The CIA’s Phoenix program changed how America fights its wars and how the public views this new type of political and psychological warfare, in which civilian casualties are an explicit objective.
The CIA created Phoenix in Saigon in 1967 to identify the civilian leaders and supporters of the National Liberation Front; and to detain, torture, and kill them using every means possible, from B-52 raids and “Cordon and Search” operations, to computerized blacklists, secret torture centers, and death squads.
Originally called ICEX-SIDE (Intelligence Coordination and Exploitation – Screening, Interrogation and Detention of the Enemy), the program was renamed Phoenix for symbolic purposes. In time, the mere mention of Phoenix, the omnipotent bird of prey with a blacklist in one claw and a snake in the other, was enough to terrorize people into submission.
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