Caliphate

by Tom Kratman

  * * *

  Chapter VII

  The election of 2016 was a foregone conclusion months before the polls opened, though both of the traditional parties, and the mainstream media, denied it until the last. Though both Democrats and Republicans attempted to mount the populist bandwagon, the people weren't listening anymore. Buckman carried every state, even—since Boston and its hard core of liberal voters had been destroyed—Massachusetts, and had unprecedented majorities in both houses of Congress.

  Despite predictions, the missiles did not fly within an hour of Buckman's inauguration. He explained why: "We must put our own house in order first. We must . . . "

  * * *

  Chapter VIII

  No one thought it particularly odd when President Buckman, with the overwhelming support of his party's members in Congress, pushed through a bill making a very large number of crimes, most notably politically motivated homicide, purely federal in jurisdiction. Even many of the remaining Democratic and Republican members of Congress joined in supporting this "Federal Supremacy over Politically Motivated Crimes Act of 2017." Some, to include we must suppose, Montgomery Chamberlain, must have breathed a heavy sigh of relief when political speech was not criminalized.

  If so, such sighs of relief were soon proven to be premature. Chamberlain was found in his Ann Arbor apartment, wounded by gunfire and then strangled to death by the sole surviving member of a family lost in the Kansas City attack. The killer, former liberal Democrat and former husband and father of four, Mark Moulas, called the police after the murder to inform them of it, and calmly awaited arrest while contemplating Chamberlain's cooling corpse. He confessed immediately, and never showed a trace of remorse. At the subsequent bench trial, Moulas was found guilty and sentenced to a term of ninety-nine years by the judge.

  Though there is not the slightest bit of evidence that either Buckman, or any member of WUA, was complicit in the Chamberlain murder, Moulas was immediately pardoned and released.

  This murder was followed by the private killing of two left-leaning Supreme Court justices, half a dozen congressmen, forty-seven newspaper editors, and an amazingly large number of academicians. All the murderers except one was pardoned, and that one was not pardoned only, so it would seem, because his motivation for the killing had been that the academician concerned had been sleeping with the killer's wife.

  This was perhaps the only truly original and brilliant bit of domestic statesmanship ever engaged in by Pat Buckman. No one previously had ever suspected that the power of pardon, of executive clemency, was also a power of summary execution . . .

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  Chapter XII

  By early 2018, President Buckman had his "house in order." Similarly, across the Atlantic, the king, too, was ruling with an iron fist. Whether there was collaboration between the two may be doubted. What cannot be doubted was that, under similar threats even rather dissimilar men may act similarly. Unlike Buckman, of course, the king was sane.

  The first Muslim containment camps opened near Dearborn, Michigan, in the spring of 2018. Citing the case of Korematsu v. United States, as well as the related cases, Yasui and Hirabayashi, and the Alien and Sedition Act of 1798, the President, by executive order, directed the internment of all male Moslems, to include Black Muslims, over the age of twelve, whatever their citizenship. The Supreme Court, now with two more justices firmly in the WUA camp, endorsed the order, eight to one.

  Another pardon from the president was required, when that one dissenting member of the court was killed.

  The next major political act of the Buckman administration, the "Redefinition of Religion Act of 2018," defined Islam as "primarily a hostile and dangerous political movement, and only incidentally and dishonestly a religion," and expressly placed it "squarely outside the protections of the First Amendment." This the Supreme Court approved unanimously.

  While the order originally purported to intern only males, a subsequent order also directed the internment of females who were related to males implicated in "terrorist or anti-American activities, whatever the degree of relation, and whatever the degree of complicity."

  Separate camps were established for women, in order to avoid future pregnancies and, hence, future Moslems. Moreover, any who could produce permission from an Islamic country for asylum, and were not suspected of complicity in terrorism, were permitted to go, under guard, and at their own expense.

  The United Kingdom did not establish camps; the prison system was adequate to hold those Muslims believed to pose a threat. For the rest, in a sort of reverse Dunkirk, the Royal Navy dumped them unceremoniously on the shores of France. After all, the EU thought them citizens of the EU and so could hardly object.

  It must be said that the British were fairly civilized about the operation, more so than the United States, in any case.

  In addition to the camps for males and females, President Buckman also opened camps for the political opposition, such as it was, though these were integrated. No particular effort was made to fill these camps. Instead, the administration published lengthy lists of people it considered enemies of the state. The camps were declared to be "safe zones," where those same people would be protected from the anger of the masses.

  Implicitly, of course, Buckman was saying, "Outside of these camps, you will be murdered and we both know you will because I will pardon your killers. Inside, we will keep you alive. Or, of course, you can leave the country. And good riddance."

  Many chose to leave, rather than be interned. Many of those leaving left for Canada, which was convenient, prosperous, civilized, highly humanitarian in outlook, and always a willing home for true political refugees.

  Even so, the total numbers, exclusive of Moslems, who left for other climes in the years 2018-2020 were only about one million, about eighty-five percent of those going north . . .

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  Chapter XV

  Whatever his sanity, or lack thereof, no one could accuse President Buckman of not thinking ahead, of not planning for the future. Even while the social order was being altered, his administration and its allies in Congress were busy making the country approximately energy self-sufficient.

  This program was unprecedentedly huge. Not only did nuclear plants begin to spring up like mushrooms, every major city was scheduled for a thermal depolymerization plant, solar chimneys began to rise in the deserts of the southwest, all barriers to drilling for oil in northern Alaska were swept away, Colorado and adjoining states were gifted, if that's quite the word, with further plants to begin to convert the huge shale deposits of the Green River Basin, holding enough recoverable oil to meet the needs of the United States for several centuries.

  With this level of government sponsored planning and employment, to which must be added the rough quadrupling of the size of the Army, from five hundred thousand to just over two million, the United States experienced a more or less severe labor shortage. This was partially made up by a guest worker program that allowed in millions of Indians and other East Asians. Many of these later achieved citizenship, enough so that "Dinesh" and "Aishwarya" began to compete with "John" and "Jennifer" among most popular baby names.

  It should perhaps be noted that Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, and even Christian-Animists have never once, as of this writing, set off a bomb or engaged in any other act of terrorism on mainland American soil.

  Mexicans and other Latins were generally not allowed in, as much of that newly huge Army was deployed along the Mexican border with orders to shoot crossers without warning. Much of the Army not deployed on the borders was devoted to massive roundups of illegal immigrants, generally. Most of these were, of course, Latin.

  The Supreme Court decided that that was not a violation of Posse Comitatus as the illegal immigration had arisen to the level of an invasion and invasion was a military rather than a legal matter.

  The resultant loss of revenue experienced by Mexico, in particular, as millions of Mexican citizens were unceremoniously dumped back
across the border was to create a massive and rising level of instability within that country. Nor was the loss of revenue the sole factor in the later outbreak of civil war within Mexico, for those same illegal immigrants to the United States—even though cut off from the mainstream of American society—had also seen a society that worked far, far better than Mexico ever had. These returnees saw no insuperable reason why Mexico could not work as well . . .

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  Chapter XXI

  A Marine amphibious force, of roughly corps size, was dispatched to the Indian Ocean weeks before President Buckman went to Congress to ask for a declaration of war. This was duly granted by substantial majorities in Congress. The form of that declaration was unique in that no specific national enemy was identified. Rather, the declaration of war of 2019 merely stated that a state of war shall exist between the United States of America and "any nation which supports, or has supported, or defends, or has defended, or permits, or has permitted, its soil to be used as a haven for terrorism inspired by the pernicious pseudo-religion known as Islam."

  In theory this would have placed the United States at war with most of the world. In practice, Buckman defined the enemy unilaterally, on 1 September, 2019, by insisting in a public broadcast that each of thirty-two Muslim majority nations which had had one or more of their citizens implicated in the "three cities attacks," plus North Korea, surrender unconditionally.

  They failed to do so. While the initial demand had resulted in widespread panic and flight from Islamic cities, within a week calm had returned and most people in those cities returned to their normal occupations and lives.

  On September 11, 2019, the missiles flew . . .

  * * *

  Chapter XXII

  It seems likely that few, if any, of the people voting Buckman into office had quite envisioned the terrible vengeance he would wreak upon the Islamic world.

  A dozen Trident missile-carrying submarines were used for the attacks, six firing from the Atlantic, four from the Pacific, and two from the Indian Ocean. Only about half of each submarine's load of missiles was fired, a total of one hundred and forty-six missiles and seven hundred and thirty warheads, each in the four hundred and seventy-five kiloton range.

  Fifty-five major Islamic cities, and many minor ones were on the targeting list. No major city was hit by fewer than two warheads nor more than four, except Cairo, which received five. Riyadh, Medina and Mecca were each hit by three, spaced some hours apart. In addition to those cities, the entire Nile River Valley saw nuclear weapons essentially walked along its length, a tribute of sorts to the significant Egyptian participation in the Three Cities Attacks, courtesy of the Muslim Brotherhood.

  Nine missiles and forty-five warheads were sufficient to scour North Korea free of substantial concentrations of human life. The fourteen largest North Korean cities were attacked, and Pyongyang obliterated.

  Marines began landing to either side of the city of Dhahran, headquarters of ARAMCO, within twenty-four hours of the nuclear attacks. It fell with little fighting as did its neighbors, Dammam and Khobar. The local populations, excepting only those critical to the oil industry and their families, were driven into the desert to die. As those remaining locals were replaced with Americans, they too were driven off.

  The American presence in Arabia was to end only when the last drop of economically recoverable oil had been taken. By that time, the United States had become energy self-sufficient, once the energy assets of the former Canada were taken into account and a full rationing regime imposed. The triple cities of Dammam, Dhahran and Khobar were destroyed by nuclear weapons once the last Americans had been withdrawn.

  It is believed that President Buckman's guiding principles governing the attacks were that every Islamic nation which had had a national involved in the Three Cities attacks was to be struck, that major Islamic cities were to be destroyed at a rate of not less than ten for one, that Mecca and Medina were to be reduced to the point that no landmark should remain, and that deaths were to be inflicted at a rate of not less than one hundred for one.

  It known that the second and third goals were met. Indeed, no single trace remains of the Kabaa or the Grand Mosque. It is believed that the first and fourth were met as well. Indeed, counting not merely the direct victims of the attacks, but adding to that those who subsequently died of starvation, disease, lack of potable water, lack of medical care for injuries, and the complete breakdown of anything approaching civilization in the Islamic world, it is very likely that total deaths approached eight hundred million, or roughly two hundred to one.

  It was the greatest mass murder in history.

  Nor should it have surprised anyone. It was not only predictable; it had been predicted. As one Lee Harris, a sophont of the day had put it:

  In other words, the only effect on America of a continuation of September 11-style attacks would be an increasingly repressive state apparatus domestically and a populist home front demand for increasingly severe retaliation against those nations supporting or hiding terrorists. But neither one of these reactions would seriously undermine the strength of the United States—indeed, it is quite evident that further attacks would continue to unite the overwhelming majority of the American population, creating an irresistible "general will" to eradicate terrorism by any means necessary, including the most brutal and ruthless.

  * * *

  Chapter XXIX

  The first imperial acquisition, outside of the lodgment on the Arabian peninsula, was Canada. It was that former state's misfortune that, while the United States had been her last line of defense, Canada had been America's first line.

  Buckman had hinted all along that Canada must move to eliminate the threat its Moslems presented to the United States. These tacit warnings were ignored, for the most part, though some Canadians living in the United States or who had lived there, tried desperately to warn their countrymen that America was in utter earnest, that it was no longer in a mood to accept the threat Canada's insistence on diversity presented. It had taken fewer than forty terrorists to introduce the nuclear weapons used in the Three Cities Attacks. It was believe that Canada contained more than four thousand more.

  Even so, it took a combination of three miscalculations to make the United States move. The core states of the European Union broke diplomatic relations with America within hours of the launch of the retaliatory attacks. Canada, always one with the EU in spirit if not in fact or law, did likewise. Cooperation in terms of border control ceased. The effect of this, though, in the case of Canada, was to rob the United States of any sense of security on its northern border.

  The second miscalculation was to admit into Canada some two millions of mainly Moslem refugees from the irradiated ruins of Islamic civilization. A few of these attempted cross-border operations against the United States. Most of these Canada put down. It only took one failure, however, to give the United States all the excuse it needed to invade.

  The final miscalculation, on Canada's part, was the assumption that the United Kingdom could somehow dissuade the United States from taking action. The UK, under the new monarchy, busily rounding up its own Moslems and fearful of terrorists entering the Kingdom from Canada, was simply not interested.

  Nineteen Regular Army divisions, one dozen divisions of the Army National Guard, plus the Second and Fourth Marine Divisions, rolled across the border just before dawn on 11 May, 2020.

  Despite the gallant resistance put up by the main elements of the Canadian Forces, notably the Royal 22nd and Twelfth Armored, which died in defense of Quebec City, the Royal Canadian Regiment and Royal Canadian Dragoons, shattered in the forlorn defense of Ottawa, and the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry and Lord Strathcona's Horse, butchered in detail in a hopeless defense of the long western border, Canada—rather the thin strip of well-populated area that roughly paralleled the border with the United States—fell quickly.

  It is both interesting and sad to note that it was only those most
despised by the government of Canada, and its ruling party, who actually proved willing to defend that government. Those who had most despised their own forces, and who had themselves signally failed to fight, soon found themselves the center of attention of a country-wide sweep. Almost as quickly they found themselves in various well-guarded logging and mining camps in the cold, cold lands of Nunavut and the Northwest Territories . . .

  * * *

  Chapter XXXII

  Mexico had been a vital trading partner for the United States for many decades. This trade continued, even after the completion of the wall between the two countries, until the Revolution broke out and grew beyond the ability of the government of Mexico to handle.

  Even then, President (now, as a practical matter, given the repeal of the 22nd Amendment and the control he exercised over every aspect of American life, "for life") Buckman did not intervene. Canada, with its thirty-five-odd-million people, not all of them averse to American occupation and Anschluss, had been comparatively easy. Mexico, with one hundred and thirty million people—almost to a man and woman loathing the United States, and not without reason—was a patently tougher case.