I just finished reading a spy novel….not sure I should give the title or credit the author because frankly it wasn't that good a read. But once I got into it I just figured I would finish. Can't say I would recommend it. Written in 2007, the author has several others in this genre.
Set in the Middle East there were a few paragraphs that made me stop and think. So I will share those.
"Indeed, America has a grand record of knocking over other nations, even if our history of installing lasting new regimes is a bit checkered. Plus, I suppose it's hard these days to find a great power willing to kick a little butt for a righteous cause. The Europeans have been there, done that; they have lost their appetite, if not their flair, for foreign empires, intrigues and escapades that often turn out badly. As for the Russians and Chinese, they lack charitable impulses. They liberate like the mob lends money; the vig sucks. But American's are a generous if slightly naive people, with a distinct messianic bent and the animating conviction that what works for us must work equally well for others. We are the New World, they are the Old; new is always better. Right?"
And: "Like every society, ours is a confounding mixture of rich and poor, of haves and haveth-nots. And yet, I think,what makes us different from most is that here the poor can become rich, and the rich can become stinkingly rich or blow it all and end up cleaning all those swimming pools. This, I think, accounts for why we have so far limited ourselves to one revolution. Yet I also think we take for granted that because America has survived for over two hundred years, it will last another two hundred, ad infinitum. But the foundation is not as sturdy or impervious to harm as we once assumed, as nineteen homicidal maniacs showed us on September 11."
And lastly: "One way to win an insurgency is to melt into the environment and culture - to go native - and beat the locals at their own game. This, of course, just has never been the American way. We rearrange the culture and environment to suit us."
The fact that this novel was written seven years ago, set in Iraq and detailing supposedly "key" players in the American and Middle East during that war just ended up seeming so ironic to me. Here we are seven years later - still stuck in a mess in several countries with cultures so different than ours…watching new events play out in the Ukraine. Trying to figure out the best way "out", how to inspire change…."win" hearts and minds.
Doesn't seem to be working.
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