Powell said, This just in from the Israelis. Iraq had begun firing Scud missiles at Israel from mobile launchers in the vast western-Iraqi desert. By that time, his terror network had been decimated. She said: 2023 Cond Nast. Begin registering all Muslims in America? Questions would be raised later about whether these attacks were taking out real missile launchers or decoys fielded by Saddam, but theres no doubt that the results achieved were fast and dramatic, and kept Israel off the battlefield. Its intelligence network and aerial assets would give Kurdish, Iraqi, and Syrian fighters an overwhelming advantage against ISIS. Mr. BOWDEN: Well, it was unearthed by a fellow named Morgen Richmond, who is - he's got a full-time day job, but in the evenings, he cruises the Internet and he basically looks for material to support his blogging on a conservative Web site called the verumserum.com. Made up of elite soldiers pulled from each of the main military branchesNavy SEALs, the Armys Delta Force and Green Berets, Air Force Combat Controllers, Marine Raidersit is active in more than 80 countries and has swelled to a force of 75,000, including civilian contractors. The call came to me in a motel room in Colorado, from his trusty assistant, the late Norma Foerderer. The researchers, Eitan Hersh, formerly a political scientist at Yale, and Gabrielle Malina, a graduate student at Harvard, identified about 180,000 clergy and were able to match about 130,000 to . You and I dont even know how to run it., * Lead image credit: Illustration by Mike McQuade; images from Leif Skoogfors; Rolls Press / Popperfoto; Corbis; Larry Burrows / Life Picture Collection; Joel Robine / AFP / Getty. ROBERTS: Is that the perfect storm? The attackers were crammed into four Black Hawks, as many as 15 Rangers in each helicopterI mean, just ridiculous loads, Thomas recalled. Image above, clockwise from top left: A U.S. Army Special Forces sniper, 1991; the aftermath of Operation Eagle Claw, the failed U.S. rescue operation in Iran, 1980; a marine during the invasion of Grenada, 1983; Captain Vernon Gillespie Jr. in Vietnam, 1964; soldiers on patrol at Camp Victory, in Somalia, 10 days after 18 Americans were killed during the Delta-led Battle of Mogadishu, 1993.*. Democracy depends on a modicum of trust. In 2017, responsibility for policing weapons of mass destruction worldwide was handed from U.S. Strategic Command to SOCOM, which was given information operations at about the same time. Mr. BOWDEN: Well, I just think that, you know, we are, as a society, adapting to an enormous, rapid change in technology. Special Ops forces, in contrast, are astonishingly small. And those Web sites are monitored by, well, you know, the journalists at Fox and - but more importantly in this case, by the Judicial Confirmation Network, which is an activist group, conservative group in Washington that works to derail liberal nominees to the Supreme Court. He published two books prior to these, Doctor Dealer and Bringing the Heat, both of which were based on reporting he originally did for the newspaper. We, the NavyBig Navyhadnt boarded a ship in a century, Stavridis said. If interrogators step over the line from coercion to outright torture, they should be held personally responsible. Norm said, Whoa, whoa, is this a training tape from back at Bragg? Thomas recounted. But, you know, I came away from this book optimistic about the future because what we saw was that the American people are not as fundamentally dishonest as Donald Trump. The advent of nuclear weapons, in the 1940s, presented leaders with urgent ethical and strategic imperatives. And so he found it without actually too much trouble. Special Ops teams were still hunting Saddam and other high-value targets when a new enemy arose: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a jihadist known as The Sheikh of the Slaughterers. His followers were setting off bombs in crowded places, attacking American soldiers, and kidnapping infidels and beheading them in horrific videos posted online. [2] The results were also on film. Previously city included Clayton GA. Other names that Mark uses includes Mark Owen Bowden and Mark O Bowden. He is a national correspondent for The Atlantic. And I think that the point was less to win the argument than it was to amass such a volume of complaint directed toward the election that they could convince people across the country that there was something that smelled about that election. [9] This program developed physical methods that can be used during interrogations and Ronson noted that they can be brutal or fatal. There is still a lack of trust in the way elections are administered and the way these machines work. A special Israeli unit stormed an airport in Entebbe, Uganda, in 1976, rescuing more than 100 passengers who had been taken from a hijacked airliner. But I think in discussions with me where I raised these issues with them and explained to them what the difference was, in my opinion, and what the motivations and ethics of journalists are as opposed to those of someone who's a political activist, they retreated from calling themselves journalists and now no longer do. Choppers would deliver the Delta team to Tehran and then would pluck the team and the rescued hostages from a stadium near the embassy. Mr. BOWDEN: young people who did it. The luminosity of the brush strokes? Why not? he asked. The only helicopters large enough for the job couldnt be refueled in-flight, so the choppers had to perform a complex nighttime rendezvous in the Iranian desert with tanker aircraft. But without any conscious plan, I have seen some of the evolution firsthand. Major General Richard Scholtes, who had been the JSOC commander at the time of the operation, testified about these and other failures in a closed session of a Senate Armed Services subcommittee in August 1986. As Obama explained when I spoke with him after the bin Laden mission: Ultimately, none of this stuff works if were not partnering effectively with other countries, if were not engaging in smart diplomacy, if were not trying to change our image in the Muslim world to reduce recruits to extremism. BOWDEN: I think that the local officials who were caught up in this were caught very much by surprise. That was the way, you know, basically, large journalistic organizations controlled media. He has said that he welcomes questions about it from others. When the Tehran embassy was seized, Delta Force had yet to undertake a mission, and the challenge posed was beyond any imagined for it. But in fact he would be present for nearly every major U.S. military action of the next four decades. Thomas admits that he fought a losing battle to keep his command from becoming bigger and more bureaucratic. Bowden wrote the 1997 Playboy interview of Donald Trump.[2]. He left the choice to her, saying only, I want it really rich. There have been all of these audits - this has really dragged on well past after Inauguration Day and well into President Biden's - first-year President Biden's term. Foerderer came back on the line. ROBERTS: Let's talk about that ACORN video, because it was also not produced by journalists, but by conservative activists. And it was - and kudos to the. Today, everyone has access to television cameras, audiotapes. Leaders began to find new uses for Special Ops. You call it a blunderbuss strategy. Mark Bowden currently lives in Brier, WA; in the past Mark has also lived in Renton WA, Fresno CA and Shoreline WA. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. Joining us now from Philadelphia is Mark Bowden, a national correspondent for the Atlantic magazine. Torture is a crime against humanity, but coercion is an issue that is rightly handled with a wink, or even a touch of hypocrisy; it should be banned but also quietly practiced. Bowden believes that young people are just as drawn to "deep" journalism as other generations of people have been. As in most other fields, modern telecoms would transform war-fighting. Mr. Or even the news source with an agenda, if you go to, you know, William Randolph Hearst is not a phenomenon - a new phenomenon. ROBERTS: So is this a one-way curve? He is best known for his book Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War (1999) about the 1993 U.S. military raid in Mogadishu, Somalia. Another, Guests of the Ayatollah, about the Iran hostage crisis, detailed an abortive but pivotal Special Ops rescue mission. And yet, around the post-World War II period, there emerged a much more professional, white collar form of journalism because of the success of newspapers that separated the newsroom and the editorial side of a news operation from the publisher and the marketing side of things. McChrystal was known as a relentless striver. Mission planners had had to plead to obtain blueprints of the embassy compound in Tehran. No. By seeking out dramatic military missions, I have chronicled the movement of Special Ops from the wings to center stage. By Mark Bowden Lincoln as a frightened raccoon, Punch, January 11, 1862 ( Library of Congress) June 2013 Issue By nearly any measure personal, political, even literaryAbraham Lincoln set a. This opened Obama to political attacks for leading from behind, which revealed a fundamental misunderstanding of the change under way. He remains the most vain man I have ever met. ROBERTS: Well, the other clip that made the rounds along the same time with the wise Latina remark. And Congress has taken steps to cut its funding. Despite his background leading shooters, McRaven promoted the softer side of the command, long a major part of its portfoliothe Green Beret teams of people who were familiar with local languages and cultures, knew how to build ties with communities, and had the diplomatic skills to serve as advisers rather than call all the shots. Mr. BOWDEN: Well, Verum Serum is read by, Morgan estimated, 20 or 30 people. Round up the families of suspected terrorists? The Green Berets survived as an elite unit, but many ambitious Army officers considered a berth in Special Forces a career-killer. I know. That's simply true. Months later, they had to be; Carter was desperate. Mark Bowden May 27, 2020 Top Military Officers Unload on Trump The commander in chief is impulsive, disdains expertise, and gets his intelligence briefings from Fox News. He currently lives in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, the Mushroom Capital of the World. It was the first time that we really started to see them in the field, he recalled. He is the successful governor who was recently re-elected by a large margin. Trump took exception to the design of the spaces between courts. Is this the only direction journalism is going, or is there a counteracting force? Those 20 or 30 people are other conservative bloggers, for the most part, some of whom have much larger - much more heavily trafficked Web sites like the Volokh Conspiracy and hotair.com. Eagle Claw, as the mission was called, never cleared the first hurdlegetting to Tehran. So there's no question that Trump was very directly steering all of this and in many instances stepped in personally to try to influence the outcome. His trademark techniques are used by top leaders and political players around the world who want to gain an advantage beyond wordswhen they speak. GURA: You mentioned Sheryl Guy. Mark Bowden retired from United Nations (UN) as the Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Afghanistan where he was also the United Nations Resident Coordinator (RC), Humanitarian Coordinator (HC) and UNDP Resident Representative in charge of coordination of the United Nations System activities between 2012 and 2017. Who unearthed it and how? [5] The author suggests that Bowden may have created quotes and states of mind of principals to fit his story, and questions whether the journalist had conducted relevant interviews or attended a single day of the murder trial of former LAPD detective Stephanie Lazarus, although this case was the centerpiece of his story. He recalled asking General Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Hey, why am I not in the Tank? Dunford replied, Tony, youre not a real service. Trump remains the only person I have ever written about who tried to bribe me. And it's not "history he doe When Saddam invaded Kuwait, in 1990, President George H. W. Bush gathered an allied coalition to drive the Iraqis out. It didn't matter that she had taken responsibility for the mistake. It has become a central actor in todays military because of its rapid adaptability and because of the expertise and experience of its forces. What did you make of it? Despite his requests for guidance from Secretary of Defense James Mattisfor more carefully sorted prioritiesthe new missions just kept coming. Copyright 2009 NPR. He called Brad Raffensperger, the secretary of state, as we all know in that famous phone call, to browbeat him, try to get him to find the necessary number of votes so that he could win in Georgia. Four SEALs drowned on a preinvasion reconnaissance mission. Mr. BOWDEN: Well, let's take them one at a time. Once created, JSOC was treated like a poor stepchild. And Sotomayor's point there was that if you go to work as a clerk on the district court, you're going to be a lot of very rapid research for a judge who needs to make decisions right away about the specific issues of an individual case, whereas on the appellate court level, you're making - you are researching decisions that will affect judicial policy, that will set precedents that will determine the way the law is interpreted across the board. Updated at 7:17 p.m. Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World's Greatest Outlaw, Learn how and when to remove this template message, American Association for the Advancement of Science, The Last Stone: A Masterpiece of Criminal Interrogation, "Bowden: 1958 Colts-Giants championship an NFL game changer", "Fact Checking Mark Bowden's Curious Vanity Fair Article on Stephanie Lazarus", "Fact Checking Mark Bowden's Curious Vanity Fair Article on Stephanie Lazarus, Part VII", "Vanity Fair corrects Bowden story about Stephanie Lazarus case", "Michael Mann to direct a Vietnam War TV series", The Dark Art of Interrogation, The Atlantic Monthly, October 2003 retrieved September 12, 2010, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mark_Bowden&oldid=1149252724, Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, Articles with dead external links from December 2017, Articles with permanently dead external links, Short description is different from Wikidata, BLP articles lacking sources from May 2020, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Finalist, best newspaper writing, American Society of Newspaper Editors, 1979 (for, Winner, Maryland Library Association's Maryland Author Award for nonfiction writing, 2011 (for body of work), Winner, Gen. Wallace Greene Award for nonfiction writing, USMC Heritage Foundation 2018 (for, Finalist, Los Angeles Times Book Award, History, 2018 (for, Finalist, The Andrew Carnegie Medal, Nonfiction, 2018 (for, Inductee, The Cybersecurity Canon 2018 (for, Article "The Joey Coyle Story" was adapted as, This page was last edited on 11 April 2023, at 02:24. Mark's relationship status is married. Mark Bowden, thanks so much. Without the overhead view covering the whole stretch of road, he would have aborted the mission. It's only the laughter in the room when Sotomayor used the word policy which made the whole thing sound suspicious and conspiratorial, and it made it sound like she would say that she's part of some sort of wink-wink conspiracy to make policy from the bench. And that really wasn't the case. After the CIA traced his location, a SEAL team penetrated Pakistans air defenses and hit his compound. Can you do that? Powell asked Downing. The trip from genius to idiot was a flash. He recognized that the ability to digitize informationaudio files, video files, maps, texts, emails, phone calls, documentscould steer him rapidly to targets. He has no coherent political philosophy, so comparisons with Fascist leaders miss the mark. He had just turned 50 and wasnt happy about it. Something called the Delta Force already existed on paper. Mark Bowden October 2009 Issue Subscribe Now I f you happened to be watching a television news channel on May 26, the day President Obama nominated U.S. Justice SONIA SOTOMAYOR (Supreme Court Justice): All of the legal defense funds out there, they're looking for people with Court of Appeals experience, because it is - Court of Appeals is where policy is made. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. I know. And he packaged it in basically that - actually, a little bit less of the clipping that I just showed on your program as something that really called into question whether or not Sotomayor was a judicial activist in the sense that conservatives so despised. GURA: Much of the book centers on an assortment of strategies by Trump and his allies, particularly Rudy Giuliani. . This past November, an NPR Marist Poll found that 75% of Republicans say Trump has a legitimate claim that fraud changed the results. Donald Trumps words and policies were unpredictable, but SOCOMs mission continued to enlarge. Cuban and Grenadian military personnel were known to be on the island, but no one knew exactly where or how many, or what kind of arms they had. German special forces had provided a snarea net made of sturdy elastic that could capture even a speeding vehicle. We lucked out and came right on a Scud launcher two or three days after we started, Thomas recalled. Plus new fiction by Paul Yoon, pandemic merch, Beirut after the blast, Kazuo Ishiguros radiant robot, Sam Siftons no-recipe recipes, and more. From 1979 to 2003, Bowden was a staff writer for The Philadelphia Inquirer. ROBERTS: Does either Morgan Richmond or the two ACORN activists - do they call themselves journalists? But where did it come from? Accuracy and availability may vary. BOWDEN: In pursuing the goal of overturning the election, Rudy Giuliani and his minions seized, literally, upon any accusation of fraud, no matter how crackpot or disproved. Ron DeSantis: The Making and Remaking (and Remaking) of a MAGA Heir. Vanity Fair may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. It was on the occasion of a - an annual talk honoring an Hispanic faculty member at Berkeley. We dont do that. Surveillance drones were still in the future, but Thomas did have a helicopter with a high-speed camera. 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