by James Rosone
“As you wish, Mr. President. I also think we should look at the size of the military again; if we are going to annex Mexico, then we are going to need a solid military presence down there for some years to come,” said Branson.
“How many additional troops do you believe you will need?” asked Monty.
“At least another 120,000 troops; we’ll need that many deployed into Mexico to clear out the cartels and to establish law and order while we build up the police force and local law enforcement,” said Branson.
“Agreed. We’ll speak with Speaker Fultz about pushing that increase through Congress. I believe we should go ahead and increase the size of the military by another 200,000 instead of 120,000, and add an additional 300,000 troops to the National Guard and Reserves. A storm is coming gentlemen, and we are going to be prepared to meet it, head on.”
*******
Riyadh, Islamic Republic
Imperial Palace Council Chamber
“Caliph, the Americans and Canadians are going to hold a referendum in three months on a possible unification of North America,” said Muhammad.
“A unification of North America? Do you believe this will complicate our plans?”
“No Caliph, it should not interfere with our plans; however, it does mean that the situation for our Muslim brothers in Canada may get worse if this unification does happen. Currently Canadian law is a lot more lax than American law, especially as of recent.”
“This new political party, the Freedom Party, has really been pushing through a lot of very tough domestic legislation aimed at giving the government and states a lot more power and policing capabilities. This whole biometric enabled National Identity Card (or NICs as they call them) is making it so that everyone has to carry and use them to purchase everything. It is making things hard for our sleeper cells to procure items and go unnoticed,” said Muhammad.
“As long as nothing interferes with our end goal, then I am not concerned with what their government does. How many agents have we been able to get into the US?”
“We have a total of 2,000 special operations and insurgent specialists in the US so far. They were all hand selected to ensure they had never been biometrically enrolled in Europe or anywhere else, so when they get their NICs, there will be no record of them being associated with the IR.”
“Now that they are in, they have begun to develop their cells and direct action units. Fortunately for us, the Americans have pretty lax gun laws, so they are acquiring a lot of their weapons (both legally and illegally) with little problem,” Muhammad said while sipping his tea.
“We have a little over a year to get things ready. Ensure everyone is in place and ready to execute their missions when the time comes.”
The Islamic Republic had been moving select members of their Special Forces and other military and intelligence specialties into the US and Mexico for the past few years. The IR had named the North American operation “Allah’s Judgement.” Their goal was twofold: 1) Destabilize the government of Mexico and work with the Mexican Army to conduct a coup and then let the cartels run wild 2) Cause as much panic and chaos as possible inside the US. This would force the Americans to get involved in Mexico, which would result in a significant portion of the American military becoming committed to that theatre of operation. This, in turn, would make them less able to handle any other attacks on their soil. A large portion of the domestic assaults were slated to be conducted against the American power grid. This would involve attacking transformers, towers, power plants, dams etc. Some of the other cells would focus on mass killing events, attacking malls, schools, subway and train terminals, movie theaters, etc. Then, while the US would be reeling from these violent acts, the last wave would attack law enforcement and first responders.
With the American Army committed in Mexico and the internal chaos going on inside America, it was believed the US would not have sufficient forces available to prevent the IR from wiping out Israel, allowing the IR to finally secure the entire Middle East and bring an end to the Jewish State.
*******
02 February 2040
Post Referendum Day
“Mr. President, it is official. All votes are in and the referendum won in the US with 62% of the vote. It also won in Canada with 52%--not as much as we would have liked--but it passed,” said Monty with a big grin on his face.
“This is great news. PM Peck is scheduled to call me at 1100 today, and we are going to hold a joint news conference tonight at 7pm here at the White House to make it official. We will both sign the referendum into law, and that will start the official process of merging our two countries together,” the President said happily.
“This is a great day, Mr. President. It is clearly one of the most significant moments in American history, sir. Ten new states will join the Union and our country will increase in size by over 40%,” said Monty.
“Mr. President, congratulations on the referendum,” said Jeff, also smiling from ear to ear.
“Thank you, Jeff. It was a lot of hard work selling this these past three months; I’m just glad it paid off. I fear it would have been bad politically if it did not.”
“Well, Mr. President, it worked and we have ten new states. I’m going to organize a meeting as soon as possible with their former economics and finance ministers, and we will work to bring the Canadian economy into ours. We will need to work on currency conversions, consolidating their debt into ours and converting their people’s money into NADs. It’s going to take a bit of time to make all of these adjustments, Mr. President, but this is a task I am really looking forward to,” said Jeff said with a serious look of determination.
“I am too. This is a significant point in our country’s history, no doubt, and this is also a chance for all of our people to start something new. I firmly believe this will really improve the economy,” said the President with confidence in his voice.
“I believe it will certainly help. Their unemployment is still near 20% while ours has finally fallen below 6% for the first time in two decades. There are significant infrastructure projects that will need to be done in Canada, but the sheer volume of natural resources is going to be an amazing boon to our economy. They have been unable to exploit them properly for decades because of a lack of investment and their ridiculous environmental laws,” said Monty, who was clearly calculating the new wealth this would bring to the country.
“That is about to change gentleman. Monty, we also need to work very vigorously to get the Freedom Party firmly entrenched in the new Canadian States. We need to ensure that they know which party is bringing them this newfound prosperity and security.”
“Yes, Mr. President. That will be one of our first tasks; I will meet with Speaker Fultz about this and get the party heads working on getting things set up,” said Monty, tapping a quick note to himself on his tablet.
The Speaker of the House, Mike Fultz, was also the Deputy Chairman of the Freedom Party, while the President remained the Chairman. Speaker Fultz’ primary responsibility within the party was its expansion and recruitment of candidates. The actual Freedom Party headquarters was located in Tampa, FL, where Henry Stein initially founded the group. The Party actually had 7,000 full time employees spread throughout the country and boasted an incredible candidate research team. Their goal was to find and interview potential candidates for positions in their state that the FP thought they could win.
For the past eight years, the FP had been active in identifying and recruiting candidates to run for every state and federal position across the country. Of course, not every candidate won, but enough candidates were winning at the state level that several states were now FP governed and run states. As the economy continued to improve, more people left the Democrat and Republican parties to join the one party that truly was doing what they said they would do. Their goal was to truly bring prosperity back to America and make the nation great again.
The President, out of necessity, was already starting to turn
his attention towards his own re-election. “Remember this is an election year, and the Democrats and Republicans are already going full bore after us. The polls still show us with a very commanding lead, but once the final candidates are determined, it will be a tougher fight.”
“I would not be too concerned with it, Mr. President. In the last three years, unemployment has gone down almost 6%, and is going down 1% to 2% each quarter. We are showing steady economic progress and more and more people have money in their pockets,” said Jeff.
“Thank you for the assurance, Jeff. Let me and the President worry about the political stuff; you worry about integrating the Canadian industry and economy into ours and ensure that the economy continues to improve,” said Monty, clearly not wanting another senior advisor in the Administration advising the President on the election or political matters within the FP.
“Sure thing, Monty. I didn’t mean to intrude into your area; I was just saying I don’t see the elections being a problem for us. I travel the country a lot, and when I’m waiting around in the airports, I often strike up random conversations with people and ask them what they think of the Freedom Party. The vast majority of people love the President’s straight talk and the President’s take charge attitude. I very seldom find someone who has something negative to say,” said Jeff.
“That’s good to know, Jeff. I do appreciate your thoughts on the matter. What Monty means is that you have a huge job ahead of you, and a lot of our political success will hinge on our success or failure with the economy. Focus on your part of the machine and let us focus on the other parts,” the President said with a smile, clearly trying to ensure Jeff did not feel left out of the inner circle.
*******
The spring and summer of 2040 brought dramatic changes to North America as Canada and the United States merged into one country. Ten new stars were added to the flag, bringing the total number of stars to 64 (Northern and Southern California, East and West Colorado, East and West Washington State had separated and become their own states during the early 2020s under the Warren Administration, and Puerto Rico had also been added as a State during the same timeframe).
The United States continued to see enormous economic growth, especially as employee wages began to quickly increase. The median household income had risen from $62,400 annually in 2037 to $83,700 by the summer of 2040. The Republicans had nominated one of their rising stars to challenge Henry Stein and the Freedom Party while the Democrats nominated a familiar name and face, Senator Lowden from Northern California.
England and the EU also continued to grow as the Transatlantic Fair Trade Agreement increased trade and eased movement between the two continents. England and the EU also began to experience a sharp increase in emigration as tens of thousands of Muslims were immigrating to the Islamic Republic. The IR was starting to truly turn into the Islamic paradise most Muslims longed for. It was a pure Islamic country, with little in the way of Western influence. The State controlled that, to be sure. Slowly, the IR was starting to solve their food shortage problems through the creation of thousands of bio domes and genetically modified seeds to grow more food per acre than traditional seeds.
The modernization of the IR military continued at a rapid rate. They had increased their military force to near three million soldiers, and another two million more were being trained. Russia and China both had increased the number of military advisors in the IR to over 50,000. China had established a new naval base in Oman, repositioning one of their supercarriers as they continued their expansion into East and South Africa. Russia had expanded their naval base in what used to be Syria; they had also leased an airfield and established a training squadron to assist the IR in training pilots for the new aircraft they were purchasing.
Russia and China both continued to look for ways to increase their own spheres of influence. China was nearing completion of their additional supercarriers and established a solid footprint in East and South Africa to include the establishment of two joint naval, army and air force bases. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) had grown considerably, and so had their provocations towards Taiwan.
Tensions between the two countries continued to increase as Taiwan was going to hold a referendum on whether to officially become their own country or continue to hold their claim as the only legitimate government of the Republic of China. President Stein had made it clear that the US was not going to get involved in territorial disputes that did not directly threaten the national security of the US. The US did continue to sell Taiwan as much top-of-the-line military equipment as they wanted. In technical terms, the PLA was now more advanced militarily than Taiwan. The PLAAF had thousands of fighter drones, the PLAAN had six supercarriers and the PLA had 300,000 soldiers equipped with the newest exoskeleton combat suits.
The PLA and the Russians’ new exoskeleton combat suits integrated both speed and survivability of the individual soldiers. A soldier using the new suit could lift over 1,000 lbs., jump nearly 40 ft. and run close to 35 mph. The helmet worked much like fighter pilots’ helmets did, with an HUD that identified targets for the soldier and kept track of how much ammunition the soldier was burning through. It also had a built-in map and mini ground radar so it could distinguish between friendly and enemy forces.
The polycarbonate uniform sown into the mechanical aspects of the suit protected soldiers against flash burns caused by nearby explosions and flying debris, including limited amounts of shrapnel. The suit also monitored the human body and could automatically inject the body with additional red blood cells and clotting agents to assist the body in naturally clotting an open wound. Also available were insulin, adrenaline, and stimulants.
The soldiers wearing these suits would be able to operate at such a high level that they would be able to accomplish more tasks with less soldiers. The US, UK and EU forces also had similar exoskeleton suits with similar capabilities. This was a very new military technology and though the US had it, the US had not integrated it into the Armed Forces to the degree the Chinese and Russians had.
*******
The situation in Mexico continued to get worse despite the improving American economy. Millions of Mexicans were still trying to cross the American border, which had become nearly impossible since the FP had turned the southwest into a militarized border. Aside from the 20 ft. tall wall separating the two countries, there was also a ten mile no man’s land that was heavily patrolled by border patrol agents and drones.
The various cartels and criminal organizations controlled most of the country outside of the major cities. The Mexican government was quickly losing control of the country, which was putting an enormous strain on the situation at the border as millions of Mexican citizens were desperately trying to escape their crime ridden country.
Infiltration
September 2040
Riyadh, Islamic Republic
Imperial Palace, Council Chamber Room
“Muhammad, are we ready for Operation Allah’s Fire?”
“Yes, our operatives have infiltrated the Port of Baltimore, Port of Houston, Port of LA, and several contracting companies that provide services at two of the major utility companies that provide power to the northeast part of the US,” Muhammad said as he lit his cigarette.
“Excellent. I am glad that you have included several ports, in case one does not work out.”
“As of right now, the primary targets are the port of Baltimore and the port of LA. We have people infiltrating the Houston port in case we need a fall back plan; some of our people believe we should also make use of our LNG tankers. They would act like mini-nuclear bombs if they were full when they are detonated.”
“That is not a bad idea, but the Americans only export LNG, and they only use a couple of companies for security purposes. I am not convinced a shipment from one of our front companies would be able to get through.”
Wanting to discuss the main operation, Caliph Mohammed said, “Tell me about the plans against the American power c
ompanies in the Northeast that you mentioned.”
“The primary attack against the Northeast part of the US is going to take place in the dead of winter, when electricity is needed most. The plan for our groups that have infiltrated the power companies is for them to destroy several critical transformer nodes from the inside. One group even plans to destroy one of the power plants directly with explosives.”
“When the power goes out, it will cause a number of things to happen. First, people will lose power in the throes of winter, which will prove deadly as it will take more than a couple of weeks to repair. Second, with no power there will be a lot of looting as people run out of food. Third, we have 200 fighters broken down into numerous smaller direct action units that will go on a killing spree all across the major cities. After the first five days, those fighters that are still alive will do their best to fade away into the population and move to their next assignment once they are able to check the draft emails in their accounts.”
Huseen ibn Abdullah, the Director of Intelligence, made a point to mention, “We are staggering the attacks to take place over an extended period of time, to cause as much fear and damage to the American psyche as possible. Some of our three and five-man direct action units will conduct random and uncoordinated attacks on malls, supermarkets, movie theaters and elementary schools, mostly across small and rural towns, cities and the suburbs outside of the major cities. These attacks will be harder to deter and even harder to predict; we believe this will increase their likelihood of success and cause more casualties.”
