the phoenix program
In life, there are many components that make up a whole. Often we do no see thelittle things that go behind the big picture. This is the case in times of war as well. Mostpeople think that in war there are just soldiers out in the field shooting at each other. However there is more to warfare than just bullets flying everywhere. In the Vietnamwar, everyone knew about the Viet Cong and their tactics they used. What most peopledo not know is that the United States also had their own strategies and counterinsurgencytactics to counter the North Vietnam and Viet Cong. My purpose is to inform the readersthat the US, who talked so much of Vietnam's aggression into the South, also had theirown aggression and counterinsurgency tactics, which were very necessary and also veryatrocious and shocking as the Viet Cong. This aggression was carried out through ahighly secretive program called "The Phoenix Program". The Phoenix Program was an operation to counter the Viet Cong. Before furtherdiscussing what the Phoenix Program was, one must first truly understand the Viet Congto see why the United States felt it was necessary to install the Phoenix Progra
Unfortunately, manyof those supplies ended up on the black market, or worse, in the hands of the Viet Cong. The program called Intelligence Coordination and Exploitation (ICEX) becamethe interim period suggested by Brickham. The most serious problem, as far ICEX was concerned, was the breakdown in theinterrogation process as VCI suspects went through the legal pipeline. But as the US military troop buildupprogressed in the early 1960s, more and more resources went toward battling the VietCong, and then to the North Vietnamese Army. Unfortunately, American troops were nottrained for such operations and they resorted to search operations, during which US andVietnamese forces would surround an unsuspecting village, search every dwelling, andquestion every inhabitant in hopes of flushing out any guerrillas or political cadre caughtup in the middle. There were a lot of storiesbehind the Phoenix program. The CTTs recruited men with combat experience andtrained them specifically for the rigors of small unit combat deep inside enemy territory. Both the SEALs and PRUs killed many VCIand Viet Cong guerrillas. As can be expected, ICEX had itsshortcomings. It was a trial-and-error affair designed to givethe US pacification effort time to work out the bugs of the system and then laterpresented to the GVN as a model to follow. However, the MilitaryAssistance Command of South Vietnam (MACV) was not listening. Assassination became the catchword, alabel that clung to the Phoenix program. They chose todisregard many of the lessons learned by those, mainly the French, who preceded them inAsia. Komer felt the"other war" was really the dominant war, the one that would determine the outcome ofthe entire conflict.
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