by Dan Donovan
General Stratton indicated his departure was based solely on his desire to spend more time with his wife and children. It would also provide him the time to complete his autobiography, ‘American Sojourn‘. This would relate his family’s history from his grandparents’ involvement in the self-rule movement of their homeland (the Cayman Islands) at the beginning of the Century, to his parents’ emigration to the United States after the Stratton family was invited to leave by the British colonial administration in 1937 (Stratton’s father had taken up the leadership of the cause), to his own birth in Brooklyn in 1941, and his life and times as an American of Caribbean heritage.
Destiny Interrupted
“IT’S WHY THEY PLAY THE GAME.” This oft-quoted remark by America’s most famous football coach is used as a cautionary tale-in-brief that the inevitable isn’t always so.
Cory Stratton’s book-signing tour in the Autumn and early Winter of 1999 took on all the characteristics of a Presidential campaign. The perceived wisdom was there seemed little left to decide but the style of drapes to be chosen for the Oval Office following former General Stratton’s assured election victory.
And then all that could have happened did not. The final stop on Stratton’s tour was to be in the Borders mega-book store in Brooklyn. However, the event was cancelled in a brief press release: “Due to an illness in the family General Stratton will be unable to attend the scheduled event at Borders. He will not be making any further public appearances this year.”
One of the Stratton children died a few months later of sickle cell anemia.
Interregnum
THE FIRST PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION of the new Millennium bore the scars of the public’s disgust with politics-as-usual. After all the shouting was over the turnout was one of the lowest on record, 46%. Voters were asked to choose between the major party candidates who were both viewed as accidental nominees.
Greg Albertson obtained the Libertarian Party nomination by default. Various commentators speculated any one of four or five senior elected officials could have taken away the designation; but they all precluded a run for an assortment of thinly-veiled reasons. Actually, no senior official in the party thought any Libertarian candidate could win, given the events of the past several years.
That Albertson was elected to his own term as President was attributed directly to the Federalist Party candidate, Wallace Prescott—the eldest son of the former President. In the run-up to the 2000 election cycle it had been believed that former President Prescott’s second son, Jedediah (or more usually, Jed) was a shoo-in for the Federalist Party nomination. However, the family’s code of procedure intervened. While the Prescott clan was gathered at their residen-tial compound along Maine’s north coast, the incumbent politicians in attendance met for a discussion.
Jed was a two-term Governor of Illinois; and Wallace (“Wally”) was just completing his third year as a U.S. Senator from Maine. The brothers had idly discussed on previous occasions Jed’s seeking the Presidency. On the night after Christmas they met again to discuss the topic. Jed’s concept of family loyalty imbued within him a sense of deference to his senior sibling. This necessitated posing a question he would deeply regret.
“Wally, you know all this talk about next year is getting serious.”
“That’s your problem, Jed. You’re always looking on the serious side. Staff worries about serious. As leaders we just need to project a sense of calm.”
“Being President is extremely serious business.”
“Yeah, but there’s all the more staff to handle the gritty details.”
“You know my name has come up…”
“Ain’t that a hoot? We’d be like the Adams family. Father and son Presidents. I wouldn’t mind that.”
“Oh…do you mean you have thought of yourself…”
“Some of my chums at the polo club said I’d be dandy! They said it would be a snap raising $100 million for the campaign.”
Jed felt cold despite the room’s warmth. “Oh…but…are you certain? It’s very demanding…”
“You know what kiddo! I’m going to do it! Yes! I’m going to do it! Let’s go tell Mom and Dad! Won’t they be surprised?”
Jed sat in stunned silence for several minutes. Mom smiled thinly, while Dad pondered if he could persuade/coerce Wallace to accept the right people for his staff.
The formal campaign began in September 2000, following a non-eventful primary election process and even duller conventions. Greg Albertson and Wallace Prescott faced only nominal challenges; most of the nation spent the Spring and Summer not noticing either one.
The final round was also drawing minimal attention, until the weekend before Halloween. The Prescott family had gathered once again at its Maine homestead for a strategy conference on the closing days of the campaign. Wallace handed off an afternoon meeting to his chief of staff. Wally’s interest centered on his new SUV which he wanted to test drive.
By 6 pm on that last Saturday in October breaking news reports were detailing the injuries Wallace Prescott had received when his SUV overturned as he cut too sharp a turn on a dirt road. A family spokesperson tried vainly for a few hours to cast doubt on who was driving at the time of the accident. The media reports included references, and video on several web-sites, of Wallace’s frat-boy adventures while attending his father’s Alma Mater.
Greg Albertson won the election by five Electoral Votes, and a popular vote margin of slightly more than 400,000. Wallace Prescott’s failure to carry his home State provided Albertson with the margin of victory.
Albertson’s next four years in office were symbolized by his repeated use of the Presidential veto. The Federalists had maintained a narrow majority in the Senate after the 2000 election, while losing their majority in the House of Representatives. When they could not find the votes to override a veto the Federalists halted or delayed operations through filibusters. The opposing forces in Washington were often deadlocked. Domestic and foreign policy limped along in compromises of non-change. The only highlight in this period was the July 20, 2004 celebration of the 20th anniversary of the establishment on Sentinella of the permanent U.S. lunar base, Athena.
[In this history Terra’s lunar companion is named Sentinella. It is said the name was first proposed by Leonardo da Vinci. In post-colonial American folklore Sentinella became St. Al (or simply “Al”) as settlers moved westward. The moon was a beacon the people could relate to in the vast darkness of the inner continent’s night.]
While the United States was still grappling with the morass of Basraistan, Russia was being seized by an intractable conflict of its own. The legacy of the Czarist Empire and the People’s Republics of Eurasia still lingered in the Caucasus and Central Asia. Russian troops and business arrangements kept the various regimes either off-balance or in a state of dependency. An insurgency borne of America’s anti-Marxist campaign there in the 1960s had smouldered over the past decade. The Gulf War had a curious affect on a segment of the population. They saw the triumph of the Alliance over Iran as an affront to their fundamentalist based beliefs. The infidels, rather than Arab legions, had defeated the neo-Persians. The ruling family in Saudi Arabia, with some knowledge of the fanaticism of this faction, had barred the Alliance from using its territory during the Gulf War. Iran’s gross mismanagement of troop and supply logistics had saved the Saudis from being overrun; Iran also chose to believe the Allied tank and infantry forces in Jordan and air forces in the Gulf States were only for show. Seven months after their invasion the Iranian forces were decimated.
Russia, because of its proximity to West Asia, became the focal point of attacks to avenge the honor of the true believers. While purporting to be the most loyal adherers to the dominant theology of the region, many scholarly observers debated otherwise concerning the fanatics. Waves of bombings and assassinations left a trail of horror that reached Moscow and St. Petersburg.
The movement’s own web-site and videos identified its leader. He advocated unitin
g a disparate populous across Asia and Africa within a grandiose theocracy, Qaedaistan. He was widely known by his nom de guerre, Abdul bin al-Quds. The movement was often referred to as al-Qaeda.
Propaganda became a weapon for al-Quds. In several videos and in-person interviews he berated Western leaders as a demonic plague threatening the true believers. He denigrated Russian officials as barbaric servants of the West who had betrayed their Asiatic heritage.
The destruction of St. Petersburg’s City Hall on Orthodox Easter Sunday (April 15, 2001) ignited an obsession within the Moscow government to terminate al-Quds. More than 200 emergency service personnel were killed when a second set of explosives ripped through the City Hall structure causing it to collapse. Months of bribery, torture and executions (sometimes of entire families) led an elite brigade of Russian troops to a village a few miles south of Grozny, Chechnya. Approximately 375 people lived in the village, more than half of them being women and children. Less than a dozen survivors were found after the brigade swept the area with incendiary shells fired from mortars. One of the survivors was Abdul bin al-Quds.
Russia has never offered any public announcement of al-Quds’ capture, or the related subsequent events. He was quickly put on a military transport plane to be brought to Moscow for interrogation and eventual execution. One hundred of Russia’s best anti-insurgency troops accompanied al-Quds on the flight. As the plane, with an escort of fighter jets, was nearly landed at a military airfield near the capital, it was struck by a missile. The pilot had no opportunity to take evasive action, or to deploy counter-measures. The plane lost its tail section, cart wheeled in the air, then slammed into the field’s tower. Over 300 people were killed, including al-Quds. The date was September 11, 2001.
The Albertson Administration stumbled along through its term. Within its senior staff was a growing divide between those willing to accommodate the Federalist-controlled Senate, and those advocating a forceful challenge.
Matters came to a head when Vice President Ann Linus took the internal debate public in the Spring of 2003. At a generic meet-and-greet session of home State supporters the Vice President alluded to her possible Presidential candidacy in the following year. “I want to lead a party that cares enough about the American people to willingly take on entrenched attitudes and policy modes that don’t work,” said Ms Linus. She went a step farther. “My opinions are well known to our party’s hierarchy. To them it seems my beliefs are an inconvenient truth they won’t accept and can’t refute.”
These brave remarks, however, effectively ended any chance she had for the nomination. Ms Linus had never been accepted by the inner circle because she would not abandon her inde-pendent views. The party organization pushed through the candidacy of Pennsylvania’s Governor Edward Galway.
The following year’s political showdown was a confrontation pitting Galway (a veteran of the Gulf War, who now advocated decreased military involvement) and Senate Majority Leader Conrad Mitcher (a lacklustre Beltway insider). Galway’s commitment to withdraw all U.S. troops from Basraistan was the key debate point between the candidates.
American forces were subjected to on-going bursts of casu-alties as the opposing social groups in Basraistan wallowed in manic fratricide. Galway bluntly summarized his position as “If those people want to waste a generation of their young adults while tearing the country apart, we shouldn’t waste a generation of our young adults trying to hold that nation together.”
A surge of battle deaths in October 2004 provided Galway with the momentum he needed for victory, obtaining 52% of the popular vote and a 90-vote Electoral College margin.
The opening sentence in Edward Galway’s Inaugural Address on January 20, 2005 was, “All American military personnel will be out of Basraistan by this year’s Fourth of July!” His supporters were ecstatic; the Joint Chiefs of Staff were confounded. They had anticipated that President Galway would proceed with his oft-stated pledge to redeploy the troops; yet they had in mind a phased withdrawal over 18 to 24 months. Now they had to evacuate more than 10,000 troops and support personnel—plus thousands of tons of equipment—in less than six months amid an increasingly hostile environment.
During the Fall campaign Senator Mitcher had remarked, in reply to a question at one of the televised debates, “Allies are countries that support the U.S. when they need help, and ignore the U.S. when we need help.” Governor Galway had criticized the Senator’s bluntness; by late February President Galway was acknowledging the Senator’s accuracy. Of the several West Asia nations officially considered American allies only Israel and The Cyprus Confederation offered assistance in the redeployment.
Considerable use was also made of the Republic of Britain’s air base on Diego Garcia, in the Indian Ocean. As the deadline grew closer the violence against the American troops actually increased. Both factions launched guerrilla and suicide assaults, one out of hope of what it could gain, the other out of fear of what it could lose. A catastrophic blow on May 23 ignited what became known as The Six Weeks’ War. A troop ship carrying 1351 Marines and crew was departing that night under cover of darkness. Within minutes of leaving its berth the vessel was a flaming death trap. All on board were killed. Military officials believe improvised mines exploded next to the ship, and that the blasts ignited the munitions on-board.
The U.S. was required to stage round-the-clock air and missile strikes, to protect the remaining troops, in a ten-mile radius “red zone” that encircled the city of Al-Faw, the port in Basraistan being used as the final evacuation site.
President Galway’s withdrawal deadline was met two days early. The last American forces to leave Basraistan were a Delta Force contingent. Shortly after sunrise on July 2nd synchronized explosions devastated the on-shore facilities and harbor of Al-Faw. The waterway and docks were rendered useless to anything with a larger displacement than the sunken ferries now blocking the harbor entrance.
Basraistan’s civil war did not end with the American departure. Approximately 30% of the remaining civilian population fled the country by the end of the year. The fighting dropped out of the headlines until the Summer of 2006 when Iran’s revitalized armed forces (an accomplishment violating a dozen stern League of Nations resolutions) swept into Basraistan. Disorganized conflict gave way to systematic ethnic mass murder. An unofficial estimate could later only offer a guess at a toll of several tens of thousands. A similar fate befell the nation of Khuzestan—it was forcibly subsumed back into the national territory of Iran.
The Global War had created vast number of refugees. They fled across national and natural boundaries to escape into camps which often had little more than rudimentary facilities. It is rarely mentioned in standard history books that 10 to 15 million people are estimated to have died in these camps and surrounding regions from a viral illness referred to as CamP Fever, a mutated corona virus. The World Health Organization officially labelled it as Community-Acquired Malevolent Pneumonitis. Scant research was done on the affliction until it re-emerged in the Spring of 2007. A series of ecological disasters in South East Asia had created several large temporary cities along the Thailand-Burma-Laos border region. The disease is believed to have been re-ignited here, then spread south to Malaysia and west to the array of nations on the subcontinent. In the Autumn reports from Doctors Without Borders volunteers stated it was rapidly infecting refugees in Central and West Asia. By New Year’s Day 2008 the first report of outbreaks in East Africa appeared; by late Spring, however, new cases in all three zones were no longer being found. The disease had disappeared except for those already infected. A mortality rate of 60% left hundreds of thousands dead. Treatment was often ineffective since the afflicted rarely were seen by a physician within the critical initial 48 hours.
Yet the First World took little note. A U.S. Presidential election with a glamorous name from the past commanded the obsession of all media formats—including the latest: in-teractive hologram bloggers.
Campaign 2008
C
ORY STRATTON had been the epicenter of American politics until early December 1999. When his eldest son, Kenneth, was hospitalized as a result of sickle cell anemia, Stratton withdrew from the public spotlight. His son’s subsequent death in March 2000 seemed also to end Stratton’s public career.
Seven years later Stratton announced the creation of a foundation to administer a scholarship in his son’s name. Stratton had maintained all the funds he received from the sale of his book (“An American Sojourn”) in a special account. Investments in the burgeoning field of renewable energy had quadrupled the fund’s assets. The leading product was being created at America’s lunar base, Athena. Scientists and industrialists had combined their efforts to devise a panel that was highly absorbent of the solar radiation pouring onto Sentinella’s surface. Their prospectus for investors said the panels would within a decade reduce the need for non-renewable energy sources by 50%. (The contamination of a financial service corporation’s facility at Goose Pond, Connecticut on June 21, 2004, as a result of a significant accident at a nearby controversial power plant, compelled the research.)
Stratton was invited to discuss the foundation on the nation’s pre-eminent afternoon all-media program, “Let’s Talk!” with host Lottie Tailor. This program was viewable on multiple formats by an audience larger than any of the five major broadcast evening news presentations.