Ian Carroll, FIVE STARS TRUST, and the ‘Poppy’ Bush story. It is only a video, but it’s a must-watch.

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Interestingly, now that I’m trying to post it, I see that this video can’t be embedded into a WordPress site. I highly recommend you watch it anyway!

I won’t write much in this post; I really just want people to watch the video. I will only point out two things.

First, there is the mention of the Phoenix Program.

42:13

There is a note about William Colby, who later became the Director of the CIA. Colby became obsessed with his power; before he finished with the Phoenix Program — which you can look up — over 20,000 suspects were executed. Additionally, over 2,500 U.S. citizens were accused by Colby of being collaborators, and they subsequently vanished.

This part is connected to my post:

Douglas Valentine on the CIA as Organized Crime (must watch) and education: “Structural violence is the tool of the professional.”

In that video, Douglas Valentine discusses the Phoenix Program and argues that the creation of the Department of Homeland Security after 9/11 was essentially a "Phoenix 2.0" program established to target the American population.

1:26

The Phoenix Program has been misunderstood in popular culture as an assassination program. However, the components involved in assassinations were already in existence by the time Phoenix was formed. To properly understand Phoenix, you must view it as an attempt to bureaucratize and streamline intelligence collection and the operations generated from that collection.

After 9/11, the same coordinating system used in South Vietnam was applied here in the United States within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Within a month of 9/11, the Bush Administration created the Office of Homeland Security. Through Congressional legislation a year later, this resulted in the Department of Homeland Security.

When the original office was established, the man chosen as Chief of Staff was Bruce Lawler. Lawler is an interesting figure whom I interviewed for my book, The Phoenix Program. He had been a CIA officer in South Vietnam during the war and worked closely with Phoenix. He understood the program deeply. One thing you will find about the entire Homeland Security apparatus in the United States is that when it was created, it was not only modeled on the Phoenix Program as a bureaucracy to coordinate existing programs and agencies, but it was actually staffed at the highest levels by Phoenix veterans.

People like Lawler, who had transitioned from the CIA to military civic affairs — the branch of the military involved with civilian organizations, police, and businesses — were the ones who put this system in place. This "critical infrastructure" includes parts of civilian industry that work with the arms industry and law enforcement. These various parts of American society have been militarized and coordinated under the DHS.

The resemblance to the Phoenix Program is striking. Just as Phoenix relied on intelligence operations and coordinating centers, the DHS relies on "fusion centers." Today, there is a fusion center in every state, just as there was a Phoenix intelligence and operations coordinating center in every province in Vietnam. These centers function exactly like their Vietnamese predecessors, to the point that they treat American citizens as suspects. In this age of terrorism, they consider American citizens to be just as suspect as the South Vietnamese government and its CIA allies considered every citizen in South Vietnam: a potential terrorist or someone supporting an insurgency. This is exactly how the Department of Homeland Security treats Americans today, as shown in the many examples I provide in my book.

I would also like to highlight General Ferrara’s lack of a public record; there is virtually no evidence of his existence and only a single known photograph of him. Additionally, I want to mention a video I’ve posted regarding Theodore Shackley, also known as 'The Blond Ghost.'

Theodore Shackley, nicknamed 'The Blond Ghost' (who, by the way, had a Polish mother and was raised in a Polish household), was a high-level CIA official. Unlike General Ferrara, his existence is well-documented — so much so that entire books have been written about him. But interestingly, in this video, the author says:

4:43

Ted Shackley’s general absence and near omission from many CIA histories is somewhat understandable, as his activities remain shrouded and obscured to this day. Shackley was known primarily for being elusive, and that may be an understatement. Finding photos where he is front and center remains a difficult task; the only widely publicized photo where he is center-frame is the author photo on the back of his first book, The Third Option, originally published in 1981.

Beyond a handful of tracked-down images, I sincerely believe he was never captured publicly on video. I have looked everywhere—this has become somewhat of a "white whale" for me—and yet I have never been able to find a single video recording of him.

This level of elusiveness would be completely understandable for a low or even medium-level CIA operative; after all, maintaining a low profile is part of the job. However, Ted Shackley was no small fish, which makes his continued anonymity an increasingly remarkable feat.

This is quite interesting and provides context regarding the lack of evidence surrounding General Ferrara. If someone as high-ranking in the CIA as Ted Shackley — whose existence is so well-documented that he both wrote books and had books written about him — has almost no photographs and was never captured on video, it demonstrates that the lack of evidence for General Ferrara is possible. I am not claiming to be certain that General Ferrara or his story is real, but the elusiveness of a prominent figure like Shackley makes the Ferrara account feel more plausible.

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false."

― former CIA Director William J. Casey