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Phoenix and the Birds of Prey: Counterinsurgency and Counterterrorism in Vietnam Paperback – Illustrated, December 10, 2007
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Combining social and political history with a study of military operations, Moyar offers a fresh interpretation of the crucial role the shadow government played in the Viet Cong's ascent. Detailed accounts of intelligence operations provide an insider’s view of their development and reveal what really happened in the safe havens of the Viet Cong. Filled with new information, Moyar’s study sets the record straight about one of the last secrets of the Vietnam War and offers poignant lessons for dealing with future Third World insurgencies. This Bison Books edition includes a new preface and chapter by the author.
- Print length496 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherBison Books
- Publication dateDecember 10, 2007
- Dimensions6.08 x 1.04 x 9.04 inches
- ISBN-100803216025
- ISBN-13978-0803216020
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“Phoenix and the Birds of Prey is the definitive work on the Phoenix program to date, and will remain so for a long time.”—Periscope
“There are as yet only a few nonfiction works dealing with the Vietnam War that are worth the reader’s time. . . . We can happily add Mark Moyar's Phoenix and the Birds of Prey to this short list of ‘required reading.’”— John D. Waghelstein, Journal of Political and Military Sociology
“[Moyar] succeeds admirably. His work could be a textbook for the do's and don'ts of counterinsurgency warfare.”—William Nester, Asian Thought and Society
"At last! An intellectually and academically honest overview of the Phoenix Program. Moyar has balanced both the military and social historical perspectives and dealt fairly with all factions—American and Vietnamese, non-Communist and Communist, northern and southern—to give the reader the first full and sensible accounting of the Phoenix."—John M. Del Vecchio, author of The 13th Valley
"A fascinating, readable, long overdue exposition of the war in the shadows behind the big unit war in Vietnam."—Lt. Gen. Harold G. Moore, author of We Were Soldiers Once..and Young
"Mark Moyar's well-researched book will likely become a frequently cited reference. He addresses one of the least understood and least documented aspects of the Vietnam conflict with clarity and objectivity. Unlike the plethora of 'I was there' narratives and the histories that end with Tet of 1968, Moyar's book follows the conflict from beginning to end pointing out how changes in strategy, operations, and tactics impacted upon the campaign against the Viet Cong infrastructure."—Lt. Gen. James Terry Scott, Director, National Security Program
"Phoenix and the Birds of Prey elevates Mark Moyar to the ranks of the rare scholars who truly understand the Vietnam War and its warriors."—Lt. Col. Michael Lee Lanning, author of Inside the LRRPs
"Moyar's examination and assessments of the struggle against the Communist shadow government in South Vietnam are fresh and, in my view, right on the mark. His book warrants serious consideration by all scholars of the Vietnam War, as well as those who would apply the 'lessons' of that war to future American involvements."—Prof. James R. Reckner, Director Study of Vietnam Conference, Texas Tech University
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- Publisher : Bison Books; Illustrated edition (December 10, 2007)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 496 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0803216025
- ISBN-13 : 978-0803216020
- Item Weight : 1.45 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.08 x 1.04 x 9.04 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #424,496 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #383 in Terrorism (Books)
- #735 in Vietnam War History (Books)
- #3,034 in Asian History (Books)
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Moyar makes careful use of his footnotes, especially when they support his positions and tends to forget them when they do not. This tome is one of the least documented works on the Vietnam Conflict that I am aware of (among those writers that bothered with footnotes). The author also tends to like to make sweeping unsupported statements to maintain his thesis, contradicts his own supporting facts (often on the same page), and spends lots of time debunking other historians whose works on the counterinsurgency activities (or lack of them) in Vietnam contradict his own. One example of selective editing was Robert Komer's famous quote that Phoenix was "a poorly managed and largely ineffectual affair," does not appear anywhere in the text. This is pretty slack, considering that the CIA ran the program under the aegis of Komer's CORDS).
The old bugaboos of Vietnam also tend to raise their hoary old heads - the politicians and the anti-war protesters were responsible for the loss of Vietnam, not the generals, not the strategy, and most certainly not their enemy. The only fact that appeared in the text that was "new" to this reviewer was that one of the participants in the program laid the blame for any psychological problems faced by returning veterans solely at the door of the anti-war protesters. Interesting.
For basic information on Phoenix, its predecessors, the personalities involved (Vietnamese and American), its operations, etc... this is as good a work as we have gotten so far, but take it with a large dose of salt.








