Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Gopher]

I'm reading a series of Tom Clancy novels. They contain quite a lot of preaching, in addition to deeply conservative beliefs and military ideologies. Incidentally, I've found that anything he wrote after the mid-1990s is little more than a run-on sermon, so don't waste your time on them.

In any case, here's a gem from Executive Orders [1996], where Clancy has Iran first decapitating and then conqering Iraq to form a superstate. It covers the Republican mantra on WMDs rather well. Also, and I know it's just a novel, it is a possible indicator on the dysfuctional and arrogant group-think that, the W. Bush White House's hysteria over Saddam notwithstanding, overcame many in the U.S. government after 9/11.

[Manner of Speaking]

He used to be an insurance salesman, didn't he? I don't think he's ever taken a uni course in Strategic Studies or done a military stint.

[Gopher]

That's right. He is from the East Coast and he sold insurance. He got his hands on an obsolete Cold War-era war game through another writer named Larry Bond, sexed it up, and then sold it as Red Strom Rising. Then he wrote The Hunt for Red October which made him instantly famous, particularly where, his publishers allege, Reagan debriefed him at the White House, it was so accurate. (I don't like emoticons, but in this case... )

His publishers have alleged via innuendo on the covers of his earlier books that he is as well-connected at the Pentagon, CIA, and FBI as you can be without working there. (Doubt it: no one comes close to Woodward). They insist "He was never in the Navy and was not a CIA man!" which implies, of course, that he has some shady connection with either or both, the same the Steven Seagal used to do...

In any case, I knew many in the military who were very much influenced by his thrillers and worldviews. I remember looking across a squad bay once, when we had some time to kill in the School of Infantry, and nearly forty Marines were reading Patriot Games or Clear and Present Danger. One Marine Corps captain explained to me that he was switching careers -- from the infantry to military intel -- because of these books.

[Ya-ta Boy]

The man can write a page-turner, no doubt about that. You'll be disappointed if you want characterization, though.