"Act of Valor" Review

As noted the other week, I was invited to attend a special sneak preview of Act of Valor, which will be released for general audiences on February 17 of next year.  Although I really enjoyed the movie, a busy schedule with the day job and an untimely case of writer’s block prevented me from putting my thoughts down on paper (or on bytes . . . whatever).  Then this weekend I took my five-year old to see The Muppets.  Although the movies are polar opposites, noticing which gags nearly sent him out of his chair in convulsions of laughter and which jokes were too self-referential for anybody under thirty to understand, the light bulb went off as to what worked and what didn’t in Act of Valor -- and how to do the latter film justice.

The movie has already attracted a good deal of attention because of its gimmick of casting active duty Navy SEALs as the film’s heroes and its unabashedly kick-ass trailer. (Act of Valor, that is, not The Muppets, although the latter does involve a scene where Miss Piggy et al don ninja-gear to abduct a Hollywood star).  Act of Valor follows “Bandito” Platoon of the fictional SEAL Team 7 as it conducts a hostage rescue of a kidnapped CIA operative in Central America, during which they recover a cell phone that leads them to a wanted arms dealer/smuggler.  The subsequent manhunt uncovers a plan for a terrorist attack intended to rival 9/11, and as the intelligence puzzle is put together, “Bandito” platoon is forced to race against the clock in a series of missions on the high seas, Somalia, and finally in a climactic subterranean shootout on the U.S.-Mexico border.

As I watched the movie, I tried to imagine how critics would react to it as opposed to the members of the Special Operations community and guests who comprised the D.C. audience.  I think critics will point out that none of the SEALs are likely to challenge Leonardo DiCaprio or George Clooney for Best Actor at next year’s Oscars.  Apart from the action sequences – in which the SEALs utilize real-life tactics they have rehearsed and executed countless times – the acting is slightly wooden . . . although no worse than Ashton Kutcher anytime he tries to play anything other than a dumb guy. 

Critics will also likely bemoan the relative lack of character development.  Although two early scenes quickly introduce Bandito’s SEALs and establish that they have families they must leave behind (and especially that the team leader’s wife is pregnant with their first child), the team members are virtually indistinguishable throughout the rest of the film, so much so that only three of the eight SEALs are identifiable.  This may keep some critics/viewers from feeling invested in the fate of the characters, yet for anybody who has deployed in the last decade -- or for the family and spouses of those service members -- these brief scenes will resonate deeply.  (Full disclosure: I deployed to Iraq when the aforementioned five-year old was ten days old, so the scene with the team leader leaving his pregnant wife struck a personal chord . . . and I think somebody was peeling onions somewhere in the theater).

These shortcomings aside, Act of Valor works, and works well.  At heart, it is neither an action movie nor a war movie, per se, but rather a battle movie in the vein of Zulu or Black Hawk Down.  The characters' back stories or how the central conflict (in this case, the broader War on Terror) emerged are secondary to the immediacy of the bullets flying around them.  And once those bullets start flying, Act of Valor excels. 

The action sequences are exhilarating and gorgeously shot.  The camera films the action from relatively unique perspectives and angles, which provide the audience with a visceral sense of immediacy.  This is not surprising given the background of directors Mike McCoy and Scott Waugh in filming action sports, the aesthetic of which conveys well to the firefights and raids Bandito platoon conducts.  The movie was originally conceived as a promotional documentary for the SEALs, and the adrenaline rush experienced during the battle sequences was comparable to the Paris Island scenes of Full Metal Jacket on the big screen.  (Well, at least up until that whole demented murder-suicide thing).  They are fast-paced and riveting without seeming contrived or melodramatic. 

Act of Valor’s production team obviously placed significant emphasis on conveying as much realism as possible within the confines of a two-hour narrative, and (as far as I can tell) achieved this successfully. In fact, from an analytical perspective, I only had a few technical criticisms.  I think some brief, early montage illustrating the difficulty of the BUD/S course -- which typically has dropout rates of over 90% -- would have been more effective than the film’s opening exposition in establishing how extraordinary the men of Bandito platoon (and all real-life SEALs) are.  (Although, granted, the opening soliloquy is lump-in-the-throat chill).  The movie may also have benefitted from slowing down the action a bit, as is so rapidly paced that the raids almost bleed into one another, leaving the viewer breathless.  A slightly more detailed depiction of the planning and rehearsals that are the hallmark of “Tier One” SOF units – which is a large reason for their deadly efficiency – would have given the audience a chance to reset after each mission.  Finally, one could quibble about whether it is realistic that the same SEAL team would conduct missions over such a widely dispersed geographic area rather than passing the intel on to another team, or whether the Mexican cartels would really help Islamic extremists conduct another 9/11 (and hence paint an extremely large target on themselves), but such simplifications were clearly necessary to drive the plot forward.   

Ultimately, these critiques are akin to complaining that Elrond delivers the sword Anduril to Aragorn in the cinematic version of Return of the King rather than his fellow Rangers as in the novel . .  . either way, the movie still rocks.  Act of Valor is highly entertaining and lives up to the promise suggested by its thrilling promotional campaign.  Moreover, it is a much-needed break from Hollywood’s unbearably patronizing treatment of the U.S. military since 9/11, in which U.S. troops are alternately depicted as either marauders or as victims instead of heroes.  Although a work of fiction, Act of Valor is an exciting stand-in for the innumerable stories of real-life courage and sacrifice that have occurred in Iraq and Afghanistan in the past decade but will never make it to the big screen.

"Wanted Dead or Alive" on C-Span Tonight!

In case you find yourself getting annoyed by your family or in-laws tonight, you can always excuse yourself at 6PM EST and say you need to watch the re-airing of my book talk on C-Span's Book TV.  (Lord knows I'm going to try this trick myself . . .)

Whether you are able to watch or will have already slipped into a tryptophane induced coma, have a Happy Thanksgiving!!

Today in Manhunting History -- November 24, 1885: Josannie's Raid

As historian Robert Utley summarized the first six months of the Geronimo Campaign: “The Sierra Madre campaign of 1885 was an exhausting and profitless struggle against heat, insects, hunger, thirst, and fatigue.” General George Crook had nothing to show for his troops’ exertions, and decided to give them some much needed rest and to prepare for a more extended campaign in Mexico than originally anticipated. In October he summoned Captain Emmet Crawford and Major Wirt Davis back to Fort Bowie to refit and prepare for another assault on the Sierra Madres.

The Army resupplied by making purchases. The Apaches resupplied by making raids. By November 1885, the fugitives were woefully short of cartridges for their Winchester and Springfield rifles, ammunition that could not be found in Mexico. Moreover, the poverty stricken Mexican peasants in Sonora had little left to steal. Thus, in early November Josannie, Chihuahua's brother and a war leader who had once served as an Army scout, reentered the United States and began a raid in the Florida Mountains of New Mexico with 10-12 warriors. The raiders killed three scouts and two civilians before seeming to disappear across the border. A semblance of tranquility began to return to the Territory after three weeks of silence. Then on November 23, the officer in charge of Fort Apache, Lieutenant James Lockett, reported to Crook that hostiles had been seen within four miles of the outpost. He stated that was going in pursuit.

Then the telegraph went dead.

Crook waited impatiently for reports, yet when they arrived, they reported disaster. On November 24 Josannie’s war party killed two civilians who managed the reservation’s beef herd. Their wrath next fell upon the reservation itself, where they killed 20 White Mountain Apaches, sparing only the women and children, whom they abducted.

[And yes, I recognize this post doesn't necessarily fit with the spirit of Thanksgiving.  Sorry, I can't help the date.  Have a Happy Thanksgiving!]

Josannie, an Apache war captain in Geronimo's renegade band.

Bill Roggio Begs to Differ . . .

. . . with The Washington Post piece noted below.  Over at the invaluable Long War Journal, Roggio offers a list of 26 al-Qa'ida leaders reported to be living in Pakistan.  Roggio's point is well-taken -- although I think he stretches the list out a bit by including Sa'ad bin Laden (reportedly but not confirmed killed) and Saif al Adel (as frequently reported to be in Iran as Pakistan) -- especially his argument that for political reasons Administrations tend to overstate progress against al-Qa'ida and ignore its ability to regenerate by promotion from within the ranks. 

However, the Post article can be reconciled with Roggio's dissent if Zawahiri and al-Libi are truly indispensable to the network's survival, which right or wrong is what the article implies. Roggio would surely disagree, but if the Post (or whomever their source is) were correct, then the article would not be at all ridiculous despite the presence of numerous al-Qa'ida operatives in Pakistan.

Drones Running Out of Targets?

The Washington Post reported yesterday that the leadership ranks of al-Qa'ida have been so diminished that there are now only two "high-value" targets remaining in Pakistan: Ayman al-Zawahiri, and his deputy, Abu Yahya al-Libi.

To be clear: there are still scores of mid-to-low-level al Qa'ida operatives to target, as well as fighters/leaders from other extremist groups in the Tribal Areas (i.e. Haqqani Network leaders); other branches of al-Qa'ida now pose equal if not greater threats to U.S. security; and the terror network has shown the ability to regenerate in the past if given breathing room.

But it is still interesting to even consider the possibility that the network's base could be "defeated," or that the geographic focus of the war against al-Qa'ida could shift away from the traditional theater of operations in Afghanistan/Pakistan.

And then there were two: al-Qa'ida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri and his second-in-command, Abu Yahya al-Libi.

"Obama Takes on the LRA"

An informed -- and interestingly cynical -- take in Foreign Affairs.com on the Obama administration's decision to deploy U.S. troops to assist in capturing or killing Joseph Kony, commander of the Lord's Resistance Army. 

The authors are somewhat optimistic from an operational standpoint, claiming "The U.S. military has gathered strong evidence about Kony's whereabouts in the last few months.  Greater numbers of surveillance flights over LRA-afflicted areas are said to have pinpointed Kony's position in teh Central African Republic."

However, they are skeptical about whether apprehending Kony will make any strategic difference in Central Africa, noting: "The LRA is, in fact, a relatively small player in all of this -- as much a symtom as a cause of the endemic violence.  If Kony is removed, LRA fighters will join other groups or act independently."

Today in Manhunting History -- November 19, 1865: Frederick Funston's Birthday

Of all the fascinating military figures I encountered while researching Wanted Dead or Alive, my personal favorite was Frederick Funston, the 5'4" 120-pound general who in 1901 lead a daring mission 100 miles behind enemy lines to capture Filipino insurgent leader General Emilio Aguinaldo.

On this day in 1865 in New Carlisle, Ohio, Funston was born to an artilleryman in the Union Army who after the war moved the family to Kansas and eventually was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. When Funston graduated from high school he tried to follow in his father’s footsteps by entering the military, but was denied an appointment to West Point because of poor grades, a weak competitive exam score, and his height. He subsequently enrolled at Kansas State University, but after two desultory years dropped out and took jobs as a court reporter for a West Arkansas newspaper and a ticket collector on the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe railway. In 1890 he passed a civil service examination and became a botanist serving on expeditions to such forbidding locations as the just-pacified Bad Lands, the hellish Death Valley, and the frigid Yukon territory, where he completed a 1,400 mile solo trip down the Yukon River.

Funston was in New York City trying to sell rights to a memoir of his adventures, when out of curiosity on a spring evening in 1896 he followed a crowd into Madison Square Garden. There, he found a political rally in progress promoting the cause of the Cuban Revolution against Spain, with the former Union General Daniel E. Sickles the featured speaker. The event implanted martial images in Funston’s mind that kept him awake with excitement, and before dawn arrived the next morning he had decided to volunteer for his first war. During a visit to the Cuban junta, the Cubans said they particularly needed artillery officers. Although Funston’s experience with artillery was limited to once “having seen a salute fired to President Hayes at a county fair in Kansas,” he signed on with that designation and proceeded to teach himself the art of gunnery with a Hotchkiss twelve-pounder he found at an arms dealer. Thus, knowing no conversational Spanish and lacking any formal military training, Funston became an artillery officer in the Cuban insurrecto army.

Over the course of a year’s fighting in 1897, he was shot or hit by shrapnel three times – including a Mauser bullet that passed through both lungs in June – and had his horse shot out from underneath him on another occasion that crushed his legs and impaled his thigh upon a dry stick. In addition to the persistent hunger he shared with his revolutionary comrades, Funston contracted malaria and was subject to periodic fevers and chills, and contracted typhoid fever during one of his many hospital confinements. On 12 December 1897, while about to go on leave, Funston was captured by a Spanish patrol. Looking directly into the barrel of Spanish rifles, knowing he could be shot at any moment, Funston quickly invented a story about how he was actually deserting from the insurrecto army and had been looking for Spaniards to whom he could surrender. As he spun his tale, he subtly slid his hand in to his pocket, placed the incriminating leave papers in his handkerchief, pulled the handkerchief out to swab the perspiration on his face, and managed to slip the papers into his mouth and swallow them without being noticed. The Spaniards subsequently conveyed Funston to Havana, where he was soon placed upon the first available ship for New York.

To the average man, the series of wounds and diseases Funston suffered in Cuba would be enough to dissuade them from ever again volunteering for war in a tropical climate. But such was Funston’s passion for adventure – and perhaps his sense of invulnerability – that when the Spanish-American War erupted the following spring he leaped at the opportunity to serve as the colonel of the 20th Kansas Volunteer Infantry, one of three regiments the Jayhawk State was raising in response to President McKinley’s call for 125,000 volunteers to augment the meager regular army. While training his regiment and awaiting deployment in San Francisco, Funston undertook what may have been his most daring venture yet – in two weeks he met, wooed, and proposed to Ms. Eda Blankart. They were married on October 25, 1898. Two days later, Colonel Funston left his bride and sailed with the second and third battalions of the 20th Kansas on the transport Indiana, bound for Manila.

Frederick Funston, 5'4", 120 pounds, in the uniform of the 20th Kansas

The bantam colonel quickly made a name for himself for his personal courage and aggressive tactics. Funston’s Kansans were always in the lead of the American offensives. During the fighting of 5 February 1899, Funston led his regiment up the coast so swiftly that he came under fire from the U.S.S. Charleston and had to stop. “There goes Kansas,” exclaimed General Arthur MacArthur as the regiment swarmed, yelling and shooting, toward Caloocan during 1899’s spring campaign, “and all Hell can’t stop here.” MacArthur wired back to headquarters: “CALOOCAN TAKEN. KANSAS A MILE IN ADVANCE OF THE LINE. WILL STOP THEM IF I CAN.”



On 27 April, 1899, MacArthur and General Lloyd Wheaton’s combined brigades found themselves halted at the banks of the Rio Grande de la Pampanga by a formidable entrenchment of 4,000 Filipinos backed by artillery and a Maxim machine gun. The only way of establishing a beachhead on the enemy bank seemed to be by a combined artillery assault to cover the activities of a small unit in the river. After two Kansas privates swam across with a long coil of rope, Funston personally took seven men across on the a raft and, ordering the rest of his troops across in stages, he dashed with a half-dozen men into the trenches. “I realized perfectly well that according to the rules of the game a colonel should not leave the bulk of his regiment on one side of a stream and accompany a detachment smaller than a company in size,” Funston recalled, but he “knew mighty well that if I should send a small force across and sacrifice it I would be damned in my home State all the rest of my life, and held up to scorn by all the corner-grocery tacticians in the country.”

Although they only found dead and wounded Filipinos remaining in the trenches, they soon came under fire from the Filipino Maxim gun positioned across a stream 300 yards a way. An American soldier yelled out, “It’s the Maxim – we’re goners,” only to receive a kick from Funston, who told him to be quiet. Funston stood up, saw that the gun was beneath a railroad culvert, and ordered his prone men to rise. “Under that culvert, rapid fire,” he yelled, and the gun was silenced. Funston was later awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his part in the crossing of the Rio Grande.

When the war devolved into a grinding counterinsurgency campaign, Funston was given command of the Fourth District of the army's Department of Northern Luzon, where because of his previous experience as an insurgent, he was one of the army's more effective counterinsurgency commanders.  He was still serving in this position on February 4, 1901, when news arrived that a courier bearing dispatches from Aguinaldo had been captured. But that is another story . . .

Seif al-Islam Captured!

The AP reported this morning that Moammar Qaddafi's son Seif al-Islam, the last at-large family member of the deposed dictator, was captured after a firefight this morning in Southern Libya while trying to flee to Niger. (Qaddafi's former intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senoussi is the last member of the regime's inner circle still at-large).

CNN has a video report on the capture here.

Seif al-Islam was reportedly in on-and-off negotiations to surrender himself to the International Criminal Court for prosecution for war crimes, a fate that likely became more enticing after witnessing what became his father.  My friend David Bosco wrote an interesting piece on Foreign Policy.com last month analyzing the difficulties of actually trying the Colonel's son.

Image from Libyan television of the recently captured Seif al-Islam

Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam, no longer worried about a dangerous case of mistaken identity.

A Positively Reviewed Bin Laden Book

No, not Chuck Pfarrer's book, but rather John Weisman's new thriller, Kill Bin Laden, which the Washington Post apparently loves.  The novel is a reimagining of the Abbottabad raid, adding purely fictional (in theory?) characters and suppositions about real events. 

It sounds pretty interesting, to be honest, although I wonder if the publisher's decision to give it the same name as "Dalton Fury"'s memoir of the battle at Tora Bora was intentional.

Today in Manhunting History -- November 18, 2001: Jawbreaker Deploys to Tora Bora

On October 7, 2001, the U.S. air campaign against al Qaeda and the Taliban began as bombers, strike aircraft, and cruise missiles pounded targets. Measurable progress was difficult to discern at first, but by November 10 the first major objective of the campaign – the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif – was taken, and within the next few days the Taliban’s hold on the country began to rapidly disintegrate in the face of U.S. precision guided munitions and the Northern Alliance’s ground assault.

Despite the quality and volume of intelligence the Northern Alliance procured for Team Jawbreaker, there was little reliable information on Osama bin Laden. On November 10, London’s Sunday Times reported that the Saudi was seen entering Jalalabad in a convoy of white Toyota trucks surrounded by 60 commandos in green battle fatigues, armed with shiny new Kalishnikovs. He addressed a gathering of about 1,000 Afghan and Pakistani tribal leaders at the Islamic Studies Institute, and the next day was spotted by Jalalabad residents standing outside a mosque, holding hands with the local Taliban governor. He barked orders to his bodyguards and left in a convoy of four-wheel-drive vehicles.

Gary Berntsen, the new leader of Jawbreaker, received reports of bin Laden’s exodus shortly after Northern Alliance forces entered Kabul on November 12. Berntsen, a bear-sized man with a Long Island accent, learned two days later of a convoy of 200 Toyotas and Land Cruisers passing through the village of Agam two hours south of Kabul. A quick plotting of all the accounts received from Afghan agents indicated a steady movement south and east towards the Pakistan border.


Gary Berntsen, leader of the CIA's "Jawbreaker" team in November 2001.

 Bin Laden’s flight towards Afghanistan’s southeastern mountains made sense. His destination was Tora Bora (Pashto for “black dust”), a series of cave-filled valleys in the White Mountains whose ridgelines rose from wooded foothills to jagged, snow-covered peaks separated by deep ravines. The Tora Bora complex covered an area roughly six miles wide and six miles long, and during the 1980s had been the object of multiple Soviet offensives. The Red Army had attacked with thousands of infantrymen supported by helicopter gunships and MiGs, yet the fortifications were so solid that the Soviets were held off by a force of 130 Afghans.

Moreover, bin Laden was intimately familiar with the terrain at Tora Bora. In 1987 he used bulldozers from his family’s construction company to build a road through the mountains. Later, at the village of Jaji, bin Laden fought his first battle against the Soviets. During the years before September 11, bin Laden kept a house in a settlement near Tora Bora called Milawa. Tora Bora offered easy access to Parachinar, a region of Pakistan that juts into Afghanistan like a parrot’s beak on the southern slope of Tora Bora. Bin Laden’s son Omar recalled that his father would routinely hike from Tora Bora into Pakistan on excursions that could take from 7-14 hours. “My brothers and I all loathed those grueling treks,” Omar said, but they “seemed the most pleasant outings to our father.”

Locals reported scores of vehicles loaded with al Qaeda fighters and supplies moving towards Tora Bora. Estimates from Afghans who had traveled inside to meet with the Arabs put the number of fighters between 1,600-2,000. Villagers in the area said that bin Laden’s core bodyguard was supported by a 400-man force acting as pickets on the flanks as the terrorist leader moved back and forth between the Milewa Valley in the west and Tora Bora in the east. Another force of 400 Chechens – highly regarded for their alpine fighting skills – guarded the perimeter of the Tora Bora complex.

Thus, Tora Bora afforded bin Laden option of fighting or fleeing.

In addition to the formidable terrain, Berntsen faced another problem. The Northern Alliance, which had served as the proxy ground force thus far in the campaign, had neither the capacity nor the desire to push as far south as Jalalabad. Consequently, Berntsen was forced to turn to the local warlords of the “Eastern Alliance” who had not been fully vetted. Hazaret Ali was a Pashai tribal leader who despite being “physically small, quiet, and unassuming,” had distinguished himself as a field commander in the war against the Soviets. Although he seemed reliable, he led “a gang of skinny mountain boys in rags,” and because his translator only spoke limited English, communicating the complexities of a rapidly evolving battlefield would be difficult. Conversely, Haji Zaman was well-educated and spoke English. But he had only just returned from exile in France and commanded men who “could well have passed themselves off as a band of 18th-century cutthroats.”


Hazeret Ali and Haji Zaman, the local warlords U.S. forces were
dependent upon as the hunt for bin Laden moved to Tora Bora.

 Berntsen’s sources continued to tell him bin Laden was in the area, so several days after arriving in Jalalabad Jawbreaker moved into a schoolhouse in the foothills near Tora Bora and established a command center. Because satellite imagery and photos from high-flying reconnaissance planes showed deep snow was stacking up in Tora Bora’s valleys and passes, it was concluded that with these passageways closed bin Laden would not be able to leave the mountains anytime soon. Radio intercepts further suggested that al Qaeda wanted a fight in the mountains where their prepared positions appeared to give them a tactical advantage. Finally, as the Delta Force commander noted, based on his constant praise over the years for the virtues of martyrdom, “We had no reason to doubt that bin Laden wouldn’t fight to the death.”

Consequently, the plan for Tora Bora closely resembled the operations that had broken the Taliban lines north of Kabul. CIA paramilitary operatives and U.S. Special Forces would infiltrate Tora Bora to identify targets for bombing, which would clear the way for the Afghan militias. Ali and Zaman, already fierce rivals, were given separate parallel axes of advance into the mountains: Ali’s forces would take the center of the range, Zaman’s men the western half of the base with both attacking south. U.S. forces would coordinate their movements and provide massive air support, while Pakistani forces would seal the border to the south and east.

While Special Forces units worked with the Afghans to prepare for the assault on Tora Bora, on November 18 Berntsen sent an eight-man team to pursue bin Laden.  The battle for Tora Bora, and what appeared to the climax of the hunt for Osama bin Laden, was about to begin.

"My Fond Memories of Bin Laden"

ABC News reports al-Qa'ida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri has just released a new video dedicated to remembering the "human side of Osama bin Laden."

No, really.

The two great quotes from the story are Zawahiri recalling: "People probably don't know, they remember the lion of Islam threatening America and Bush, but people don't know that he was a very delicate, nice, shy man."  And later: "He was known for crying and tearing up very easily."

Zawahiri: "The Osama I knew loved kittens as much as mass murder, and after the all the Zionist/Crusaders were dispatched to hell he wanted to start a ranch on which he could rescue orphaned baby pandas."

"Act of Valor" Sneak Preview

Last night I had the honor of attending a special advance screening here in DC of the movie Act of Valor, an action-thriller starring active-duty SEALs.  Either later today or sometime tomorrow I'll post a full review.  Given that I'm not a professional film critic, I need to figure out how to write it without giving away any spoilers.  (Also, I made the mistake of not turning off my cell before the movie, and got slightly distracted by a friend's texts during the film). 

But for now, one word suffices as a summary: Wow.

Today in Manhunting History -- November 16, 2004: The Fall of Fallujah

During the April 2004 Marine offensive, the CIA determined the torture studio in which Abu Musab al-Zarqawi murdered Nicholas Berg was located in Fallujah’s Jolan District. Major General James Mattis proposed joint U.S.-Iraqi patrols in Jolan to pursue Zarqawi, but the ineffectual commander of the “Fallujah Brigade” declined. In June, U.S. aircraft began dropping pamphlets over Fallujah urging residents to turn in Zarqawi, who had a $10 million bounty on his head. But this effort also produced no tangible results.

U.S. forces began kinetic action against Zarqawi’s network in Fallujah through the only means available to them, killing 18 Iraqis in an airstrike against a suspected safe house on June 19. On July 1 the reward for Zarqawi’s capture was raised to $25 million, the same amount as for Osama bin Laden. In August, U.S. forces began conducting almost nightly airstrikes against targets in Fallujah believed to be affiliated with the terrorist. Although Zarqawi himself was never touched, his organization suffered significant losses, including the deaths of Abu Anas al-Shami, his spiritual advisor, and Abu Muhammad al-Lubnani, a Palestinian advisor described as his right-hand man.

On October 14, the Iraqi Interim Government raised the stakes when Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi warned insurgents: “If Zarqawi and his group are not handed over to us, we are ready for major operations in Fallujah.” When the leaders of Fallujah’s insurgents refused, U.S. forces launched a massive offensive to retake the city. For over a week, U.S. forces engaged in intense house-to-house fighting against heavily fortified positions defended by approximately 3,000 insurgents, destroying much of the city in the process. Major combat in Fallujah effectively ended with the destruction of Zarqawi’s command center on November 16. Although U.S. commanders determined that Zarqawi had fled the city before the offensive, Zarqawi later released an audiotape condemning Sunni clerics for abandoning him in Fallujah. While the offensive deprived Zarqawi of a key base of operations, his influence and prominence, as well as the levels of violence in Iraq, only increased.

Small Wars Journal on Pfarrer

Small Wars Journal.com reviews Chuck Pfarrer's SEAL Target Geronimo. 

I agree with the assessment 100% percent.

Dozier on "SEAL Target Geronimo"

I pulled down the first part of my review of Chuck Pfarrer's SEAL Target Geronimo for reasons that will become obvious shortly.  Sorry for the false start with that, as I'd like to think that I'm not one of those bloggers who alter posts that become an embarrassment with the passage of time. 

In the meantime, the Associated Press's Kimberly Dozier, who has excellent sources in the Special Operations community, and who wrote one of the best early accounts of the Abbottabad raid [the link to which has expired, apparently . . . stupid AP], had a piece yesterday summarizing many of the criticisms of Pfarrer's book, including the reaction by Special Operations Command. 

Most interesting is the reaction of two former SEALs.  Retired Navy SEAL Read Admiral George Worthington said: "The reaction is stunned, chagrined, disappointment."  Similarly: "This is exactly the sort of thing the special operations community does not need," added retired Navy SEAL Capt. Rick Woolard, known for commanding some of the most elite units, and a contemporary of Pfarrer's.

[NOTE: The Woolard quote appeared in the original version of the story, but for some reason was remvoed from the version currently online).

Happy Veterans' Day

In March 2009, while I was an analyst with RAND, I attended a wargame at the Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.  After one day's session was complete, a bunch of us involved with the CENTCOM scenario met for dinner (and several pitchers) at the Gingerbread Man, a brewpub in "downtown" Carlisle popular with the Dickinson College crowd. 

The group I was with was mostly active duty military with the appropriate haircuts, as well as a contractor or two who were recently retired veterans, myself, and a retired General.  After about 2+ hours at three tables, when it was time to settle our bill the waitress asked if we were veterans.  Although it seemed like a sort of random question, we said "yes, almost all of us are, but we aren't part of any sort of organization or group." 

She disappeared without giving us the check, and after about 15 minutes we were starting to get impatient.  She finally came back and told us that the bill was already taken care of, that somebody in the bar had asked to pay for us.  (Again, we were about 16 guys over three tables).  We asked if we could take pay their bill in exchange, or at least buy them a round of drinks.  We had all ordered dinner and multiple rounds, so our bill had to be somewhere close to $400 dollars.  But the waitress said that our benefactor had insisted on remaining anonymous.  

For about another 10-15 minutes we debated how we should repay this generous stranger.  Finally, our "group leader" (the head of the CENTCOM working group) stood up on a chair.  Already 6'4", his head nearly hit the ceiling as he announced: "Excuse me, excuse me, can I have everybody in the bar's attention?  I'm a U.S. Army Colonel, and I'm having dinner tonight with a group of veterans.  Somebody offered to pay for our dinner tonight, but insisted on remaining anonymous.  We'd just like everybody to hear us say 'THANK YOU.'"

He stepped down, and the bar full of patrons, until then engrossed with the Villanova-Pitt "Elite Eight" NCAA tournament game on TV, erupted into cheers.  A spontaneous chant of "U-S-A, U-S-A" broke out.  (We did have one British officer with us.  But he had served in Basra, and took everything in the appropriate spirit).

As we got up to leave a half hour later, the bar broke out into cheers once again.
 

This gesture was as much an appreciation for EVERYBODY who has served as for anyone in the bar's. 

 

So on this Veteran's Day, I hope all my fellow veterans receive a reminder of how appreciative some people remain of your service.  (And for those still downrange, G-dspeed and stay safe).

Ben

GO TO HELL, A MARINE NEVER SURRENDERS!!!

Although an Army vet myself, I'd like to offer our brothers-in-arms from the United States Marine Corps a Happy 236th Birthday!!!

Half of my platoon at the Field Artillery Officer Basic Course were Marines, as was my father-in-law, so I have great respect for the Corps.  To commemorate the occasion, I'm revisiting my favorite Marine Corps episode from my research on strategic manhunts.  In late June/early July I began telling the story of the Marines' five-year campaign to kill or capture Nicaraguan insurgent leader Augusto Sandino, beginning with Captain Gilbert Hatfield's unusual correspondence with Sandino and the decision to deploy a patrol under Major Oliver Floyd on July 2nd to kill or capture Sandion.  But for reasons I can't recall now, I stopped the story on July 2, 1927.

On July 11, 1927, Captain Hatfield made a final peace offering to Sandino. “In spite of your insolent replies in the past,” he wrote, “I am giving you another opportunity to surrender with honor.” Hatfield urged Sandino to follow the example of Emilio Aguinaldo, who had given up his resistance to become “a splendid friend of the United States.” Alternatively, Hatfield said, the Marines were prepared to hunt Sandino to his stronghold and destroy him. He gave Sandino two days to consider his offer, saying he would expect the general “in Ocotal at eight o’clock in the morning of July 14, 1927. Please advise me of your intentions in one word, either yes or no.”

In response to Hatfield’s ultimatum, Sandino declared: “Your threats seem very pale to me. . . . I shall have the honor of sprinkling the soil of my native country with the blood of traitors and invaders.”

At 1:15AM, July 16, a Marine sentry on post in front of Ocotal city hall noticed a “suspicious movement” and went to investigate. Suddenly, a thundering fusillade shattered the stillness of the black night. About 60 regulars and 500 partisans had infiltrated the village since the previous dusk, with Sandino “reportedly offering his men freedom to loot and agreeing to join them in drinking yankee blood.” Firing on the town from all directions, the Sandinistas swept into town and rushed to gain vantage points for a final assault against the Marine barracks and headquarters at city hall.

Within three minutes of the first shot, however, the Marines and guardia were at their “battle stations . . . receiving fire from all directions, and from well located snipers.” The street in front of the barracks was swept by a Sandinista machine gun firing from an elevated position at the end of the street, and individual Sandinistas charged forward to throw dynamite bombs through the barracks windows, shouting “Death to the Yankees!” and “Viva Sandino!” While the Marines and Guardia were pinned down in their headquarters, the Sandinistas began looting Ocotal. At about 4AM the guerrillas advanced into the tree-studded plaza in front of city hall. For four hours, the attackers vainly threw themselves towards the adobe walls of city hall in a series of frontal assaults. But from their fortifications, the Marine rifles and automatic weapons took a heavy toll on the Sandinistas, and the attack fizzled.

At dawn several rebels emerged under a flag of truce and delivered a note from Sandino. Renewing his correspondence, Sandino complimented Hatfield’s “brave fight,” but requested the garrison’s surrender. He promised that if the defenders threw their weapons into the street within an hour they would not be harmed.

“Go to hell,” Hatfield told Sandino. “A Marine never surrenders. We remain here until we die or are captured.”

"GO TO HELL, A MARINE NEVER SURRENDERS!!!"
Captain Gilbert Hatfield  and the Ocotal garrison, 1927

Under a tropical downpour, the battle continued. Although there were no further Sandinista charges, a machine gun placed in the church belfry raked city hall and snipers worked their way closer to the Marines.

At about 10:15AM the skies cleared, and two Marine patrol planes on a regular reconnaissance flight from Managua appeared over Ocotal. The pilots saw the village under siege, and as soon as Hatfield heard the engines, his Marines laid out coded panels in the city hall compound with the message: “Being attacked by Sandino.” The planes strafed the Sandinistas’ positions before returning to Managua. At 2:35PM a flight of five DeHavilands appeared over Ocotal, each carrying four 25-pound bombs beneath their wings and 1,200 rounds of machine gun ammunition. Led by Major Ross E. Rowell, the Marine biplanes spotted a concentration of Sandinistas in the open and began their attack. One after another, the planes dived at the guerrillas from 1,500 feet, opening fire with the fixed machine guns in the front and at the end of the dive – sometimes dropping as low as 300 feet – releasing a bomb. As the planes climbed away the observers fired the free guns at the Sandinistas as they scrambled for cover. Rowell recalled, “I never saw such a wild rout, and probably never will. As soon as they broke we closed in and worked at close range to make every bomb count.”
By the second pass the Sandinistas were in a panic, and although the air strike only lasted 45 minutes, it effectively ended the Sandinista attack. The guerrillas began withdrawing, and by 5:25PM were all gone. Based upon the number of bodies found, funerals held, and the increased size of Ocotal’s cemetery, Hatfield estimated at least 300 Sandinistas had been killed. The Marine losses were one dead and one wounded; while the Guardia lost three wounded and four captured. Ocotal was a decisive victory for the Marines, who assumed they had destroyed the last armed challenge to the occupation. Ambassador Charles Eberhardt cabled the State Department: “It is not supposed that Sandino will offer much further resistance.”

"Correcting the 'Fairy Tale'" of Abbottabad

More from former SEAL commander Chuck Pfarrer's pre-publication promotional interviews for "SEAL Target Geronimo."  In an interview with The Daily Caller, Pfarrer reiterates his claims that:
1- The SEALs were able to fast-rope onto the roof rather than crashing in the courtyard;
2- The SEALs killed Osama bin Laden at the outset of the raid, rather than after working their way up to the top floor after a 45 minute firefight; and
3- Says the shooting was legtimate self-defense in the attempt to capture him rather than a "kill mission" as previously suggested.

Again, Pfarrer may be 100% correct in all the details of the mission, but these do not strike me as significant revisions to the previously established timeline of events.  Why would Administration officials or anyone else leaking details of the mission say the helicopter crashed beforehand instead of successfully allowing the SEALs to fast rope onto the roof?  Where has anybody said the firefight -- even if it did go bottom-to-top rather than top-to-bottom -- said it took 45 minutes?  Pfarrer's point regarding self-defense versus extra-judicial killing is valid, but it is not at all clear that such a "kill order" was given.  In fact, in the Leon Panetta interview with Time Magazine The Daily Caller links to as confirmation that the raid was a "kill mission," Panetta explicitly says that bin Laden would be captured if he tried to surrender:

The authorities we have on Bin Laden are to kill him. And that was made clear. But it was also, as part of their rules of engagement, if he suddenly put up his hands and offered to be captured, then-- they would have the opportunity, obviously, to capture him. But that opportunity never developed.

Panetta's references to authorities to kill bin Laden are a recognition that the Saudi headed an organization in a declared state of war with the United States and hence a legitimate target of military force, not a description of the rules of engagement for the raid.  

Pfarrer makes a legitimate point when he notes the Administration's decision to immediately announce bin Laden's killing "rendered moot all of the intelligence that was gathered from the nexus of al-Qaida.  The computer drives, the hard drives, the videocassettes, the CDs, the thumb drives, everything.  Before that could even be looked through, the political decision was made to take credit for the operation."  This is true, but it should be noted that the Bush administration similarly announced the capture of Saddam Hussein and killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi within twenty-four hours as well, and those were not operations in which a U.S. helicopter was left behind 130 miles inside a sovereign country.  It would certainly have been preferable to keep quiet regarding this operation until the intelligence could be fully exploited, but it is also incredibly unrealistic.

Again, I look forward to reading Pfarrer's book, and hope that given the author's contacts it proves the most accurate book regarding the Abbottabad raid.  But as badly as the Administration handled the post-raid explanations of what happened (including revealing who conducted the mission, altering the probability of success briefed to the President, shifting stories about bin Laden's actions etc.), the tenor of the pre-publication claims doesn't seem to match the significance of the actual revelations.

FARC Leader Alfonso Cano Killed

Shortly after midnight Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos announced that the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) leader Alfonso Cano (the nom de guerre for Guillermo Saenz Vargas) was killed in a commando operation outside the town of Suarez. 

This is the first time Colombian security forces had ever killed the supreme commander of the FARC.  Although an air strike killed the FARC's legendary military commander Victor Julio Suarez in 2008, Manuel Marulanda (who founded the insurgent group in 1964) died of a heart attack in 2008. 

Although the FARC's fortunes have been on the wane in the last decade as Colombia's military becomes more effective (in part because of the roughly $700 million in military aid they receive from the United States), the group will likely survive.  It still has as many as 9,000 fighters, and has evolved into more of a narco-terrorist group than a Communist insurgency, and these ties to the cocaine trade will likely sustain it for the foreseeable future. 

The key, as it usually is in combating such groups, is a sustained counterinsurgency campaign that targets the FARC's broader leadership network.  The Colombians have been consistently improving in this regards, and the commandos recovered seven computers and 39 thumb drives from Cano's headquarters.

Alfonso Cano, now-former leader of the FARC

"SEAL Target Geronimo"

The Daily Telegraph previews a forthcoming book on the Abbottabad raid that killed Osama bin Laden by former SEAL Team Six commander Chuck Pfarrer.  Understandably, the book is being sold as a groundbreaking account of the operation that contradicts previous claims by the Obama administration, specifically:

•  Pfarrer says the SEALs did fast rope on to the compound's roof before Black Hawk crashed, whereas every previous account says it crashed inside the compound and then disgorged the commandos; and
• Pfarrer claims bin Laden was killed 90 seconds into the raid, not after a lengthy firefight.

To be honest, I'm not sure what the latter revelation is supposed to be contradicting, as almost every account I've seen says bin Laden was killed early in the raid, and that site exploitation (i.e. removing all the computers and files) was responsible for the length of the raid -- although 90 seconds does seem really fast. 

The problem with books such as Pfarrer's is that there is virtually no way to either verify or disprove his claims.  Pfarrer says he has talked to DevGru operators who were on the mission, and I have no reason to doubt him.  But because of their non-disclosure forms, there is no way to confirm any details with the two dozen SEALs who executed the mission.  Consequently, whether accurate or not Pfarrer's account can never rise above the level of hearsay. [Although if he did talk to SEAL Team 6 members, than his hearsay is at least better than Nicholas Schmidle's New Yorker piece, which while possibly accurate, was still based on second-hand reports rather than interviews with the SEALs themselves].

Oh, and yes, this critique aside, I have already pre-ordered my copy, and will hopefully publish a review of "SEAL Team Geronimo" when it arrives.

Joseph Kony's Place in Manhunting History

CommandPosts.com, an excellent web blog on military history, posted a piece I wrote on the historical precedents for deploying U.S. forces to train/advise indigenous forces hunting an individual. 

By my count, Joseph Kony is officially the twelfth target of a U.S. strategic manhunt, although I argue that the campaigns targeting Che Guevara and Pablo Escobar are better precedents for this operation than Task Force Ranger's hunt for Muhammad Farah Aideed.

On "Wet Work," Assassinations, and Olivia Wilde

StrategyPage.com has a brief post noting the apparent prevalence of assassinations against individuals who could potentially embarrass the Russian government, suggesting that the old Soviet "wet work" teams are back in action.  This piece is instructive in demonstrating the difference between strategic manhunts (the overt deployment of uniformed personnel to kill or capture an individual) versus assassinations (the deployment of covert personnel during peacetime to kill an individual), the presumed actions being an example of the latter.

Remembering these definitional distinctions is important when considering the op-ed by Andrew Cockburn in today's Los Angeles Times arguing that the U.S. "assassination" campaign is "unequivocally" ineffective.  Cockburn, whom I respect as an on-the-ground reporter, intentionally (but incorrectly) conflates assassinations with targeted killings, which is the systematic targeting of individuals in a network or command structure that is already in a declared state of war against U.S. forces.  Cockburn's argumentation is really weak, relying on one piece of data from a study on IEDs in Iraq.  Yes, it is true that IED incidents increased in the immediate aftermath of an IED-cell leader's killing in 2008, but he says nothing of the long-term effects of such operations, as IED attacks undeniably declined in Iraq over the course of the Surge.  Moreover, a statistical anecdote about combating IED cells in Iraq in 2008 is not necessarily applicable to the hunt for bin Laden, the targeted killings of Anwar al-Awlaki, or various other Pakistani Taliban leaders that Cockburn cites at the beginning of his essay.  Cockburn also ignores evidence that special operations raids in Afghanistan have had a demonstrable effect on the Taliban's operational capability, which has consequently shifted towards assassinations and IEDs rather than occupying territory.  Whether that will be enough to win strategically is a separate issue, and one that in the long-run depends more upon Afghan governance capability and Pakistani safe havens than our operational successes or failures.  But Cockburn is horrifically select in his use of evidence to fit his preconceived conclusions.

So why bother to post about such a poorly argued, badly biased article?  Simple.  It gives me an excuse to post pictures of Mr. Cockburn's daughter, the lovely and talented actress Olivia Wilde.  (Don't worry, all images are SFW.  This is an intellectual blog, after all!)

No, really, this DOES have something to do with strategic manhunts, I swear!

British Raid in Somalia?

The Daily Mail reports that British Royal Marines launched an amphibious raid in July to snatch an unnamed Somali tribal leader. 

Although the article includes some interesting details (i.e. he was taken to "a very important meeting" with MI6 and the Foreign Office), I'm skeptical about this for several reasons.  Why the Royal Marines conduct an amphibious assault, rather than using the SAS in much more dexterous helicopters?  Why would the Foreign Office be interested in meeting with him via snatch operation rather than through more traditional protocols?

I obviously have no way to confirm or deny this story, and it might simply be misreported in some small details.  But something doesn't pass the smell test to me.