Monday, November 17, 2008

Does al-Qaeda read Tom Clancy?

Here are a few books I read back in the 1990s, soon after they were written. Now of course it is common knowledge that al-Qaeda also read these, because the first book, written in 1994, is very similar to what happened on 9/11/2001. So if al-Qaeda read Debt of Honor, did they also read Executive Orders? I would think so. Executive Orders is about terrorists attacking us with biological weapons (actually a virus). I've read in various news accounts recently of the next al-Qaeda initiative.perhaps they did read the follow up book....Should we be mad at Tom Clancy?

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article5158569.ece
Barack Obama is warned to beware of a ‘huge threat’ from al-Qaeda

Debt of Honor (1994) is a novel by Tom Clancy. It is a continuation of the series featuring his character Jack Ryan. In this installment, Ryan has become the National Security Advisor when the
Japanese
government (controlled by a group of corporate tycoons known as the Zaibatsu) goes to war with the United States. One of the sub-plots in this novel (on occupying the Siberian "Northern Resource Area") would later form part of the main plot of Clancy's later novel The Bear and the Dragon.

Plot summary
On Interstate 40 in Eastern Tennesee, a car accident involving a tractor-trailer and two Japanese-made cars results in the death of six people (2 adults, 2 teenagers, and 2 little kids.) The accident involves the failure of both gas tanks in the Japanese cars, which causes an explosion. It is revealed that the Japanese-made gas tanks were below standards, which caused them to fail when they shouldn't have. This results in Congress passing the "Trade Reform Act", enabling the United States to mirror the trade practices of the countries that it imports goods from. The bill is immediately used against Japanese goods, and results in an increasing backlog of imported products which begins to hurt the Japanese economy. Facing a perceived economic crisis, a group called Zaibatsu
decides to seize Japan and take military action to safeguard the Japanese economy. Along with the China and India, the plan involves curtailing the American presence in the Pacific in an effort to reestablish the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, which includes a possible Chinese-Japanese invasion of Siberia to secure its extensive resources. The earlier part of the novel implies that the Zaibatsu was planning to seize Japan anyway, and used the economic crisis as an excuse.
Japan begins its part of the operation against the U.S. by launching torpedoes at two of the U.S. Navy's Pacific Fleet aircraft carrier and two submarines at the conclusion of a joint U.S.-Japan naval exercise, destroying both submarines and crippling the carriers. Simultaneously, the Japanese cabal engineers the collapse of the American stock market (through the use of witting and unwitting personnel who electronically wipe out the computerized records of all transactions on Wall Street), leaving America at a huge economic disadvantage. Meanwhile, units of Japan's
Self-Defense Forces
occupy the Marianas Islands (as part of the grand plan involving China and India), specifically Saipan and Guam. The Zaibatsu, actually its leader Raizo Yamata, believe that these two elements, combined with the acquisition of Russian SS-19 ICBMs and nuclear warheads under the cover of the Japanese space program, will be enough to force the United States to negotiate a truce.
As the U.S. and Japanese delegates negotiate to avoid further bloodshed in what is now called the "Pacific Crisis," newly appointed National Security Advisor Jack Ryan and Russia's SVR determines Japan's covert actions and in the process discovers the overall plan by Japan, India and China to eliminate U.S. influence in the Pacific. Fearful of an impending nuclear war between China and
Russia
, Ryan convinces President Roger Durling that the U.S. must take immediate action to stop the Japanese occupation, which Ryan hopes will derail the efforts of India and China. As a result, the United States commits two separate surgical strikes against Japan, resulting in the death of nearly all the Zaibatsu and the elimination of the Japanese presence in the Mariana Islands. The U.S. and Europe also perform a "reset" on the stock market that wipes out the zaibatsu's planned gains from the previous sabotage and rescue the kidnapped former Japanese prime minister who later forces a cowardly, zaibatsu-controlled PM to resign in disgrace.
The ending also has coincidental parallels with the September 11, 2001 attacks, although the disaster is not caused by hijackers. An embittered Japan Air Lines pilot, avenging the deaths of his son and brother — killed during the Pacific conflict — flies his Boeing 747 directly into the U.S. Capitol building during a joint session of Congress[1] assembled to vote on President Durling's nomination of Ryan to fill the just-vacated office of Vice-President. Nearly the entire
United States presidential line of succession
is eliminated, including the President, most of Congress, nearly all of the Cabinet, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and all nine Supreme Court Justices. Ryan, who has just been confirmed as Vice President moments before, narrowly escapes the attack and is immediately sworn in as President. He begins his term of office in the immediate sequel, Executive Orders.



Executive Orders is a political and military thriller novel by Tom Clancy. It was published in 1996.

Plot summary
Jack Ryan is sworn in as President of the United States minutes after becoming Vice-President. With most of Congress, the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the U.S. military, much of the senior staff of the Executive Office of the President, the Supreme Court, and all but two members of the Cabinet dead in a terrorist attack, Ryan is left to represent the United States virtually all by himself. This novel follows Ryan as he deals with various hardships and crises, ranging from domestic and foreign policy, to reconstituting the House and Senate, a challenge to his legitimacy by his Vice-Presidential predecessor, scandal-tainted Ed Kealty, and a brewing war in the Middle East. After learning that the majority of the government are dead, two anarchists decide to kill both Ryan and Ed Kealty, using a cement truck filled with an explosive mixture.
When the President of Iraq (at the time of publication, the book presumably referred to then-President Saddam Hussein although he is only mentioned once by name) is assassinated by an Iranian member of his own security detail, the leader of Iran (Ayatollah Mahmoud Haji Daryaei) takes advantage of the power vacuum and invades Iraq, uniting the two countries into one called the United Islamic Republic.
With assistance from India and the People's Republic of China, the UIR plans to transform itself into a superpower by conquering Saudi Arabia. Following a series of Iranian-backed terrorist attacks designed to cripple the United States, including a kidnap attempt on Ryan's youngest daughter and a biowarfare attack using a new Iranian-developed airborne strain of the extremely lethal Ebola virus, the UIR goes to war against Saudi and
Kuwaiti forces and the few uninfected American units are rushed to the region to stand by them. Ryan restricts interstate travel, and closes schools and businesses to reduce the virus spreading. The biowar attack fails for a reason well known to virologists: Ebola outbreaks quickly exterminate a small group of people, then burn out because they run out of new hosts; other viruses that kill less efficiently manage to spread to larger communities.
He also orders the country into martial law during this time, which inadvertently prevents the anarchists' assassination attempt because interstate travel has been prohibited. During a routine police check at a truck stop, one of the anarchists panics, drawing police attention to their unusual truck.
In a matter of days, with the combined strength of the Kuwaiti, Saudi Arabian and American armies, they begin to seriously damage the UIR's military resources, soldiers and morale by destroying two entire corps of the UIR's army. Eventually, the triumvirate of the three countries win the war.
At the same time, President Ryan calls Ding Chavez and John Clark into a secret mission. They set up a laser guidance device in an apartment facing Daryaei's home, allowing US aircraft to target a precision bomb upon it. Simultaneously, during a press conference, President Ryan shows the destruction of Daryaei's residence on live national television and tells the international community that they will only hurt those who are specifically responsible for attacking America. Ryan assassinates Darayei just after another attempt on Ryan's life, by an Iranian sleeper agent in the US
Secret Service, is foiled and the assassin arrested.
Ryan threatens to bomb biowarfare targets in Tehran unless the surviving people responsible for the biowarfare attacks are extradited to America to face charges.
Afterwards, the American people accept their new President, and he concedes that he will in fact run for election to a term in his own right.
The book is so named because President Ryan governs by issuing executive orders, as opposed to working with the Congress to pass legislation or deferring to state and local governments. This is because most of Congress, as well as the Supreme Court and most of the cabinet were killed in the same terrorist action which elevated Jack to the Presidency. In particular, acting on advice of his wife, a physician, in regard to the biological weapon threat, Jack restricts interstate travel by executive order. In a move designed to embarrass and undermine Jack's presidency, resigned Vice-President Ed Kealty files a lawsuit alleging Jack acted unconstitutionally in restricting the travel of US citizens. While ruling in Kealty's favor on constitutional grounds, the lawsuit also ends Kealty's claim to the Presidency, since he inadvertently acknowledges Ryan as President.

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