Op-Center: Acts Of War
By Tom Clancy and Steve Pieczenik
Harper Collins. US$13.95
Review by Kani Xulam
Tom Clancy and Steve Pieczenik's newest novel is surging up the best seller lists. It introduces a new set of bad guys to the already prodigious list of pulp fiction enemies — the Kurds.
To be sure, Clancy and Pieczenik do an okay job of compiling the facts of the present Kurdish conflict with their neighbours. They have the US secretary of state note, "As things stand, [the Kurds] are among the most persecuted people on Earth ... Until 1991, they weren't even allowed to speak their language in Turkey."
But that is about all the sympathy the Kurdish people get in a volume that stretches 492 pages. In the rest of the book, they are terrorists — hardy, self-disciplined, devout Muslims — and torturers, too.
The Kurdish-Turkish war has been going on since 1984. More than 20,000 people have died. The Kurds of Syria, Iraq, and Iran are also suffering, so the fictional leader of the Turkish Kurds al-Nasri and the Iraqi Kurdish leader Mirza agree to take on the Kurds' foes together.
A mobile Kurdish unit embarks on a journey to blow up a dam on the Euphrates. A US Regional Operation Center (ROC) — an all-eyes and all-ears surveillance minibus — is in the neighbourhood. A general, two marines, and three technicians operate it.
The Kurdish unit does its job; Ataturk Dam is blown up. The US general wants to get closer to the scene and is taken prisoner by the Kurds. The minibus goes to the rescue. Kurdish fighters put the minibus out of commission and take the remaining US crew hostage too. The Kurds are somewhat impervious to the importance of their catch.
They want to head home, first to Syria and then to the Bekaa Valley. On their way and at the camp they torture the chief of the ROC operation. Washington and Tel Aviv make plans to rescue the Yankees.
The ROC crew are an interesting bunch. One is a former environmentalist, whose years of dissent in Greenpeace come in handy in dealing with the Kurds. Another is an African-American woman, who tells her Kurdish torturer that fighting oppression does not license one to abuse the captured.
The Kurd, as you would expect, is speechless. He is not well versed enough in Martin Luther King Jr or Malcolm X to engage her in philosophical dialogue. You admire the African-American woman for putting oppression in perspective so eloquently.
At the end, the Israelis help the US locate the camp in Bekaa Valley. The Kurds are attacked and incapacitated by means of gas. The US general, angry with his tormentors, kills the Kurdish leader out of revenge.
Rest assured, the Turkish war mongers will make this newest concoction required reading for their officers who are versed in English.
The end of the Cold War and the beginning of the peace process in the Middle East have depleted the market for adversaries. The identification of the Kurdish struggle for dignity as a form of terrorism and inimical to the values of the US people is deplorable.
[From the American Kurdish Information Network (http://www.kurdistan.org).]