix as being anything different from what ISIS is apparently perpetrating in Syria and Iraq. Here's a sampler:

"[Phoenix] was….an instrument of counter-terror – the psychological warfare tactic in which members of the VCI were brutally murdered along with their families or neighbors as a means of terrorizing the entire population into a state of submission. Such horrendous acts were often made to look as if they had been committed by the enemy."

Put simply it is difficult to walk away from either of these books and not reflect on America's place in the world, both in the context of what was happening then, and with what is happening now. In the process of ostensibly defending and preserving freedom, democracy, liberty, equality and the rule of law, and upholding the principles of its fabled Constitution and the Bill of Rights and all the fruit that notionally comes on the platter, America had to – in the paraphrased words of Vietnam era journalist Peter Arnett – destroy the 'village' in order to save it.

Although there is still some controversy as to whether in fact Arnett misrepresented the source for this infamous quote for the purposes of journalistic propagandising, there can be no doubt that hundreds of villages and towns were destroyed in 'Nam. Given that America still seems hell bent in a larger context and over the longer term on destroying its own 'village' in order to save it, the reference is still apposite regardless of the veracity of Arnett's indelible line. Interestingly, Arnett was accused by the first Bush administration of propagandising during the First Gulf War in Iraq, a war we all know that president George HW Bush manipulatively sold to the world using propaganda of the most devious kind. So a little context and perspective is appropriate here as well. Which is to say, sound like a familiar scenario?

Context and perspective! What's not to like?