{"product_id":"9780812977332","title":"Corbett, David - Blood of Paradise: a novel","description":"\u003cp\u003eWritten by Corbett, David. Themes include Police corruption, Illinois, Chicago, Fiction, El Salvador.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eEl Salvador: America’s great Cold War success story and the model for Iraq’s fledgling democracy–if one ignores the grinding poverty, the corruption, the spiraling crime, and a murder rate ranked near the top in the hemisphere. This is where Jude Mcmanus works as an executive protection specialist, currently assigned to an American engineer working for a U.S. consortium.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Ten years before, at age seventeen, he saw his father and two Chicago cop colleagues arrested for robbing street dealers. The family fell apart in the scandal’s wake, his disgraced dad died under suspicious circumstances, and Jude fled Chicago to join the army and forge a new life.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Now the past returns when one of his father’s old pals appears. The man is changed–he’s scarred, regretful, self-aware–and he helps Jude revisit the past with a forgiving eye. Then he asks a favor–not for himself, but for the third member of his dad’s old crew.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Even though it’s ill-considered, Jude agrees, thinking he can oblige the request and walk away, unlike his father. But he underestimates the players and the stakes and he stumbles into a web of Third World corruption and personal betrayal where everything he values–and everyone he loves–is threatened. And only the greatest of sacrifices will save them.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e “This big, brawny novel runs on full throttle from first to last page. Brutal and heartrendering, eloquent and important, this is a fully engrossing read.”\u003cbr\u003e –Michael Connelly\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e “A Quiet American for the new century. Angry and impassioned, Blood of Paradise is that rare beast: a work of popular fiction that is both serious and thrilling.”\u003cbr\u003e –John Connolly, \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e bestselling author of \u003ci\u003eEvery Dead Thing\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e “David Corbett is a supremely gifted writer and Blood of Paradise reminds me of a Robert Stone novel. Its lyrical prose and exotic setting filled with damaged souls grasping for redemption any way they can combine in a tour de force that will haunt you long after you reach the end.”\u003cbr\u003e –Denise Hamilton, nationally bestselling author of \u003ci\u003ePrisoner of Memory\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e “If you’re looking for the best in contemporary crime fiction, this is it.”\u003cbr\u003e –The Washington Post, on \u003ci\u003eDone for a Dime\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e _________________________________________________________________\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003eThe Mortalis Dossier- Bonus Feature From David Corbett\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003eFrom Troy To Baghdad (Via El Salvador)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The Story's Genesis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I conceived \u003ci\u003eBlood of Paradise\u003c\/i\u003e after reading \u003ci\u003ePhiloctetes,\u003c\/i\u003e a spare and\u003cbr\u003e relatively obscure drama by Sophocles. In the original, an oracle advises\u003cbr\u003e the Greeks that victory over the Trojans is impossible without\u003cbr\u003e the bow of Herakles. Unfortunately, it’s in the hands of Philoctetes,\u003cbr\u003e whom the Greeks abandoned on a barren island ten years earlier,\u003cbr\u003e when he was bitten by a venomous snake while the Achaean fleet\u003cbr\u003e harbored briefly on its way to Troy.\u003cbr\u003e Odysseus, architect of the desertion scheme, must now return,\u003cbr\u003e reclaim the bow, and bring both the weapon and its owner to Troy.\u003cbr\u003e For a companion, he chooses Neoptolemus, the son of his slain\u003cbr\u003e archrival, Achilles.\u003cbr\u003e Neoptolemus, being young, still holds fast to the heroic virtues\u003cbr\u003e embodied by his dead father, and believes they can appeal to\u003cbr\u003e Philoctetes as a warrior. But Odysseus–knowing Philoctetes will\u003cbr\u003e want revenge against all the Greeks, himself in particular–\u003cbr\u003e convinces Neoptolemus that trickery and deceit will serve their\u003cbr\u003e purposes far better. In essence, he corrupts Neoptolemus, who subsequently\u003cbr\u003e deceives Philoctetes into relinquishing his bitterness to\u003cbr\u003e reenlist in the cause against Troy.\u003cbr\u003e The tale has an intriguing postscript: It turns out to be the corrupted\u003cbr\u003e Neoptolemus who, by killing King Priam at his altar during\u003cbr\u003e the sack of Troy, brings down a curse upon the Greeks even as they\u003cbr\u003e are perfecting their victory.\u003cbr\u003e This story suggested several themes, which I then molded to my\u003cbr\u003e own purposes: the role of corruption in our concept of expedience,\u003cbr\u003e the need of young men to prove themselves worthy in the eyes of\u003cbr\u003e even morally suspect elders (or especially them), and the curse of a\u003cbr\u003e hard-won ambition.\u003cbr\u003e Why El Salvador?\u003cbr\u003e I saw in the Greek situation a presentiment of America’s dilemma at\u003cbr\u003e the close of the Cold War: finally achieving unrivaled leadership of\u003cbr\u003e the globe, but at the same time being cursed with the hatred of millions.\u003cbr\u003e Though we have showered the world with aid, too often we\u003cbr\u003e have done so through conspicuously corrupt, repressive, even murderous\u003cbr\u003e regimes, where the elites in charge predictably siphoned off\u003cbr\u003e much of that aid into their own pockets. Why did we look the other\u003cbr\u003e way during the violence and thievery? The regimes in question were\u003cbr\u003e reliably anticommunist, crucial to our need for cheap oil, or otherwise\u003cbr\u003e amenable to American strategic or commercial interests.\u003cbr\u003e We live in a dangerous world, we are told. Hard, often unpleasant\u003cbr\u003e choices have to be made.\u003cbr\u003e It’s a difficult argument for those who have suffered under such\u003cbr\u003e regimes to swallow. They would consider it madness to suggest that it\u003cbr\u003e is envy of our preeminence, or contempt for our freedom, that causes\u003cbr\u003e them to view America so resentfully. Rather, they would try to get us\u003cbr\u003e to remember that while their hopes for self-determination, freedom,\u003cbr\u003e and prosperity were being crushed, America looked on with a\u003cbr\u003e strangely principled indifference, often accompanied by a fiercely patriotic\u003cbr\u003e self-congratulation, not to mention blatant hypocrisy.\u003cbr\u003e Not only have we failed to admit this to ourselves, but the New\u003cbr\u003e Right has embraced a resurgent American exceptionalism as the antidote\u003cbr\u003e to such moral visitations, which such conservatives consider\u003cbr\u003e weak and defeatist. Instead, they see a revanchist America marching\u003cbr\u003e boldly into the new century with unapologetic military power, uninhibited\u003cbr\u003e free-market capitalism, and evangelical fervor–most immediately\u003cbr\u003e to bring freedom to the Middle East.\u003cbr\u003e The New Right’s historical template for this proposed transformation\u003cbr\u003e is Central America–specifically El Salvador, trumpeted as\u003cbr\u003e “the final battleground of the Cold War,” and championed as one of\u003cbr\u003e our greatest foreign policy successes: the crucible in which American\u003cbr\u003e greatness was re-forged, banishing the ghosts of Vietnam forever.\u003cbr\u003e There’s a serious problem with the New Right’s formulation,\u003cbr\u003e however: It requires an almost hallucinatory misreading of history.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003eMisremembering the Past\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In their ongoing public campaign to justify the Iraq war, many\u003cbr\u003e supporters and members of the Bush Administration–including\u003cbr\u003e both Vice President Dick Cheney and former defense secretary Donald\u003cbr\u003e Rumsfeld–have singled out El Salvador as a shining example of\u003cbr\u003e where the “forward-leaning” policy they champion has succeeded.\u003cbr\u003e Mr. Cheney did so during the vice presidential debates, contending\u003cbr\u003e that Iraq could expect the same bright future enjoyed by El Salvador,\u003cbr\u003e which, he claimed, is “a whale of a lot better because we held\u003cbr\u003e free elections.”\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e What Mr. Cheney neglected to mention:\u003cbr\u003e • At the time the elections were held (1982), death squads\u003cbr\u003e linked to the Salvadoran security forces were murdering\u003cbr\u003e on average three to five hundred civilians a month.\u003cbr\u003e • The death squads targeted not just guerrilla supporters\u003cbr\u003e but priests, social workers, teachers, journalists, even\u003cbr\u003e members of the centrist Christian Democrats–the party\u003cbr\u003e that Congress forced the Reagan Administration to back,\u003cbr\u003e since it was the only party capable of solidifying the\u003cbr\u003e Salvadoran middle.\u003cbr\u003e • The Cia funneled money to the Christian Democrats to\u003cbr\u003e ensure they gained control of the constituent assembly.\u003cbr\u003e • Roberto D’Aubuisson, a known death squad leader,\u003cbr\u003e opposed the Christian Democrats as “Communists,” and\u003cbr\u003e launched his own bid to lead the constituent assembly,\u003cbr\u003e forming Arena as the political wing of his death squad\u003cbr\u003e network. His bid was funded and supported by exiled\u003cbr\u003e oligarchs and reactionary military leaders, and managed\u003cbr\u003e by a prominent American public relations firm.\u003cbr\u003e • “Anti-fraud measures” proved intimidating. For example:\u003cbr\u003e ballots were cast in glass jars. Many voters, who had to\u003cbr\u003e provide identification, and who suspected the government\u003cbr\u003e was monitoring their choices, feared violent reprisal if\u003cbr\u003e they were observed voting “improperly.”\u003cbr\u003e • Arena won thirty-six of sixty seats in the assembly, and\u003cbr\u003e D’Aubuisson was elected its leader.\u003cbr\u003e • This was perceived by all concerned as a disastrous\u003cbr\u003e failure for American policy. When D’Aubuisson tried\u003cbr\u003e to appoint one of his colleagues as assembly president,\u003cbr\u003e U.S. officials went to the military and threatened to cut\u003cbr\u003e off aid. D’Aubuisson relented, but it was the only\u003cbr\u003e concession he made to American demands.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e In short, there was American influence, money, and manipulation\u003cbr\u003e throughout the process, putting the lie to the whole notion the\u003cbr\u003e elections were “free”–though Mr. Cheney was arguably correct\u003cbr\u003e when he stated that “we” held them. Unfortunately, all that effort\u003cbr\u003e came to naught, as what America wanted from the elections lay in\u003cbr\u003e shambles. Even when, in the following year’s election, a great deal\u003cbr\u003e more money and arm-twisting resulted in Washington’s candidate\u003cbr\u003e being elected president, he remained powerless to reform the military,\u003cbr\u003e curtail the death squads, or revive the economy, measures\u003cbr\u003e Washington knew to be crucial to its counter-insurgency strategy.\u003cbr\u003e By 1987, the Reaganites decided to abandon the decimated Christian\u003cbr\u003e Democrats for Arena–the party it had spent five years and\u003cbr\u003e millions of dollars trying to keep from power.\u003cbr\u003e As for Mr. Rumsfeld’s remarks, he made them in the course of a\u003cbr\u003e brief stopover in El Salvador to thank the government for its support\u003cbr\u003e in the Iraq war. The defense secretary trumpeted the just nature of\u003cbr\u003e the cause in Iraq, noting that the Middle Eastern country had once\u003cbr\u003e been ruled by “a dictatorship that killed tens of thousands of human\u003cbr\u003e beings . . . A regime that cut off the heads and hands of people. A\u003cbr\u003e regime that threw people off the tops of six-story buildings with\u003cbr\u003e their hands and legs tied.”\u003cbr\u003e The irony of these remarks, which bordered on the macabre, was\u003cbr\u003e not lost on the locals: The Salvadoran military–which we funded,\u003cbr\u003e trained, and expanded tenfold–achieved a similar body count, employing\u003cbr\u003e similar if not identical methods in its bloody suppression of\u003cbr\u003e the internal opposition. The Salvadoran air force, for example, typically\u003cbr\u003e threw its bound captives not off rooftops but out of helicopters\u003cbr\u003e and airplanes (the so-called “night free-fall training”), and the practice\u003cbr\u003e of cutting off the head and hands of death squad victims was so\u003cbr\u003e common it earned the sobriquet “a haircut and a manicure.”\u003cbr\u003e These mischaracterizations, however, are merely part of a much\u003cbr\u003e larger deceit. In truth, America’s claim to victory in El Salvador\u003cbr\u003e is delusional. As late as 1988, military and policy analysts of every\u003cbr\u003e political stripe were admitting that despite huge infusions of American\u003cbr\u003e cash, the government was in a stalemate with the Marxist guerrillas.\u003cbr\u003e Although six strike brigades were arguably up to the task of\u003cbr\u003e actually engaging the guerrillas, Salvadoran field tactics were often\u003cbr\u003e derided by Green Beret advisors as “search and avoid,” and the government’s\u003cbr\u003e propensity to slaughter its critics desisted only when it felt\u003cbr\u003e unthreatened.\u003cbr\u003e Then, in 1989, the Soviet Union collapsed, and the Salvadoran\u003cbr\u003e oligarchy’s main bargaining chip with Washington, its staunch opposition\u003cbr\u003e to a Communist takeover, became moot–but not before\u003cbr\u003e the guerrillas staged one final offensive, in response to which the\u003cbr\u003e military reverted to form, strafing and bombing whole neighborhoods,\u003cbr\u003e reviving the death squads, and murdering six Jesuit priests,\u003cbr\u003e their housekeeper, and her fifteen-year-old daughter.\u003cbr\u003e International outrage over the murdered Jesuits finally brought\u003cbr\u003e matters to a head. The time had come to consider a truce, which the\u003cbr\u003e Un, not the Americans, stepped in to broker. In 1992, the final Peace\u003cbr\u003e Accords were signed.\u003cbr\u003e Thus, after over a billion dollars in military aid and three billion\u003cbr\u003e in non-lethal aid (most of it spent rebuilding infrastructure destroyed\u003cbr\u003e by the fighting) plus more than seventy thousand Salvadorans\u003cbr\u003e killed, over forty thousand of them civilians (and more than\u003cbr\u003e 90 percent of them murdered by their own government), the U.S.\u003cbr\u003e obtained a result it could have achieved over ten years earlier, in\u003cbr\u003e 1981, when the guerrillas first proposed a negotiated settlement–a\u003cbr\u003e prospect that the Reagan hard-liners, many of whom now serve in\u003cbr\u003e the Bush Administration, flatly and repeatedly rejected. Only victory\u003cbr\u003e would do for them, a victory that proved utterly elusive until\u003cbr\u003e the distortions of political memory took over.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003eMischaracterizing the Present\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e But even if the Reaganites didn’t “win” El Salvador, isn’t it true the\u003cbr\u003e situation there has improved dramatically? With peace and stability,\u003cbr\u003e internationally monitored free elections, and a demilitarized judicial\u003cbr\u003e apparatus, cannot El Salvador be credibly described as “a whale\u003cbr\u003e of a lot better” now?\u003cbr\u003e Consider the following:\u003cbr\u003e • Impunity from the country’s civil and criminal laws\u003cbr\u003e continues, particularly for the politically, economically,\u003cbr\u003e or institutionally well-connected.\u003cbr\u003e • The concentration of economic power remains in the\u003cbr\u003e hands of a few. In fact, in the 1990s wealth became even\u003cbr\u003e more concentrated as a result of neoliberal reforms\u003cbr\u003e introduced by Arena.\u003cbr\u003e • Land transfer provisions dictated by the Peace Accords\u003cbr\u003e have suffered endless delays.\u003cbr\u003e • Child labor remains endemic.\u003cbr\u003e • El Salvador is a source, transit, and destination country for\u003cbr\u003e women and children trafficked for sexual exploitation.\u003cbr\u003e • Civil society is under siege due to the availability of\u003cbr\u003e weapons left behind by the war, the formation of shadowy\u003cbr\u003e crime syndicates by ex-military officers now turned\u003cbr\u003e businessmen, and the presence of transnational youth\u003cbr\u003e gangs founded by Salvadoran immigrants in the U.S.\u003cbr\u003e • Death squads have returned, to conduct “social\u003cbr\u003e cleansing.”\u003cbr\u003e • The highest levels of the the Policía Nacional Civil (Pnc)\u003cbr\u003e are controlled by former military men with dubious pasts.\u003cbr\u003e Corruption is widespread, and there are many ties\u003cbr\u003e between the police and organized crime. An attorney\u003cbr\u003e with the Human Rights Ombudsman stated: “When we\u003cbr\u003e go to the [police] Directorate for Investigating Organized\u003cbr\u003e Crime, we never go alone. There always has to be at least\u003cbr\u003e two of us, because they might do something to harm us.”\u003cbr\u003e The old political system was based on corruption, privilege,\u003cbr\u003e and brutality, and such things do not just evaporate, even in the\u003cbr\u003e welcome light of peace and free elections. As we know from\u003cbr\u003e worldwide example–Serbia, Ulster, Palestine, Thailand, Somalia,\u003cbr\u003e Afghanistan, and, yes, El Salvador and Iraq–today’s paramilitary\u003cbr\u003e force is tomorrow’s Mafia. And so-called free elections can often\u003cbr\u003e mask extreme imbalances of power, which voters feel helpless to\u003cbr\u003e change.\u003cbr\u003e Meanwhile, almost a third of the population of El Salvador has\u003cbr\u003e emigrated to other countries, primarily the United States. The migration\u003cbr\u003e wave continues today, estimated by some observers at seven\u003cbr\u003e hundred persons per day. These expatriates now send back to their\u003cbr\u003e less fortunate family members remittances (\u003ci\u003eremesas\u003c\/i\u003e) of nearly three\u003cbr\u003e billion dollars per year. If the country were reliably secure and prosperous,\u003cbr\u003e with wealth distributed reasonably among its people, it\u003cbr\u003e would no longer need this foreign cash machine. But the most significant\u003cbr\u003e form of voting in El Salvador is done with one’s feet: If one\u003cbr\u003e can leave, one does.\u003cbr\u003e Those who have stayed behind have become increasingly frustrated.\u003cbr\u003e The unwavering grip that Arena has on power–with\u003cbr\u003e conspicuous assistance from Washington–reminds many of the\u003cbr\u003e oligarchy’s brutal control prior to the civil war. Organized protests\u003cbr\u003e have turned increasingly violent, and many fear the country is once\u003cbr\u003e again coming apart at the seams.\u003cbr\u003e On July 5, 2006, student protests against bus fare increases resulted\u003cbr\u003e in gunfire, with two police officers killed and ten wounded.\u003cbr\u003e President Tony Saca blamed the Fmln before any credible evidence\u003cbr\u003e was available (and subsequently retreated from this position).\u003cbr\u003e The Fmln responded by condemning the violence. As it turned\u003cbr\u003e out, a gunman caught on tape was identified as an expelled party\u003cbr\u003e member, now belonging to a splinter group calling itself the Limon\u003cbr\u003e Brigade.\u003cbr\u003e Beatrice Alamanni de Carillo, the Human Rights Ombudsman,\u003cbr\u003e remarked, “We have to admit that a new revolutionary fringe is\u003cbr\u003e forming. It’s an open secret.”\u003cbr\u003e Gregorio Rosa Chávez, the auxiliary bishop of San Salvador,\u003cbr\u003e stated, “We signed the treaty but we never lived the peace. Reconciliation\u003cbr\u003e is not just based on healing wounds, but healing them\u003cbr\u003e well. . . . People are losing faith in the institutions.”\u003cbr\u003e The “Salvador Option”\u003cbr\u003e If we described honestly the real state of affairs in El Salvador,\u003cbr\u003e would ordinary Iraqis truly wish that for their future? Would\u003cbr\u003e Americans consider the cost in human life, not to mention billions\u003cbr\u003e of dollars per day, worthwhile? Forget all the blunders along the\u003cbr\u003e way (or the more jaundiced view that democracy was never the\u003cbr\u003e issue)–is this truly a sane model for a stable state?\u003cbr\u003e It’s too late to pose the question, of course. The New Right’s distorted\u003cbr\u003e understanding of the past and present in El Salvador has created\u003cbr\u003e an almost eerie simulacrum in Iraq, with even ghastlier results.\u003cbr\u003e Taking one particularly ominous example: In the summer of 2004,\u003cbr\u003e as American efforts to stem the Iraqi insurgency foundered, U.S.\u003cbr\u003e officials decided to employ what came to be known as “the Salvador\u003cbr\u003e Option.” American advisers oversaw the establishment of commando\u003cbr\u003e units composed of former Baathists. The commandos began\u003cbr\u003e to exert themselves in the field, enjoying successes the Americans\u003cbr\u003e envied, but also employing methods American troops shunned, especially\u003cbr\u003e in the aftermath of the Abu Ghraib scandal. The American\u003cbr\u003e advisers overseeing the commandos–who had extensive backgrounds\u003cbr\u003e in Latin America and specifically El Salvador–adamantly\u003cbr\u003e stated they in no way gave a green light to death squads, torture, or\u003cbr\u003e other human rights violations; they may well have been sincere. But\u003cbr\u003e matters spiraled murderously out of control when Shiites dominated\u003cbr\u003e the elections of January 2005 and took over for the Interim\u003cbr\u003e Government: Shiite death squads, linked to the Badr militia but acting\u003cbr\u003e under the aegis of the Ministry of Interior, soon began systematically\u003cbr\u003e hunting and killing Sunni men, creating a sectarian bloodbath\u003cbr\u003e that continues to tear the country apart. American calls for transparent\u003cbr\u003e investigations of the murders have netted little in the way of\u003cbr\u003e results.\u003cbr\u003e Regardless of what the future holds for Iraq, these commandos,\u003cbr\u003e along with the paramilitary units and the other sectarian militias operating\u003cbr\u003e in Iraq, will not melt away into nothingness. Many of their\u003cbr\u003e members are tomorrow’s gangsters (whose rackets will predictably\u003cbr\u003e fund terrorist organizations).\u003cbr\u003e Meanwhile, the escalating bloodshed has caused, among countless\u003cbr\u003e other troubles, the dislocation of millions of refugees, and the\u003cbr\u003e flight from the country of large portions of Iraq’s professional class,\u003cbr\u003e who like ordinary Salvadorans realize the future lies elsewhere.\u003cbr\u003e Given all this, it’s difficult not to revisit the notion of a curse. In\u003cbr\u003e achieving sole superpower status, we have relied on false notions of\u003cbr\u003e ourselves and others, excused atrocity under the guise of expedience,\u003cbr\u003e sought our own national interest over all other considerations (with\u003cbr\u003e at times a cavalier appreciation of whether short-term successes\u003cbr\u003e might in fact poison long-term ones)–all the while proclaiming,\u003cbr\u003e not without some merit, all the best intentions in the world. To\u003cbr\u003e think this wouldn’t come back to haunt us is to believe in notions of\u003cbr\u003e power and innocence too fatuous for an adult mind to entertain.\u003cbr\u003e One last example should make the case conclusive. Consider our\u003cbr\u003e support for the Contras, a makeshift band of mercenaries assembled\u003cbr\u003e for the sole purpose of causing as much havoc as possible for the\u003cbr\u003e Sandinista government in Nicaragua, whom we accused of supporting\u003cbr\u003e the Salvadoran guerrillas. While President Reagan steadfastly\u003cbr\u003e proclaimed the Contras to be the “moral equivalent of our Founding\u003cbr\u003e Fathers,” an adviser to the Joint Chiefs of Staff called them “just\u003cbr\u003e a bunch of killers.” By 1985, the Contras had murdered at least four\u003cbr\u003e thousand civilians, wounded an equal number, and kidnapped perhaps\u003cbr\u003e five thousand more. Even the Cia admitted the Contras steadfastly\u003cbr\u003e refused to engage the Sandinista military and instead preferred\u003cbr\u003e to execute civic officials, heads of cooperatives, nurses, judges, and\u003cbr\u003e doctors, while showing a stubborn propensity for abducting and\u003cbr\u003e raping teenage girls. The strategy: not to seize power or even prevail\u003cbr\u003e militarily, but simply to terrorize average Nicaraguans, and demonstrate\u003cbr\u003e that their government could not protect them or provide even\u003cbr\u003e basic services.\u003cbr\u003e And who has steadfastly imitated this strategy?\u003cbr\u003e The jihadists and insurgents in Iraq.\u003cbr\u003e Like the victims of, yes, a curse, we find ourselves trapped in the\u003cbr\u003e exact same position in which we put our previous enemies. Not even\u003cbr\u003e Sophocles could have devised it more neatly.\u003cbr\u003e The Murder of Gilberto Soto\u003cbr\u003e The historically suspect pronouncements of Messrs. Cheney and\u003cbr\u003e Rumsfeld and their camp followers were not the only topical incidents\u003cbr\u003e of relevance to occur during the writing of this book. Another,\u003cbr\u003e far more chilling event also took place, an event that not only\u003cbr\u003e underscored the deterioration of civil society in El Salvador, but eerily\u003cbr\u003e echoed elements of the novel’s plot: the murder of an American–a\u003cbr\u003e Teamster named Gilberto Soto.\u003cbr\u003e He was visiting family in El Salvador–and also hoped to meet\u003cbr\u003e with port drivers to discuss possible plans to unionize–when gunmen\u003cbr\u003e shot him dead outside his mother’s house in Usulután. Many of\u003cbr\u003e the trucking companies that would have been affected by\u003cbr\u003e unionization are run by ex-military officers, but the police investigation\u003cbr\u003e never pursued this. Instead, two gang members were pressed\u003cbr\u003e and possibly tortured into confessing that the victim’s mother-inlaw,\u003cbr\u003e who had less than a hundred dollars to her name, hired them to\u003cbr\u003e kill Soto out of some vague, illogical family rancor.\u003cbr\u003e Two of the three defendants, Soto’s mother-in-law and the alleged\u003cbr\u003e triggerman, were acquitted in February 2006. The man alleged\u003cbr\u003e to have supplied the murder weapon was convicted, despite\u003cbr\u003e the fact the Human Rights Ombudsman, in her scathing critique of\u003cbr\u003e the investigation–an investigation which was not conducted by the\u003cbr\u003e local prosecutor, but the Pnc’s notoriously corrupt Directorate for\u003cbr\u003e Investigating Organized Crime–specifically noted that no chain\u003cbr\u003e of evidence existed concerning the gun and bullets.\u003cbr\u003e This murder took place during the American debate over ratification\u003cbr\u003e of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (Cafta),\u003cbr\u003e and only by considerable arm-twisting was the Bush administration\u003cbr\u003e able to secure the necessary votes for passage. (Cafta passed the\u003cbr\u003e House by a mere two votes.) How can there be free trade, opponents\u003cbr\u003e argued, if men and women seeking a just wage can be murdered\u003cbr\u003e with impunity? But such arguments did not prevail.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003eA Final Note on \u003ci\u003eBlood of Paradise\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e All of which leads to a brief summarizing glance at two of my characters,\u003cbr\u003e Jude and Clara.\u003cbr\u003e Like Neoptolemus, Jude allows himself to be seduced by a\u003cbr\u003e morally questionable elder into a reckless scheme. In a sense, he\u003cbr\u003e stands for all of us: an everyman who wants to do good in a world\u003cbr\u003e he knows needs plenty of it, but who also suspects that to accomplish\u003cbr\u003e that end a few nefarious deeds must be indulged. He wants to believe\u003cbr\u003e as well that one can withstand such evil, rise above it, even as one does\u003cbr\u003e its bidding: Good intentions, sound character, and professional skill\u003cbr\u003e will prevail over necessary compromises with immorality. Who\u003cbr\u003e knows, it might even be fun–kick ass, take names, shake hands\u003cbr\u003e with the devil but don’t let him hold your wallet. We’re Americans\u003cbr\u003e after all, blessed by God and history. How can we not prevail?\u003cbr\u003e Clara–Salvadoran war orphan, rape victim–sees the matter\u003cbr\u003e differently. She ultimately understands that only through real sacrifice\u003cbr\u003e can the future possibly redeem the past. Being deeply religious,\u003cbr\u003e like many Salvadorans, she sees this call for renunciation as the challenge\u003cbr\u003e of the crucifixion. And so, in the end, she finds the heart to act\u003cbr\u003e upon her conviction–not in an empowering act of violence, but in\u003cbr\u003e a selfless, agonizing act of love.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFormat:\u003c\/strong\u003e Paperback\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAll books at Vastela are pre-owned. Condition varies from good to near-new. No book is sold in unacceptable condition.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Vastela Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":59017697984886,"sku":null,"price":6.9,"currency_code":"CHF","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0707\/7144\/1981\/files\/9780812977332.jpg?v=1792164906","url":"https:\/\/www.vastelabooks.com\/products\/9780812977332","provider":"Vastela Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}