William T. Hathaway & Paul Carline

A Review of Gaither Stewart's latest novel, The Trojan Spy

Gaither Stewart's The Trojan Spy takes the thriller genre an important step forward, advancing it from the work of his predecessors John le Carré and Robert Ludlum. Le Carré and Ludlum rebelled against the conventions of the classic spy thrillers, which assumed that we're the good guys who are under attack by bad guys so evil that we're justified in bending the rules to save ourselves from them. In that world, lies, deceit, sabotage, and even murder are sometimes necessary to defend peace, justice, and the American (or Western) Way against (pick one, depending on when the book was written) Nazis, communists, or terrorists.

Le Carré and Ludlum made the genre less predictable in terms of identifying the bad guys. Instead of these being agents of the particular ennemi du jour, as in the simplistic 007 stories, they gave us plots revolving around corrupt politicians, rogue secret service agents, and insider conspiracies -- as in the film Syriana, or le Carré's The Constant Gardener. The perennial theme of many of le Carré's stories is the callous amorality of secret services -- especially the American and British ones -- who routinely betray others, even their own agents, for very questionable ulterior motives. The good guys -- whether civilian or secret service -- are often sacrificed for political or operational ends.

In Ludlum's "Bourne" series of books and films the suggestion is that the hero, Jason Bourne, has been subjected to mind-altering techniques which largely erased his original persona, replacing it with that of a programmable assassin. There are clear links here to secret government-sponsored programs such as MKUltra -- which were more than likely used in a number of recent faked "terrorist" bombing incidents, notably those of the "shoe bomber" Richard Reid and the December 2010 "underwear bomber," Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab -- both of whom were described by witnesses as appearing confused and disoriented, with glazed eyes.

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Nile Bowie

For sixteen months, the people of Syria have undergone economic hardship, tremendous human suffering and the unparalleled horrors of war. As the Syrian opposition officially abandons the ceasefire and calls for foreign intervention and the imposition of a no-fly zone [1], US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has announced a new transition plan that would topple the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, signaling the increasing possibility of intervention outside the mandate of the United Nations [2]. Following clashes between militant rebel groups and government forces that claimed the lives of 80 Syrian troops [3], rebels in Aleppo have reportedly taken 11 hostages and vowed to release them only when a new state is established [4]. While Bashar al-Assad attributes the perpetuation of Syria’s crisis to outside forces [5], Iran has expressed its readiness to mount an armed resistance against foreign military forces in Syria [6]. Regardless of who perpetrated the recent killings in Qubayr and Houla, the profoundly disturbing images of lifeless children begs the question, has the Syrian crisis reached a point of incorrigibility?

Western media has largely relied on unconfirmed opposition accounts crediting the Shabiha, pro-government Alawite militias with carrying out massacres across Syria as a result of the Assad government “brainwashing the militia into believing the Sunni majority was their enemy,” as reported by The Telegraph [7]. Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung has recently reported that anti-Assad Sunni militants carried out the massacre in Houla, targeting pro-government Alawi and Shia minorities, “Those killed were almost exclusively from families belonging to Houla’s Alawi and Shia minorities. Over 90% of Houla’s population is Sunni. Several dozen members of a family were slaughtered, which had converted from Sunni to Shia Islam. Members of the Shomaliya, an Alawi family, were also killed, as was the family of a Sunni member of the Syrian parliament who is regarded as a collaborator. Immediately following the massacre, the perpetrators are supposed to have filmed their victims and then presented them as Sunni victims in videos posted on the internet” [8].

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Stephen Lendman

Photo: 14-year old Malik Ahmed Suleiman after he was strangled to death for supporting Bashar al-Assad.

A Syrian documentary aired on June 9, and a June 7 report by Germany's leading broadsheet provide more evidence. Both refutes Western and scoundrel media misinformation. More on the latter below.

On May 10, suburban Damascus suicide bombings killed 55 and injured hundreds. The attack happened near Syria's military intelligence complex. Children were killed. So were drivers and others heading for work.

At the time, SANA state media said rescue workers collected "15 bags of limbs and torn-off body parts" from the scene. The blasts also destroyed 105 cars.

Western reports spuriously blamed Assad. He had nothing to do with it, other insurgent massacres, daily attacks, targeted assassinations, and Western-sponsored terrorism.

On June 10, SANA state media's documentary discussed the Damascus incident. It pointed fingers the right way. It named Western-recruited Jabhet al-Nasra terrorists responsible. They also carried out earlier attacks.

Jordanian terrorist Abu Musaab, Syrian Mohammad Ali Ghazi, and an Iraqi called Marwan "supervised the operation." Others involved included "Mohammad Ahmad Kamaleddin, a Syrian from Serghaya, Yasser, another Syrian, and an Iraqi known as Allawi."

Testimonies were aired. Medical student Abdullah said the Yousef al-Hajer terrorist organization recruited him to participate. He met Iraqi insurgents involved. They were affiliated with Al Qaeda.

Abdullah was enlisted to help make explosives. He didn't know for what purpose. He said Jabhet al-Nasra is active throughout Syria. It works cooperatively with Free Syrian Army elements. Their mission is violence and destruction to destabilize Syria and oust Assad. Recruits were deceived to go along.

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Adnan Al-Daini

So let me get this right: free market economists’, right wing politicians’ and commentators’ solution to the economic depression engulfing Europe and the U.S. is to cut government spending, slash welfare payments to the bone, and make it easier for employers to fire people.

Additionally, cut taxes to those at the top and give them a freer hand to incentivize them to use their entrepreneurial skills to create businesses, and with that jobs. Do not worry about the gap between the rich and the poor, they say, this is the price we have to pay for a dynamic economy that will make us all richer; they seem to have forgotten why we are in this mess.

Let us for a moment put aside the immorality of the impact of such actions on the vulnerable, the poor and the rising army of the unemployed; are they right? Do we really need to sacrifice social justice for good economic performance? 

Research by the Canadian Council on Social Development sought to examine those assertions and ideas. Put simply, it examined the proposition of the U.S economist Arthur Okun, who wrote:

Inequality reflects a system of rewards and penalties that is designed to encourage effort ...The pursuit of efficiency necessarily creates inequalities. And hence society faces a trade-off between equality and efficiency.

The work looked at per capita GDP growth in the 1990s, and for household after-tax income inequality (Gini index) in 1995 for Canada, the U.S., Australia, the UK and eight other European countries.

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