Call Sign Extortion 17

by Don Brown

  Were the Afghans inside trying to stall and delay the landing so that their Taliban comrades on the ground could move into point-­blank position with the RPGs?

  Aside from the fact that the bullets are probably not from cook-­off rounds, to simply throw away evidence of bullets found in a service member’s body, and not preserve those bullets as evidence, borders on criminal negligence. In addition to the fact that the laws of physics make it unlikely that those bullets in the bodies of US service members could have come from cook-­off rounds, the pathologist cannot make that determination based upon a visual inspection anyway.

  To make that determination, that the bullets were cook-­off rounds from a weapon, the bullets would have to be forensically examined, and then matched with the casings from which they were fired to determine whether there was an indentation in the butt of the casing, showing that the rifle’s hammer had struck the bullet.

  None of that was done. Instead, this crucial and valuable evidence was simply thrown out. Moreover, there is nothing in the Colt Report stating that bullets were found in the bodies of dead US service members. That was discovered by a separate examination of autopsy reports.

  Could the Afghans have taken an explosive device on board? The pathologist did recover an unidentified metal fragment within one of the SEALs’ bodies. The fragment has still not been identified. How does a small, unidentified metal fragment wind up in a SEAL’s body, unless it is propelled there by an explosion? Of course, the fragment could have been hurled into the SEAL’s body upon the explosion generated by the RPG strike. So it seems likely to have been propelled into the body by an explosion. The curious element here, however, is that the substance is unidentified. Any substance brought aboard a US helicopter by American forces, or part of that helicopter, should have been identifiable.

  The inability to identify the substance suggests that whatever it is, it may have been brought onboard by the mysterious and unidentified Afghans who came onboard in the last-­second swap out.

  Chapter 54

  Autopsies Versus “No Identifiable Remains”

  There’s at least one other point about the autopsies that contradicts the military’s odd and false claim that there were “no identifiable remains” among the badly burned bodies of the members of Extortion, a falsehood that is even carried out on the headstone placed in Arlington National Cemetery.

  In a cover letter obtained and dated October 20, 2011, from Captain C. T. Mallack, MD, United States Navy Medical Corps, one of the Extortion 17 families was informed of the autopsy with these words.

  As requested, enclosed within this sealed envelope is a complete copy of the Autopsy Report Protocol in the case of your late son, [name redacted for privacy reasons at request of family].

  I emphasize that the information contained within this report is graphically described to ensure complete accuracy of the physical details of your son’s remains.

  Stop and just think about the cover letter.

  The military has claimed that the remains of those aboard Extortion 17 were unidentifiable. They’ve even placed a tombstone at Arlington claiming the remains of the men of Extortion 17 are “unidentified.”

  Yet, the pathologist was able to identify the bodies well enough to perform autopsies and even send letters and autopsy reports for individual SEALs to their families.

  So how do you identify a body well enough to perform an autopsy if the body is “unidentified”?

  The autopsy examination report for one of the SEALs provides the following information:

  Place of Death: Afghanistan

  Date of Death: 06 Aug 2011

  Date/Time of Autopsy: 10 Aug 2011/1400-1600 hours

  Place of Autopsy: Post Mortuary, Dover AFB, DE

  Date of Report: 25 Aug 2011

  Circumstances of Death: It is reported that the deceased was injured after the CH47 Chinook he was in received enemy fire.

  Authorization for Autopsy: Armed Forces Medical Examiner, per 10 US Code 1471

  Identification: Positive identification is established by antemortem and postmortem dental comparison.

  Cause of Death: Multiple Injuries

  Manner of Death: Homicide

  From these bullet points alone, several relevant facts emerge. First the date of the autopsy, namely August 10, 2011, was only one day after Pentagon spokesman Marine Col. David Lapan’s claim that “Given the nature of the attack, there were ‘no identifiable remains’ of the thirty troops. It’s also only one day after the McClatchy newspaper article written by Nancy A. Youssef and Jonathan S. Landay quoting a “Pentagon spokesman” as saying “there were no identifiable remains.” It was four days after Army Pathfinders reported that at least eight of the men who had been thrown out of the helicopter were not badly burned and were visually identified on the spot.

  Here’s the other relevant nugget. Note the means of identification: “Positive identification is established by antemortem and postmortem dental comparison.” This same phrase was used in both autopsies obtained by the author.

  In other words, positive identification was easily made in this case simply by comparing the SEAL’s dental records both before and after death. It is a basic premise of forensic dentistry that a person’s teeth will survive fire and, in fact, will survive temperatures of up to 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

  So the claim of “no identifiable” remains is false on multiple fronts. It allows a false narrative to be spun that “we can’t identify those seven Afghans.” And, of course, if we can’t identify the previously unidentified Afghans, the military doesn’t have to publicly deal with the question of whether they were Taliban sympathizers.

  So the military perpetrates the false notion of “no identifiable remains,” and, hopefully, the question of “who were the Afghans?” doesn’t come up and doesn’t get asked and doesn’t get pressed.

  We know already that eight bodies were immediately identifiable at the crash site, per sworn testimony of the Pathfinders, and now there are at least two others identifiable through dental records.

  Obviously, the military has a reason to continue the drumbeat of this “no identifiable remains” falsehood. The only logical reason for perpetuating this falsehood: They want to hide the true identities of the Afghans who perpetrated Extortion 17.

  Chapter 55

  All Signs Point to a Cover-­Up

  Was the downing of Extortion 17 an inside job perpetrated by Taliban infiltrators? The circumstantial evidence is as follows.

  The Afghan military is heavily infiltrated with Taliban. Seven unknown Afghans infiltrated the helicopter right before takeoff. The identity of the Afghans remains unknown.

  An unexplained loss of communication and a communications delay occurred in the last three minutes before landing. In fact there was an inexplicable delay in landing, and during that delay, the chopper was shot down—three minutes and thirteen seconds after it should have already landed.

  One Army Ranger inside flight control center that night reported that the chopper had stalled in the air, in an inexplicable hover at the time of the shoot-­down. The flight data recorder is inexplicably missing. Bullets were found in the bodies of at least two Americans, which were summarily discarded by the military doctor on a suspicious determination that they were cook-­off rounds, even though there is no evidence that bullets were matched to casings.

  Unidentified metal fragments were found in the body of one of the SEALs, raising questions as to how multiple metal fragments wound up in his body, and the source of those fragments.

  Although 100–150 feet above the ground when the RPG struck its back rotary blade, the helicopter broke into three parts and fell in a scattered triangular configuration on the ground below. The Colt Report indicated that the attack on the back rotary blade caused a series of stressors resulting in the breakup. But keep in mind that per the report, less
than five seconds lapsed from the shoot-­down until the crash on the ground. The breakup of the chopper, combined with the unidentified metal found in the SEAL’s body, suggests the possibility of an internal explosion. Again, there may be other explanations for this combination of events, but under these questionable circumstances, no one has even asked the question.

  Rifles and guns, the only source for possible cook-­off rounds that could have penetrated the SEALs’ bodies, were found outside on the ground, not in the chopper, and there is no evidence that they were even burned. This leaves open the possibility that Navy SEALs were shot before the chopper went down, perhaps in a struggle to keep the aircraft aloft longer so that it could be spotted and targeted from the ground.

  Further Undermining the Cook-­off Round Story

  Recall from previous testimony that there were at least eight individuals on the ground at the crash site, outside the helicopter, and that their bodies were identifiable. This testimony came from the J3 (operations officer) at Exhibit 1, page 116 of the Colt Report.

  The author gained access to information concerning the autopsy of one of the Americans whose body was found outside that helicopter. That American is Navy cryptologist Michael Strange. To be assigned to Seal Team Six, Michael had to be one of the elite cryptologists in the Navy.

  Michael’s godmother, Cheryl McNamee, spoke these affectionate words about her godson, a tremendous athlete and a tough young man from Philadelphia, four days after his death: “Most guys from Philadelphia, like Michael, love the Eagles, they love Philly cheesesteaks, but he was so much more. He was a thinker, and he loved his job and his family, and his family and all of us are very proud of him.”

  At the time Ms. McNamee made that statement, to the Potomac Local News on August 10, 2011, just four days after the shoot-­down, none of Michael’s family members had any specific details about Michael’s body, other than the military’s false claim that none of the bodies were identifiable. The entire family was under the impression that Michael’s body was unidentifiable and was to be cremated.

  The author has learned that Michael was found on the ground, apparently some distance from the wreckage of the helicopter. Secondly, his body was identifiable. Michael’s father and others, including Congressman Chaffetz, have seen photographs of Michael’s body lying on the ground outside the helicopter. Remember Chaffetz’s comments that “the body I saw didn’t need to be cremated.”

  Also, after seeing the photograph of Michael’s body, his father, Charles, was publicly furious because he had been told by Navy officials that Michael had been cremated. This cremation account was also reported in the press, including the Potomac Local News as cited above, and Charles Strange brought up this very fact in the press conference on May 9, 2013.

  But here is the third important point now known about Michael Strange’s body: Cook-­off rounds were found in his body at his autopsy and thrown away, apparently tossed away by the Armed Forces pathologist as having “no evidentiary value.” But the presence of these so-­called cook-­off rounds in Michael’s body was especially significant because Michael’s body was not even inside the helicopter.

  The fact that his body was thrown from the helicopter, at the moment of impact, and was away from the wreckage, away from the ammunition that was, according to the implied official narrative, supposedly cooking off and firing into the bodies of these men, makes the cook-­off round theory for the bullets in Michael’s body an even greater impossibility.

  To recap the incontrovertible findings of General Hatcher and Doctor Di Maio, both among America’s best and most well-­respected ballistics experts, the likelihood of cook-­off rounds winding up in the bodies of any of these American servicemen was slim-­to-­none from the start.

  But when we consider the fact that Michael’s body was outside the chopper, away from the ammunition that was stored inside the chopper, away from the flames, and away from the weapons, the notion that those bullets found inside his body were cook-­off rounds is not only incredible, but next to impossible to believe.

  There is only one logical conclusion: The bullets inside Michael’s body did not come from outside the helicopter. That would be impossible. There were no bullets out there, on the ground, in a fire to cook off. They had to have been fired from inside the helicopter, before Michael’s body was thrown out onto the ground.

  Moreover, in the less-­than-­five seconds from the moment the chopper was struck until the moment it hit the ground, there was not enough time to heat any ammunition enough to cook off that ammunition. Thus, logic dictates that those bullets in Michael’s body had to be fired before the rocket-­propelled-­grenade ever struck the rear blade of Extortion 17.

  This brings us full circle to the pink elephant in the room:

  Who were the unidentified Afghans who boarded Extortion 17? And why has the military been deafly silent on the topic of the unidentified Afghans? Why was the J3 (operations officer) basically muzzled when he broached the subject of these Afghan operatives in his sworn testimony during the Colt investigation? Why did Brigadier General Colt not mention them in his Executive Summary to General Mattis? And why did General Mattis not mention them in his final report, dated September 13, 2011?

  And why did it take fifteen months after the shoot-­down for the significance of this security breach of the seven Afghans to be finally brought to the forefront, when a brave and gutsy sergeant major, sitting in the living room of Billy and Karen Vaughn, right in front of Admiral William McRaven, told the Vaughns that the security breach involving the Afghans on board that helicopter was “a very big deal,” and that it “should never have happened”?

  These questions scream for answers. And so does this question: Did these Afghans fire the bullets into the bodies of these American servicemen in an internal ambush in the air even before the chopper was shot out of the sky by Taliban operatives on the ground? Does all this explain the odd and seemingly inexplicable behavior of Extortion 17 in the sky on approach to landing?

  Remember, the Afghan government was reported as saying that the Taliban knew the flight plan, suggesting someone tipped off the Taliban. We don’t know the identity of the seven Afghans who slipped on board, and probably never will know, because it appears that all bodies were cremated, thus destroying valuable DNA evidence. We do know that their president, Hamid Karzai, hated Special Forces, that he wanted Special Forces out of the country, and that his own cousin was killed by Special Forces just five months before the Extortion 17 mission.

  All this evidence is circumstantial and, clearly, there could be other explanations for each of these factors. But the circumstantial evidence of possible infiltration is strong enough that the matter should have been addressed and investigated, something that is not even considered in the Colt Report.

  Circumstantial Evidence of Either Gross Incompetence or Cover-­Up

  There is also circumstantial evidence of a cover-­up. Crucial evidence germane to determining the truth about Extortion 17 disappeared.

  At least eleven problem areas immediately stand out: (1) the inexplicable disappearance of the black box with flight data recorder, and failure to address the ELT transmission from the black box; (2) the arbitrary decision to discard bullets found in the bodies of US Navy members; (3) the possible cremation of bodies unnecessarily, and particularly Taliban bodies, which destroyed DNA evidence and made subsequent identification impossible; (4) even without cremation, the false claim that bodies weren’t identifiable when they were identifiable; (5) failure of the investigation to focus on or even substantially address the identity of the Afghan infiltrators who entered the helicopter without authority; (6) failure to publicly follow up on reports from the British press that the Afghan government reported that the Taliban knew the flight path of Extortion 17; (7) failure to interview any member of the Afghan military as part of the Colt Report, a seeming oddity now that it has been revealed that the Afghan
s were part of the planning of every mission and, in fact, retain veto power; (8) the unsubstantiated and mathematically impossible claim that shots were fired from a building 220 meters away—outside the effective range of the RPG; (10) failure to allow pre-­assault fire into the landing zone, even when the AC-130 requested permission twice to deliver pre-­assault fire; and (11) contradictory, implausible, and inconsistent stories about what happened to the helicopter’s black box.

  Perhaps it would be possible to explain away one, possibly two of these failures to secure evidence as an errant oversight. But the problem is that the combination of errors, seemingly on a chain linked together, points to one of two inescapable conclusions: either (1) gross negligence in the preservation of evidence or (2) a deliberate cover-­up to destroy or hide crucial pieces of evidence.

  It does not seem possible that there would be so much incompetence at so many steps along the way. This leads to one inescapable conclusion: There was a cover-­up.

  The military has ignored the pink elephant in the room (Afghan infiltration and reports of the Taliban being tipped off). They have sold a false narrative that no one was at fault, orchestrating a cover-­up to mask the truth of what really happened.

  Powerful evidence suggests that this mission was compromised from the moment seven unidentified Afghans slipped aboard the helicopter, until the moment it was shot down. For the families of the crew of Extortion 17, and for every American wearing a uniform who may be subjected to unnecessary danger because of foolish decision-­making by the government, someone should be required to answer.

  Chapter 56

  Final Thoughts

  They died that night, under the moonless morning, in a valley by a creek surrounded by the rugged, snow-­capped Hindu-­Cush Mountains a half-­world away from their homes, in an obscure Afghan province that most Americans have never heard of.