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<div class="header reader-header reader-show-element">CIA:
"Capitalism's Invisible Army"<br>
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<div class="header reader-header reader-show-element"><a
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href="https://propagandastudies.org/resources/reviews-of-of-books-documentaries-and-films/book-review-the-cia-as-organised-crime-by-douglas-valentine/">propagandastudies.org</a>
<h1 class="reader-title">‘The CIA as Organised Crime’ by
Douglas Valentine – Organisation for Propaganda Studies</h1>
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dir="ltr">7–9 minutes</div>
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<p><strong><a
href="https://propagandastudies.org/resources/reviews-of-of-books-documentaries-and-films/book-review-the-cia-as-organised-crime-by-douglas-valentine/_wp_link_placeholder"
data-wplink-edit="true"><em>The CIA as Organized
Crime: How Illegal Operations Corrupt America
and the World </em>by Douglas Valentine</a>
(2016, Atlanta, GA: Clarity Press, Inc).</strong></p>
<p><strong>Review by T.J. Coles</strong></p>
<p>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 <em>The Strength
of the Wolf</em>, 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.</p>
<p>Valentine’s latest, <em>The CIA as Organized Crime</em>,
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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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).</p>
<p>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).</p>
<p>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).</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <em>The Intercept</em>, which is
funded (via First Outlook Media) by the eBay
billionaire, Pierre Omidyar. For that reason, their
journalism only goes so far.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Putting that aside, the book remains essential
reading.</p>
<p><em>T.J. Coles is a postdoctoral researcher at
Plymouth University’s Cognition Institute and the
author of several books, including </em>Real Fake
News <em>(Red Pill Press, 2018).</em></p>
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<div class="header reader-header reader-show-element"><a
class="domain reader-domain"
href="https://www.claritypress.com/product/the-cia-as-organized-crime/">claritypress.com</a>
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<h1 class="reader-title">THE CIA AS ORGANIZED CRIME</h1>
<div class="credits reader-credits">Douglas Valentine</div>
<div class="credits reader-credits"><strong><br>
</strong></div>
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data-l10n-args="{"range":"~4","rangePlural":"other"}"
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<h2>Description</h2>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Ultimately, portions of his research materials would be
archived at the National Security Archive, Texas Tech
University’s Vietnam Center, and John Jay College.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
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<figure><img
src="https://www.claritypress.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Valentine2-150x150.jpg"
alt="Author Picture"
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class="moz-reader-block-img" width="150" height="150"></figure>
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<h3><a
href="https://www.claritypress.com/book-author/douglas-valentine/">Douglas
Valentine</a></h3>
<p>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.<br>
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.</p>
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