Free Warrior Soul: The Memoir of a Navy SEAL by Chuck Pfarrer Page B

Mexico and Augusto Sandino in Nicaragua. We examined Peru’s ongoing tragedy, a Maoist insurgency in a virulent modern guise, the
Sendero Luminoso,
or Shining Path. The revolution in Cuba made concrete the power of the Idea. Only eleven men survived Fidel Castro’s initial landing on the west coast of the island. In four years Castro succeeded in taking down the best-armed military dictatorship in Latin America: no mean feat. In his triumph we were made to see that revolution was what these guys did. And they did it well.
    Central America was then heating up, and we were brought up to speed on the burgeoning rebellion in El Salvador. Later, one of our instructors, SEAL commander Al Shoffelberger, would be assassinated on the streets of San Salvador. We read
The Minimanual of the Urban Guerrilla
by Brazilian revolutionary Carlos Marighella; we took him at his word that he was answering Che Guevara’s call to lay many Vietnams at the feet of Uncle Sam. What is now called narcoterrorism was then only an emerging trend. We studied the organization and methodology of the Medellín and Cali drug cartels. Examined in detail were several assassinations and bombings credited to the druggies and their emerging alliance with FARC,
Fuezera Armas Revolucionario de Colombia,
the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.
    Terrorism, we were taught, was a tactic, a facet of a greater purpose, not a strategy or an end in itself. Terrorism is warfare waged by the powerless against the innocent. It is in the nature of asymmetrical conflict that terrorist acts are provocations, whether the deed is a hand grenade in a market square or the destruction of the World Trade Center. The acts are outrageous, bloody, and violent because they are meant to shock. Terrorist acts are to be seen as armed propaganda, pinpricks intended to resonate far beyond their military significance. Every act of terror is intended to have political consequences. In every case, calculated atrocities extract a disproportionate response from the oppressor. The enemy has different names: Yankee Imperialist, Neocolonialist, Capitalist Exploiter, Infidel, or Great Satan. We were reminded that the Perennial Foe was us. Terrorism, the instructors drilled into us, must always be examined in the context of politics; Trotsky said it best: “Terrorism is political theater.”
    Again we studied the masters. We absorbed selected passages by Marx, Lenin, and Mao on the dynamics and political utility of terrorism. Middle Eastern terrorist organizations were investigated, including Black September and the Palestinian Liberation Organization in all its aliases and guises. We examined several European terrorist organizations, all of them then thriving: Bader Meinhof, the Red Army Faction, the Basque ETA, and the Italian Red Brigades. Each, we were told, was either under the operational control of the Soviet KGB or had links for logistical support. Why would the KGB back such nihilistic and obviously criminal gangs? Orthodox Marxism taught that violence was the only legitimate mechanism of political change. And this dictum had permeated the world’s struggles of liberation. In geographical areas of strategic interest, wars of liberation were proxy struggles between East and West, one puppet fighting another, and it was all about power. This was the Great Game. If we understood that, we would understand the process.
    Having been made familiar with the causes and types of revolution, we were introduced to the triad of their remedy: tactical action, psychological warfare, and civil affairs. These ongoing and overlapping spheres translated roughly to: kick their asses; convince the world you’re doing wonderful things; and quietly right the political and economic wrongs that sent the guerrillas into the hills in the first place. These processes would later coalesce into a term and methodology called “nation building.”
    Our final three weeks were spent in the special warfare operation