[D66] Book Review: The CIA as organized crime

[René Oudeweg]

CIA: "Capitalism's Invisible Army"

propagandastudies.org 
<https://propagandastudies.org/resources/reviews-of-of-books-documentaries-and-films/book-review-the-cia-as-organised-crime-by-douglas-valentine/> 



  ‘The CIA as Organised Crime’ by Douglas Valentine – Organisation for
  Propaganda Studies

7–9 minutes
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*/The CIA as Organized Crime: How Illegal Operations Corrupt America and 
the World /by Douglas Valentine 
<https://propagandastudies.org/resources/reviews-of-of-books-documentaries-and-films/book-review-the-cia-as-organised-crime-by-douglas-valentine/_wp_link_placeholder> 
(2016, Atlanta, GA: Clarity Press, Inc).*

*Review by T.J. Coles*

Douglas Valentine is an American journalist renowned for the dual 
approach of interviewing multiple sources and consulting the documentary 
record. The National Security Archive at George Washington University 
even boasts The Douglas Valentine Collection, which consists mainly of 
his interviews with people involved in the Central Intelligence Agency 
(CIA). His previous books have included exposés of the US government’s 
Phoenix Program (the part-counterinsurgency, part-heroin trafficking 
operation in Vietnam, documented in Valentine’s eponymous book), and 
/The Strength of the Wolf/, which explored corruption in the now-defunct 
US Federal Bureau of Narcotics. Valentine’s works to date have 
challenged the self-aggrandising myth of US moral supremacy, both in its 
foreign and domestic policies.

Valentine’s latest, /The CIA as Organized Crime/, is a compilation of 
interviews conducted by academics and journalists with the author, as 
well as articles that have appeared elsewhere. The book argues that 
there are different levels of criminality. Petty crooks are at the 
bottom. Gangs are at another level. By the time we get to organisations 
like the CIA, crime is not only rampant within, crime (as an underlying 
tactic of social domination) is the very purpose of those organisations. 
Crime is a means of maintaining and expanding power and profit, 
frequently employing unlawful and immoral methods of doing so. This is 
quite a different picture from the CIA painted by mainstream media; that 
of a secretive bureaucracy sometimes doing bad for the greater good of 
protecting the US populace.

The book is structured as a narrative, making it easy to read. Valentine 
begins by noting that the CIA is structured like a military unit and 
that many officers think of themselves as soldiers. This is significant, 
given that the Agency is officially civilian and ultimately controlled 
by Congress and the Executive (another myth exploded by Valentine). 
Structurally, the CIA is an ‘“old boy” network’ (p. 26) above a certain 
administrative level, whose secrecy obscures the true workings of the 
Agency to those working below.

Valentine says that other journalists who have successfully penetrated 
the network, notably Gary Webb (who allegedly committed suicide (p. 27)) 
and Alfred McCoy (who felt compelled to leave the USA for many years (p. 
27)) have been victimised not only by the Agency, but, more alarmingly, 
by their colleagues in journalism. This is not too surprising, says 
Valentine, because it is not just ‘that the CIA infiltrated journalism, 
rather that the CIA is promoting the business of journalism’ (p. 
139-40). Valentine cites some interesting cases: At the turn of the 
Millennium, psychological operations specialists were caught working for 
National Public Radio and CNN (pp. 102, 421n1); the CIA seeds media 
stories (e.g., the case of reporter John Barry who told tall tales about 
Iraq in the lead-up to the 2003 invasion (p. 89)); and the CIA’s 
information-gathering venture capital, In-Q-Tel (p. 133).

Valentine agrees with and quotes (p. 137) the late, ex-CIA officer and 
whistleblower, Philip Agee, who half-jokingly said that CIA standards 
for Capitalism’s Invisible Army. The architecture of deception shaped in 
part by the CIA via its media influence helps not only to hide its 
structural (i.e., institutionalised greed) as opposed to specific crimes 
(e.g., torture), but when certain crimes do come to light, mass media 
try to shape the public perception of the CIA as working in the greater 
interests of the American people. In fact, the CIA is working to promote 
the general business culture of the US elite, or ‘capitalists’ as 
Valentine calls them. Valentine agrees with interviewer Ryan Dawson, 
that the CIA is ‘the secret military wing of the plutocrats’ (p. 137).

In order to shape this world order, the CIA and US military, which 
continue to work together, murder innocent people in Afghanistan and 
Iraq, using tactics acquired in Vietnam. In Vietnam, the CIA actively 
recruited hardened criminals (p. 117) to do its dirty work, including 
drug-running. In Cuba, it worked with local mafia as part of anti-regime 
activities (p. 138). Today, it uses drones (p. 103). It hacks and 
infiltrates foreign businesses and governments with its recent Digital 
Directorate (p. 157). It plays a hand in the so-called Colour 
Revolutions (p. 169). It unconstitutionally assists in blacklisting 
travellers (pp. 312-13). It works with the State Department’s Agency for 
International Development to exploit ‘developing’ countries (p. 369).

These are important themes and, building on his earlier works, Valentine 
has compiled a kind of anti-CIA handbook, which will doubtless inspire a 
new generation of researchers.

The book’s main flaws are twofold. One, it fails to address exactly how 
the CIA is organised crime, as opposed to how the CIA contributes to the 
organised crime that is the US Empire. The evidence is clear that, by 
drug-running, murdering, torturing, and having its own venture capital 
firms, the CIA supports an exploitative system of international plunder 
and greed. But the CIA is an arm of the US Empire. Empire is a crime by 
the very nature of its having power over others and using that power to 
the detriment of the oppressed. The CIA is merely an element of this 
overall criminal, global structure.

Two, Valentine has a tendency to attack other journalists, including 
those who have done courageous work: Glenn Greenwald (p. 130), Seymour 
Hersh (p. 322-23), and Jeremy Scahill (pp. 28-34). Valentine argues that 
because these journalists allegedly don’t critique the CIA’s role in the 
overall system of US ‘capitalism’, ergo they aren’t being honest. He 
also says that they work for paymasters linked to the system: e.g., 
Greenwald and Scahill work for /The Intercept/, which is funded (via 
First Outlook Media) by the eBay billionaire, Pierre Omidyar. For that 
reason, their journalism only goes so far.

The latter is a valid point which raises questions about the agendas of 
editors and the limits of journalism. Valentine previously exposed the 
fact that one hero of the ‘left’, Daniel Ellsberg (who famously leaked 
the Pentagon Papers) was ex-CIA and, Valentine alleges, was instructed 
to leak them (pp. 29-30). The ‘left’ chose to ignore the shattered image 
of their hero. But, where Hersh et al. are concerned, in the absence of 
a case-by-case analysis, Valentine’s criticisms come across as sour 
grapes. It would seem that being ostracised or marginalised by academics 
and media colleagues (McCoy, Webb, and academic Peter Dale Scott) is a 
badge of honour for Valentine (pp. 30-33, 26-27, 31). Making it big 
(Greenwald, Scahill, and Hersh) is a sign of being a shill. This is an 
unfortunate and baseless perspective which only sows division among 
critics of US power.

Putting that aside, the book remains essential reading.

/T.J. Coles is a postdoctoral researcher at Plymouth University’s 
Cognition Institute and the author of several books, including /Real 
Fake News /(Red Pill Press, 2018)./








claritypress.com 
<https://www.claritypress.com/product/the-cia-as-organized-crime/>


  THE CIA AS ORGANIZED CRIME

Douglas Valentine
*
*
~4 minutes
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    Description

We live in a world increasingly fearful of terrorism and catalyzed by 
programmed events and developments whose sources are often unclear.  
This book provides insight into the paradigmatic approaches evolved by 
CIA decades ago in Vietnam which remain operational practices today in 
Afghanistan, El Salvador, Iraq, Syria, Yemen and elsewhere.

Author of three books on CIA operations, Valentine’s research into CIA 
activities began when CIA Director William Colby gave him free access to 
interview CIA officials who had been involved in various aspects of the 
Phoenix program in South Vietnam. It was a permission Colby was to 
regret. The CIA would rescind it, making every effort to impede 
publication of The Phoenix Program, which documented the CIA’s elaborate 
system of population surveillance, control, entrapment, imprisonment, 
torture and assassination in Vietnam.

While researching Phoenix, Valentine learned that the CIA allowed opium 
and heroin to flow from its secret bases in Laos, to generals and 
politicians on its payroll in South Vietnam. His investigations into 
this illegal activity focused on the CIA’s relationship with the federal 
drugs agencies mandated by Congress to stop illegal drugs from entering 
the United States. Based on interviews with senior officials, Valentine 
wrote two subsequent books, The Strength of the Wolf and The Strength of 
the Pack, showing how the CIA infiltrated federal drug law enforcement 
agencies and commandeered their executive management, intelligence and 
foreign operations staffs in order to ensure that the flow of drugs 
continues unimpeded to traffickers and foreign officials in its employ.

Ultimately, portions of his research materials would be archived at the 
National Security Archive, Texas Tech University’s Vietnam Center, and 
John Jay College.

This book includes excerpts from the above titles along with subsequent 
articles and transcripts of interviews on a range of current topics, 
with a view to shedding light on the systemic dimensions of the CIA’s 
ongoing illegal and extra-legal activities. These terrorism and drug law 
enforcement articles and interviews illustrate how the CIA’s activities 
impact social and political movements abroad and in the United States.

A common theme is the CIA’s ability to deceive and propagandize the 
American public through its impenetrable government-sanctioned shield of 
official secrecy and plausible deniability.

Though investigated by the Church Committee in 1975, CIA praxis then 
continues to inform CIA praxis now. Valentine tracks its steady 
infiltration into practices targeting the last population to be 
subjected to the exigencies of the American empire: the American people.

Author Picture


      Douglas Valentine
      <https://www.claritypress.com/book-author/douglas-valentine/>

Douglas Valentine is an American journalist and author of four works of 
historical non-fiction: The Hotel Tacloban, The Phoenix Program, The 
Strength of the Wolf (winner of the Choice Academic Library Award), and 
The Strength of the Pack. His articles have appeared regularly in 
CounterPunch, ConsortiumNews, and elsewhere.
Portions of his research materials are archived at the National Security 
Archive (both a Vietnam Collection and a separate Drug Enforcement 
Collection), Texas Tech University’s Vietnam Center, and John Jay 
College. He provided expert testimony at the King v Jowers trial on the 
Martin Luther King, Jr. assassination at the request of the King family.
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