Review: 'The President Is Missing' By James Patterson And Bill Clinton

You may have seen James Patterson and Bill Clinton making the rounds on the talk show circuit to promote their book, “The President Is Missing.” The news centering around the interviews has mainly involved the former president having to defend his sexual misbehavior in the #MeToo era. The message of the book has largely escaped media notice on both the right and the left.

I didn’t intend to read the book. Normally anything that involves the Clintons pegs low on my interest meter and despite being a lifelong bookworm I had never read anything by James Patterson. I picked up the book out of curiosity when my son pointed it out at our local library. After perusing it for a few minutes, it piqued my interest enough to check it out.

To those who would argue that my conservative credentials are suspect because I read a book coauthored by Bill Clinton, I say that it isn’t healthy to wall yourself off from all opposing viewpoints. The insular echo chambers of social media in which we hear only a distorted view of the other side’s beliefs are a major problem of modern American life. Besides, I checked the book out from a library so no Clintons were enriched by my reading of the novel.

To my surprise, “The President Is Missing” is a very good book. It is a fast-paced and very believable thriller that is difficult to put down. Despite fears to the contrary, the book does not preach about the liberal point of view any more than average Hollywood movie and probably less so. There are references to traditional Democratic talking points, but that is to be expected from a book that centers around a president who assumed to be a Democrat.

The central character of the book is the president, who tells the story from his point of view. Although a Democrat, the president seems to be a moderate and the character is likable. Like a few modern Democrats from the real world, he is a veteran of Desert Storm. Unlike many from both sides of the aisle, the fictional president puts partisanship aside to act in the best interests of the country at great personal risk to himself.

The plot involves the reliance of modern America on electricity and the internet, a threat that I have been concerned about for years. For a long time, I was concerned that a rogue state such as North Korea or Iran could launch an electromagnetic pulse attack. In such a scenario, a nuclear weapon would be detonated high over the central US and the resulting EMP would fry the electrical grids and devices for most of the country. Such an attack could lead to mass starvation and the collapse of the economy.

More recently, I’ve realized that it would be much easier for cyber attackers to simply switch off the electrical grids and lock out the “white hat” hackers defending them. Given the ubiquitous nature of the internet in modern life, malware and viruses could infest everything from household appliances to defense computers and cause havoc.

If you think it can’t happen, it already has… at least on a smaller scale. Russia has launched cyber-attacks on Ukrainian power plants that caused extensive blackouts as far back as 2015. In 2014, a botnet hijacked 100,000 internet-connected devices including a smart refrigerator and used it send 750,000 spam emails. In October 2016, a massive distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack crashed the sites of such internet giants as Twitter, CNN and Netflix. At about the same time, Russian hackers were attacking numerous state and local election administration sites.

The possibilities for nefarious internet schemes with catastrophic outcomes are limited only by the imaginations of cyber terrorists, but there are many defensive strategies as well. One of the most obvious is limiting exposure. Just because something can be connected to the internet doesn’t mean it should be. Is it really in our best interests to have our refrigerators and toasters online? When it comes to voting, paper ballots, even with all their problems, seem immeasurably more secure than a computer-based voting system.

“The President Is Missing” was a quick and enjoyable read. If you like political thrillers and want to escape the crazy news of the day to a world where problems can be wrapped up in 500 pages, don’t be put off by the former president’s name on the cover. Check it out at your local library and you won’t even have to feel guilty.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Putin trolls The West

Speaking yesterday at a meeting of former world leaders in Sochi, Russia, Vladimir Putin took the opportunity to ridicule the U.S. election and concerns that Russia threatens Eastern Europe. In a speech translated by The Daily Wire, the president of Russia made light of the notion that Russia was trying to influence the presidential election and called such claims “hysteria.”

“Does anybody seriously believe that Russia could somehow influence the choice that the American people are to make. Do you consider the United States to be some kind of a banana republic?” Putin mocked. “The United States is a great nation. Correct me if I’m wrong.”

Putin claimed that concerns about Russian interference in the election were the product of disinformation by the American media. “It is easier for them to try and distract the public with all this talk of Russian spies and hackers and cyber-crime and attempts to influence American politics.” He added that American voters should be more concerned about the national debt and “gun violence” than Russia.

“I wish we had such an efficient, powerful propaganda machine in Russia, but unfortunately we don’t," Putin lamented. "We don’t have the powerful media organizations such as CNN or the BBC. So far, we don’t have those capabilities.”

Over the past few months, evidence has mounted that Russia was behind cyber-attacks and the email hack of Democratic National Committee. The Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, has said that the U.S. intelligence community believes that Russia is interfering with the election. While Donald Trump has not accepted this conclusion, Mike Pence admitted on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” “I think there is more and more evidence that implicates Russia and there should be serious consequences.”

Echoing Donald Trump’s concerns about a “rigged” election and that he is a victim of the Washington “establishment,” Putin argued, “People are showing a very different kind of vote, and political parties that used to be considered marginal in the past, being dubbed either far-left or far-right, are now coming to the forefront and actually pushing aside some of the old mainstream parties.” He continued, “When this turned out to be a systemic development, they started claiming that the public just fails to understands its elites and its government, it fails to understand their rationale, and then they started claiming that most often this is a consequence of foreign propaganda; namely Russian propaganda… Average citizens no longer have any confidence in the ruling class.”

Putin did stop short of endorsing either presidential candidate, noting that neither had run a substantive campaign and that their policy differences were slight. “The political agendas have been absolutely devoid of any real meaning. Instead of discussing real issues people start mudslinging, exchanging compromising stories; discussing who pinched whom on what and who sleeps with whom, and that’s just embarrassing. If you look at the political programs of candidates, it looks like they’ve been written based on the same templates. There are hardly any differences you can notice.”

With respect to fears of Russian expansionism in Eastern Europe, Putin ridiculed “military bases close to Russia’s borders” whose purpose was to act as “a defender, a protector of civilization against barbaric hordes.”

“Russia is not going to invade anyone, that would be just laughable, ridiculous,” Putin protested. “But still, they’re trying to beat the war drum and inflate the Russian threat.”

Crimea was not available for comment.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Wikiterror

Julian Assange, cyber terrorist (Espen Moe)

It is time to call Julian Assange and his hacker cohorts what they are:  cyber terrorists.  Assange used his website, Wikileaks, to post thousands of stolen classified documents online for the world to see.

Assange may not be a member of al Qaeda, but his goals are similar to those of Osama bin Laden.  Assange is anti-American and anti-business.  He wants to hurt the United States, specifically our efforts in the War on Terror, and anyone who gets in his way.

Why do people like Assange focus on the US and not the many other nations of the world that would be more credible targets for someone concerned about human rights?  In part, they have succumbed to leftist rhetoric about “illegal wars” as well as disproportionate coverage of problems like Abu Graibh.  In reality, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are justified and legal.  The majority of US and Coalition troops behave honorably.  Those did not have faced justice.  On the contrary, our enemy’s central tactic is killing and maiming innocent people.  

Second, Assange and those like him realize that if they went after the real human rights abusers in the world, countries like China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran, they might become targets themselves.  Like Osama bin Laden before 9/11, they view the US as a “paper tiger.”  They can make a name for themselves by attacking us without fear of reprisal.  On the other hand, people who criticize true dictatorial governments tend to end up dead, often in horrible ways.

Australians rally in support of Wikileaks (Noodle Snacks)

After Assange was arrested on rape charges this week, his cohorts launched a wave of cyber attacks on companies and governments.  Many of the companies attacked, such as MasterCard, Visa, PayPal, and Amazon, have ended their dealings with Wikileaks over concerns about the legality of posting classified documents.  Other targets of “Operation Payback” include Swedish prosecutors involved in Assange’s rape cases, a Swiss bank, and Sarah Palin.

Cyber attacks on companies and the US government are nothing new.  Earlier this year, China was involved in cyber attacks against Google amid a dispute with the company over censorship of internet search results.  Over the past few years, the US military, as well as oil companies, have come under repeated cyber attack.  China is a prime suspect in many of the attacks.  Ironically, documents on Wikileaks include details on Chinese cyber attack plans.

A massive cyber attack could be viewed as a poor man’s EMP attack.  Cyber warfare could shut down large segments of the economy and government, or, as with Operation Payback, it could be narrowly targeted at certain companies, government agencies, or military bases.  Cyber warfare could most likely be repaired more quickly than an EMP attack, but if it were timed to coincide with other attacks, the damage could be multiplied.  In 2008, the Russian invasion of Georgia was preceded by a cyber attack on Georgian websites.

A sailor monitors network activity on the USS Reagan (DOD)

The US government, as well as corporations, should take cyber warfare seriously.  Cyber attacks should be given the same importance as conventional terror attacks.  Even though they do not rack up the body count of a car bomb or crashing airplane, they have the capability to inflict much more widespread damage on the country as a whole. 

It might be time to establish an interservice Cyber Warfare Command to coordinate computer defense.  Patriotic hackers could be recruited and trained by the military to defend the nation’s computer networks from attack.  Websites that are damaging to national security, such as Wikileaks, could be attacked if necessary.  In certain cases, Special Forces or CIA agents might be used to attack cyber attackers physically.

Computers and the internet are a vital part of the US economy.  We cannot stand idly by while they are attacked by other nations or cyberterrorist groups.  Neither should we stand idly by while classified documents that can endanger our soldiers and our allies are released to the world.

“[T]here is nothing covered up that will not be revealed, and hidden that will not be known. Accordingly, whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in the inner rooms will be proclaimed upon the housetops.”- Luke 12:2-3

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