Open season on IS
Though the president of the United States is a character in more than a few novels, he is a product of the authors’ imaginations and bears little if any resemblance to the actual incumbents. In some stories he’s idealised, in others vilified.
The hopeful promises made in his campaign fail to materialise when he’s in the Oval Office. Yet as envisioned by popular Yank writer Tom Clancy and his successor Mark Greaney, President Jack Ryan couldn’t be better. Not that there aren’t fellow Americans who disagree with him.
Ryan recognises the counter crusades as a clear and present danger to the free world, which the US must lead the way to stop. For a while, the global media stuck its collective head in the sand, fearful that admitting this would lead to retaliation. No longer.
It’s now open season on suicide bombers and Islamic State terrorists. Entering America with impunity, they break existing laws — paedophilia, child rape, bigamy among them. Not to mention committing mass murders. Those opposing this are called racists.
So what? counters Ryan in True Faith And Allegiance. Greaney pulls no punches. IS come from Syria and Iraq, are supported by Iran, financed by Saudi Arabia. They intend to escalate their outrages to bring America to its knees. It has infiltrated the US military, the State Department, the White House.
The Campus, an “off the books” intelligence organisation answering only to the president, has operatives in the Middle East assassinating terrorist leaders. And executing American turncoats in high places.
The best part of the novel is a White House press conference in which the president is taken to task for overreacting to terrorism by CNN. If he didn’t pick on IS, they would live in peace. The president convincingly points out the fallacy of that notion.
Other scriveners are going after IS with a hammer and tongs as well. Which raises the serious question of whether pens are more lethal than bombs. What is clear is that the US president has the most responsible job in the world.
As Albert Einstein said: “The winner of the next war won’t be who is right, but who is left.”