by Ira Tabankin
“You only require the amounts we paid. You only require us in the General Assembly, so you have a common enemy to blame. The United States invested over 50 years trying to make the United Nations fulfill its mission, to bring peace to the world. It failed. You failed. If there is nothing else, you came to see me about. I have to ask you to leave our territory.”
Chapter 18
President Brownstone calls an emergency cabinet meeting for 1:00 PM in the Situation Room. The President kicks off the meeting saying, “Thank you for coming on such short notice. We need to discuss the current situation - the Russian Ambassador and the Secretary-General both have warned me that if we don’t agree to sign the worldwide nuclear disarmament treaty, the United Nations will form an international army and invade us, forcing us to surrender our nuclear weapons and launch systems by force. We can expect the invasion will be staged from the LSA. This will enable them to invade us across a large front on both coasts at the same time. Our forces will be spread very thin.”
John asks, “Mr. President, did they give you any indication of when this invasion will take place?”
“John, no, however we will see their troops arriving in the LSA, they can’t stop us from seeing them arriving. We’ll see them moving to the border, so we’ll have an indication of where and when.”
Ted leans back in his chair, looking at the ceiling he completes the thought, he looks the President in the eyes, saying, “Mr. President, can’t we designate their ships as containing contraband and sink them before they arrive at an LSA port?”
“How do we legally manage that?”
“We declare the LSA is planning to invade us, to stop the loss of innocent life, we declare a quarantine zone and stop, search every ship going to the LSA.”
John replies, “Ted, a naval blockade is an act of war.”
“John, what difference will it make? Since we know they’re going to attack us, why can’t we attack them first? We do what the military calls a spoiling attack.”
John thinks about it a minute, then responds, “Why wouldn’t they just invade us from Mexico?”
“Steve smiles answering, “Because the good Governor of Texas built this nice big wall between Mexico and Texas. He turned the southern border into a no man’s land.”
Sarah, replies, “I think we should quickly do the same thing with the border in Arizona.”
“Sarah, as Secretary of the Interior, please take care of it. Ask Governor Lawson for the design specifications he used.”
Rash asks, “Is there no way, other than signing the treaty, to avoid war? War is never good for PR."
President Brownstone sighs, saying, “Rash, I wish there were, I think this is more about crushing us than nuclear weapons. The United Nations and Russia would like nothing better than seeing the United States taken down a few pegs. If we’re disarmed, then Puten will be able to rule the world. We know he’ll never turn in all of his weapons of mass destruction. The other shoe I’m going to drop on you is, we have proof a Russian Spetsnaz Captain was in Minot; his DNA was found on the Air Force technicians’ uniforms; we have to assume he set off the warhead.”
The Situation Room exploded with everyone talking at the same time. President Brownstone let the talking go on for a few minutes before saying, “Everyone, who here believed that one of our warheads just woke up and decided to explode all on its own? You all should know they don’t operate that way. Somehow the Russians got a hold of our PAL code, enabling them to detonate the warhead.”
Three secretaries yelled out, “Reid had to be helping them.”
“Yes, that’s what I think too. He must have gotten someone in the Air Force to help him.”
Alvin responds, “So the war has already begun. Why didn’t you tell us that first? I’m thinking; Puten offered Reid he would crush us and then support the merging back together of the LSA and USA, putting Reid in charge.”
“Alvin, that’s my take on it too. I think that it means they will confine their attacks to our military bases. Reid won’t want to attack the cities; he’s planning on generating his tax revenue from them. We can bet on this and move our forces away from defending the cities.”
Alvin replies, “We can designate the cities as open cities.”
Randy, who's been listening to the discussion, says, “Mr. President, I think if the facts bear out President Reid planned with President Puten to detonate the nuke in Minot, which killed thousands of our people, and he’s working with Puten on invading us, we need to release the information we have. The information will shake up the people of the LSA, at the same time we can make them an offer to come back into the USA. If we can pour enough dirt on Reid, we might be able to get many of the LSA citizens to say enough is enough, we could threaten to respond in kind, since Reid and Puten struck us with a nuke, we can say, we’ll do the same. The average liberal in the LSA will crap their pants if they think their city is going to be turned into Minot.”
“Randy, won’t making that statement cause the rest of the world to be even more upset with us?”
“Can they get any angrier with us? They all want what we have. The world plotted to destroy us financially, we turned the tables on them and came back stronger than ever. The world has always been jealous of America. They can’t accept we turned ourselves around while most of the world continued to sink deeper into a pit filled with crap.”
Before the meeting can continue, there’s knock at the door. A secret service agent enters the room holding a sealed envelope, “Mr. President; there’s an urgent message for you.”
Opening the envelope, President Brownstone reads the message; every eye is watching him, he holds his hand up, putting down the message he explains, “There’s been an attack on the pipeline in Alaska and the Keystone pipeline in Nebraska. Both pipelines have been destroyed. There are millions of gallons of oil pouring out of the broken pipelines.”
Alvin asks, “Mr. President, may I see the message, please.”
Handing him the message slip, the President says, “First a nuke goes off, which Puten uses to demand world disarmament, and then our two major oil pipelines are attacked. I think we’ll shortly hear we’re environmentally damaging the planet with our fracking. I’d bet OPEC is behind this attack. John, I want you and Alvin to send your best teams to both sites, determine who did this and report back ASAP. John, if OPEC did this, I want you to plan an attack against them they won’t forget. This is the second round attack on us in the opening stages of World War 3.”
“Yes sir.”
“John, please remain a minute, there’s something I’d like to discuss with you.”
Everyone else leaves the Situation Room; John takes the seat across from the President,
“John, how many ASAT (Anti-Satellite) weapons do we have? Can more be quickly assembled?”
“Planning on blinding someone?”
“Yes, to work, we need to mass fire them to take out Russia’s spy and communications satellite networks. If we can get a number of them ready, we salvo them in a one massive surprise attack which will take out their eyes in the sky. We’ll also put a serious dent in their ability to communicate to their troops in the field.”
“I like it, let me see what I can make happen.”
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Steele City, Nebraska, is covered in thick oily black smoke. The pipeline was destroyed by wrapping the pipe in plastic explosives, once the 36” diameter pipe is broken allowing the oil to flow out; a secondary explosion ignites the flowing oil. The burning oil forms a river of burning oil destroying everything in its path. The fumes are, so toxic thousands of townspeople have to be quickly moved. The entire town is put on trains to move them out of the area, eight miles outside of Steele City, bombs hidden on each side of the tracks explode, the bombs send tens of thousands of steel balls into the rail cars carrying the townspeople, most of whom are the town’s women and children. A second series of bombs explode destroying the tracks and blowing the train onto its side crushing many o
f those on the train. Between the two series of bombs, 85% of those on the train are killed or severely injured. The destruction of the pipeline and the train shocks the remaining people into panicking.
Upon hearing the news of the attack on the town’s people President Brownstone orders the entire length of both pipelines checked and closed. He also calls the Secretary of Defense, “John, I want to send a message to OPEC and to Reid.”
“Sir, why Reid?”
“Because I suspect he’s had a hand in everything negative that happens to us.”
“Yes sir, I’ll get the war planners on it right now.”
John picks up his yellow handset which connects him to the Joint Chiefs, “Gentlemen; the President has ordered us to plan a surgical strike against OPEC and Reid to send a strong message.”
Admiral Zander asks, “Sir, does the President want them kissed or fucked?”
“Admiral, which do you think?”
“Sir, with a telephone pole and no Vaseline.”
“You got it. When can you have a plan ready?”
“Sir, in an hour.”
“Come see me with it.”
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John arranges meetings with the CEOs and CTOs of the leading defense suppliers, “Ladies and Gentlemen, I’m sure you’ve all followed the news. We are in a difficult position; the United Nations is going to invade us. The Russian Federation has orchestrated everything. President Puten convinced President Reid to support him. We believe Puten promised Reid he’d make Reid the President-For-Life over all of North America. Of course, we wouldn’t go down without a fight that is why I’ve invited you here. First of all, I have an Executive findings to share with you, I have a copy for each of your legal departments.”
Everyone laughs.
“President Brownstone has stated that the country is facing a state of emergency, as such; the federal trade rules and laws that forbid you from working together is hereby placed on hold for the duration of the national emergency. We have a shopping list of equipment we require, some you have, some of the items we’re open for your ideas. First of all we have an urgent requirement for 200 ASM-135 missiles.”
Someone asks, “What’s an ASM-135?”
The Lockheed CTO replies, “Anti-sat missile, carried by F15s to the edge of space where it’s fired into space. It uses a kinetic, hit to kill warhead, a few were built in the mid 1980s.”
John continues, “Here’s a summary of our shopping list;
Twelve mobile rail guns
Additional F22 and F35 fighters
Quickly converting F15 fighters into F15x versions
Quickly updating F16s to block 80 status
Quickly updating 230 A10s to the C version
One hundred of the Naval laser weapon, fifty mounted on armored vehicles for our ground forces and fifty installed on our ships.
1,000 XM 200 special warheads for 155 caliber shells
1,000 additional Tomahawk IV missiles
As many naval mines as possible
Quickly get the USS Washington out of dry dock and complete all other navy and coast guard ships in production and being updated.
Anything you have in your R&D labs that can be quickly placed into series production.
“We won World War 2 by quickly converting commercial production into war equipment. Every factory converted to help the war cause. Can we do it again? Today’s weapons have gotten so complex we understand it takes time to increase production; I asked you here today so we can figure out how to speed up the production problem.”
The CEO of Boeing addresses the other members, “Ladies and gentlemen, there are ways to increase and speed up production if we can agree to put aside much of the federal FARs. The federal purchasing practices slow us down. If we can simply apply commercial purchasing methods, we at Boeing can increase production by 25% and speed up production. As an example, we can deliver 50 additional Tomahawk missiles in three weeks that are waiting for federal inspectors and audit of our purchasing policies.”
John, smiles, responding, “Way ahead of you, here is a memo that places the FARs on hold for the duration of the national emergency. Does this help?”
The room applauds, the CEO of Lockheed, address the group, “Mr. Secretary, speaking for Lockheed, I can say, you just sped up our production by maybe 30%. I would like to suggest you leave us here for a couple of hours to see what we can come up with on your wish list and what else we may have to supply you with.”
“Is three hours enough time?”
All heads nod yes, “I’ll return with lunch at noon.”
John leaves the conference room; he pauses at the door to tell the two Marine guards, “Please make sure they have anything they need. If they want to speak with anyone inside DOD, just get them, you don’t need to contact me first.”
“Yes sir.”
Three hours later, John returns helping push lunch carts into the conference room. The CEO of Raytheon laughs saying, “This is a first, we’re being served by the Secretary of Defense.”
“Before I feed you, have you made progress?”
The CEO of Harris, responds, “Yes, we’ve made a lot of progress, we have some issues among ourselves and our accounting departments to work out. However, we can, by working together, give you most of what’s on your wish list plus a couple of surprises that we have in our R&D labs. Many of the products in the lab, can’t be built in quantity, but a small number of them might make a big difference and come as a big surprise to Puten.”
“Great, grab some lunch and let’s see what we can do; I’ll get a purchasing expert to join us, and you’ll be able to leave here with purchase contracts.”
The CEO’s looked around the room in total surprise; the normal practice of working on proposals for months just went out the window, he CEOs in the room know their top line revenue and their margins just increased. They're happy they were invited to the meeting.
John continues, “So who’s going to tell me the good news?”
The CEO of Lockheed, with a mouth full of turkey sandwich says, “Mr. Secretary, we can commit to the following right now;
We need access to certain electronics that are long lead items which are committed to other companies, many in the consumer electronics industry or PC industries. Some are made in China.
USS Washington will be out of dry dock, refueled with updated communications and radar systems in thirty days. We’re all sending people to Norfolk to speed up the process; we’re going to be working on it 24/7. We need her entire crew to report to the ship tomorrow to assist the testing of the systems as we install them. She may go to sea with work people on board but plan for thirty days.
We can complete the next two Virginia class submarines in ninety days with the same conditions, we understand the Captain of one of the subs is ill; we need you to either get him to the yard or appoint another today.
We can have 100 ASM-135A missiles ready in two weeks, the A version has some improvements that sat on the shelf for years.
We can take apart the rail gun test rigs and package them on trailers, making them mobile weapons in three weeks.
The special warheads and 155 caliber shells can start rolling off the production line in five days.
F35 deliveries can be sped up. It would be a major help if you could decide on a single version for us to focus on. Reopening the F22 production line will take six months, we don’t know yet on the updating F15, 16 and A10s. We need a few days to determine the parts and time lines.
We have 50 Tomahawks that can be delivered in a week; we can deliver another 25 by the 20th of the month. We need four days to determine how many additional units can be built. We have a proposal to take the older versions and update them. We can update the guidance modules quickly.
Mr. Secretary, that’s all we can figure out in three hours.”
“My God, that’s much more than I’d hoped for. If you can pull this off for a free lunch, what would I get for a free dinner?”
The executives smile and laughs.
“OK, let’s get to work.”
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The nine Supreme Court Justices meet together in the court’s secure conference room to review their findings; the chief Justice starts the meeting off, “Has everyone studied the issues?”
All eight heads nod yes.
“Did any of you find any case law to back up any rulings we may issue?”
All eight justices say, “No, we couldn’t find one.”
“Does anyone want to say anything?”
Justice Bayer stands, “As much as none of us like what I’m about to say, we agree that based on the Constitution, we really don't have a choice. President Obsma shouldn’t have been elected President; he wasn’t qualified under the ‘Natural born citizen’ clause, and, therefore, we have no choice. Believe us when we say we haven’t slept in 48 hours trying to find a solution that doesn’t do additional harm to the country. We tried to find a justification to enable the laws he signed to remain in effect but sadly we couldn’t find a single legal reason and hence our recommendation is: we announce that President Obsma should not have been allowed to run for the office of President, as such, his administration wasn’t legal, and under the various fraud laws, everything he signed has to be overturned and scraped.
“Before you ask, we do realize what the impact this is going to have on the country. Just invalidating Obsmacare is going to disrupt everyone’s healthcare coverage again. Many of the previous insurance companies no longer exist. We know this alone is going to be a major disruption to the country’s economy. The list that has to be nullified includes every law, every executive order, every treaty, every Presidential finding, even the cabinet he engaged wasn’t legal and should repay their salary and benefits. The findings and rulings his executive agencies also made are going to have to be overturned. There must be a hundred thousand different rulings and laws that will have to be changed. Some of the laws are 2 plus thousand pages long. We also suggest the leaders of the Democrat party be arrested and tried in a Federal Court for fraud and treason.”