Call Sign Extortion 17: The Shoot-Down of SEAL Team Six

by Don Brown

Overview

The basis of the provocative hit military documentary Fallen Angel Call Sign: Extortion 17.

A Black Hawk Down of the war in Afghanistan, the deadliest day for the U.S. in 12 years of that conflict—and a military investigation that covered up evidence of an inside job by the Taliban. Don Brown, a former U.S. Navy JAG officer stationed at the Pentagon, and former Special Assistant United States Attorney, has in his possession one of four copies of The Colt Report, which reveals a possible cover-up in relation to the August 6, 2011, killing of 30 men from the United States, including 17 members of Navy Seal Team Six—warrior brothers from the same Team that ninety days before killed Osama Bin Laden—potentially by undercover Taliban operatives.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781493017324
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	05/29/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	431,762
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Don Brown, a former United States Navy JAG officer stationed at the Pentagon, and former Special Assistant United States Attorney, is the author of ten military and legal novels, including the nationally bestselling novels TREASON and MALACCA CONSPIRACY. A graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Campbell University School of Law, and holding a certificate of International Law from the U.S. Naval War College, Don served as an administrative law attorney at the Pentagon on the staff of the Navy Judge Advocate General, where he drafted legal memoranda for the Secretary of the Navy and drafted legal opinion papers for the Secretary. Rising to the rank of Lieutenant Commander in the Navy JAG Corps, in addition to having authored the popular Navy Justice Series and Pacific Rim Series, Don has also been published in the prestigious Navy Law Review. He lives and practices law in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Table of Contents

Prologue vi

Chapter 1 Forward Operating Base "Shank" 1

Chapter 2 Aboard Extortion 17 7

Chapter 3 Base Shank 12

Chapter 4 SEALs Called to Action 15

Chapter 5 Ninety-Seven Days from Quintessential Glory to Unexplained Disaster 27

Chapter 6 Background on the Colt Report 37

Chapter 7 The Colt Report: A General Overview 40

Chapter 8 The Colt Report 101: Points to Keep in Mind in Examining Evidence 44

Chapter 9 The Pink Elephant Escapes 47

Chapter 10 CENTCOM Handcuffs Colt's Investigation 54

Chapter 11 The Seven Missing Afghans Discovered by Happen chance 67

Chapter 12 "Green-on-Blue" Violence: "Friendly" Afghans Killing Americans 73

Chapter 13 An Ambassador's Blunt Warnings 79

Chapter 14 A Forced Suicide Mission 82

Chapter 15 Extortion 17 Pilots: Underequipped and Untrained for Special Ops 87

Chapter 16 The Deadly Record of CH-47D in Afghanistan 96

Chapter 17 Task Force Commander Concerns: Conventional Aviation with Special Forces 112

Chapter 18 Pre-Flight Intelligence: Taliban Targeting US Helicopters 115

Chapter 19 Chaos in the Air: The Lost Minutes 118

Chapter 20 The Chopper's Last Call 124

Chapter 21 The Odd Request for a "Sparkle" 126

Chapter 22 The Final Seconds: Who Is "Them"? 130

Chapter 23 Extortion 17's Bizarre Behavior 133

Chapter 24 The "Two-Minute Burn" and the "One-Minute Call" That Wasn't 135

Chapter 25 Was Bryan Nichols Trying to Tell Us Something? 141

Chapter 26 A Three-Minute Burn? The Chopper in the Spotlight? 144

Chapter 27 Fallen Angel: The Final Seconds of Extortion 17 146

Chapter 28 Taliban Access to NVGs and Other Weapons 155

Chapter 29 A Point-Blank Shot: Clues from Exhibit 60 158

Chapter 30 Testimony of Apache Pilots and Pitch-Black Conditions 172

Chapter 31 Extortion 17 and the Earlier Ranger Mission 178

Chapter 32 The Rules of Engagement: Groundwork for the Death of Thirty Americans 184

Chapter 33 Enemy "Squirters" on the Ground Prior to Shoot-Down 187

Chapter 34 Hypocrisies and Inconsistencies in the Rules of Engagement 191

Chapter 35 Indefensible Inconsistency: Pathfinders Get Pre-Assault Fire but SEALs Don't 195

Chapter 36 The Disappearing Black Box: Further Evidence of Inconsistencies and Cover-Up 198

Chapter 37 Disconnect: The Pathfinders vs. the Task Force 213

Chapter 38 The Black Box Absent from the Executive Summary 215

Chapter 39 The Crash Site: Before the Pathfinders' Arrival 217

Chapter 40 The Mystery Unit First on the Ground 219

Chapter 41 The Executive Summary: Whitewashing the Real Chronology 221

Chapter 42 The Little Creek Briefing and Other Reports: More Questions on the Box 222

Chapter 43 February 27, 2014: The Congressional Hearing 225

Chapter 44 The Military's Changed Tune: "There Was No Black Box" 228

Chapter 45 Black Box Black Magic: The "Analog" Ruse 233

Chapter 46 Chaffetz on Fox: The Pink Elephant Lives 236

Chapter 47 Cremation and the Destruction of DNA Evidence 241

Chapter 48 British Press Reports: The Taliban Knew 248

Chapter 49 Afghan President Karzai: First to Announce the Shoot-Down 251

Chapter 50 NATO Special Operations Forces Kill President Karzai's Cousin 254

Chapter 51 Karzai and the Taliban Playing Footsie for Years 256

Chapter 52 Another Dirty Secret: Afghans on Every American Mission 259

Chapter 53 Shocking Discovery: Bullets in the Bodies 265

Chapter 54 Autopsies Versus "No Identifiable Remains" 277

Chapter 55 All Signs Point to a Cover-Up 280

Chapter 56 Final Thoughts 286

Index 289

About the Author 296

Editorial Reviews

05/25/2015
On August 6, 2011, 30 Americans, including an elite Navy SEAL team, died in a helicopter crash over Logar Province, Afghanistan—the deadliest single American loss of the Afghan war. Novelist and retired naval officer Brown (The Malacca Conspiracy) posits that the subsequent inquiry was a cover-up and finds plenty of questions left unanswered. His smoking gun was the presence of seven unidentified Afghan soldiers on the craft, a fact suppressed for over a year. Were they Taliban sympathizers? Why were Special Forces units being carried into battle in an old Chinook, a vulnerable Vietnam-era helicopter? Why were the pilots National Guardsmen instead of the usual Special Operations aviators? Why did an unidentified Coalition unit visit the crash site and leave before the rescue team arrived? To Brown this is an especially curious detail, considering the helicopter's black box was never found. Other mysteries remain, and Brown concludes that the truth would embarrass the military, so leaders made sure the investigation absolved everyone. Brown makes no claim to partiality, and his temper, nationalism, and contempt for Afghans on both sides do not help his argument, but few readers will deny the deeply suspicious nature of that disastrous mission's aftermath. (May)

Publishers Weekly