Saturday, October 01, 2011
The Cobra
This is the title of Fredrick Forsyth's latest book, published last year. This time instead of international politics, warfare, or terrorism, he tackles the drug trade, specifically the cocaine trade. As always, he uses a story to tell us some unpleasant truths about the real world. What makes him a master at this is that the story is always primary and the message almost incidental. In telling about the world as it really is, or as he perceives it for you post-modernists out there, he illustrates some important truths that would be ignored otherwise.
Forsyth uses the President of the US as the means to start and end his story. The beginning sketch certainly resembles the current occupant of the White House, but I seriously doubt he has the fortitude to make the decisions that lead to the action in the book. His Chief of Staff has a certain similarity to Emmanual Rohm, in his personality.
The plot is one of the President providing the means, legal and financial, via declaring drug trafficking to be a form of terrorism and burying the funding in other budgets, to allow a no-holds-barred approach to stopping the cocaine trade. Entire our central character, The Cobra. The Cobra creates and executes a plan that brings the drug cartel and its clients into a destructive war with each other.
This is all under the covers until the war breaks out. It is here that Forsyth provides the unpleasant truths about our society and our politicians--when we see the actual carnage, we will do anything to make it go away, including letting the drug traffic continue.
In the Penquin Signet Edition (paperback) pp 375-379 have the punch line. Here is the one-line summary from p 378:
Unfortunately, from my perspective it is all too true. We get what we ask for.
Forsyth uses the President of the US as the means to start and end his story. The beginning sketch certainly resembles the current occupant of the White House, but I seriously doubt he has the fortitude to make the decisions that lead to the action in the book. His Chief of Staff has a certain similarity to Emmanual Rohm, in his personality.
The plot is one of the President providing the means, legal and financial, via declaring drug trafficking to be a form of terrorism and burying the funding in other budgets, to allow a no-holds-barred approach to stopping the cocaine trade. Entire our central character, The Cobra. The Cobra creates and executes a plan that brings the drug cartel and its clients into a destructive war with each other.
This is all under the covers until the war breaks out. It is here that Forsyth provides the unpleasant truths about our society and our politicians--when we see the actual carnage, we will do anything to make it go away, including letting the drug traffic continue.
In the Penquin Signet Edition (paperback) pp 375-379 have the punch line. Here is the one-line summary from p 378:
"Our great nation can kill up to a million abroad, but not one percent of that figure of its own gangsters without sustaining a fainting fit."
Unfortunately, from my perspective it is all too true. We get what we ask for.
// posted by Bill @ 4:37 PM 
