Anaconda

Tales of Giant Snakes: A Historical Natural History of Anacondas and Pythons
$38.25
I purchased this book for my son and he has enjoyed it just as much as he thought he would.

Not a Good Day to Die: The Untold Story of Operation Anaconda
$16.00
"Not a Good Day to Die" by Sean Naylor is the story of how American forces planned and executed OPERATION ANACONDA, a major battle to dislodge Taliban and Al Qaida forces from the Shahikot Valley in Afghanistan. Naylor tells the story with the sensationalist flair of a seasoned journalist, which is no surprise since he is a regular contributor to the Army Times.

OPERATION ANACONDA violated one of the Clausewitzian principles of military operations - Unity of Command. Naylor does an excellent forensic analysis of how the planning went wrong, which simply boiled down to identifying who was really in charge. The first few chapters of this book are devoted to this subject, and it is an excellent case study in what went wrong.

The core issue was a military operation that relied on three command structures for it's proper execution. The main effort of the operation was to be executed by Afghan fighters with Special Forces advisors. Supporting this effort was a combined 101st Airborne Division and 10th Mountain Division conventional force; and the third piece was a second special operations force providing reconnaisance of the battlefield. Missing from this organization was a cohesive command structure tying them all together. Naylor does an excellent job of forensic analysis as to how the planning failures led to execution failures on the battlefield. While it was an American tactical victory, the Americans had the opportunity for a large strategic win.

Naylor devotes the last third of the book to the actual battle itself. This section could be loosely associated with Mark Bowden's book "Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War". Both books feature the harrowing combat of US Rangers.

Despite his excellent analysis, I have some serious issues with the book. Naylor states in his introduction "When it became clear that I knew more than they wished, officials launched an internal investigation... The investigation's ostensible purpose was to probe the alleged release of classified material, but it's real goal was to punish those who may have helped me compile the facts and to send a message to others tempted to break ranks and tell the truth." Information is classified for a very specific reason - its release could cause the loss of someone's life; or in the case of intelligence collection, its release could cause the adversary to react in such a way that intelligence method would no longer work. A responsible, patriotic journalist would have worked with the military to ensure that information published would not cause either of the above to occur. Since Mr. Naylor choose to move forward with irresponsibly publishing portions of this book, he has ensured his place on the Pentagon's guest list right behind Jane Fonda, and Wolf Blitzer.

My second complaint is Naylor's obvious disdain for the Navy SEALS. It would have been sufficient to report on their activities without adding in the unattributed sophomoric comments that obviously came from only one side of the naturally competitive culture of special operations forces. This failure to represent both sides of an issue, and to rely on unattributed sources is what separates this journalistic work from a credible historic books.

The final shortcoming of the book is the failure to analyze what changes have taken place in Afghanistan since Anaconda. The book ends with the forces leaving the Shahikot valley without any insight into the doctrinal changes that have been effected since the battle.

This is a well-written book, and you should read it. I suggest Mr. Naylor donate proceeds from this book to a veteran's organization; or to the widows and widowers of the men & women who have been killed because of his overzealous reporting of things that would have been better off unwritten.

Anaconda [Blu-ray]
$28.95
i could not possibly begin to describe the pleasures of this magnificently hilarious and profoundly entertaining film . i therefore defer to ROGER EBERT and his web site . reading is believing . best picture of its' decade hands down . and the oscar goes to.....JON VOIGHT . spectacular .

Anacondas - The Hunt for the Blood Orchid
$14.94
Anacondas The Hunt for the Blood Red Orchid: 4 out of 10: I had the following criticisms of the first Anaconda movie. How did the snakes get to the Amazon when they live hundreds of miles away in the Ecuadorian swamps; man those CGI snakes look fake; and you know what this movie is missing, some racist comic relief, you now with the scared black person who follows Bob Hope around looking for ghosts. Well they answered my third concern.

The good news the anacondas are still in the jungle, as opposed to Sequel number 3 and 4 . However the filmmakers have now moved the titular snakes to Borneo, which is in Asia, which seems a rather large slither from the swamps of Ecuador, in South America. It is kind of like finding tigers in Africa. (Perhaps the snakes escaped from a zoo.)

The snakes look okay while under water, but fail miserably while airborne. Of course, most snakes do not do flying well; though that would be an interesting explanation for their intercontinental migration. The snakes do not even really look like real snakes, and the effects people in the extras admit it is a combination of many different snakes. This is the explanation for why the anacondas have grown fangs and become surprisingly flammable. Apparently, real anacondas do not have the right 'tude.

With English accented villains, ship crushing waterfalls and paralyzing spiders, the movie comes awfully close to not needing the snakes at all. (This is my Amityville Horror 2 rule. A movie in which the family was so awful a haunted house seemed redundant)

As for the actors, only two stand out Morris Chestnut as the horrible and embarrassing black comic relief, and the monkey who is by far the best actor in the film and definitely needs a new agent. I am serious. The monkey has a Jack Nicholson Five Easy Pieces breakout performance.

Another helpful hint, if lost in the jungles of Borneo do not try to build a raft to Kota Bharu like the characters in the movie do. It is about a thousand kilometers of open ocean away as the anaconda flies.