Tom Clancy Speaks On 9-11

What does Clancy say about the government's 9-11 story? 

"Four planes? That many people willing to die for the same cause at the same time? If any writer had turned in a story like this, the publisher would have just handed it back and said, 'No way. Not believable.' " 

Think about it.  Clancy is right in there with the war mongers and assassins.  They "trust him;" they know "he gets it right," they give him access.  In other words, the Pentagon helps Clancy when he is writing his novels.  If that were not true, Clancy would not need nor be able to use "access." 

Certainly Stiner and other military officers must read Clancy's novels.  How else would they know he "gets it right"? 

Now ... Clancy wrote two novels about jets being crashed into the Capitol by terrorists.  But according to Congressional testimony, the military never imagined that the 9-11 scenario was possible: that's why NORAD didn't show up on September 11. 

Rubbish.  The military could not have been surprised by September 11.  The September 11 plot -- the slamming of fuel-filled jet planes into public buildings in acts of terror -- was hatched by their baby, Tom Clancy, obviously with their help. 

Clancy's 1994 and 1996 novels planted in the public's mind the paradigm that would be called up in 2001.  The two novels prepared the public mind to accept the feasibility of 9-11. 

Even so, they over-reached.  Clancy is right when he says the September 11 plot is unbelievable.   Four planes?  That many people willing to die for the same cause at the same time?

We agree with you, Mr. Clancy.  The  9-11 plot is unbelievable.  That's why we don't believe it. 

On a sunny Saturday afternoon in early October, Tom Clancy is bound for the place where his most nightmarish fiction became a reality.

Clancy, visiting New York from his home in Maryland, has accepted our invitation to tour Ground Zero, the site of the World Trade Center attack. Though Clancy is preparing to witness the disaster site for the first time, he's been here before in his imagination. For years, Clancy's writing has dared to envision, in chilling detail, what terrorists could do to America. In his 1994 novel, Debt of Honor, for example, a fuel-laden plane is hijacked by a terrorist and intentionally flown into the Capitol building in Washington, D.C.

But what transpired on September 11 turned out to be even more terrifying than anything cooked up in The Sum of All Fears, Executive Orders or Patriot Games. And Clancy acknowledges this during his slow march down to Ground Zero, shaking his head at one point along the way, saying, "Four planes? That many people willing to die for the same cause at the same time? If any writer had turned in a story like this, the publisher would have just handed it back and said, ‘No way. Not believable.' " For thriller writers, Clancy included, the stakes have suddenly been raised. "You can't keep up with reality right now," he says. "Nobody has a big enough imagination."

Still, Clancy has come awfully close, which is why he emerged as an object of media fascination in the weeks after the disaster. He'd drawn attention in the past: A middle-aged insurance executive who parlayed his fascination with the military into a hit first novel, The Hunt for Red October, and then established himself as one of the world's most popular novelists (with more than 30 million books in print), Clancy, fifty-four, cultivated a colorful, tough-talking John Wayne-meets-George Patton persona along the way. (Clancy's acute myopia disqualified him from serving in the military himself.) All of this made him something of a curiosity, as well as the 800-pound gorilla of book publishing. But since September 11, he's become something more—the media's new Nostradamus, showing up with his tinted aviator specs on the network morning shows and cable screaming matches, castigating the softies who weakened the CIA and predicting swift and terrible retribution. (In one recent interview, Clancy suggested he was not averse to nuking the enemy: "If they ask for it, we know how to make some really big parking lots in this world.")

The very attitude that has made Clancy seem like a right-wing crank with a tank fetish has suddenly put him in tune with an American public ready to close ranks and fight back. When it comes to flag-waving, Clancy has credibility. "Everyone knows he's a true patriot, the real thing," says retired four-star Gen. Carl Stiner, one of Clancy's many admirers in the military world and co-author of his new book, Shadow Warriors: Inside the Special Forces.

Clancy has something else going for him, too: inside access to the military and intelligence operation that is responding to the current crisis. As much as any fiction writer, Clancy has shed light on the inner workings of the armed forces and the CIA; in both quarters he's regarded as an insider and granted an amazing level of access because, as Stiner says, "We trust him. We know he gets it right." Why wouldn't he? Clancy regularly immerses himself in this world, is fascinated by its machinery and cares deeply about its men and women.

Further proof of this can be found in Shadow Warriors, which provides an inside view into the military's clandestine Special Forces—who were among the first soldiers sent into Afghanistan. Talk about timing: Just as Americans have begun wondering who'd be capable of tracking down Osama bin Laden, Clancy is releasing a book that answers that very question. The author has no doubt that the elite warriors he has studied closely will prevail in Afghanistan and beyond. In fact, this certainty seems to be his primary source of comfort as his Saturday expedition brings him closer to the remnants of the towers, those last twisted shards of metal that still stand. "You kick a tiger in the balls, you've got to remember the other side has got teeth," Clancy growls. "And now the people who did this to us are about to meet the teeth."

The teeth, as Clancy will tell you, are not bullets and bombs, but exquisitely trained soldiers. The sharpest of them are the Special Forces. Clancy knows plenty about them, but the bottom line, he says, is this: "They are unbelievably well-prepared. They are ready for this."

Clancy's knowledge of the Special Forces comes from the best source there is: Stiner, the longtime commander in charge of top-secret "Special Ops" missions until his retirement in 1993. It was Stiner who determined how these elite soldiers—whose ranks include Army rangers, Navy Seals and Green Berets—would be used to respond to various crises, from terrorism episodes like the hijacking of the cruise ship Achille Lauro to foreign wars. 

Initially, Clancy's fascination was more with Stiner himself. Over the past decade, Clancy has co authored a series of books profiling modern military generals (including Gens. Fred Franks Jr., Chuck Horner and Stiner). In these books, which Clancy considers "a nice change of pace" from his novels, he has sought to reveal the complex personalities and strategic savvy of top military leaders. "People don't realize it, but generals study their profession the same way doctors study medicine," Clancy says. "You ask a general why he did something a certain way and you'll get a lecture that encompasses strategic decisions all the way back to the days of Alexander the Great." Clancy found Stiner to be just such a thinker, but he was also struck by his deceptively low-key style. "He's not blustery," says Clancy. "He's a real old-fashioned Southern gentleman—who kills people."

However, Shadow Warriors isn't just the story of Stiner; it's a journey inside the dark world of the Special Forces, tracing its origins and the various failures and triumphs that have followed. In opening up this hidden world, Clancy and Stiner are treading on sensitive ground, and they know it. "It's a hard story to tell," says Stiner. "There's a lot of classified information that you have to hold back. Still, this is the most comprehensive book ever on Special Forces." It aims to, among other things, destroy the "Rambo myth" attached to these soldiers, Stiner says. "The biggest misconception is that they just exist to shoot up people," he notes. "But actually, there's no place for Rambo types in the Special Forces. These soldiers are selected for their intelligence, their ability to solve problems that no one else can solve."

Those skills will be put to the ultimate test in Afghanistan and in the larger war on terrorism, Stiner says. Though he is retired, Stiner has been active in advising the military as it has sent the first waves of Special Forces into this war. ("Those are his kids they're sending out," Clancy observes.) At times, Stiner sounds like a concerned father as he details the problems that confront these soldiers. "We'll encounter hostile governments and populations. The terrain will be rugged. The enemy will have better field intelligence." In short, he says, "This will be the toughest challenge they've ever faced."
 

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