America's Shadow Warriors
On Wednesday December 30th, seven CIA officials were murdered and others were critically wounded at the Camp Chapman base in the eastern Khost province of Afghanistan on the Pakistan border. Speculation has it that an Afghan national army soldier entered the base and blew himself up along with the CIA officials.
These men and women who serve in the intelligence agency never get the heroic welcome or thanks they so rightly deserve for the risks they take. Their names will never be known and they will never receive the public gratitude so many others get. A few of their comrades expressed to FrumForum their feelings of devastation and anger.
An operative pointed out to FrumForum that the blame is once again being placed on them for having lax security at the base and not being thorough enough in validating a potential source (the Afghan soldier.) He frustratingly noted that those dead and wounded volunteered to spend a year away from their spouses and children “in order to be on the pointy end of the spear, and the dead have paid the ultimate sacrifice for their country. Sitting back here with a hot cup of Starbucks and a Dunkin’ donut, it's easy to point fingers and cast blame. But to admit that our foe is just as smart, capable, and motivated as us is unthinkable, because it may mean that even more resources will have to be poured in and, God forbid, more than just 9% of the U.S. population could be called upon to make sacrifices.”
All those interviewed wanted Americans to know that those dead included the chief of base, a mother in her thirties with three children and someone on his first tour, also in his thirties leaving behind four children. Rolf Mowatt Larrsen, a former CIA intelligence chief, painfully commented that he was in “grief stricken by our loss.”
A former CIA official wanted Americans to realize that these “were people in the prime of their lives, in their thirties with families at home. They were trying to do the right thing, to serve their country. This is the worst day for the CIA since the bombing of the Beirut embassy in 1983.”
Another current operative who served in Afghanistan sadly noted that his comrade’s “true identity may never be revealed. Everybody who comes in is told you may be going out to Afghanistan, not a nice place. Yet, people do it without hesitation. We call ourselves the shadow warriors because we are as much warriors as the soldiers in the war zone.”
A former very high ranking official stated that "these CIA officers were the embodiment of the mission you see written on the wall throughout our HQs -- that we go where others will not and do what others cannot to defend our country. The essence of heroism is to put the interests of your countrymen ahead of your own and that is precisely what these brave officers did. This is the least understood and most frequently misunderstood institution in the U.S. government and perhaps this incident will bring CIA's unique contribution into bolder relief for more Americans."
A former high ranking CIA official told FrumForum the loss of CIA officers in Afghanistan this week “is a reminder that we have some extraordinary men and women serving the country under very difficult circumstances. Like the military they willingly go in harm’s way. Unlike the military they serve without public recognition. Because they have to establish contact and ties with people in dangerous areas they often have to take risks that few others would accept. The successes against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan have come in large measure due to human intelligence gathered by men and women like these. For them the risks and sacrifices are not theoretical. The country owes them an enormous debt of gratitude.” These men and women are the true unsung heroes in the fight to win the war on terror.