Tag Archives: Navy Seal

THE CLAPPER MEMO Endorsed by Retired U.S. Navy SEAL Officer

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Over the weekend, I received the first pre-release review of my second nonfiction book, THE CLAPPER MEMO. Below I share that review:

CaptLarryBaileyQuoteTCM 3-11-13Any American with a sense of fair play and a desire to see that our intelligence and vetting personnel have the best information possible should read THE CLAPPER MEMO.

I am not a techie. Nor am I a government contract specialist. What I AM is a reasonably objective retired Navy SEAL who understands the importance of getting accurate information from individuals both inside and outside one’s own professional world.

In this case, “professional world” denotes the U.S. military, where accurate and timely information has life-or-death consequences. That information can come in the form of either raw intelligence or personnel “vetting” and is of crucial importance in the War on Terror, especially given the numbers of Americans and International Security Assistance Force personnel who have died or been injured in “Green-on-Blue” incidents.

“Green-on-Blue” is jargon describing the killing and maiming of friendly personnel by individuals who are supposedly their allies. Scores of incidents have occurred in Afghanistan when putative Afghan military men, wholly trusted by their allied advisors, turned their guns on those advisors. These events set the tenor of Bob McCarty’s expose of what is clearly an unconscionable cover-up of a capability of the U.S. military and intelligence community to vet incoming Afghan (or any other) military personnel.

NewBookCover LR 2-17-2013THE CLAPPER MEMO is that expose, and McCarty pulls no punches as he walks the reader through a multi-year maze of bureaucratic ineptitude and turf-defense as they relate to the relative merits of the polygraph and the more-recent Computer Voice Stress Analyzer (CVSA). Talk about vested interests! The polygraph community has trade-union-like adherents, and, trade-union-like, that community seems to stop at nothing in attempting to discredit the CVSA. The irony here is that the end-user of both devices clearly prefers the CVSA, and the bureaucracy tasked to support that end-user, the U.S. military, has not only abdicated its responsibility to support our military forces but has consciously advocated the suppression of a better means of obtaining truthful responses from targeted individuals, whether those individuals are detainees, truck drivers, interpreters, co-combatants, or politicians. I came away from McCarty’s treatise firmly convinced that the CVSA is a far better tool in conducting field interrogations and administrative verifications alike.

And I emphasize (as does McCarty) the word “tool.” No polygraph operator, as vested as he/she may be, would claim that his/her device is a be-all, end-all game-changer, nor would a CVSA operator make a similar claim about his/her machine. However, it is clear that, on-balance, the CVSA is a much more useful tool in obtaining information. The Department of Defense bureaucracy, though, has come down decidedly on the side of the polygraph. McCarty has clearly been convinced through dint of exhaustive research that the CVSA is better, and his highly footnoted book has convinced me that American interrogators, especially those in the field (such as Navy SEALs or Army Special Forces) should have access to the latest CVSA devices. The CVSA is as close to a field-expedient truth determinant as exists today, and it is to be hoped that McCarty’s book will result in a reassessment of the efficacy of the CVSA as a means of obtaining actionable short-order intelligence.

Our troops deserve nothing less.

Capt. Larry Bailey, U.S. Navy SEAL (Ret.)
Co-founder, Special Operations Speaks, a veterans group dedicated, among other things, to restoring trust and confidence in government.

In short, Captain Bailey believes, like I do, that our nation’s warfighters deserve access to the best tools available — especially when it comes to tools that can be used to elicit intelligence information from our enemies and uncover their true intentions. If you share this belief and want to learn about those who appear to hold opposite views, you’ll want to read THE CLAPPER MEMO.

To receive the latest updates about THE CLAPPER MEMO, subscribe to the book’s website feed by clicking here. The book should hit booksellers everywhere soon. Stay tuned!

UPDATE:  After publishing this piece, the book received another big endorsement!

"Three Days In August" by Bob McCarty BobHeadshotSmall NewBookCover LR 2-17-2013

Meanwhile, be sure to order a copy of my first nonfiction book, Three Days In August, which chronicles the life and wrongful conviction of Army Green Beret Sgt. 1st Class Kelly A. Stewart. More details about it are available at ThreeDaysInAugust.com.

Green Beret’s Time on Witness Stand ‘No Easy Day’

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“NO EASY DAY” is the title of a soon-to-be-released book by a former Navy SEAL-turned author of an unauthorized account of the 2011 Navy SEALs raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan. It could also describe the time former Green Beret Kelly A. Stewart spent testifying during his court martial in August 2009.

According to The Daily Beast, Admiral William McRaven used a letter to members of the his Special Operations Command to issue a veiled warning to man behind the book, “NO EASY DAY.” The Special Operations Command commander wrote the following:

“Every member of the special-operations community with a security clearance signed a non-disclosure agreement that was binding during and after service in the military. If the U.S. Special Operations Command finds that an active-duty, retired or former service member violated that agreement and that exposure of information was detrimental to the safety of U.S. forces, then we will pursue every option available to hold members accountable, including criminal prosecution where appropriate.”

I will, of course, leave it up to Admiral McRaven and others to determine whether or not that book’s author — whose name I will not reveal — violated the terms of his service. In the same breath, however, I’ll offer applause for Stewart, who refused to violate the terms of his nondisclosure agreement — even while on trial for his life in a military courtroom in Germany.

The government’s cross-examination of then-Sgt. 1st Class Stewart on Day Two of his court-martial began with the trial counsel asking him questions about friendships he had established in Germany since his August 2008 arrival in the Stuttgart area. Before long, however, it turned into a somewhat-heated exchange—something Stewart later described as being similar to a courtroom scene from the movie, A Few Good Men.

In that scene, a Marine colonel (Jack Nicholson) on the witness stand was accused by a young Navy defense attorney (Tom Cruise) of ordering a “Code Red”—an illegal beating of a Marine by members of his platoon that resulted in his death and a subsequent cover-up. Several minutes of heated exchange between the officers resulted in the colonel finally losing his cool and admitting he ordered the attack.

“Every schooling and every assessment that the military has done on me to assess that I’m stable,” Stewart said, “and that I’m trusted with national security issues and that I can be trusted to make the right, conscious decisions, now is being turned around (so that) every one of those (are) predatory skills that I used to go after Miss Heinrich.”

Still, the trial counsel tried to paint Stewart, a man who had risen into the top three percent of the Army, as a master manipulator whose SF training helped him know how to control a person like his accuser, Greta J. Heinrich.

Blow-by-blow details of Stewart’s testimony appear in the book, “Three Days In August: A U.S. Army Special Forces Soldier’s Fight for Military Justice,” by Bob McCarty. It’s available in paperback and ebook via most online booksellers, including Amazon.com.

Navy SEAL Found Not Guilty on All Charges (Update)

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NOT GUILTY x THREE! DETAILS IN UPDATE #2 BELOW.

According to a report in Navy Times this morning, Special Warfare Operator 1st Class Julio Huertas, 28, of Blue Island, Ill., was found not guilty by a six-man jury of charges of dereliction of duty and attempting to influence the testimony of another service member.

SO1 Huertas is one of three U.S. Navy SEALs to face assault charges related to their capture of Ahmed Hashim Abed, the alleged planner of the March 2004 ambush, killing and mutilation of four Blackwater contractors in Fallujah, Iraq.  Abed, it’s alleged, was punched in the gut and received a fat lip while being apprehended.

Next up: The court-martials of SO2 Jonathan E. Keefe and SO2 Matthew V. McCabe.  Stay tuned!

To read previous reports on these Navy SEALs, click here.

UPDATE 4/23/10 at 8:43 p.m. Central: Two down, one to go.  SO2 Keefe was found not guilty of the charge of dereliction of duty today.

UDPATE #2 5/6/10 at 5:06 p.m. Central: SO2 Matthew V. McCabe was found not guilty on all charges this afternoon in Norfolk, Va.

Navy SEAL Court-Martial Begins at Camp Victory

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Four months ago, I began covering the cases of three U.S. Navy SEALs who stand accused of roughing up a detainee in Iraq believed responsible for shooting and killing four American contractors in Fallujah, Iraq, and then dragging their bodies through the streets and hanging them from a bridge.  Today, the court-martial begins for one of those SEALs, Jonathan Keefe, at Camp Victory, Iraq.  Fox & Friends aired the report about the latest details this morning.?

SEE ALSO:

Prosecution of One Navy SEAL Takes Good Turn

Charges Against Navy SEALs Published

Six Important Facts About the Assault Charges Three Navy SEALs Face for Doing Their Jobs

Retired Navy SEAL Questions Nation’s Mental State

Hat tip:  Gateway Pundit

Prosecution of One Navy SEAL Takes Good Turn

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WARNING: This is good news.

Three months ago, I published several posts about the cases of three U.S. Navy SEALs who face assault charges related to their capture of Ahmed Hashim Abed, the alleged planner of the March 2004 ambush, killing and mutilation of four Blackwater contractors in Fallujah, Iraq.  Abed, it’s alleged, was punched in the gut and received a fat lip while being apprehended.

Today, I learned — albeit late, I admit – via a recent article in the Virginia Pilot that the judge overseeing the case of one of the SEALs, Petty Officer 1st Class Julio Huertas, ordered that five key defense witnesses be granted immunity to testify on his behalf. If not, the judge warned, the case will be halted.

Pray for these brave men as their battles at home continue.

SEE ALSO these BMW articles on this subject:

Top BMW Stories the Mainstream Media Missed (Update)

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Below, in much the same manner as Fox News published a year-end piece, Nine Big Stories the Mainstream Media Missed in 2009, I highlight four seven subjects I covered that were, mostly or largely, ignored by the “lame-stream” media:

1.  The Chevron-Ecuador Lawsuit — My coverage began April 22 with the post, Blogger Investigating $27 Billion Lawsuit Against Chevron, Sending Correspondent to Ecuador.  Twenty-eight posts later, I found myself being trashed by The Huffington Post for reporting the facts.  A badge of honor, I say.

2. Anti-Socialism Rallies — Not your typical “Tea Party” rallies, the K and N Patriots’ rallies were launched by a 68-year-old grandmother whose message continues to resonate.  To date, I’ve published 22 posts, several of which included videos contrasting the patriotic, pro-freedom crowd with those advocating government-run health care.

3. Single-Payer Health Care — On Nov. 14, I crashed the 2009 Healthcare-Now.org National Strategy Conference as the only journalist in a room full of radical, left-wing single-payer health plan advocates, including NOW President Terry O’Neill, as they discussed extreme proposals for government-run health care.  In addition to a piece published at Pajamas Media, I published 11 posts that included 10 unique videos from the conference.

4. Three Navy SEALs — In four posts this month, I not only covered the surface issues related to the case of three Navy SEALs facing charges related to their apprehension of an enemy combatant, but I sought out inside sources, including a retired Navy SEAL who questioned the nation’s mental state.

Stay tuned as I’m working on several investigative pieces — including one on small town health care — and plan to publish them during the coming months.

UPDATE 1/01/10 at 11 a.m. Central: As I published this post yesterday afternoon, I must have been experiencing the side effects of what I like to call a “brain fart.”  In short, I left at least three more important story subjects off of my list of stories missed by the mainstream media.  Because I own this blog, I decided to add items #5 and #6 below:

5. LIE DETECTORS IN COMBAT — On April 9, I asked the question, Is Tech ‘Turf War’ Putting U.S. Troops at Risk? What followed was a series of six more posts about a controversy with life-and-death implications has been brewing for years over the Army’s decision to deploy the Preliminary Credibility Assessment Screening System, a hand-held lie detector, to combat zones instead of using new, more effective technology preferred by those who’ve used both in combat zones.  I have more stories coming on this subject.

6. EXCLUSIVE OKLAHOMA CITY BOMBING INTERVIEWS — While many consider the subject closed, I consider it wide open.  After new post-blast video tapes were released by the FBI, many wondered why the nation’s top law enforcement agency didn’t release tapes from prior to the bombing.  In two exclusive interviews published in late September, I spoke with Jayna Davis, investigative reporter and author of the best-selling chronicle,  The Third Terrorist, and David P. Schippers, a man who served as chief investigative counsel for the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee during the Clinton Impeachment Hearings and as manager of the proceedings that followed in the U.S. Senate.  He is an outspoken believer in Davis.  My investigation of this story isn’t finished.

7.  1st Lt. MICHAEL BEHENNA –I wrote my first story about this Army officer from Edmond, Okla., in June.  Six months later, I launched a tirade of more than a dozen follow-up pieces, nine of which were penned by new BMW contributor Carrie Fatigante.  In short, his story is one of justice denied.  He’s now serving a 20-year sentence for killing a known Al-Qaeda operative in self-defense.  For the complete story in one document, read “The Michael Behenna Story (pdf),” a 26-page document (PDF) by Fatigante.

How Will Obama Administration Officials Respond to Discovery of Rocket Launcher in Houston?

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According to a news report out of Houston this morning, police there found an AT-4 shoulder-mounted rocket launcher like the one shown in the photo above, alleged to belong to a man by the name of Nabilaye I. Yansane, in a southwest Houston apartment complex.  Though I have yet to see comments by members of the Obama Administration in response to the news about this weapon, I have some ideas about what they might say:

“This was just an isolated incident.” — President Barack Obama

“Obviously, this was a mix-up.  The rocket launcher was probably left there by a careless veteran returning from Iraq or Afghanistan.” — Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano

“Arabs traditionally welcome the New Year by firing larger, more powerful fireworks than we do in the United States.” — Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

“It’s probably something the guy picked up at an Army surplus store and doesn’t deserve any more attention than it’s already received from Fox News.” — Press Secretary Robert Gibbs

Unfortunately, I suspect all of the above comments will be proven reckless and wrong.  That said, should Americans be concerned about such a discovery?

According to a retired Navy SEAL friend of mine, the AT-4 is a one-time-use weapon capable of hitting a target from 300 yards, can bring down aircraft and can be remotely fired.  Best of all for the one using it, my combat-veteran friend says, it’s the weapon of choice — short of a Stinger missile, that is — for someone who wants to take out a hardened vehicle like those used for executive protection.

Developing…

Hat tip:  Jihad Watch

UPDATE 12/31/09 at 1:10 p.m Central: Remember the news story about the Continental Airlines pilot who, in June, reported a missile had flown past his aircraft while it was in the airspace above Liberty County, Texas.  Perhaps this rocket launcher is the one used in that incident.  Either way, troubling questions remain:  How did the rocket launcher end up in Houston and who is responsible?

RELATED 12/31/09 at 10:39 p.m Central: Police in the Fort Worth suburb of North Richland Hills, Texas, confirmed tonight that a device found in that city — and next to a Koran — contained explosives.  See this report for details.

RELATED #2 01/01/10 at 11:43 a.m. Central: Though a couple of days old, a Philadelphia television station reported that police in that city were investigating the discovery of a Molotov cocktail along with anti-Israeli books inside a Center City parking garage.