[EDITOR: Updated Nov. 7, 2008 -- After some correspondence with the author I have decided to redact his real name, though it had been revealed by another forum quite a while ago. Fury made a compelling case that he was worried about putting his family's live in danger, and as someone with a young daughter of my own, compassion outweighed journalistic ethics. I am sincerely sorry for any problems this may have caused and I wish Fury the best of luck in his endeavors...Please read the upcoming review of "Kill bin Laden" on Military.com.]
So, after I posted the last thread, I went over to a forum that's populated with no-joke special operations forces troops and looked at the discussion on the KBL/ Dalton Fury imbroglio. Man is it hot in there.
Apparently, Dalton Fury's real name is [DELETED BY EDITOR]. I was wrong in thinking he was Pete Blaber, though it does turn out from the discussion that Blaber has a book of his own coming out called "The Mission, The Men, and Me: Lessons from a Former Delta Force Commander" that's supposed to be available in December.
These operators at the forum are none too kind to a guy who's attempting to "profit" from revealing covert operations covered under top secret non disclosure agreements. They skewer him and smoke his body over a pit of coals. But none of them disputes who he is, what he's done or how the mission went down. There's little comment about the actual 60 Minutes broadcast, though it would have been helpful if the reporters had mentioned the controversy Fury has caused and held fast on calling him by his real name [DELETED BY EDITOR]. Once it's out in the open, it looks a little ridiculous for a reputable news organization to stick to a pseudonym.
As a reporter who's covered the military for a decade, I get a little annoyed at the knuckle-dragger attitude that someone who says anything about their covert activity should be banished. Give me a break. That attitude perpetuates an elitist, Samurai mentality that says "you don't need to know. Just trust us, we know what we're doing..."
Sorry, but I -- and millions of other Americans -- pay your salary and we damned right want to know what you're doing. You work for us. So I'm glad, as long as it doesn't deliberately put lives in danger of death (like the politically-motivated CIA tell-alls did back in the '70s), that these stories come out. There's been seven years between then and now, surely Delta and CIA have new ways of doing things that aren't compromised by this book.
I will say that I think Eric Haney's book went over the line -- in terms of TTPs and training. Ouch...And the guys over at the operator board skewered him for that as well. But that's a case where the quilty pleasure of the inside gouge outweighed my scruples a bit...Inside Delta Force was SUCH a good read.
-- Christian
