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(More customer reviews)Thank God for the Great Satan...
The Bahrain Conspiracy by Bentley "Woody" Gates is an action thriller, but this story struggles to come to grips with the moral conflict inherent to human nature - the will to control, and the will to be free.
Just as the 9/11 plot to terrorize America the Great Satan by flying hijacked airplanes into the twin towers in New York City was deceptively simple, so too is the plot of The Bahrain Conspiracy. A cell of Muslim extremists are hell-bent on a suicide mission to terrorize America once again by hijacking three ocean freighters and equipping them with explosives to blow up New York City and San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge - a fictional action thriller that could easily become tomorrow's grim reality.
"Why have we become the target of their hate?" asks The Bahrain Conspiracy. "What button have we pushed that they should call us the Great Satan? Is it because of who we have become that they want to destroy us?"
With the consummate skill of an accomplished novelist, Gates lets his story seek its own answer through his characters. "I believe God dwells in each of us," says Navy SEAL Lieutenant Sean Mills, personifying the freethinking American spirit, "that His spirit moves one man to create art and another to design skyscrapers. I believe you and I are part of God's Plan for humanity. I believe in the Ten Commandments and that we are all judged even though we are forgiven the sin through Jesus." (p. 86). That's how Navy SEAL Sean Mills rationalizes soldiering.
And Muslim extremist Munir Marwat, one of the players in the conspiracy to blow up New York City and the Golden Gate Bridge says, "This act of sacrifice for the jihad must be made to cleanse my soul. As a man, I am born sinful (he is gay). Only Allah can say who comes into paradise. My sin is not one of harming another. No, my sin is a sin of love. The Qu'ran says it is a sin of lust. It matters not--it is sinful. It is an unpardonable sin but for martyrdom" (p. 314), thereby justifying terrorizing America for encroaching upon their ancient ways with their "corrupt" and "decadent" capitalist ways.
"The Great Satan's Achilles' heel is their belief that religions can co-exist," Munir tells Javed, another jihadist and fellow conspirator. "They have ignorantly forbidden a state-sponsored religion. If you look at history, all the great nations have been supported by one religion, except the US" (p, 83), thus fueling their over-arching messianic goal of destroying the Great Satan and imposing Islam upon the entire world, which like a powerful undercurrent drives the theme of The Bahrain Conspiracy.
It is generally agreed by all good-minded people that all religions stem from one source, the omniscient guiding force of life, which goes by many names - Holy Spirit, Baraka, Tao, Chi, Prana, the Eck force, élan vitel, Aldous Huxley's "perennial philosophy, and "good stuff." The Gnostics, whose tradition is said to stretch into antiquity, were a spiritual sect that existed at the time of Jesus. It is believed that Jesus was a member of this sect, which was known in his times as the Essenes. The Gnostics held a belief that God mandated Satan to temper the soul of man and keep karmic order and balance in the world. To this day, spiritually enlightened seekers of God continue to hold this belief and deem it ironic that America should be called the Great Satan by Muslim extremists. Thank God for the Great Satan then, whose duty is to make man become aware of his karmic imperfections and keep moral order and balance in the world, for were it not for America Muslim jihadists would unleash chaos upon our western free world.
At heart, The Bahrain Conspiracy is a metaphor for the never-ending battle of good and evil -- the good being man's eternal struggle for spiritual freedom, and evil being the archetypal shadow forces of the collective unconscious that keep man's soul in bondage to spiritual ignorance. The Bahrain Conspiracy shouts a moral clarity at its center that belies the noble intentions of Muslim extremists who seek to terrorize the world with blind religions zealotry, and the Navy SEALSs epitomize the noblest quality that man is heir to - the simple virtue of goodness. Jihadists cowardly deflect accountability for their suicidal acts of violent terrorism to Allah, while the Navy SEALs, whose motto is "the only easy day was yesterday," personally shoulder the responsibility of protecting the freedom that their forefathers sacrificed their lives for.
Many SEALs in The Bahrain Conspiracy have a long family military history (as does the author Bentley Gates, who can trace a direct family military history to the American Revolutionary War; and he himself served in the 1st Air Cavalry during Vietnam, a first strike unit with an attitude not unlike the specially trained SEALs which gives his story an assuring ring of authenticity). This is the absolute difference between Muslim jihadists and American warriors - the former deluding themselves that their suicidal mission to terrorize the Great Satan is a great service to Allah that will reward them a special place in paradise, while the latter put their life on the line to honor the integrity of the American way of life which grants every citizen religious, cultural, and personal freedom - old, perverted spiritual values versus new, enlightened egalitarian values.
This is the root cause of the moral conflict played out large in The Bahrain Conspiracy - man's primeval impulse to control soul's inherent desire for freedom; but not until man has evolved enough to recognize that we are the authors of our own spiritual destiny will we ever resolve this conflict. There are no free passes to paradise, but as long as Muslim fanatics believe that sacrificing their life in a holy war for Allah will earn them a place in paradise they will always be a threat to western society; and The Bahrain Conspiracy starkly reminds us to stay vigilant. Gates's evocative prose makes the story instantly credible, and so explicit in factual detail that it could easily overwhelm the reader if the technical information was not woven so seamlessly into the story. His style reads with effortless ease, and the plot unfolds with dramatic, albeit unstrained tension that brilliantly builds to an explosive climax - a timely action thriller with such an intense sense of realism that it reads like nonfiction. A passionate patriot, the author tries to come to terms with the inherent conflict at the heart of The Bahrain Conspiracy and triumphs man's will to be free over man's will to control by minimizing the jihadists' suicidal mission to wreak havoc on America. The Bahrain Conspiracy sheds light upon this destructive moral conflict that has reared its monstrous Hydra head to plague our modern free world with a fanatical medieval terrorism gone mad -- a work of fiction today, but quite possibly tomorrow's breaking news. This is an insightful, thought-provoking novel that vociferously voices our troubled times, offering the world a resolute sense of hope in the Great Satan's unflagging commitment to our democratic western values. A great read. Ooh-Rah!Review by Orest Stocco, Author of MY UNBORN CHILD, release date Spring 2010
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The Bahrain ConspiracyLieutenant Commander John Allen leads US Navy SEALs Team Six and a CIA agent against an alliance of Somali Pirates and Islamic Jihadists bent using hijacked ships as weapons of mass destruction in a simultaneous attack on both US coasts.
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