Christopher Buckley’s “They Eat Puppies Don’t They?”!
In this superb satire, Buckley (the brilliant satirist behind “Thank You For Smoking”) takes on the symbiotic yet adversarial relationship between China and the United States, and includes scores of great pot shots about the military industrial complex for good measure.
The book begins when defense industry lobbyist “Bird” McIntyre is tasked with whipping up enough anti-China sentiment to push a massively budgeted weapons system through congress for an Alabama-based weapons manufacturer. [A book that includes a brief detour into Alabama, satirizes the defense industry, and partially takes place in China? Of course I had to pick it.]
To aid his cause, he enlists Angel Templeton, an Ann Coulter-like rightwing pundit who gets turned on by wars and fighting. Together, they fabricate a story about China plotting to kill the Dalai Lama that accidentally blows up into an event that could create an actual war between America and China.
Scenes of distressed Washington defense honchos are interspersed with chapters taking place in China, where mild President Fa is facing intense competition from rivals in his military who sense an opportunity for a coup. As an added bonus, the book accurately portrays China as a country where even the president might not be safe from their security apparatus and paranoia seeps into every painfully formal conversation.
“They Eat Puppies Don’t They?” takes ferocious aim at neo-con war mongering, a rancidly corrupt lobbying system, the Chinese government’s extreme shady dealings, and how wars can flare up about even the stupidest things (China’s current tension with the Philippines over an island the size of my apartment as one real world example). Buy it here and be glad you did…
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