First In

I am now reading

First In: An Insider's Account of How the CIA Spearheaded the War on Terror in Afghanistan


I only started it recently, and it definitely doesn't read as easily as the previous book I blogged about, but so far I think it should be interesting. According to the CIA's Publication Review Board, it's supposed to be the most detailed account of a covert operation ever told by a clandestine officer.

All I have to offer for now is a quote from Cofer Black, Director of the CIA's Counterterrorist Center, as he gives marching orders to the team leader of the mission detailed in the book,

"Gentleman, I want to give you your marching orders, and I want to make them very clear. I have discussed this with the president, and he is in full agreement...your mission is to exert all efforts to find Usama bin Ladin and his senior lieutenants and to kill them. [pause] I don't want bin Ladin and his thugs captured, I want them dead. Alive and in prison here in the United States, they'll become a symbol, a rallying point for other terrorists. They have planned and carried out the murders of thousands of our citizens. They must be killed. I want to see photos of their heads on pikes. I want bin Ladin's head shipped back in a box filled with dry ice. I want to be able to show bin Ladin's head to the president. I promised him I would do that."

Awesome.

Resurecton of ER

ER has always been one of my favorite shows, so much so that it played a large role in piquing my curiosity about the world of emergency medicine. That led to my wanting to go into emergency medicine and even working on the ambulance as an EMT for a while. Anyway, the show went sorta downhill after my favorite character Dr. John Carter, played by Noah Wyle, left the show. But for the last few episodes of the final season of ER, Carter has returned, and even in the few minutes he was featured, the show just had this whole new excitement to it once again! Looking forward to these last few episodes of ER... Above is a picture of me and Noah Wyle at a Laker game against the Spurs from a couple years ago.

All Star Game + Poker

I was extremely entertained and pleased to watch Kobe and Shaq play together, and it was almost like they scripted the Co-MVP, but I'm all for it, script or not. At any rate, we had some friends come over for the All Star game, which was soon followed by lots of Rockband and two games of Poker. I was knocked out very early in the bigger $20 buy in game, and took second place in the smaller $10.

Happy Valentine's Day

I'll leave this mostly to pictures, but I enjoyed a nice Valentine's Day with Sophy today. We did some cooking together after taking a trip to the grocery store, we watched the All Star Slam Dunk Contest, watched a movie, had a good time... We made "Pizzettes" for our appetizer which had gorgonzola, basil, and tomato. We had cheddar mashed potatoes as a side dish, and for our main entree we had grilled herb chicken topped with Brie served on a bed of baby spinach and a bit of vinagrette. She also brought a variety of desserts from Porto's.

Latest Reading

I recently finished reading Lone Survivor, an account of a U.S. Special Forces operation in Afghanistan written by the only remaining survivor, Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell. The author was part of a four man team on a mission to take down Ahmad Shah, a high ranking Taliban leader. (Although the book assigns him the name "Ben", Ahmad Shah is his actual name). This operation led to the death of a combination of 19 Navy SEALs and Nightstalkers, the largest loss of life of American Special Forces at any one time. I highly highly recommend this book. I'm a huge fan of reading about the U.S. military, US operations, and the war on terror in Afghanistan, in Iraq and this book provided some great insight to the realities of the war that is taking place thousands of miles from here and even millions of miles farther from our thoughts. It is a well written book that brings to the life the sort of action and bravery that you see in an American war movie. As you read through it, you begin to get a better sense of exactly what kind of enemy we are fighting. That is, you learn about the personalities of the Taliban members, the way they fight, their hatred for Americans, their supplies, how they are supported, their disregard for their own life, their raw nature, and most importantly how they use our rules against us. I think one of the most important battles that come up in this book is the fight between following the "Rules of Engagement" and disregarding them. The way the Taliban operates, they make it difficult to differentiate between villagers and actual terrorists which eventually threatens the lives of our own soldiers. It only makes our men vulnerable because of their fear of being prosecuted here at home by the media and all the liberals who so heavily insist on protecting foreign "innocent" lives even when it means putting our own at greater risk. The book uses this example, an Afghan villager with his turban on may be running directly at you with their AK-47, but until they fire on you, our soldiers cannot open fire on them. I'm leaving holes in this paragraph because I don't want to ruin the suspense that this debate brings to the story. I have my own thoughts on this issue, but if you're reading my blog, you probably know me well enough to have a pretty good idea on which side of the fence I'm sitting on with this debate. Anyhow, wonderful book...

Rock Sugar?

So I had dinner tonight at Rock Sugar at Century City mall...they had a pretty cool drink list. I got an asian pear martini and Jessica got a lychee blossom? I recommend the "shaking beef"...

Also tried to do some shopping, but we didn't quite find what I was looking for...

Lastly, I apologize for the lull in blog updates. This post isn't all that interesting, but its just a way of saying that I'm gonna try to get it goin...stay tuned...