Foreign Policy is Too Important to Be Left in the Hands of Professionals. And Here's Why...
I've decided to take a detour from fiction writing. As I've stated in one of my early posts, over the many years that I worked in the U.S. foreign affairs establishment, I frequently found myself scratching my head, muttering, "Fiction can't rival this."
So, soon to be published will be my fifth (first nonfiction) book, THE FOREIGN CIRCUS - Why Foreign Policy Should Not Be Left in the Hands of Diplomats, Spies and Political Hacks (Bittersweet House Press). Following is the blurb:
"How is the world ruled and how do wars start? Diplomats tell lies to journalists and then believe what they read." ~ Karl Kraus.
An ambassador orders his staff into the lawless interior of a civil war-torn country as guerrillas are targeting foreigners for assassination. Hundreds of millions of dollars of U.S.-bought weaponry are channeled to Afghan religious fanatics, the future Taliban. White House players leak classified information to the media, then blame the leaks on career civil servants. Diplomats succumb to the temptations of exotic overseas sexual playgrounds. Political hacks and campaign bundlers are rewarded with ambassadorships in a diplomatic spoils systems that hearkens back to the Robber Baron age. Computer nerds Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning steal a veritable Croesus of sensitive national security information and give it away free to our adversaries.
What's wrong with this picture? Everything. Our foreign policy is in the hands of the clueless, the self-serving and the politically corrupt. Read this book first. Then fill out papers to emigrate. The author provides a first-hand view from inside the belly of the beast of the U.S. foreign policy establishment. His insights are so spot-on that government censors have blocked out whole sections of text. THE FOREIGN CIRCUS will have you alternatively laughing and shaking your head. Due out in early 2014.
Yes, the government censors had real issues with parts of this book. Hence, you will see solid black lines of redacted text. What a waste of ink.
The Foreign Circus, which draws from my blog essays, is currently in production. We don't have a firm release date as yet. Watch this space.