Yep, been awhile - been hectic but that's life. Anyway, have started reading Vince Flynn's last book, finished after his death by Kyle Mills called 'The Survivor'. Flynn wrote the first part and in that he looks to be somewhat clairvoyant and historical as he writes his last book of the Mitch Rapp series.
"....the seeds of America's decline and now those those seeds were beginning to grow. Like the Soviets before them, the United States had been deeply wounded by it's pathetic effort to conquer countries favored by Allah. It's insatiable greed for all things material had led to a financial collapse that was already in the early stages of being repeated. And it's uncanny cohesiveness-the thing that was the secret of it's strength-had devolved into petty squabbling and government paralysis. It was the fundamental flaw of democracy: Power found it's way into the hands of liars and mobs instead of the cunning and the strong".
then later he says; "... had been instrumental in hiding Osama bin Laden, allowing the Saudi to hold al Qaeda together for years longer than would have been possible otherwise. He coordinated the resistance to America forces in Afghanistan and kept track of the insurgent groups that based themselves in Pakistan".
And then finally; "In every disaster lay opportunity". [Where did we hear that before?]
All of his books are fiction but, based on fact. [For what it's worth, Rush Limbaugh says of this book --"Just Fabulous"]