DAVID CORBETT on political parallels ancient and modern that shaped his new thriller set in El Salvador
My latest novel, BLOOD OF PARADISE, took form after a chance reading of Philoctetes, an obscure drama by Sophocles. In the original, oracles advise the Greeks that victory over Troy is impossible without the bow of Herakles. Unfortunately, it's in the hands of Philoctetes, whom the Greeks abandoned ten years earlier when he was bitten by a venomous snake while the Achaean fleet harbored briefly on its way to war.
Odysseus, architect of the desertion scheme, must now return, reclaim the bow, and bring both the weapon and its owner to Troy. For a companion, he chooses Neoptolemus, the son of his slain archrival, Achilles.
Neoptolemus, being young, still embraces the heroic virtues of his father, and believes they can appeal to Philoctetes as a warrior. But Odysseus-knowing Philoctetes will want revenge against all the Greeks, he himself in particular-convinces Neoptolemus that deceit will serve their purposes far better. In essence, he corrupts Neoptolemus, who subsequently tricks Philoctetes into relinquishing his bitterness to rejoin the Trojan campaign.
The tale has an intriguing postscript: It's the corrupted Neoptolemus, by killing King Priam at his altar during the sack of Troy, who brings down a curse upon the Greeks even as they are perfecting their victory.
I saw in the Greek situation a presentiment of America's dilemma at the close of the Cold War: finally achieving unrivaled leadership of the globe, but at the same time being cursed with the hatred of millions. Though we have showered the world with aid, too often we have done so through conspicuously corrupt, repressive, even murderous regimes, where the elites in charge predictably siphoned off much of that aid into their own pockets. Why did we look the other way? The regimes in question were reliably anticommunist, crucial to our need for oil, or otherwise amenable to American interests.
We live in a dangerous world, it is said. Hard, unpleasant choices must be made, and hand-wringing apologies are for the weak and defeatist. Besides, America is the one reliable force for freedom in the world, it is said, by many of the same people who now embrace an exceptionalist America marching boldly into the new century with unapologetic military power, uninhibited free-market capitalism, and evangelical fervor-most immediately to bring freedom to Iraq.
The historical template for this revanchism is Central America-specifically El Salvador, trumpeted as "the final battleground of the Cold War," and championed as one of our greatest foreign policy successes: the crucible in which American greatness was re-forged, banishing the ghosts of Vietnam forever.
There's a serious problem with this formulation, however: It requires an almost hallucinatory misreading of history.
Our "success" in El Salvador was in fact a stalemate, despite the infusion of billions of dollars. The regime and its officer corps were so corrupt and sadistic that American advisors remarked candidly there was no way the government could prevail against the guerrillas. And the civil campaign waged to win the hearts and minds of the populace was embraced during the eventual peace negotiations not by our allies, but by the enemy-and the talks themselves were brokered by the UN, not us.
Despite all that, cannot it be said, as Dick Cheney claimed, defending our Iraq strategy, that El Salvador is now "a whale of a lot better" because of our efforts? True, the nationwide network of informers has disbanded, so people can express criticism of the government without fear of abduction, torture, and murder. But the local elites retain almost total immunity from civil or criminal redress; agrarian reform has stalled; child labor is endemic as is child prostitution and the trafficking of women and children for sexual exploitation; a shadowy Mafia of ex-military men runs the major rackets, with an expanding population of gang members, many deported from America, creating a criminal underclass that has raised El Salvador's murder rate to one of the highest in the world. Neo-liberal economic polices further skewed wealth toward the oligarchy, and the middle class has withered. Seven hundred people a day leave El Salvador for America, and the economy would collapse without money sent home by these expatriates.
But there is another parallel between Central America and Iraq even more insidious, even beyond the "Salvador Option" by which we trained aggressive anti-insurgent commando units that devolved into death squads. As part of our anti-Communist pushback, we funded the Nicaraguan Contras, drug-dealing mercenaries known for preferring raids on unarmed villages to frontal combat with Sandinista troops, with a particular penchant for raping teenage girls ("the moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers," said President Reagan). No one expected the Contras to prevail; their purpose was to demonstrate that the Sandinistas could not protect the populace or even maintain basic services. And who has copied this strategy? The jihadists and insurgents in Iraq. Like the victims of, yes, a curse, we find ourselves trapped in the exact same position as our previous enemies. Not even Sophocles could have devised it more neatly.
All of which leads to a brief summarizing glance at two of the characters in Blood of Paradise, Jude and Clara.
Like Neoptolemus, Jude allows himself to be seduced by a morally questionable elder into a reckless scheme. In a sense, he stands for all of us: An everyman who wants to do good in a world he knows needs plenty of it, but who also suspects that to accomplish that end a few nefarious deeds must be indulged. He wants to believe as well that one can withstand such evil, rise above it, even as one does its bidding: Good intentions, sound character, and professional skill will prevail over necessary compromises with immorality. Who knows, it might even be fun - kick ass, take names, shake hands with the devil but don't let him hold your wallet. We're Americans after all, blessed by God and history. How can we not prevail?
Clara - Salvadoran war orphan, rape victim - sees the matter differently. She ultimately understands that only through real sacrifice can the future possibly redeem the past. Being deeply religious, like many Salvadorans, she sees this call for renunciation as the challenge of the crucifixion. And so, in the end, she finds the heart to act upon her conviction-not in an empowering act of violence, but a selfless, agonizing act of love.
David Corbett is a former private investigator for the San Francisco firm of Palladino & Suitherland, as well as a novelist, screenwriter, and poet. His first book, The Devil's Redhead, was nominated for the Anthony and Barry Awards for Best First Novel of 2002. His second, Done for a Dime, was named a New York Times Notable Book and was nominated for the Macavity Award for Best Novel of 2003. "It Can Happen" (from San Francisco Noir), was nominated for a Macavity Award for Best Short Story of 2005. His latest novel, Blood of Paradise ("a Quiet American for the new century"-John Connolly) appears in March, 2007.
