Hunting the Jackal the Memoir

¶ … Hunting the Jackal The memoir Hunting the Jackal details the extraordinary career of Billy Waugh, a Vietnam veteran who nearly died in the jungle, and who came back to fight some of the most deadly enemies of America as an independent contractor for the CIA and as a member of the Special Forces unit in Afghanistan.

The book is a chilling read, not simply because of the fact that Waugh encountered Osama Bin Laden long before the terrorist orchestrated the first and second infamous attacks on the Twin Towers, but also as an illustration of the singular, Cold War mindset that was characteristic of the Special Forces units in which Waugh served. Throughout the book, Waugh emerges as an unapologetic defender of hawkish American policies, even when they almost result in his death.

Although the reader may admire his valor, it is difficult to condone his single-minded perspective upon human rights and world conflict. For example, Waugh still seems to regret the American withdrawal from Vietnam, despite the suffering he endured during his 23-month tour of duty, calling the abandonment of South Vietnam a "distasteful retreat" (Waugh 88).

Waugh attributes the failure of America to triumph over communism in Southeast Asia to the fact that more violent and decisive action was not taken sooner, say in 1965, not to the fact that the Viet Cong had greater local support than the American-backed government. Likewise, Waugh says that he supported the covert assassination of Bin Laden, whom he portrays as riding around in a white Mercedes while Waugh trains covert operatives in the desert (Waugh 121).

Bin Laden is not seen as having any real ideological position, he merely acts for his own cynical enrichment and self-aggrandizement -- just like evil communists, just like all of the other 'bad people' whom Waugh hates as enemies of America. America's enemies do not act for their own reasons; they merely hate American because America stands for freedom.

Waugh attributes the failure to effectively fight terrorism, not to a poor understanding of international politics, but to "liberal do-gooders" and to a "nice peanut farmer" who was elected president, but who did not understand how the world "really works" (Waugh 108). Only people whom agree with Waugh are deemed intelligent and perspicuous enough to govern.

Waugh does offer an insider's perspective -- admittedly, one of the strengths of the book is that Waugh provides a more detailed portrait of the world's most currently notorious terrorist than is often given by the Western media, noting Bin Laden's highly technical and educated background as a civil engineer, and explaining how this benefits his ability to understand the topography of a particular area.

Waugh is good at giving a technical, nuts-and-bolts analysis of the process of fighting both counter-terrorist and conventional warfare, but readers looking for extensive historical analysis beyond a blow-by-blow account of war should look elsewhere. This is unsurprising, given that Waugh's entire life was shaped by the military and the 'us vs. them' struggle of the Cold War. He began his career as part of the Special Forces in Vietnam and despite his advanced age was a part of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan.

It is hard not to respect Waugh's service, but one could reflect that his career is illustrative of both the good and the bad of American intelligence -- the good in its single-minded pursuit of justice and foolhardy bravery, but also lacking in the ways that it elides differences between individual nations and views all of those who do not support every single hawkish action of the U.S. government as unpatriotic or stupid. Vietnam is never a nationalist struggle in Waugh's eyes, it is about communism vs.

freedom, and terrorist groups are not understood in their Islamic, regionally specific ways, but simply as evil. Fighting terrorism and fighting communism are the same in Waugh's eyes, just as they were for so many politicians who cheered the American presence in Iraq. When training foreign nationals, Waugh admitted his frustration that they did not obey like American soldiers, saying he once "punched one or two" in the stomach, for not immediately carrying out the will of an officer (Waugh 101).

Waugh's view of terrorism and communism as inherently the same underlines how the CIA is often 'fighting the last war' when it creates its policies, rather than creatively responding to the new geopolitical environment. This simple elision of all forces against the U.S. As evil can be seen in Waugh's comment: "From Korea to Afghanistan and every conflict in between, I have fought whomever my country ordered me to fight.

For fifty years in sixty-four countries, I have sought and destroyed my country's enemies -- whether they be called Communists or terrorists -- wherever they hide" (Waugh xv). He credits his determination to his mother's willingness to 'tan his hide' unless he made perfect marks as a child. Even today, succeed or fail, Waugh wants to hunt down the evil-doers who hate the United States, and there is little moral ambiguity to his quest.

The failure to appreciate, for example, the different factions of Islam and the complex tensions of the Middle East, even the difference between the hatred for the U.S. Of the secular dictator Saddam Hussein for America vs. The religiously-fueled hate of Bin Laden, quickly becomes manifest in Waugh's prose. The blindness that was exhibited by America's leadership regarding Iraq is reflected in a Cold War, bipolar analysis with little applicability to the Middle East.

The jackal of the book's title is the terrorist Waugh tracked during the 1990s, Carlos the Jackal in Khartoum, (colloquially called K-town) but other than the Jackal's inhuman dangerousness, there is little understanding as to why the world spawns people like Carlos and who so many people in the Islamic world follow Bin Laden and hate the U.S.

This mentality is further reinforced by Waugh's statement when he is training foreign nationals in counter-terrorist strategy: "I will not participate in discussions of a political nature…usually this statement would be enough to keep religion and politics -- if they can be separated at bay" (Waugh 209). Waugh is not interested in learning about the mindset and the culture of the people he is training, he regards it as irrelevant. Waugh seems like a man who loves the adrenaline and.