Book Review

They Just Don't Get It:

How Washington Is Still Compromising Your Safety And What You Can Do About It

By Colonel David Hunt, U.S. Army (Retired)

Copyright 2005

Review by Steve Fritsch

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 on New York City, Washington D.C., and Shanksville, Pennsylvania profoundly changed the United States in a variety of ways. Among them, it changed how the government looks at terrorism and how it should be fought, prosecuted and prevented, and it changed how Americans thought about their freedoms and liberties. It also forced the United States (its government and its people), to think of what type of future they wanted to create in the aftermath of the chaos and destruction. The seemingly invulnerability and invincibility of the United States from foreign attack was now gone, and the reality set in that changes would have to be made to not only prevent future attacks, but to do so without violating cherished civil liberties.

Additionally, ever since 9/11, just about every American citizen has had some kind of opinion on the policies and the changes made (or lack thereof) by the government to protect the nation from future terrorist attacks. And while some citizens are certainly more qualified and educated than others, all Americans have a stake in whatever changes are made to the overall system and way of life. But perhaps one of the most qualified and educated citizens in our nation today that all Americans should be listening to more often when it comes to clear cut ways for winning the War on Terror, in all its aspects, is retired U.S. Army Colonel David Hunt.

Col. Hunt is a twenty-nine year U.S. Army veteran who has dedicated his career to fighting terrorism. In his honorable career, he has helped take out an active Hezbollah terrorist camp in Bosnia, has trained the FBI and Special Forces in counterterrorism tactics, and served as security advisor to six different Olympic Games. He is also a Fox News military analyst and a senior research fellow at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. Furthermore, in summing up his qualifications in his own words, Hunt has "been in the Army for more than a quarter-century doing tours from Southeast Asia to South America... had gone to every school the Army would let (him) go to, from Airborne to Ranger to Special Forces, and... had more years commanding soldiers than almost anyone still in uniform." Simply put, Col. Hunt knows what he's talking about when it comes to dealing with terrorists and coming up with methods to stop them, and he shows us how to do this and more in his book, They Just Don?t Get It: How Washington Is Still Compromising Your Safety and What You Can Do About It.

The Path to September 11, 2001

Unfortunately for the citizens of the United States, the government and its intelligence services did not listen hard enough to Col. Hunt and other distinguished members of the counterterrorism community in regards to the growing threat of Islamic radicalism and terrorism throughout the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000-2001. Because of this lack of caution and preparation on the government's part, Hunt says that, "although some people were surprised when terrorists attacked the United States... I was not. A handful of us had been sounding the call for years. But nobody listened."

Hunt explains that starting with the 1972 Olympic Games, in which the Palestinian group, Black September, kidnapped Israeli athletes, hijacked an airplane, and murdered the athletes all in front of a worldwide television audience, terrorism has been used as a tool for extremists to promote their political and cultural views. Further adding to the power that terrorist attacks have, Col. Hunt says that the lack of legitimate retaliatory aggression by Western governments against terrorist groups and those governments that support and harbor them have only emboldened terrorists to further their attacks. Whether it was the Reagan administration pulling out of Lebanon in 1983 after the U.S. Embassy bombing, or the Clinton administration refusing to respond militarily against al Qaeda for the African embassy bombings in 1998 or the USS Cole attack in 2000, Col. Hunt says that, "By our inaction, we guaranteed that the terrorists would attack again and again." Therefore, Hunt now says it is past time for our leaders to ?stop worrying about being 'sensitive' to other countries and start getting in the face of all those who would support terrorists and all those who would do us harm." And according to Col. Hunt, there are plenty of state sponsors of terrorism to get in the "face of."

Enemies in the War on Terror

According to Col. Hunt, the "A-team of terrorist sponsors" includes Iran, North Korea, Syria, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia. Iran, Col. Hunt acknowledges, is the "leading member of the Axis of Evil" and is the "principal supporter of one of the world's deadliest terrorist organizations, Hezbollah." Add to the fact that Iran is currently attempting to make its first nuclear bomb and it is hard not to see Iran continuing to be an international menace for decades to come.

When it comes to North Korea, Col. Hunt believes that the U.S. intelligence community is "blind" because it has "never successfully penetrated" the rogue nation. Col. Hunt calls North Korea, a nation which is in "perpetual starvation," the "wild card of states that sponsor terrorism." And with "at least three nuclear bombs, more artillery than the rest of the world combined, and a million-man army," the future remains very uncertain in regards to North Korea's intentions and desires.

Syria, which Col. Hunt undiplomatically calls a "little piss-ant country," is home to two of the world's leading terrorist organizations, Hezbollah and Hamas, and is a partner with other Islamic nations in the "planned destruction of Israel."

Yemen, a small Middle East nation that few Americans have heard much about, is also in Col. Hunt's list. In 2000, the USS Cole was bombed by an al Qaeda suicide bomber in a port in Yemen, resulting in vast damage to the Cole and killing seventeen U.S. sailors. Additionally, Yemen has ''the largest al Qaeda presence anywhere outside the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.''

Finally, regarding Saudi Arabia, Col. Hunt is perhaps toughest in his criticisms of this ''state sponsor of terrorism'' more than any other nation in the group. Col. Hunt, not being a politician and definitely not wanting to sound like one, speaks bluntly about the role Saudi Arabia has played in fermenting terrorism in the world and America's acquiescence towards it. But as Col. Hunt also realistically points out, "we need the oil that's under the Saudi sand" and "until we come up with an alternative energy source, that's the way it will be." Therefore, because of the strange nature of the relationship between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia regarding oil, and according to Col. Hunt, the fact that "the government of Saudi Arabia has given al Qaeda more than $500 million as a bribe so Osama bin Laden's terrorists would focus on killing Americans, not Saudis," we are essentially "in bed with our own killers." And as Col. Hunt points out, that is nothing but "governmental suicide."

The Threat of al Qaeda

Born out of the countries in the "A-team of terrorist sponsors" are terrorist groups, and perhaps the most deadly of all is al Qaeda, which 9/11 proved, is totally dedicated to the destruction of the United States. Al Qaeda has a "presence in over eighty countries and has recruited more than twenty thousand killers." That al Qaeda has yet to hit the U.S. with another terrorist attack since 9/11 is quite remarkable. But Col. Hunt points out that the terrorist threat posed by al Qaeda is not going away. "Those who attacked us on 9/11 took close to five years to get it done," Col. Hunt says, and they "will attempt to hit us again."

Preventing another terrorist attack

Ever since 9/11 most Americans have feared the inevitable next terrorist attack. Although our government says that it is doing all it can to prevent another attack there is still that uneasy feeling that terrorists are indeed inside the U.S. plotting and waiting to carry out their next agenda. Obviously, however, there have been numerous terrorist plots that have been stopped by government officials and law enforcement agencies, so there has been some measure of success. But that does not mean our law enforcement and intelligence agencies are currently running efficiently on all cylinders. As Col. Hunt points out that is far from the case. So what is exactly wrong with our government's ability to stop and fight terrorism and prevent future terrorist attacks?

For starters, Col. Hunt believes that "in order to effect real change, in order to make it so these guys can't get us again, we have to make sweeping changes in every area of our intelligence community." Furthermore, Col. Hunt says that intelligence is the "single most important aspect in the War on Terror" and that the war "cannot be won if the United States does not possess the world's best intelligence service." Col. Hunt says there are three main problems with our intelligence community: lack of leadership, lack of accountability, and excessive bureaucracy.

So how do we fix it? First, according to Col. Hunt, we need one person in charge of all gathered intelligence. This "one person" must truly be in charge, "with real power, full budget authority, full hiring and firing authority, tasking authority." Additionally, Col. Hunt says we need to cut down the size of the bureaucracy within the intelligence agencies and "increase the number of spies and those people that directly support them."

Col. Hunt also stresses the need for further bureaucratic changes, including shifting the priorities of the CIA, FBI, the Pentagon, and the NSA. Col. Hunt says "too many agencies are doing the same thing" and that "many of the problems plaguing our intelligence community--the ongoing turf wars, the obvious intelligence failures--stem from unnecessary bureaucracy."

"The runaway bureaucratic structure" has also created a lack of accountability," Col. Hunt says. Lack of accountability is a major point Col. Hunt makes throughout the book. "We didn't demand accountability for 9/11," Col. Hunt declares. "Not one single government employee has been fired or even reprimanded for the largest loss of American lives on a single day since the Civil War." Moreover, Col. Hunt says that "our leaders will only view the deaths and maiming of American citizens and soldiers seriously if they have to answer for them." Unfortunately, five years since 9/11, we still suffer from too many of these problems, and Col. Hunt says that not only is this unacceptable, but its dangerous. "Every day that we don't fix (these problems) we are simply making the next 9/11 more probable," he says.

Winning the War on Terror

Col. Hunt is the first to admit that winning the War on Terror will not be easy, and that the war could last as long as fifty years or more. According to Col. Hunt, "To be in a position to affect this War on Terror, you have to accept the fact that we are fighting a war unlike any we have ever fought in the past and that this war will be part of our lives for many years." In addition, Col. Hunt points out that this war "will only get uglier" and that many people are going to die. "We must develop a stomach for ugliness," Col. Hunt boldly declares. "We need to learn how not to flinch... We need to understand the central premise of this war: the bad guys are not going to stop unless we kill them, right now, over there on their own turf."

But Col. Hunt does not believe we can do it alone and stresses that we must ask for the assistance of our allies. "Is it really possible to win the War on Terror without the full involvement of our allies, especially our European allies, including France and Germany? I don't think so," says Col. Hunt. "We need our allies' intelligence services, our allies' bases, and sometimes our allies' forces."

Regarding how to fight the War on Terror militarily speaking, Col. Hunt, who has almost thirty years of service in the Army, believes he has the answers. But first, Col. Hunt says, we must come to grips that we are fighting a guerrilla war. "In guerrilla warfare you usually don't get the big victory," Col. Hunt says. "In a guerrilla war you get drips." Col. Hunts also adds that to "fight this kind of war requires flexibility, swift maneuvering, and the best damn soldiers in the world," most notably Special Forces soldiers. We must "take the fight directly to the (terrorists)" in a variety of methods, including infiltrating organizations, using psychological operations, and controlling public communications systems.

What can regular Americans do to help?

One of the main goals behind They Just Don't Get It is Col. Hunt's attempt to help regular American citizens see how the War on Terror really is, as opposed to what they see in thirty second sound bites on television or radio, as well as understanding the depth of problems that our government is facing in trying to protect us from future terrorist attacks. And throughout the book, Col. Hunt has four main requirements for us: face reality, become informed, get angry, and demand accountability.

According to Col. Hunt, "reality" is that the United States is in a "religious war" and that Islamic extremists will try to attack us again in the future. "Become informed" means we need to demand answers from our government. But "questions about what the government is doing to protect us aren't the only ones you should be demanding answers to," Col. Hunt tells us. "Step back and ask the next logical question: Is this War on Terror going well? Are we doing all that we should? Are we doing it the right way?"

Furthermore, Col. Hunt tells us to "never accept an answer that doesn't make sense. There is nothing un-American or un-patriotic about asking--hell, demanding--answers from our government." And that "those people who will accuse us of being un-this and anti-that are the same people who did not do their jobs and allowed 9/11."

"Get angry" should be a relatively easy one to do for those citizens who are becoming informed and realizing that the government is not where it needs to be to protect us from terrorism. Col. Hunt reminds us not to forget what happened on 9/11 and to remember the all the funerals that took place because of it. He also says that the people have the power to force the government to make the necessary changes in order to better protect us. "When enough (voters) get going and make a lot of noise, (politicians) have to respond," Col. Hunt tells us.

When it comes to "demanding accountability" of our political leaders, Col. Hunt says we should always be asking for, even demanding, answers. Col. Hunt reminds us that it is our tax dollars that "are paying for all the things that ensure the safety of senators and congressman and their families." Therefore, exactly "who is protecting your family?"

Finally, Col. Hunt also warns us not to lose sight of what it means to be an American, and to "not to turn against our own country in this fight." Col. Hunt says that as Americans "we cannot tolerate bigotry and discrimination against fellow Americans; if we do, we weaken the things that make this country great." American citizens who look "different," are not the enemy just because they look the way we imagine Arabs or Middle Easterners look." Col. Hunt also reminds us to support our troops and to thank them. "They are fighting for you," Col. Hunt says.

A Critical Evaluation of Col. David Hunt's Book

They Just Don't Get It is certainly a book that is not going to please everyone. Col. Hunt's fiery personality and tough talk will turn off some and will appeal to others. In many ways Col. Hunt is sort of a modern-day General Patton, albeit without the fame and glory only a world war can bring to a military man. But like Patton, Col. Hunt speaks his mind as he sees the world, and he does not care about diplomacy, and he does not care about possibly offending anyone. Also like Patton, Col. Hunt has absolutely no desire to be a politician. But he loves his country, and although he served in the armed forces for twenty-nine years, he refuses to quit serving the people of the United States by writing and talking about what needs to be changed if we are to win the War on Terror and build a more safe and secure future. Col. Hunt is one of the nation's most patriotic citizens, and all Americans owe him a big thank you even if they disagree with his recommendations for change or his views on policy.

At the same time, even though tough talk and tough action is sometimes required in diplomatic affairs with other nations, there are also times when a very levelheaded and cautious approach is needed. For example, Col. Hunt's calling Syria a "little piss-ant country" may be true, but one would not likely want him as an ambassador to that nation, or perhaps any nation. Obviously in diplomacy you would want to have many different kinds of personalities working on a given situation, where one personality type and approach may be more beneficial than another.  Because of this, all of Col. Hunt's suggestions may not work in the real world of government affairs. Even domestically, Col. Hunt wants a drastic reduction in the layers of bureaucracy of government. This is fine and well, and may be the best thing to do, but would Col. Hunt's personality actually help bring about that change, or would it hurt it? Perhaps we need more men like Col. Hunt in government, or perhaps there never could be because we could never get enough politicians who cared more about the betterment of the nation than their own careers.

Either way one looks at it, however, is to see that the amount of changes that Col. Hunt wants are highly unlikely to happen anytime soon. The bureaucracies of all the agencies that Col. Hunt criticized will buckle down to protect themselves from government cuts and slashes. The bigger Army that Col. Hunt calls for will most likely be pushed off by members of Congress for the sake of funding some other government program. In American government, nothing happens fast with the exception of an emergency (and which we saw with 9/11 and the creation of the Patriot Act, which Col. Hunt says needs to be tweaked in order to prevent possible governmental abuses of citizens' civil liberties).

In the end, we need to know that our government has gotten some things right since 9/11, which Col. Hunt points out. But we must never become complacent again (like we did before 9/11) and we must never quit demanding answers from our government.  We must hold our political and military accountable for their actions in the War on Terror and we must demand that we don't forget what makes our nation so great to begin with: Namely, that we are a free and open society that cherishes civil liberties and we must do everything possible to protect not only ourselves from physical harm by terrorists, but also protect our liberties from our own government. If we do this, and perhaps even follow through with some of the recommendations made by Col. Hunt in They Just Don't Get It, then perhaps in time we will witness the "lifeless head of the last terrorist we killed" under our feet.