The Phoenix Program: Affirming the Political

 

The Phoenix Program: Affirming the Political

Peter Schultz

 

                  Finishing Douglas Valentine’s book, The Phoenix Program, which is about the Phoenix program that was created in Vietnam, a program that was charged with being an assassination program that engaged in terrorism by identifying, capturing, imprisoning, torturing, or killing large numbers of Vietnamese who were deemed to be the enemies of the state, the Government of Vietnam (GVN). After Vietnam, the program was used in El Salvador and Nicaragua and was at the heart of a Special Forces manual entitled, Tayacan: Psychological Operations in Guerilla Warfare.

 

                  As Valentine observes: “The goal was to organize the contras into armed propaganda teams that would persuade the people to stage a general uprising…. This was to be done through psychological operations, by reaching beyond the ‘territorial limits of conventional warfare, to penetrate the political entity itself: the ‘political animal’ that Aristotle defined.’ For once his mind has been reached, the ‘political animal has been defeated, without necessarily receiving bullets.’” [426] Central to this project of psychological operations is “the notion of ‘implicit terror,” as well as, periodically, “explicit terror” in order to compel people to embrace certain political beliefs and policies.

 

                  Implicitly then, according to the Tayacan, affirming the political means “penetrating the political entity itself” in order to defeat it. So, by this view, the goal of affirming the political is subjection for the sake of protecting the people in the name of democracy. And, necessarily, affirming the political involves both implicit and explicit “terror.”

 

                  If you think this sounds just crazy, off the wall crazy, just conjure up the fears governments use in order to make people compliant, fears of possible terrorist attacks or of viruses and pandemics. Moreover, conjure up capital punishment, especially when carried out in ways that are anything but humane, that are cruel but not unusual. I would argue that implicit and explicit terror are both common variables in political orders, all political orders. And the reference to Aristotle and his claim that humans are political animals, encourages us to wonder whether the old Greek wasn’t on to implications of that claim that are anything but benign. Viewing humans as political animals is a way of affirming the political, which, if the Tayacan is correct, has implications for the political arena that are, well, quite exceptional, where “neutralization” of political opponents would comprehend and even justify their “elimination with extreme prejudice.” Such thoughts might lead a person to wonder about the political and about those who thrive in that arena.