Richard Clarke - Sting of the Drone

“I agree. It’s awful. I know. I’ve been there,” Bryce said. “But why is it our problem?”

“Because they made it our problem. They decided they were part of al Qaeda. They announced to everyone that they want to kill Americans and to spread this religious police state they set up when they take over anywhere, spread it to all parts of the world. One big caliphate. If they’re not held in check, pushed back, they will move forward and eventually they will get around to their announced intention of killing Americans. First they will kill Americans to drive us out of ‘their part of the world.’ Then, they will kill to expand their part of the world, to Europe, to here. I know it sounds crazy, but Hitler and the Bolsheviks did at first, too. And these AQ guys have a track record.”

Bryce had heard the arguments before. “I guess it’s a question of where we choose to fight and who we choose to back in the process. When we back regimes like those in Mali, we get tarred with all of their sins,” Bryce said. “The Mali government may not be as crazy as al Qaeda, but they are not people we would want to be associated with were it not for the fact that they are fighting, sort of, against AQ.”

“We know that. America tried the ‘enemy of my enemy’ thing in the Cold War and we got into bed with a lot of Latin American sadists,” Ray said. “We’re trying to reform the people we are working with, when we can.”

They both took a breath. And both scanned the few others in the little café off the gym to see if anyone appeared to be taking a special interest in them. Despite the ardor of what both men had been saying, they had kept the volume of the conversation level low.

“Collateral damage. There are a lot of independent observers who think that it has been much higher than you admit,” Bryce noted. “Did you happen to see my piece on the village in Yemen?”

Ray smiled for the first time in the meeting. “Don’t tell anyone, but yes, I have watched all of your drone stories. And yes, off the record, we probably did kill that guy’s brother to get to an AQAP leader who was renting a room in the house. But notice that the attack took place when most of the women and children were out. We thought they were all out. That kind of intelligence collection is hard to get, but we try to do it.”

“But the surviving brother. He wasn’t AQAP before, but now he effectively is. He wants to kill Americans. What have you gained?” Bryce asked.

“With our attack in Yemen we took off the battlefield a hardened terrorist who had trained Americans of Yemeni and Saudi ethnic background and tried to send them back to the U.S. to do attacks,” Ray said. “And because of where we had to get him, in that boardinghouse, which you think was so innocent, we pissed off an entire village and we now have one guy so mad he may join AQ. What lesson do I take from that personally? Lower the collateral damage even further. Wait till we can get the bad guy alone, preferably on the road.”

“Why don’t you want me to report that?” Bryce asked.

“Because the Yemeni government wants to keep the slight fiction that America is not using drones there. They judge that even as slight as that fiction is, it helps them. They want to say it was their Air Force, even though nobody really believes that.”

“What happened to the American Yemenis this AQ guy had trained?” Bryce asked.

“Completely off the record? The Yemeni Army stopped them at a roadblock and a firefight erupted. They all bought it,” Ray said. “Saved us from having to decide to do another drone strike on Americans.”

Bryce felt a shiver at the thought of people dying at a Yemeni roadblock. “But would you have?” he asked. “Would you have killed the American citizens?”

“No, I was advocating for having them arrested in Dubai where they were going to get on a Delta flight to Atlanta and an Emirates flight to LA.” Ray finished the Green Machine. “But they never left Yemen and Americans did not kill them.”

“But we might have been following them with a drone and told the Yemenis to set up a road block?” Bryce asked.

“As an old British TV show character used to say, ‘You might think that. I could not possibly comment.’ You see, you may report in color, but it’s a world of grays. We fuck up. We learn. We try to fuck up less. The bad guys are definitely bad, in this struggle. Our motives are good and we try real hard not to become bad in the process. It’s not always easy.”

“I’m sure it’s not,” Bryce agreed.

“Where did you live when you were at the K School?” Ray asked.

“Somerville.”

“Ah yes, Slumahvil. So did I. Shitty apartment in a three-decker, but there was a great bar on the corner. Lots of Bruins fans.”

“I hope you think my Special Edition on Terrorism in Africa is fair,” Bryce said as they stood up.

“I doubt I will, but keep trying.” They shook hands. “And we will keep trying.” Ray went downstairs and hit the weights.

MONDAY, DECEMBER 7

THE FERRY BUILDING, THE EMBARCADERO

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA

“Can you tell me about the ferries? We’re new to San Francisco,” the taller young man asked.

“Fairies?” Ahmed Bahadur stared at the two young men. They were in white shirts with black ties and nametags. Bahadur wondered if this was some kind of trap. He did not want to say much, did not want to reveal his accent. “What is your role?” he said.

“We convert people,” the other young man said.

Bahadur quickly turned his back on them and walked onto the boat to Sausalito, a man in a business suit, carrying a briefcase, perhaps taking the afternoon off, going home at midday.

“That is not what we are supposed to say,” the taller young man said to his colleague. “You scared him. You keep that up and you will be sent back to Salt Lake.”

Bahadur climbed to the aft deck and then farther up to the top open deck. “I don’t know how you have lived among these kafirs,” he said to the man in blue blazer. “They deserve what we are going to do.”

Ghazi Nawarz did not turn to look at him. “You should wear sunglasses. They all wear sunglasses. You would blend in better.”

“Two years ago when I was told to move to Australia and run things in that region for our organization, I shave my face and I wear their costume. That is enough,” Bahadur replied. The boat jerked as it began to move away from the pier. The two men were alone on the upper deck, as Ghazi had hoped they would be. “You have done well. Qazzani must be very pleased with you,” Bahadur said.

“Four drones have been shot down, one we crashed, and one we hijacked,” Ghazi said, looking back at the Ferry Building as the boat moved into the Bay. “We will do more of that, but they have hundreds left, so we are using their media, their courts, their Congress. Indirectly, of course.”

Bahadur snorted. “You are soft, you have lived among them too long, my friend. What we are going to do in their subways will hurt them much more. Then we tell them it will get worse unless they really leave Afghanistan, unless they stop the drones. They will understand pain. Pain will work. It always works.”

A fourteen-meter sailboat crossed ahead of the ferry, pushed by the wind toward the Golden Gate Bridge. The wind served to muffle the conversation between the two men standing next to each other chatting and looking out at the view.

“You see that big fortress on the island over there? It’s a prison. They say it’s impossible to escape from it,” Ghazi said. “How many prisoners do you think they have in it?”

Bahadur looked hard at Alcatraz. “If they have small cells like at Bagram, they must have ten thousand men in there. How many of them are Arabs? How many are our people? Maybe we should also demand their release?”