GHOST

No doubt there are many, many secrets floating around in the "dark underground" concerning terrorist activity around the world. The recent revelation (in the press) that dozens of Somali teenagers raised in the United States have been recruited and are being trained by Al Quida affiliated organizations should give one pause. One has to be amazed by the seriousness and difficulty of the task handed to American counterintelligence officers in keeping murderers at bay. It will likely be decades before much of the story of the current battle comes to light in memoirs and histories. Recently I read Fred Burton's Ghost: Confessions of a Counterterrorism Agent. Burton was a member of the Diplomatic Security Service (DSS), which is tasked with protecting our State Department personnel (including ambassadors) as well as visiting diplomats. Burton was given the early assignment of investigating attacks and activities of Middle Eastern terrorists, even before Bin Laden became a household word. For the most part, this volume concentrates on events preceeding and up to the first attack on the WTC. He was active in tracking the abductions of Americans in Lebanon, investigating the assassination of President Zia of Pakistan, working on the bombng of the Lockerbie Pan-Am flight, and finding the original bombers of the WTC.

The book provides a lot of interesting information. Spycraft. I was very interested in the Zia story, having recently finished Hanif's A Case of Exploding Mangoes. It was quite an eye-opening tale of cooperation/antagonism between Pakistni and American agents. Burton's conclusion that the most likely culprit in downing Zia's plane (in which his army staff and the US ambassador also perished) was the Soviet Union, rings true. I loved the give and take between adversaries. I also think that anyone who assumes that terrorists, and especially members of foreign spying agencies, are dumb, better think twice.

Like so many government/military people, he is critical of the media, though clearly he relied on it, and now in a way is a reporter of a sort himself, providing to the world an inside look into a secretive agency. I wondered if he told too much, though, of evasion tactics and other spy procedure. Still, you can be certain that there was an equal amount of intel that he did not give up. Those bodies are undoubtedly still buried deep. He hinted that he knew a lot more about some events. . .teased the reader, I should say.

I was surprised at his candor in revealing some of his agency's failures, such as the inability to detect long-running surveillance carried out by Ramsi Youself on diplomatic motorcades (some of which he himself was a part of). You would think these admissions would have notched down a little of the bravado, as when he states that should an attack happen, "I have fifteen rounds. And I will make every one count." More likely, had an attack come, many agents, even himself, would not have had as much of a chance as they thought. Thankfully, no attack came.

Burton is really giving more than an account of his service. It is a warning, that America has to be more vigilant, creative, intuitive, and flexible in approaching the challenges of terrorism. Future attacks will happen. We have to take out the miscreants. I just hope that this can be achieved without destroying our national character and beliefs and done within legal boundaries. Yes, I know. . .the other guy isn't playing fair. But I don't want our people to be like them; I want ours to better than them.