Ten Letters to Obama is a 2014 Biographical essay and Political fiction novel that was written by Guyanese Novelist and Biographer, Dennis E. Adonis. The book essentially entails a chronological documentation of the activities of President Barack Obama as it relates to his handling of ten randomly selected letters that gradually came into his possession; and insinuates that their contents had inspired Obama, in as much that certain world changing decisions that he made between the years of 2010 to 2013, would have been influenced by what he had read in those ten letters. Its main theme is practically centered on a story-line that illustrates how both ordinary letter writers and diplomatic notes had guided the White House with supplementary information that subsequently led to the death of Osama Bin Laden, and further inspired the United States to support its Arab allies in their supposedly joint instigation of the Arab Spring. Objective Most independent analysis have suggested that the primary objective of the book is to offer an alternate psychological explanation for a series of evolving global events, while indirectly crafting the reader's mind into probing a supposed conspiracy theory that implicates the United States and Saudi Arabia, as fictional architects of a major plot to force regime changes in a list of Arab countries that were presumably hostile to the West. Plot The book initially describes President Barack Obama’s general daily routine, and gradually refine its focus to a ritual which entails his personal reading of ten random letters, extracted from the thousands of mails that are addressed to him daily. President Obama would then set aside any one or more of the ten letters if he is of the view that any points, questions, or information raised by the letter writer is of importance to national security, U.S domestic interest or its foreign policy. Over a period of several months President Obama subsequently acquired ten letters that contained information that his cabinet agreed to examine and potentially act upon, based upon research credence that were given to the contents of those letters by the Secret Service. While the letters were drawn from a varied stratum of people, ranging from ordinary citizens to world leaders, the selected letters from each one of them eerily played a contributing role to different events and situations that would later mold U.S foreign policy, and certain domestic issues. However, the core elements of the book is centered around two letters that were sent to Obama by the Saudi leadership, and later another by Muammar Gaddafi. One of those letters was the first one to be mentioned in the book, and which was a diplomatic note from King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, in which he made mention of a Bush era Middle Eastern regime-changing plot called “Operation El Azizia”. In a copied version of that letter, the Saudi King pressed Obama over the Kingdom’s concerns about radical Islamist elements in the Middle East and the supposed threat posed by Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, Libya’s late leader Muammar Gaddafi, and Iran’s then President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to global security. Indicating that averting global instability is also a U.S foreign policy priority, he pressed Obama to consider launching the Operation in Tunisia with haste. Initially, Obama was reluctant to support the operation, since he had preferred to avert potential blindness to unnecessary covert regime changing tactics in the Middle East that were masterminded during his predecessor’s term in office. But after receiving Saudi Arabia's indirect intelligence to capture and kill Osama Bin Laden, Obama had no other choice but to offer tactical support to "Operation El Azizia", which began with an orchestrated uprising in Tunisia on the 18 December 2010. That uprising later became known as the Arab Spring. Thus, the book's main plot is based upon a series of covert conspiracies and letter exchanges that led to the launching of the Arab Spring via "Operation El Azizia, and subsequently the unseating of several Arab governments, in addition to the death of Muammar Gaddafi Significance For those who have accused the United States of being the architect behind the Arab Spring, the book has become an element of inspiration for their beliefs, and is often used as a source of reference to this claim, even though its author had insisted that the contents of the book is simply a work of fiction. Controversies Prior to its publication, many elements within the book were removed, and its release was delayed by several months. However, its publisher had never provided any known reason why the unrevealed content was removed or who may have advised against the publication of the original content. But even after editorial changes, the ability to separate facts from fiction within the book has often been a contentious issue for some readers, since many dates and certain particulars mentioned in the final novel are somewhat consistent with actual events. The graphical recreation and “reprint” of a signed letter that was presumably sent by the Late Libyan Leader Muammar Gaddafi to President Barack Obama, and the graphical creation of two other letters that were supposedly sent by the Saudi Monarchy to Obama has often provoked Middle Eastern debate among lesser-exposed tribal groups on whether the documents were leaked reprints in the book, or whether they are indeed works of fiction. Coincidentally, leading British book distributor, W.H Smith and a few other mainstream book retailers in Europe subsequently took the unusual step to remove the original version of the book from their retail catalogue, but had said that the book was removed collectively as a part of an action against titles that were published via Kobo Inc.
|
|
|