TWO YEARS AFGHANISTAN ABANONED: 1/4: Consequences: An Intelligence Officer's War by David Grantham (Author)
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 28 August 2023
⏱️ 11 minutes
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TWO YEARS AFGHANISTAN ABANONED: 1/4: Consequences: An Intelligence Officer's War by David Grantham (Author)
https://www.amazon.com/Consequences-Intelligence-Officers-David-Grantham/dp/098440631X/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
We are still living in the long shadow of the Iraq War.
In 2006, David Grantham was fresh out of college and serving as a counterintelligence officer with the elite and secretive Air Force Office of Special Investigations. Iraq was veering toward civil war. The U.S. military desperately needed better on-the-ground intelligence to turn the tide. Grantham found himself in Kuwait and Afghanistan, then at Iraq’s infamous American prison, Camp Bucca. Not only was Bucca the breeding ground for the Islamic State, it was in southern Iraq, where America’s deadly fight with Iran was an open secret.
Consequences is both a riveting behind-the-scenes look at intelligence operations at the height of the Iraq war, and a charming and sobering story of one man’s journey through the pleasures and consequences that come with wartime intelligence.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm John Bachelor. |
| 0:11.2 | This is the new John Bachelor Show CBS Audio Network, and I welcome the author and expert |
| 0:16.8 | on intelligence gathering and operations, David Grantham. |
| 0:21.7 | His new book is Consequences, an intelligence officer's war. |
| 0:26.2 | This is a memoir of the time in Kabul, in Baghdad, in Kuwait city, when the United States |
| 0:34.5 | was at risk from what we now understand to be a worldwide jihadist enterprise. |
| 0:40.5 | However, in 2006, when David went to theater, both Afghanistan and Iraq, it was not at all |
| 0:47.8 | clear what the larger story was. |
| 0:50.7 | We have an understanding today that the story not only includes the jihadists of the Middle |
| 0:55.3 | East and Central Asia, but the gangs called cartels in America, in South America, in Europe. |
| 1:03.6 | All of these networks working together, and David's experience in Afghanistan and Iraq, |
| 1:10.3 | the memoir, prepares me to understand what I'm witnessing in the third decade of the 21st |
| 1:16.9 | century. |
| 1:17.9 | The outlaws have become extremely clever and very well engaged with each other. |
| 1:25.0 | David, congratulations and good evening. |
| 1:27.6 | I begin in your deployment to a five-star hotel in Kuwait city. |
| 1:34.1 | I mention that because it's a surprise to you as well. |
| 1:37.1 | You arrive one night in Kuwait. |
| 1:39.6 | You look around at the landscape. |
| 1:41.2 | This is after the fighting in Iraq, but the Afghanistan war is going on in 2006. |
| 1:47.9 | You are with the Air Force. |
| 1:49.8 | What is your status with the Air Force and what is your first experience looking at the |
... |
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