More proof the War Nerd is in fact John Dolan

[Cain]

He has taken to reviewing books.

http://www.takimag.com/article/patriot_lame--rich_lowry_writes_a_novel/

You have to feel a little sorry for the two neocons who co-wrote Banquo's Ghosts. The idea seems simple enough: a Tom Clancy-style thriller about a plot to kill an Iranian physicist before he can cook up a nuke for the mullahs. The problem is, where do you get your hero these days? Back in the day, when Clancy was keeping Reagan awake way past 9 pm with Hunt for Red October, it was easy to make US agents like Jack Ryan look good; after all, they were going up against the dregs of the poor old USSR.

It's not anywhere near as easy to convince readers nowadays that our spooks are superhuman, not after Iraq and especially not where Iran is concerned. The grim fact is that Iran has outplayed us since I was a kid. I mean that literally. Some of my earliest and nastiest memories are from the hostage crisis in 1979, scared blindfolded hostages, then the wreckage of Desert Storm, a greasy mullah holding up the roasted arm of a dead American solder. From Carter to Bush Junior, it's been one embarrassment after another at the hands of those sneaky Persians.

So Lowry and Korman have changed with the times. Their patriotic agent characters, Banquo and his lieutenant Wallets, are sort of tired and weak in this book, bummed about the way Iraq turned out. When you meet Banquo, he's looking over a lot of high-tech surveillance of Nasrullah, the Hezbollah leader—except Banquo realizes the guy wearing the chemically-dyed turban may be a body double, or a nobody. Banquo is bummed, realizing all the satellites in the world won't make up for the fact we've got no humint worth mentioning in the Middle East: "'We're losing,' Banquo whispered to the walls."

Yes, Banquo's world, Tom Clancy's world, is going to Hades. The CIA isn't what it used to be, thanks to all this new touchy-feely crap:

...'voluntary' sexual harassment and racial sensitivity seminars. ... Delays and overruns had slowed the men's bathroom renovations—an installation of two hundred quality Care Bear changing tables 'for your convenience.' When what—Mr. Mom wet himself? ... And ... at 4:30 pm, the Agency employees lined up in the Langley parking lot, shuffling off to their minivan carpools for their suburban commute home.

Minivans! Diaper-changing tables! Car pools!  With friends like that, it stands to reason that poor Banquo can't count on the usual allies to take on the Iranians.

[Requia ☣]

Who the hell is John Dolan?

[Thurnez Isa]

A poet... no joke

[Thurnez Isa]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dolan_(writer)

[Requia ☣]

Also apparently on the Exiled staff, the theory makes sense now.

[Cain]

Yeah he was one of their editors and their sort of literature guy/book review person.

However, many believe he is secretly the War Nerd.  There is quite a bit of evidence for this, including Dolan's background (until his early 20s he considered himself a Republican, of the old-skool variety, he wrote in his biography about spending time in the library reading military manuals and history books and that whenever the War Nerd is busy, Dolan's articles seem to vanish, and vice-versa).  Both Dolan and The War Nerd deny it, of course.

[Kai]

Yeah he was one of their editors and their sort of literature guy/book review person.

However, many believe he is secretly the War Nerd.  There is quite a bit of evidence for this, including Dolan's background (until his early 20s he considered himself a Republican, of the old-skool variety, he wrote in his biography about spending time in the library reading military manuals and history books and that whenever the War Nerd is busy, Dolan's articles seem to vanish, and vice-versa).  Both Dolan and The War Nerd deny it, of course.

You mean, Gary Brecher being a pseudonym of John Dolan, or vice versa?

[Cain]

Dolan's a University professor, isn't he?  I'm pretty sure there is more evidence for Dolan's existence than Brecher's, and he was writing first.  So Brecher is the pseudonym.