Ollie's New Book

Life hasn't been all peaches for American patriot Lt. Col. Oliver North since his career peaked back during the Reagan days. At that time he was working out of the White House basement, arranging weapons sales to the new theocratic, anti-American Iranian government that had recently overthrown our man in Iran, the shah. Then he would channel the money from the weapons sales to a U.S.-supported fascist insurgency (the Contras) that eventually undermined Nicaragua's Sandinista (socialist) government, with tremendous loss of life and property in that tiny and defenseless country.

That was the episode now celebrated -- if that's the right word -- as "The Iran-Contra Affair."

But Ollie's doing what he can to stay relevant in the wake of his salad days as a national insecurity operative, and his new career as a writer has gained him a bit of attention at times. He has a whole shelf full of fiction and nonfiction books at Amazon, although most of them are co-authored with someone else, most often a guy named Joe Musser. Ollie's even been described as a "New York Times best selling novelist," but I don't know how many copies a book has to sell for a co-author to gain that distinction.

It looks like his apprenticeship is over, though, since his latest is a solo effort entitled "After Jihad." The synopsis reminds me of a lot of the fantasies I frequently encounter at BeliefNet:

America in 2032 is a poor shadow of the great nation its founders envisioned. The "Better Deal for All Americans" born of the Great Recession two decades earlier hasn’t solved its economic crisis. Growing dependence on government has altered citizen rights—special interest groups have no voice, and a new intelligence system knows every person’s actions and whereabouts.

And in this election year, the standing U.S. president will do anything to stay in power—even negotiate with terrorists who have forced world market oil prices over $500 per barrel. Amidst the corruption some covert patriots still won’t play by the new rules, including Peter Newman, military veteran and U.S. trustee for three of America’s biggest private armies. When his close friend—the inventor of a revolutionary fuel cell—disappears at a major energy conference on the thirty-first anniversary of 9/11/01, Newman calls on his son, James, to help find the missing scientist. The search becomes a perilous quest fraught with government duplicity, human betrayal, and international stakes. Those who look at the fluctuating world today and wonder "What if?" will find a sharply written cautionary tale with heart-pumping action and a surprising climax...

The book is due to come out in November, so that means he's already gotten the advance from somebody. I think I'll pass on this one; something tells me it won't exactly be in the running for the Nobel literature prize.

But I have to say, since I am one of "those who look at the fluctuating world today and wonder 'What if?'" what if the people of the U.S. were to demand that their government get out of the empire business, demand that it end the endless war, and from now on devote its resources to the promotion of real democracy and to the health, welfare, and (real) security of its citizens?

Such ideas as those might produce a very different kind of story from the one Ollie is working on, ¿Que no?

All power to the people.