Great and sobering read

This book is a fascinating, first-hand account of the U.S.'s initial entry into Afghanistan after 9/11, though it's often painful to read about the disparity between what was going on in the field and what appears to have been going on in Washington - which, even accounting for the author's invested interest, doesn't cast the U.S. in the best and strongest light. Even more concerning are the Qs of what America and free societies are doing, or not doing, to support Afghanistan's hoped-for evolution to freedom and democracy, and whether America and its partners are doing everything that should be done to locate the personifications of evil incarnate - UBL and his deputy. It took the FBI and CIA four years to find Mir Amal Kasi, who killed two and wounded three outside the CIA in the 90's; UBL and his henchmen killed nearly 3,000 people on our soil - it's concerning, to say the very least, that it's taking us this long to find them and achieve some measure of justice. Schoen offeres his perspectives on these issues, and whether or not you agree with them, he's written a thoroughly absorbing book, with interesting insights into Afghan history and many of the figures who've played a part in its receent history. Highly recommended.

Superb First Person Account, Lacks Context & Avoids History

This is a superb first-person account. I have absolute and total respect for this officer, his team, his courage, and what he accomplished within weeks of 9-11, setting the stage for a new form of warfare in which CIA opened the door, Special Forces turned on the lights, and conventional Air Force leveled the place.

The book provides some extremely useful insights from the field with respect to Washington's failure to understand local politics and ground truth despite frequent detailed field appraisals from the Chief of Station, and the book makes it clear that Pakistan lobbied Washington strategically and ably to "sell" its plan for taking over Afghanistan with its own allies, against both Russian and US (and for that matter, Chinese) best interests.

There are five substantive military insights in this book:

1) Despite their enormous personal courage and high level of training, the US military special forces are handicapped by a joint defense-level policy that will not do deep bombing unless a Search & Rescue (SAR) capability is readily available. I recall the original Office of Strategic Services dropping people behind enemy lines (the pilots understood they might be shot down as part of the deal) and I just think to myself, shame on DoD, this force protection zero tolerance for casualties has gone too far. We need a Chairman of the Joint Chiefs with the balls to change the military culture back to one that is mission oriented rather than casualty averse.

2) Partly as a result of Pakistani influence [the author notes that the Pakistanis co-opted the CIA Station in Pakistan, not just the State Department and NSC in Washington] and point one above, the targeting authorities (CENTCOM and the Air Force) were very slow to act professionally on the targets identified by the Northern Alliance and the CIA field teams. I was enormously impressed by the GPS field surveys that the CIA team carried out, and under-whelmed by the Air Force focus on warehouses near Kabul rather than specified armed forces blocking the Northern Alliance path toward Kabul. I also noted in the margin, having some experience with provincial and tribal intelligence, that the US decision system is still too focused on state to state Ambassadorial level negotiations, and largely ignorant of and uninterested in the nuances of sub-state tribal views and concerns. That needs urgent fixing.

3) The Special Forces, despite their reputation for fearless operations behind enemy lines, were led by officers who insisted that they wear their proper military uniforms and shave every day. I have met the two-star general that gave and then enforced this order, and consider him a superb--absolutely top-notch--officer in terms of military skills, but the man is so culturally clueless as to give new meaning to the term oblivious. As a side note, thinking back to Steve McQueen in the great escape, it occurred to me that we need to establish a protocol under the Geneva Convention in which military personnel and overt intelligence personnel can blend into the local population to avoid cultural dissonance, but wear a small patch, clearly visible to those they see face to face--something like a SOF spear, with miniature rank on one side and miniature service seal on the other side, all within a two-inch wide circle.

4) PAVE LOW missed the Landing Zone (LZ) during the first and most critical Special Operations team insertion. Now, this could have happened if CIA provided the military with the wrong coordinates (or used Russian coordinates while the Americans were on another system), but this should never have happened. It also points out that the military and CIA evidently did not have the ability to talk to each other tactically on the final approach, which reminds me of our Marines not being able to talk to the US Embassy in Somalia as they completed their 400 nautical mile run just in time to stop the people from over-running the place. How is it that something as critical as masked inter-agency tactical communications can still not be achieved? INTER-4 Tacticomps with S-MINDS and CISCO AONS for all hands ASAP.

5) Air Force blew the first food-drop, dropping the packets from 27,000 feet without parachutes. What this made clear to me is that we have a peacetime Air Force (see my review of "Rules of the Game" by Andrew Gordon) that has forgotten how to do nuanced missions, especially those requiring that they do something other than deliver cargo conventionally or drop bombs.

The author ends the book more or less on page 363, where he suggests that a combined CIA and SOF campaign circling Waziristan, is needed. While he underestimates the denied area aspect of this zone, I agree that the Pakistanis are playing the Americans for fools, and I agree that there should be no area of the world where US forces cannot operate if they must.

The author loses one star, with some understanding, for failing to provide context and failing to acknowledge that his heroic mission was required because CIA did not take Afghanistan seriously before and after Charlie Wilson. Three other books, at least, must be read to understand this: "Charlie Wilson's War," "Ghost Wars," and "The Main Enemy."

I had a chance to talk to a CENTCOM officer informally about all this, and welcomed his observation that CIA does not always have the facts when it comes to their perception of military "mistakes." We also talked about the need for a new approach to global intelligence. It is crystal clear to me that we need to have CIA/SOF bases all over the world that are under non-official cover and that work every major tribe and province. For every province, including especially provinces in denied areas, there must be at least one SOF-qualified sleeper able to receive a clandestine arrival, or provide the first stop for a SAR exit.

I'm glad they made it back-this was true grit and deep honor in action. Chris, call.

First In

The book: First In is a first hand account of the events immediately following 911 and the insertion of the CIA PM(Para-military) team up to the end of November, 2001. The writing style approaches stream of consciousness or travel diary, and is a welcome change from the bureaucratic Minutiae of books like "A Look Over My Shoulder", and "Spy Handler" which go to the level of describing every breath taken over from birth until the time the book was finished, very boring. The Author is very open and frank about his experiences even including the constant flatulence of one member of his team, the comm officer. All things considered it is a very readable text, much like "Blowing My Cover".