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EVERYTHING MR. EMORY HAS BEEN SAYING ABOUT THE UKRAINE WAR IS ENCAPSULATED IN THIS VIDEO FROM UKRAINE 24

ANOTHER REVEALING VIDEO FROM UKRAINE 24

“Polit­i­cal language…is designed to make lies sound truth­ful and mur­der respectable, and to give an appear­ance of solid­i­ty to pure wind.”

— George Orwell, 1946

Dave Emory has launched a Patre­on Site: www.patreon.com/DaveEmory

COMMENT: An impor­tant arti­cle in Covert Action Mag­a­zine access­es infor­ma­tion by the bril­liant, ground-break­ing researcher/author Dou­glas Valen­tine on what appears to be a Ukrain­ian man­i­fes­ta­tion of the Phoenix Pro­gram.

Hav­ing writ­ten the fore­most text about that oper­a­tion, Valen­tine offers analy­sis indi­cat­ing that the Ukrain­ian SBU intel­li­gence ser­vice is fol­low­ing the lead of the part­nered CIA in imple­ment­ing a “cleans­ing” cam­paign in that coun­try.

• ” . . . . Dou­glas Valen­tine, author of the sem­i­nal book The Phoenix Pro­gram (1990), in a recent inter­view told me that Phoenix went pub­lic in 1968 under the jus­ti­fi­ca­tion that it was ‘pro­tect­ing the peo­ple from terrorism’—like with the SBU pro­grams today. The deten­tions were large­ly designed to encour­age defec­tions while strik­ing fear in the pub­lic. . . .”
• ” . . . . Dou­glas Valen­tine, author of the sem­i­nal book The Phoenix Pro­gram (1990), sees eerie par­al­lels between the orig­i­nal Phoenix pro­gram and Zelensky’s oper­a­tions today. In both cas­es, Valen­tine told CAM in an exclu­sive inter­view, ‘neu­tral­ism wasn’t tol­er­at­ed.’ . . .”

1.  “Ukraine Hunts Down ‘Trai­tors Help­ing Rus­sia’” by Jere­my Kuz­marov; Covert Action Mag­a­zine; 5/2/ 2022.

State ter­ror oper­a­tions that fol­low from CIA play­book con­tra­dict saint­ly image of Zelen­sky pro­mot­ed in the U.S. media.

Ukrain­ian Pres­i­dent Volodymyr Zelensky’s saint­ly image in the media is con­tra­dict­ed by state ter­ror oper­a­tions being con­duct­ed under his orders against polit­i­cal dis­si­dents and Ukrain­ian civil­ians accused of col­lab­o­ra­tion with Rus­sia.

The Asso­ci­at­ed Press report­ed last week that near­ly 400 peo­ple in the north­east­ern city of Kharkiv alone have been detained under anti-col­lab­o­ra­tion laws enact­ed by Ukraine’s par­lia­ment and signed by Zelen­sky after Russia’s Feb­ru­ary 24 inva­sion.

A YouTube video accom­pa­ny­ing the short arti­cle jux­ta­posed a speech by Zelen­sky say­ing that “col­lab­o­ra­tors will be brought to jus­tice” with the arrest of a mid­dle-aged Kharkiv man named Vik­tor by the Ukrain­ian Secu­ri­ty Ser­vices (SBU) because of a social media post prais­ing Vladimir Putin, call­ing for seces­sion and insult­ing the Ukrain­ian flag—which Vik­tor called a “sym­bol of death.”

The SBU agent showed Vik­tor his social media post and asked: “You sup­port­ed Putin? Are you sup­port­ing the Russ­ian army. You are not speak­ing very nice­ly about the Ukrain­ian flag, are you?”

Vik­tor respond­ed, before being tak­en away: “I am sor­ry. Yes I com­ment­ed a lot. I told you. I changed my mind.”

The video shows anoth­er raid by the SBU on an apart­ment in Kharkiv where the SBU arrest­ed a for­mer Ukrain­ian army offi­cer who had con­tacts with the Rus­sians on his phone in the days after the city had been shelled.

An SBU agent says that the man had “put us in dan­ger and civil­ians [in dan­ger].”

The man’s father, Volodymyr Rad­nenko, asked the SBU agent: “Who is shelling us? It’s not our (peo­ple). It’s your fas­cists. And he [the son] just gets angry at that. So you under­stand. That’s all.”

Mr. Radnenko’s com­ments sum up the injus­tice of the SBU sweeps. Ukrain­ian cit­i­zens are being crim­i­nal­ized for express­ing anger at Ukrain­ian army prac­tices.

“Reg­istry of Col­lab­o­ra­tors”

Roman Dudin, head of the Kharkiv branch of the SBU, in an inter­view with the Asso­ci­at­ed Press, said that the pur­pose of the SBU raids was to “have no one stab our armed forces in the back.”

Dudin omi­nous­ly spoke in a dark base­ment where the SBU moved its oper­a­tions after its build­ing in cen­tral Kharkiv was shelled.

Accord­ing to Olek­siy Danilov, head of Ukraine’s Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil, a “reg­istry of col­lab­o­ra­tors” by Ukraine is cur­rent­ly being com­piled and will be released to the pub­lic as part of mar­tial law pro­grams that have result­ed in the ban­ning of 11 polit­i­cal par­ties.

Olek­siy Danilov [Source: wikipedia.org]

Under the cur­rent reg­u­la­tions, offend­ers face up to 15 years in prison for col­lab­o­rat­ing with Russ­ian forces, mak­ing pub­lic denials about Russ­ian aggres­sion or sup­port­ing Moscow. Any­one whose actions result in deaths could face life in prison.

The gov­er­nor of the Niko­laev region, Vitaly Kim, a mem­ber of Zelensky’s Ser­vant of the Peo­ple par­ty, open­ly called for the assas­si­na­tion of any Ukrain­ian cit­i­zen who sup­ports Rus­sia.

Phoenix Redux

A pre­vi­ous CAM exposé point­ed to the omi­nous par­al­lels between the SBU oper­a­tions in Ukraine and the Phoenix pro­gram in Viet­nam, which result­ed in the killing, impris­on­ment and tor­ture of thou­sands of South Viet­namese, includ­ing civil­ian offi­cials accused of being loy­al to the left-wing, anti-impe­ri­al­ist Nation­al Lib­er­a­tion Front (NLF).

In both cas­es, the CIA is a key coor­di­na­tor behind the scenes and helps in the com­pil­ing of black­lists that result in the detain­ment, and often tor­ture and mur­der of civil­ians. .

Vasi­ly Pro­zorov, a for­mer offi­cer with the SBU, stat­ed soon after his defec­tion to Rus­sia in 2018 that the SBU had been advised by the CIA since 2014. “CIA employ­ees [who have been present in Kyiv since 2014] are resid­ing in clan­des­tine apart­ments and sub­ur­ban hous­es,” he said. “How­ev­er, they fre­quent­ly come to the SBU’s cen­tral office for hold­ing spe­cif­ic meet­ings or plot­ting secret oper­a­tions.”

Dou­glas Valen­tine, author of the sem­i­nal book The Phoenix Pro­gram (1990), in a recent inter­view told me that Phoenix went pub­lic in 1968 under the jus­ti­fi­ca­tion that it was “pro­tect­ing the peo­ple from terrorism”—like with the SBU pro­grams today. The deten­tions were large­ly designed to encour­age defec­tions while strik­ing fear in the pub­lic.

Accord­ing to Valen­tine, on Jan­u­ary 6, 1969, New York Times reporter Drum­mond Ayres offered a favor­able com­men­tary on Oper­a­tion Phoenix, say­ing that “more than 15,000 of the 80,000 VC [Viet­cong] polit­i­cal agents thought to be in South Viet­nam are said to have been cap­tured or killed.”

Ayres fur­ther expressed the belief that “the gen­er­al course of the war…now appears to favor the Gov­ern­ment” and pre­dict­ed that Phoenix would “achieve much greater suc­cess as the center’s files grow.”

Despite the good reviews, Valen­tine said that the sur­fac­ing of Phoenix in the press sent the pub­lic­i­ty-shy CIA run­ning for cov­er, and led to new leg­is­la­tion designed to legit­i­mate its activ­i­ties.

Sim­i­lar­ly today, as more infor­ma­tion comes to light, we may see renewed CIA efforts to try to legit­i­mate its under­cov­er oper­a­tions and to bur­nish the image of its proxy forces in Ukraine whose modus operandi—like that of its pre­de­ces­sors in Vietnam—is moral­ly abhor­rent.

 

2.  “CIA Behind Secret Plots to Kid­nap, Tor­ture and Assas­si­nate Ukrain­ian Dis­si­dents for Pres­i­dent Zelen­sky, says Ukraine Defec­tor” by Jere­my Kuz­marov; 4/25/2022.

Tech­niques of Tor­ture and Assas­si­na­tion Deployed by the SBU (Ukraine’s CIA) Recall the U.S.’s Bru­tal “Oper­a­tion Phoenix” in Viet­nam

Vasi­ly Pro­zorov, a for­mer offi­cer with the Secu­ri­ty Ser­vices of Ukraine (SBU) stat­ed soon after his defec­tion to Rus­sia in 2018 that the SBU had been advised by the CIA since 2014.

“CIA employ­ees [who have been present in Kyiv since 2014] are resid­ing in clan­des­tine apart­ments and sub­ur­ban hous­es,” he said. “How­ev­er, they fre­quent­ly come to the SBU’s cen­tral office for hold­ing, for exam­ple, spe­cif­ic meet­ings or plot­ting secret oper­a­tions.”

See video: https://thegrayzone.com/2022/04/17/traitor-zelensky-assassination-kidnapping-arrest-political-opposition/

Vasi­ly Pro­zorov (left) at work in the anti-ter­ror­ist oper­a­tion zone in Donet­sk region with Colonel Sergey Krivonos. [Source: mirror.co.uk]Vasi­ly Pro­zorov [Source: tellerreport.com].[

Prozorov’s rev­e­la­tions take on extreme­ly omi­nous impli­ca­tions in light of a new report by The Gray­zone Project detail­ing the SBU’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in a cam­paign of assas­si­na­tion, kid­nap­ping and tor­ture over­seen by Ukrain­ian Pres­i­dent and West­ern media dar­ling Volodymyr Zelen­sky.

The cam­paign bears com­par­i­son with Oper­a­tion Phoenix in South Viet­nam, which result­ed in the killing, impris­on­ment and tor­ture of thou­sands of South Viet­namese, includ­ing civil­ian offi­cials accused of being loy­al to the left-wing, anti-impe­ri­al­ist Nation­al Lib­er­a­tion Front (NLF).

Dur­ing con­gres­sion­al hear­ings in 1971, Ogden Reid (D‑NY) said that, “if the Union had had a Phoenix pro­gram dur­ing the Civ­il War, its tar­gets would have been civil­ians like Jef­fer­son Davis or the may­or of Macon, Geor­gia.”[1]

In the Ukrain­ian case, one of the tar­gets of the SBU death squads was the may­or of the east­ern city of Kreminna in the Ukrain­ian-con­trolled side of Luhan­sk, Volodymyr Struk.

On March 1, Struk was kid­napped by men in mil­i­tary uni­form and then shot in the heart, with his tor­tured body dis­played before the pub­lic. Struk had report­ed­ly urged his Ukrain­ian col­leagues to com­pro­mise and nego­ti­ate with pro-Russ­ian offi­cials.

Anton Gerashchenko, an advis­er to the Ukrain­ian Min­istry of Inter­nal Affairs, cel­e­brat­ed the mayor’s mur­der, declar­ing on his Telegram page: “There is one less trai­tor in Ukraine.” 

Gerashchenko has com­piled a “black­list of ene­mies of the state.” It includes jour­nal­ists who have been mur­dered by state-backed death squads, such as promi­nent colum­nist Oles Buz­i­na, whose name had appeared on the list.[2]

As of today, eleven may­ors in Ukrain­ian towns are miss­ing. On March 7, the may­or of Gos­tomel, Yuri Pry­lyp­ko, was found mur­dered. Pry­lyp­ko had report­ed­ly entered into nego­ti­a­tions with the Russ­ian mil­i­tary to orga­nize a human­i­tar­i­an cor­ri­dor for the evac­u­a­tion of his city’s residents—a red line for Ukrain­ian ultra-nation­al­ists who had long been in con­flict with the mayor’s office. (The Ukraini­ans claim that Pry­lop­ko was killed by Russ­ian sol­diers while dis­trib­ut­ing food and med­i­cine)

Then there was the mur­der of Denis Kireev, a top mem­ber of the Ukrain­ian nego­ti­at­ing team, who was killed in broad day­light in Kyiv after the first round of talks with Rus­sia. Kireev was sub­se­quent­ly accused in local Ukrain­ian media of “trea­son.”

Pres­i­dent Zelen­sky stat­ed that “there would be con­se­quences for col­lab­o­ra­tors,” indi­cat­ing his sup­port for the Phoenix-style oper­a­tions.

Police State

Cur­rent­ly, Zelen­sky is pro­mot­ing a bill that would expand the SBU’s pow­ers. The head of the SBU, Ivan Bakonov, is a close friend of his.

The direc­tor of SBU’s coun­ter­in­tel­li­gence, Olek­san­dr Pok­lad, is nick­named “The Stran­gler.” He has a rep­u­ta­tion for using tor­ture and assort­ed dirty tricks to set up his boss­es’ polit­i­cal rivals on trea­son charges.

In a March 19 exec­u­tive order, Zelen­sky invoked mar­tial law to ban 11 oppo­si­tion par­ties. The out­lawed par­ties con­sist­ed of the entire left-wing, social­ist or anti-NATO spec­trum in Ukraine. They includ­ed the For Life Par­ty, the Left Oppo­si­tion, the Pro­gres­sive Social­ist Par­ty of Ukraine, the Social­ist Par­ty of Ukraine, Union of Left Forces, Social­ists, the Par­ty of Shariy, Ours, State, Oppo­si­tion Bloc and the Volodymyr Sal­do Bloc.

Open­ly fas­cist and pro-Nazi par­ties like the Azov Nation­al Corps were left untouched.

On April 12, Zelen­sky announced the arrest of his prin­ci­pal polit­i­cal rival, Vik­tor Medved­chuk, by the SBU. In a pho­to released to the pub­lic, Medvedchuk’s face appeared to be swollen and bruised, the like­ly result of beat­ings by SBU goons.

Inmates con­sid­ered SBU-run pris­ons to be “like a small Guan­tanamo.” Beat­ings took place at all hours of the night amidst the back­drop of Ukrain­ian nation­al­ist music.

Phoenix Redux

Dou­glas Valen­tine, author of the sem­i­nal book The Phoenix Pro­gram (1990), sees eerie par­al­lels between the orig­i­nal Phoenix pro­gram and Zelensky’s oper­a­tions today. In both cas­es, Valen­tine told CAM in an exclu­sive inter­view, “neu­tral­ism wasn’t tol­er­at­ed.”

Valen­tine recount­ed how leg­endary CIA offi­cer Lucien Conein had told him that Phoenix was, “a very good black­mail scheme for the cen­tral gov­ern­ment. ‘If you don’t do what I want, you’re VC [Viet­cong].’”

This is sim­i­lar to Ukraine today—exemplified by the killing of gov­ern­ment nego­tia­tors who advo­cate for peace with Rus­sia, or may­ors adopt­ing a com­pro­mis­ing or neu­tral­ist line.

Valen­tine not­ed that under Phoenix, or Phung Hoang as it was called by the CIA’s South Viet­namese coun­ter­parts, due process was total­ly non-exis­tent. South Viet­namese civil­ians whose names appeared on black­lists could be kid­napped, tor­tured and mur­dered sim­ply on the word of an anony­mous informer—which is again hap­pen­ing in Ukraine.

Telling­ly, after Volodymyr Struk’s death, Anton Gerashchenko claimed that Struk had been judged by the “court of the people’s tri­bunal” rather than any for­mal legal state court struc­ture.

‘Ram­page Against Any and All Iter­a­tions of Inter­nal Polit­i­cal Oppo­si­tion”

The Gray­zone Project report­ed that, since Russ­ian troops entered Ukraine on Feb­ru­ary 24, “Ukraine’s SBU secu­ri­ty ser­vice had been on a ram­page against any and all iter­a­tions of inter­nal polit­i­cal oppo­si­tion,” which indeed sounds a lot like Phioenix. “Left­ist Ukrain­ian activists have faced par­tic­u­lar­ly harsh treat­ment, includ­ing kid­nap­ping and tor­ture.”

On March 3 in the city of Dnipro, SBU offi­cers accom­pa­nied by Azov ultra-nation­al­ists raid­ed the homes of activists with the Liviz­ja (Left) orga­ni­za­tion, which has orga­nized against social spend­ing cuts and right-wing media pro­pa­gan­da.

While one activist said the Azov mem­ber “cut my hair off with a knife,” the state secu­ri­ty agents pro­ceed­ed to tor­ture her hus­band, Alexan­der Matjuschenko, press­ing a gun bar­rel to his head and forc­ing him to repeat­ed­ly belt out the nation­al­ist salute, “Sla­va Ukrai­ni!”

“Then they put bags over our heads, tied our hands with tape and took us to the SBU build­ing in a car. There they con­tin­ued to inter­ro­gate us and threat­ened to cut off our ears,” Matjuschenko’s wife told the Ger­man pub­li­ca­tion Junge Welt.

The Azov mem­bers and SBU agents record­ed the tor­ture ses­sion and pub­lished images of Matjuschenko’s blood­ied face online.

The tor­ture of left-wing activist Alexan­der Matjuschenko on March 3 in Dnipro, record­ed by Azov mem­bers and post­ed on Telegram by the city of Dnipro. [Source: thegrayzone.com]

Matjuschenko was jailed on the grounds that he was “con­duct­ing an aggres­sive war or mil­i­tary oper­a­tion,” and now faces 10 to 15 years in prison. Despite endur­ing sev­er­al bro­ken ribs from the beat­ing by state-backed ultra-nation­al­ists, he has been denied bail. Mean­while, dozens of oth­er left­ists have been jailed on sim­i­lar charges in Dnipro.

Among those tar­get­ed by the SBU were Mikhail and Alek­sander Kononovich, mem­bers of the out­lawed Lenin­ist Com­mu­nist Youth Union of Ukraine. Both were arrest­ed and jailed on March 6 and accused of “spread­ing pro-Russ­ian and pro-Belaru­sian views.”

In the fol­low­ing days, the SBU arrest­ed broad­cast jour­nal­ist Yan Taksyur and charged him with trea­son; human rights activist Ele­na Berezh­naya; Ele­na Viach­eslavov­na, a human rights advo­cate whose father, Mikhail, was burned to death dur­ing the May 2, 2014 ultra-nation­al­ist mob attack on anti-Maid­an pro­test­ers out­side the Odessa House of Trade Unions; inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ist Yuri Tkachev, who was charged with trea­son; dis­abled rights activist Oleg Novikov, who was jailed for three years this April on the grounds that he sup­port­ed “sep­a­ratism”; and an untold num­ber of oth­ers.

These cas­es are all rem­i­nis­cent of the Phoenix pro­gram in Viet­nam, where Provin­cial Recon­nais­sance Unit (PRU) goon squads trained by the CIA tar­get­ed human rights and oth­er polit­i­cal activists, jour­nal­ists and oppo­nents of the Thieu-Ky clique that Wash­ing­ton had propped up in South Viet­nam.

In the Ukraine case, Zelen­sky may have gone one step fur­ther: There are reports that SBU agents have tried to kid­nap and kill dis­si­dents abroad, includ­ing oppo­si­tion fig­ure Ana­toly Shariy, a crit­ic of Zelen­sky and his pre­de­ces­sor Petro Poroshenko and 2014 Maid­an coup who was brand­ed by the Lithuan­ian media as a “favorite friend of Putin.”

Fas­cist Lin­eage

Accord­ing to the World Social­ist web­site, the SBU—a suc­ces­sor of the Stal­in­ist secret ser­vice KGB in Ukraine—has long-stand­ing ties to the Ukrain­ian far right, includ­ing the neo-fas­cist Azov Bat­tal­ion.

It has been heav­i­ly involved in efforts by the Ukrain­ian state to reha­bil­i­tate the Nazi col­lab­o­ra­tionist orga­ni­za­tions, the Ukrain­ian Insur­gency Army (UPA), and the Orga­ni­za­tion of Ukrain­ian Nation­al­ists (OUN), which was head­ed dur­ing World War II by fas­cist Stepan Ban­dera.

Valen­tyn Naly­vaichenko, the first head of the SBU after the Euro­maid­an regime-change oper­a­tion of 2013–2014, declared in 2015 that the SBU “does not need to invent any­thing new, it is impor­tant to build on the tra­di­tions of the Orga­ni­za­tion of Ukrain­ian Nation­al­ists (OUN) and UPA in the 1930–1950 years.”

Dur­ing World War II, Ukrain­ian fas­cists of the OUN‑B were involved in the mas­sacres of tens of thou­sands of Jews and Poles, as well as of Ukrain­ian oppo­nents of fas­cism. After the war and well into the 1950s, both the OUN‑B and UPA were engaged in an insur­gency against Sovi­et rule, with back­ing from the CIA, dur­ing which the UPA killed anoth­er 20,000 Ukrain­ian civil­ians.

CIA Paci­fi­ca­tion

Not sur­pris­ing per­haps giv­en his his­tor­i­cal out­look, Naly­vaichenko nur­tured close ties to Wash­ing­ton when he served as gen­er­al con­sul to the Ukrain­ian Embassy in the U.S. dur­ing the George W. Bush admin­is­tra­tion. Dur­ing that time, Naly­vaichenko was recruit­ed by the CIA, accord­ing to his pre­de­ces­sor at the SBU, Alexan­der Yaki­menko, who served under the Russ­ian-ori­ent­ed gov­ern­ment of deposed Pres­i­dent Vik­tor Yanukovych.[3]

Dou­glas Valen­tine believes that the CIA “is apply­ing the same orga­ni­za­tion­al struc­ture in Ukraine as it used in South Viet­nam to con­duct an updat­ed ver­sion of the typ­i­cal ‘two tier’ Phoenix pro­gram. The top tier is to assure polit­i­cal con­trol, the low­er tier to paci­fy the pop­u­la­tion.”

Valen­tine con­tin­ued:

“Orga­ni­za­tion­al­ly, Phoenix coor­di­nates CIA for­eign intel­li­gence and covert action offi­cers and oper­a­tions from the high­est nation­al lev­el through the provinces down to the most remote ter­ri­to­r­i­al out­posts.

For­eign intel­li­gence offi­cers advise SBU secu­ri­ty ser­vice to assure ‘top tier’ inter­nal secu­ri­ty and polit­i­cal con­trol; and Ukrain­ian CIA agents run ops into Don­bas, Rus­sia and Belarus, send­ing ille­gal trav­el­ers, smug­glers, and agents to set up agent nets and pen­e­trate the ene­my in his ter­ri­to­ry, [and car­ry out] sab­o­tage and sub­ver­sion. SBU and Ukrain­ian CIA are where hit-lists get authored. CIA offi­cers advise mil­i­tary, mili­tias and mer­ce­nar­ies in deni­able polit­i­cal, para­mil­i­tary and psy­cho­log­i­cal oper­a­tions to ter­ror­ize and oth­er­wise per­suade civil­ian pop­u­la­tion to sup­port Zelen­sky while demor­al­iz­ing and fight­ing the ene­my.”

As in Viet­nam, some of the CIA agents may be oper­at­ing under the cov­er of State Depart­ment-run police train­ing pro­grams which were insti­tut­ed in Ukraine after the 2014 Maid­an coup.[4] Oth­ers were known to have been assigned to spe­cial­ized para­mil­i­tary units fight­ing in east­ern Ukraine.[5]

Phoenix Always Ris­ing from the Ash­es

Accord­ing to Valen­tine, the dis­as­ter now unfold­ing in Ukraine has long been in the works. Start­ing in 1991 with the fall of the USSR, the CIA began buy­ing prop­er­ty and set­ting up orga­ni­za­tions and busi­ness­es in Ukraine so it would have fronts and safe hous­es.

“All these things serve as places where CIA offi­cers can meet and plot and engage in uni­lat­er­al recruit­ments to put politi­cians and civ­il ser­vants and busi­ness­men in place who can assure that the CIA can reor­ga­nize the econ­o­my and the gov­ern­ment and put a Defense Min­is­ter and Min­is­ter of the Inte­ri­or in place who is on their pay­roll, who will then appoint police chiefs who will be on the CIA payroll—for the pur­pose of fur­ther­ing U.S. pol­i­cy, not Ukraine pol­i­cy.”

The ulti­mate goal since 1991 was to start a war in the Ukraine against Rus­sia, which weak­ens Rus­sia but also forces Ukraini­ans to flee the war zones. As soon as that hap­pens, the prices go down and who is going to go swoop­ing in there to buy it up?

Mean­while, Valen­tine says, “the CIA is build­ing a com­pat­i­ble civ­il base through uni­lat­er­al recruit­ments. Also, U.S. uni­ver­si­ties and unions send advis­ers to help cre­ate schools and indoc­tri­nate youth and work­ers.

Busi­ness advis­ers cre­ate a Rotary Club and a Cham­ber of Com­merce. They cre­ate a for­eign rela­tions coun­cil. This is how the CIA rules a for­eign soci­ety: through the own­er­ship of prop­er­ty and hav­ing the prop­er peo­ple in gov­ern­ment secu­ri­ty and defense indus­tries and con­trol of the civic insti­tu­tions.”

Accord­ing to Valen­tine, “the CIA is work­ing with bankers. They want Ukraini­ans putting their mon­ey in a Mor­gan Stan­ley bro­ker­age firm in Kyiv. They want to suck the life out of Ukraini­ans. Peo­ple do it on the promise of a brighter future—others are bribed, still oth­ers like Zelen­sky in my hum­ble opin­ion are black­mailed.”

“What­ev­er, the CIA is manip­u­lat­ing them toward U.S. poli­cies. CIA offi­cers are recruit­ing peo­ple and putting them in place, hav­ing them sign con­tracts.

It would be like the Rus­sians com­ing here to the Unit­ed States and recruit­ing peo­ple and our police forces and our gov­ern­ment insti­tu­tions. It’s ille­gal. You can’t do it. You can’t take mon­ey from a for­eign intel­li­gence agency and work against your own gov­ern­ment, but that is what the CIA is doing in the Ukraine right now on a mas­sive scale.”

Valen­tine fur­ther notes:

“They’re always find­ing a rea­son to start a war, so they can send the next gen­er­a­tion of young men into bat­tle, to learn how to kill peo­ple in the most bru­tal fashion—that’s Phoenix, always ris­ing from the ash­es of war. The U.S. has an imper­a­tive to be as super-aggres­sive as it can be, so it doesn’t lose its edge. If its preda­to­ry impulse to dom­i­nate was stilt­ed in Viet­nam, that doesn’t mean the sol­diers and spies aren’t going to pop up some­place else. They’re always going to pop up some­place else. They always do. Like in Ukraine.”

Where Is the Con­gres­sion­al Over­sight?

Valen­tine point­ed out that, at the con­clu­sion of the con­gres­sion­al hear­ings into the orig­i­nal Phoenix pro­gram in 1971, Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Pete McCloskey (R‑CA), John Cony­ers (D‑MI), Ben Rosen­thal (D‑NY), and Bel­la Abzug (D‑NY) stat­ed their belief that “the peo­ple of these Unit­ed States … have delib­er­ate­ly imposed on the Viet­namese peo­ple a sys­tem of jus­tice which admit­ted­ly denies due process of law…. In so doing, we appear to have vio­lat­ed the 1949 Gene­va Con­ven­tion for the pro­tec­tion of civil­ian peo­ples” in time of war.”

“Some of us who have vis­it­ed Viet­nam,” they fur­ther said, “share a real fear that the Phoenix pro­gram is an instru­ment of ter­ror… and that U.S. civil­ian and mil­i­tary per­son­nel have par­tic­i­pat­ed for over three years in the delib­er­ate denial of due process of law to thou­sands of peo­ple held in secret inter­ro­ga­tion cen­ters built with U.S. dol­lars.” They added that “Con­gress owes a duty to act swift­ly and deci­sive­ly to see that the prac­tices involved are ter­mi­nat­ed forth­with.”[6]

Now where is the con­gres­sion­al over­sight of the CIA’s abus­es in Ukraine? And main­stream media scruti­ny, which would gen­er­ate the kind of pub­lic out­rage nec­es­sary for insti­tut­ing con­gres­sion­al hear­ings?

Dou­glas Valen­tine, The Phoenix Pro­gram (Lin­coln, NE: iUni­verse, 2000), 13. ↑

Buz­i­na advo­cat­ed for uni­ty among Ukraine, Belarus, and Rus­sia and cam­paigned to out­law neo-Nazi orga­niz­ing. ↑

Mint­press report­ed that the CIA has an entire floor in the SBU head­quar­ters in Kyiv. ↑

For the his­tor­i­cal pat­tern, see Jere­my Kuz­marov, Mod­ern­iz­ing Repres­sion: Police Train­ing and Nation Build­ing in the Amer­i­can Cen­tu­ry (Amherst, MA: Uni­ver­si­ty of Mass­a­chu­setts Press, 2012). ↑

CIA agents trained their Ukrain­ian coun­ter­parts, accord­ing to a Yahoo News exposé, in sniper tech­niques and use of Javelin anti-tank mis­siles. ↑

Valen­tine, The Phoenix Pro­gram, 235. ↑