Tuesday Afternoon Cigar

A Rocky Patel Edge today.

I just started The Phoenix Program by Douglas Valentine.  It is about the CIA assassination program during the Vietnam War.  I've always wanted to know more about this.

I'm not sure I'll finish it.  I'm a bit turned-off by the author's repeated reminders of how the program ran counter to "American values" of due process, Geneva Convention, operations in Cambodia, blah blah blah.  His examples have not yet convinced me that we did anything wrong.  In fact, I'm encouraged to see that the CIA took the Communist threat seriously, and developed some creative methods to defeat the enemy.

One story had me laughing - the vampire story.

Some commies had a camp on a hill top.  The mission: get them to relocate.  The CIA-led team spread the rumor among nearby towns that there was a vampire on the hill, then waited a couple days for the rumor to migrate up the hill.  Then a SEAL team staked out a trail where the commies were known to patrol.  As a patrol went by, they snatched the last man in the stick, poked two holes in his neck, hung him upside down until all his blood was drained, then set his body next to the trail.  Shortly after his comrades found him, the camp moved.

I smoke today's cigar in honor of the men involved in the vampire operation!