PJ Media

Indeed, this is an interesting post you published here. I first found it on neveryetmelted.com, one of my favorite blogs where an extract of it is available. I guess I am going to be one of your readers from now on.

Now, with all due respect for your unmistakable command of the subject, I take the liberty to inform you that if you take the time to read the biography of some known spies you will quickly notice that the mind of most spies is spirited by romanticism and that this other breed of birds fancies Romantique literature and arts belonging to this same period in general.

Coincidence makes that I have had the opportunity to meet people of this kind in the past. I have a vivid recollection of one of them in particular (a son of an upper class family) whom I met first when he was still an immature teenager. Along the course of a following decade he has been increasingly interested in German and French Romantique literature (not coincidentally, actually, but he was neither aware, nor mature enough to make difference between this was authentic coincidence and this was not) and invited, through what seemed to be purely coincidental circumstances too, to travel around the world and mostly in third world countries, often.

I would have much more to add about some other aspects of the transformation process of his mind but, though interesting, it would be too long a comment. So, on the basis of a personal knowledge, and as far as I could notice, I’d separate those terrorists/spies Romantiques into two main categories. Those whose personal background made them “born Romantiques”, and revengeful, and violent persons (Ex: Kamel Deoudi, or Michel Foucault) and shrewdly manipulated later on; and those who have been targeted by underground organizations (state-controlled, often) and somewhat “forcibly,” and subtly, and shrewdly “made” Romantiques, and revengeful, and violent persons (the young man I was talking about, and Kamel Deoudi, once more). In both cases special provisions are also taken to make them travelers, when not globe-trotters, since the goal, after all, is to send them abroad to undertake tasks relevant to political activism, agit-prop, espionage, and terrorism.

As conclusion to this comment, I think that you have all required skill and knowledge to write an interesting book on the matter.

Congratulations, and regards,