In honor of Banned Books Week, here’s a story full of adventure and mystery: like, why did the Department of Defense recently buy and destroy 9,500 copies of an officer’s memoir to “safeguard state secrets?”
The book, Operation Dark Heart: Spycraft and Special Ops on the Frontlines of Afghanistan — and The Path to Victory, was written by Army Reserve Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer. It’s a chronicle of his time in Afghanistan leading a black-ops team. Says the book’s description,
Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Shaffer had run intelligence operations for years before he arrived in Afghanistan. He was part of the “dark side of the force”—-the shadowy elements of the U.S. government that function outside the bounds of the normal system. His group called themselves the Jedi Knights and pledged to use the dark arts of espionage to protect the country from its enemies. Shaffer’s mission to Afghanistan, however, was unlike any he had ever experienced before. There, he led a black-ops team on the forefront of the military efforts to block the Taliban’s resurgence. They not only planned complex intelligence operations to beat back the insurgents, but also played a key role in executing those operations—-outside the wire. They succeeded in striking at the core of the Taliban and their safe havens across the border in Pakistan. For a moment Shaffer saw us winning the war. Then the military brass got involved. The policies that top officials relied on were hopelessly flawed. Shaffer and his team were forced to sit and watch as the insurgency grew—-just across the border in Pakistan. This wasn’t the first time he had seen bureaucracy stand in the way of national security. He had participated in Able Danger, the aborted intelligence operation that identified many of the future 9/11 terrorists but failed to pursue them. His attempt to reveal the truth to the 9/11 Commission would not go over well with his higher-ups.
Operation Dark Heart tells the story of what really went on—and what went wrong—in Afghanistan. Shaffer witnessed firsthand the tipping point, when what seemed like certain victory turned into failure. Now, in this book, he maps out a way that could put us on the path to winning the war.
Even though the author claims the book got the green light from Army Reserve brass, higher-ups disagreed — albeit too late to stop publication — and the Pentagon has been quite open about their actions. Says Pentagon spokeswoman Lt. Col. April Cunningham to CNN, “DoD decided to purchase copies of the first printing because they contained information which could cause damage to national security,” an echo of an August memo from the Defense Intelligence Agency in which an officer wrote that he’d “identified significant classified information, the release of which I have determined could reasonably be expected to cause serious damage to national security.”
Like what? “Secret activities of the U.S. Special Operations Command, CIA and National Security Agency,” according to the same DIA memo. Shaffer has let it be known that he considers this nonsense, telling CNN that he and his editors worked “to make sure nothing in the book would be detrimental to national security…When you look at what they took out (in the 2nd edition), it’s lunacy,”
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