When I get the time, I love to read, especially newspapers and action/adventure novels. There is rarely any connection between the two. But when a book I just finished, and a recent newspaper article, sounded very much alike, the coincidence was simply too great to overlook. Conspiracy theorists - and ultra-conservatives - probably won't be surprised. And everyone else needs to pay close attention.
The novel is called Extreme Measures, a 2008 entry in a series by Vince Flynn, a 44-year old writer of political thrillers, who wanted to be a Marine, but was turned down for medical reasons. In 1997 he self-published his first novel, Term Limits, and has since churned out 10 more, some of which have been New York Times best-sellers.
Flynn's characters can best be described as comic book. The heroes are reminiscent of the wise-cracking, machine gun-packing, authority-flaunting Nick Fury of the old 1960's Marvel Comics entry Sergeant Fury and His Howling Commandos. (If you never read that series, the name says it all.) The Flynn villains are flaming stereotypes of radical Islamist jihadists, bleeding-heart liberal politicians, and mindless by-the-book American military drones.
Needless to say, good triumphs over evil, while the establishment is thoroughly trashed. There are few surprises, and the characters are never conflicted about right and wrong. The omnipresent hero of the Flynn novels, clandestine counterterrorist agent Mitch Rapp, swaggers through battles with enemies and allies alike, with a total disregard for orders, laws, and diplomacy. And, actually, that is the whole point of the story: we are digging our own grave by zealous enforcement of politically-correct rules dealing with terrorists. You can almost hear Colonel Nathan R. Jessup sneer "You can't handle the truth!"
If you read the reviews of the book in the preface, you pretty much know what to expect. When the top-of-page-one plaudits are from Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, the term "ultra-conservative" lights up in large neon letters. And Flynn doesn't disappoint. This is a dramatization right out of the wet waterboard dreams of the CIA and Pentagon: we need to take off our kid gloves, and put on the boxing gloves - the ones with horseshoes inside. One reviewer writes that if he had endless wealth, he would buy up a few hundred thousand copies, and hand them out on the streets, presumably in Washington DC, and presumably to anyone who is ideologically left of Attila the Hun. Wave the flag, and damn the Bill of Rights.
And I couldn't put the book down.
I was fascinated by the way Flynn lampoons, and utterly destroys, many of our current approaches to dealing with terrorists, military prisoners, and political interference with our intelligence-gathering organizations. The plot, and the ultimate solution, might have originated with some paramilitary militia in Michigan, or perhaps from the Langley wish list. Rapp, and co-hero Mike Nash, are frustrated with the constraints placed on them in dealing with what they see as an imminent 911 redux in the US, so they bypass the law, ignore and insult the senators who try to reign them in, and physically abuse both their prisoners and ranking military officers.
Of course, the entire operation, in Afghanistan, Pakistan and the US, is administratively invisible - funded with money from outside of any organization's budget appropriations. And there is no shortage of assorted spooks ready to help Rapp accomplish his mission by any means necessary, and even tweak the beaks of the establishment in the process.
Even to a "we-are-a-nation-of-laws" proponent, Extreme Measures is very compelling. Despite Flynn's obvious, heavy-handed approach, and the cowboy mindset of the heroes, the message can't help but hit home. To many conservatives, it is an I-told-you-so scenario. And to those who believe that Abu Ghraib was wrong, and that terrorists deserve the layer after layer of legal rights we now grant them, and that our intelligence services should be micro-managed by politicians, it is a wake-up call - and not a subtle one. If you can't understand the problem after being hit over the head with Flynn's apocalyptical 2x4, you qualify for an ACLU gold membership card.
After finishing the book, I was convinced of two things - our current policies are too liberal, and the larger-than-life morality play was only a novel.
Or not....
The day after I finished the book, the following newspaper story appeared, tucked away at the bottom of a page in The Inquirer:
"Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said yesterday that he was looking into allegations that a Defense Department official ran an off-the books spy operation in Afghanistan and Pakistan that relied on private contractors."
All Gates needs to do is ask Vince Flynn.