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• Mr. Haney's official site
• Article on Mr. Haney
• The Unit

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Tavis: Eric Haney was a 20-year Army veteran and a founding member of the once-secret Special Forces unit Delta Force. He wrote about his experiences in the book, "Inside Delta Force, The Story of America's Elite Counterterrorism Unit." He now serves as producer, writer, and technical adviser on the new hit drama "The Unit.'

The show stars, of course, Dennis Haysbert of '24' fame. Here now, a scene from "The Unit.'

Tavis: Mr. Haney, nice to have you here, sir.

Eric Haney: Oh, thanks so much.

Tavis: Let me start with the obvious. What is the upside and the downside, primarily, of doing a show like this at a time of war?

Haney: Well, I don't think that there's a downside whatsoever.

Tavis: Not at all? No challenges?

Haney: I can't find it. I really can't. The only thing that we took a conscious decision to do in considering a downside, was that we would limit greatly anything taking place in Iraq. And I was looking at that a year ago, and about the time that we were writing and filming. And I said to myself a year from now, summer of 2006, the last thing the American public wants to hear is anything that's going on in Iraq. Their news is going to be so full of it, that it would almost be self-defeating for us, in an entertainment mode, to set something there.

Tavis: Is it challenging, though, to do a show every week about something, to that very point, even though they don't wanna say anything specifically about Iraq. We are at a time of war. We are seeing these stories 24-seven in every medium radio, television, print, Internet. And yet, you got a TV show that has somehow found a way to be a hit when after 9/11 people were scrambling, trying to figure out what to do with projects that were remotely close to the notion of terrorism.

You found a way in there to do a show that's become a hit. How did that happen, when I, quite frankly, don't wanna hear any more about Iraq when I get home at night? Certainly not in an entertainment medium. But somebody obviously does.

Haney: Well, there's so much more that goes on in the world, and particularly in the world of counterterrorism. There are situations that take place in the Balkans, or have taken place in the Balkans. We have an episode that's a hunt for a former Balkan war criminal. It almost mirrored what was happening the week we were shooting it in the news at the time.

Now, obviously, it's gonna be six months later when the public sees this sort of thing. A situation that takes place in Afghanistan. They are almost as though they are ubiquitous stories. They happen over and over and over. It's just a matter of fact of what part of the world did that setting take place.

Tavis: Tell me about the Delta Force. We now know more about it than we did when it was a once-secret force. So tell me about how this thing came to be. You were there when it got started.

Haney: Well, it's still a secretive force. (Laugh) And what they do and where they are and who those guys are and that sort of thing.

Tavis: All right, tell me what you can tell me, there you go.

Haney: Oh, I will say this, it is our nation's counterterrorism organization. We formed back in the mid to late seventies as the charter for counterterrorism. And in fact, in those days, what we really looked at were aircraft hijackings. Because that was the growth industry in terrorism. Now, techniques in terrorism, as they do in anything else, I have come to believe, operate on about an eight-year cycle.

You'll see things that happen, and they'll have a long cycle, and then they'll go away for a while. And then about eight years later, since it's a young man's game, a new generation comes along and somebody'll sit in a coffee shop at some place and say, I have an idea. Let's hijack an airplane. And it'll go off in that direction again.

So the things that we're seeing in the world today, the various techniques that are being used by people who are our opponents, who take a different view of life in the world than we do, we'll see them again eight to 10 years from now.

Tavis: Okay. In this particular eight to 10 year phase that we are in right now, at this moment, how would you characterize this technique that's being employed where terrorism is concerned?

Haney: It's the kamikaze attack.

Tavis: The kamikaze attack.

Haney: It's the kamikaze attack. The tactic that's being used now, which says, it's a smart bomb. We have smart bombs where there's a computer in the brain of it, and we fire it from a long distance so we don't put ourselves at risk. The people now taking the suicide bomber attack, the kamikaze attack, towards its ultimate expression, see, it's still smart.

It has a human brain, and it's willing to expend its life, this person is, to fulfill a mission. What we have to understand, both strategically and culturally, is when a person does that, we can dismiss them as crazy. We can say oh, it's a madman. There may be a little bit of that. But any human being that will put their lives at jeopardy and say, I will expend my life for an idea, we need to find out what the motivating idea is. We must understand it. Doesn't mean you agree with it, but it is incumbent upon you that we understand it. And we haven't quite achieved that yet.

Tavis: Now, I'm sitting here listening to you, if my friend Bill Maher is listening, I know what Bill's thinking right now. That's exactly what I was saying when ABC fired me. (Laugh) I was trying to make that very same point. That anybody who would give their life for this is not a coward. That's what - I hope I don't get fired by PBS for trying to explain it.

Not that Bill needs my help. He's got a great show on HBO now. But when you said that, it took me back to that debate that ensued a few years ago when Maher made that very point. That said, tell me, to your point, how it is, then, that the Delta Force or anybody else can be successful in rooting out terror or terrorism, whatever that is?

How does one fight that successfully when are you engaged in a battle against people who believe this to the core of their very being? To your point, whether you agree or disagree, like or loathe it, they believe it so deeply they will die for it. And somehow, you're supposed to be successful fighting that kind of enemy.

Haney: The use of our military is to attack a symptom. And I have a poor analogy that I use. Growing up back in Georgia, rabies is endemic in the mammals there. And sometimes, it breaks out into the dogs. And I'll say it this way. If the dogs have rabies and they're biting our children, now first thing you do is you kill the dogs.

You just have to kill the dogs. But at the same time, you go back to the University Of Georgia's veterinary school of medicine and say, what's the root source of the rabies? How do we attack that? How do we go and cure that? How do we stop it? What's the preventative? I have to eradicate the ones that are gonna kill us. But at the same time, what's the cure? Now, we cannot kill people into agreeing with us.

The other side can't kill us into agreeing with us. Somewhere, we have to understand one another. And that's the hard thing to do. That's always the hardest thing to do in mankind, is look at an opposing idea, an opposing culture, an opposing people, someone different than we are, and come to the same understanding of we basically eventually want the same things. We want to be able to raise our children in peace, security, and prosperity.

Tavis: All right, so if I'm a military guy, I'm not, but my dad was for 37 years in the Air Force. But if I'm a military guy, and I know on the one hand that I have to follow orders that I'm given from the commander in chief on down, a great debate, as we all know about, Donald Rumsfeld and whether he ought to stay at the Department Of Defense as we speak.

But I've gotta follow the orders that I'm being given on the one hand. On the other hand, I'm not an idiot. I've got my own thoughts and ideas and belief systems. And if I agree with Mr. Haney or Mr. Smiley that we do have to find a way to deal with this challenge that we seem to not be focusing any attention on, which is how we live in this space where we disagree, if I gotta follow my orders but I don't see anything being done about this, how do I go about my job every day doing this when I'm really disturbed about the fact they ain't really focusing no effort on this. And they putting me in harm's way every day, even though I'm doing my job, because they won't focus any attention on this. Does that make sense?

Haney: Oh, it makes a lot of sense. And I will tell you this, when I was a sergeant, and a staff sergeant, and a sergeant first class, a platoon sergeant and a squad leader, a team leader in Delta, I had my job that I had to focus on. I had to believe that those people who had been either voted for by the American public to take charge, be the senior leaders, were doing the right thing. I have to believe that. And a soldier absolutely has to believe that. Otherwise he can't go about he does.

Tavis: But when you know they're not, that's the point I'm trying to make. When you know they're not. When they're really not trying to figure out how we live at peace, but it's about retaliation or political agenda or whatever else, how do you stay on focus?

Haney: If you're an enlisted man, you know that I must do it for the term of enlistment, and then I can vote with my feet. If I'm not satisfied with it. If I ever come to the place and say I just cannot perform this, I don't believe in the mission, then at the end of your enlistment, you go do something else. An officer can resign a commission if they feel that strongly about it.

I don't know that we're going to get anyplace close to that now, but we see with the generals speaking out, that, to the men speaking out, that's an extreme form. Nobody's patting those gentlemen on the back over their expressions, nor anyone else who speaks in opposition to the way things are going right now.

So a soldier, it's a tough one. And sometimes you have to say I swore an oath of enlistment. I believe that I am doing what I said I would do to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. Which, when we say Constitution, what we're saying is the American people. The desires of the American people.

Tavis: If I'm getting too deep just slap, well, don't slap me.

Haney: No, I wouldn't do that. (Laugh)

Tavis: (Laugh) If I'm getting too personal, just back me up, and I'll ease back.

Haney: All right.

Tavis: Without asking for any details unless you choose to give them to this conversation now, were you ever on a particular mission as a member of Delta where you were a conscientious objector while you were fulfilling the mission?

Haney: I would say I was never a conscientious objector. But there were occasions when I would ask myself, is this worth dying for? Is this worth the death of my comrades or my men on my team, these men that I've spent my life with? And sometimes I would say, I don't really think so. I don't really think so.

Tavis: Back to "The Unit.' You mentioned earlier you guys are doing all kinds of shows about a variety of issues on this great new hit drama. On the other hand, I wonder, how do I wanna phrase this? I wonder as we continue to learn every day more and more about what our military is doing, and back to your point, when generals are coming out who were involved in this effort and asking for Mr. Rumsfeld's resignation, etcetera, etcetera.

When we see that kind of stuff happening and we read more about the intelligence, what we thought we knew that we really didn't know, etcetera, etcetera, I wonder whether or not if the truth came out today as we sit here, about what Delta does today and how they go about doing what they do, Guantanamo Bay comes to mind, would we, as the American people, be able to handle, to stomach, or condone what it is they do, and how they go about doing it?

Haney: You know, the military and each branch of the military has a great sort of mission statement about what they do, and it's this high flown sort of thing. The infantry, my basic branch was the infantry. And to paraphrase that mission of the infantry, to close with the enemy by means of fire, and maneuver to kill, capture him, or repel his assault by fire.

The bottom line of the military, kill people and break things. Now, there's one time that you're justified in doing that, and it's the same for you and me or society at large, and that is to protect life and limb. There is no other, you can't just shoot someone because they are standing out in front of your house shouting profanities at you.

If someone makes an attack on you, a physical attack, most states, the law is you're obligated to attempt to retreat to a certain place where you no longer can, or you believe that your life is threatened, or another human life. So we have that same thing. That's a long way of saying is it pretty? Absolutely not. The stupidest, most horrid thing mankind does is conduct warfare on other men.

If you have to do it, it should only be in the defense of life and limb; it's in the defense of the American people, and not just for the convenience of someone, but for those reasons. A Pearl Harbor. An attack by Nazi Germany on your nation, as was experienced by the Europeans during the Second World War. Military adventurism needs to be looked at very, very, very closely.

And one of the things that I believe has happened in our society is that we've allowed the haves of this society to evade, or to no longer accept the duty of military obligation. So, the children of the haves, lives are not at risk. Now, that separation I don't believe is healthy for our republic. If it's in the vital interest of the United States to make war someplace or upon someone, then it's in the vital interest of us as a society to see that obligation spread across society.

Tavis: As brilliantly put as I've ever heard it. If this TV thing doesn't work out, this consulting thing, there's a job for you as an ambassador somewhere.

Haney: Oh, well, thank you.

Tavis: Very nicely said. Nice to have you on the program, Mr. Haney. It's "The Unit' on CBS, starring our friend Dennis Haysbert. Check it out. That's our show for tonight. Catch me on the weekends on PRI, Public Radio International. Check your local listings. See you back here next time on PBS. Until then, good night from Los Angeles. Thanks for watching. And as always, keep the faith.