Osama the Gun

by Norman Spinrad

  General Moustapha allowed us to remain in his encampment and provided us with provisions while we decided what to do. In the first few days, dozens took their pensions and departed for the lives they had led before becoming jihadis. Some few fecklessly joined a foreign army that had no war to fight. The rest, myself included, who had really had no other life to return to, who remained jihadis in our hearts, lounged about uselessly, warriors of Islam praying to Allah to send us the next war.

  Within two weeks our prayers were answered.

  Lieutenant General Hamza had departed for Abuja and whatever might be the next step in his rising military career, leaving what had been the headquarters of the psychological warfare corps vacant and for want of any better occupation or use for the television facilities by anyone else, I spent much of my time there watching news of the world unfold, seeking for a cause.

  First there was a story on CNN that appeared to be the sort of feature needed to fill the gaps between real news on a 24 hour news channel, much as I found myself watching it to fill my own idle hours.

  The fleet of warships that the Americans maintained in the western Pacific was sailing west across the Indian ocean without announcement or explanation. CNN showed aerial footage of surface aircraft carriers as well as a flotilla of some twelve Whales travelling on the surface of the sea, along with missile cruisers, rail-gun dreadnoughts, destroyers, tankers, and what might have been troop ships. The commentators speculated on where they might be heading, chided the Pentagon for its stone-walling, the only conclusion they could reach being that there must be some urgent purpose, for the only reason the Whales would not sail submerged was to make the greatest possible speed.

  Some hours later the BBC reported that scores of manned American heavy bombers—old B-1s, B-2s, 747s converted to cruise missile platforms—were being redeployed from their bases in the United States to the base the Great Satan leased from the British on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia and reported that the American long range land-based missile forces and missile submarine forces had been put on full alert.

  Al Jazeera carried the BBC story and the CNN footage but drew the conclusion that these redeployments could only be aimed at the Caliphate in some manner, for the United States had no other possible foe on the western side of the Indian Ocean.

  But United Nigeria Television fearfully speculated that this powerful American fleet might veer southwest, round the Cape of Good Hope, and sail up the coast of west Africa to Nigerian waters, to not only retake the Biafran oil fields, but render the negotiations of Biafran surrender to Nigeria meaningless by the all-out ruthless and irresistible bombardment of all Nigeria itself into total submission from which the Nigerians had previously been spared.

  TV Biafra rebroadcast the dire UNT speculation with no little glee and announced that the surrender negotiations had been suspended.

  The only thing clear was that the Great Satan was preparing something far more terrible than its failed venture in Biafra, and I moved out of my tent and into Hamza’s former headquarters to watch it unfold.

  * * * *

  There was great fear in Nigeria during the next two days, as I learned on United Nigerian Television, and no little bitterness in General Moustapha’s camp towards the jihadis and myself, as I learned whenever I ventured out of the psychological warfare corps’ headquarters to face it, which became not very often. While there was no threat of violence against us, the scowls, turned backs, and muttered curses made it clear that the jihadis were no longer welcome guests and Osama the Gun was no longer the hero of a victory that seemed about to be turned into a terrible defeat. I ordered us to keep to ourselves.

  After announcing the suspension of the surrender negotiations, hoping the Americans were returning to rescue them, TV Biafra went off the air. But on the third day, the American fleet turned north, towards the Strait of Hormuz, the entrance to the Arabian Sea.

  Towards the Caliphate. There was great rejoicing to be seen on United Nigerian Television that Nigeria had been spared the wrath of America, and little concern for what might now befall the Caliphate, even on the part of the Muslim Hausas.

  Suddenly the jihadis were no longer pariahs in the encampment and I was once more the hero of the victory that had been preserved, as now that the Americans were out of the picture, the Nigerian government issued an ultimatum that if the Igbos did not sign dictated articles of surrender within twenty-four hours, the Nigerian army would march south and there would be no mercy or quarter.

  But before the deadline ran out the Americans issued an ultimatum of their own. To the Caliphate. And in a manner that seemed designed to be deliberately insulting.

  There was no televised speech by the American President, their Secretary of State, or even a more minor official. A written press release was issued which had to be read by newsreaders on CNN, BBC, United National Television, Al Jazeera, and official Caliphate Television, which must have been particularly galling.

  “The United States of America has long recognized the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Caliphate and has never engaged in military action against it and in the interests of world peace has chosen to ignore its verbal approval and covert financial support for extremist Islamicist terrorist groups. The United States even recognized the right of the Caliphate under international law to finance the purchase of arms from third parties by the government of Nigeria in its war of aggression against Free Biafra.

  “But when the Caliphate instituted its oil embargo and dispatched the notorious Osama the Gun and his terrorist forces to Biafra to destroy oil wells and facilities necessary to vital American national interest and under formal American protection by treaty with the sovereign Biafran government it committed open acts of aggression against the United States.

  “This is not a declaration of war but the United States hereby withdraws its recognition of the government of the Caliphate as the legitimate government of the states presently under its control. The United States lays no claim to any territory under the control of the Caliphate and will reinstate its recognition of the Caliphate government as soon as that government resumes its shipments of oil to America and at one third of the world market price in dollars without reference to American food exports for ten years as compensation for its actions in Biafra depriving it of a partial source of this resource vital to our national interest.

  “This is a matter of national survival which supercedes any United Nations resolutions or international law. Therefore if the Caliphate government does not resume shipments of oil to the United States on these terms, the United States will negotiate such sales directly with cooperative member states of the Caliphate federation and if necessary recognize them as sovereign should the Caliphate government seek to impede them.”

  I was appalled and stunned by this monstrous and cynical ultimatum, this straightforward blackmail, this threat against the heartland of Islam itself, but I was also wracked by guilt that I knew was undeserved but nevertheless could not escape.

  For though I had been betrayed by the Caliphate and knew it was innocent of any connection to what I had done in Nigeria, I was also the legendary Osama the Gun whose actions were being used as an excuse for this naked aggression.

  I was also utterly confused, for I had really accomplished that which had supposedly driven the Great Satan from Biafra—the destruction of a pumping station and pipeline junction which the Americans could have repaired and the setting of an oil fire which they could have extinguished.

  The commentary which followed the reading of the American ultimatum was not exactly clarifying. Caliphate Television offered no analysis at all and simply issued a call for prayer. UNT concentrated on exulting that whatever the American ultimatum might mean to the Caliphate, it surely meant that Biafran capitulation to the Nigerian ultimatum was now assured.

  The BBC speculated that the CIA or other clandestine American agencies mus
t have been working to create breakaways from the Caliphate to recognize for some time already, as they had done in Nigeria. Al Jazeera asserted that the Americans were bluffing, for the Caliphate had its own nuclear missiles with which to menace the American fleet, and while the much stronger American nuclear forces could retaliate with utter obliteration of the Caliphate, that would destroy the very prize they sought to capture, and the oil, while vital to their economy, was still not worth precipitating a nuclear exchange.

  All the CNN commentators agreed that some sort of American-backed coup could be expected somewhere on the coast of Arabia to set up an oil-rich client state under protection of the American fleet, but not on much else. Several of them believed that the American target was Kuwait, others the Emirates, two of them both.

  But one of them pointed out that the American economy had already been suffering from oil shortages and soaring prices thanks to the Caliphate embargo, and the cut off of the supply from Biafra would soon make it critical.

  “Even if we negotiate access to Kuwaiti or Emirates oil with a puppet government, the Caliphate could simply send in guerilla forces as it had in Nigeria, to attack the oil facilities and deny a reliable new oil supply, crippling the economy, and starving the fleet itself of fuel within months.”

  One of them predicted a nuclear ultimatum or even a demonstration attack to bring the Caliphate to its knees quickly instead.

  “No way,” scoffed another. “The Caliphate will capitulate without a single shot being fired.”

  While the world waited for an answer from the Caliphate to the American ultimatum, General Moustapha’s camp waited anxiously for an answer from the Biafran rebels to the Nigerian surrender ultimatum with the clock clicking down, irefully preparing to take it out on the Igbos if they failed to capitulate, cleaning weapons, preparing its mobile artillery, attempting to repair what few tanks were left, drumming up its courage just in case.

  I spent a restless night sleeping an hour or so at a time, scanning the television monitors for news that didn’t come, tormented by something I could not quite put my finger on in all this, but deciding that if there was to be a Nigerian assault, I would play no part in any further hostilities here. I had been cynically used by the Caliphate in France, by the Nigerians, and now even by the Great Satan, who had also cynically used the Igbos, for whom I could now only feel a certain sympathy, and I would not be used again by anyone save Allah.

  Just after noon the next morning, TV Biafra came back on the air with the image of a youngish man in a disheveled uniform with colonel’s eagles on his shoulders; bleary, red-eyed, and apparently drunk. He did not even think to identify himself.

  “So you won, you bastards,” he growled in a slurred voice. “All th’ generals have fled to wherever, Switzerland, I think, to visit their bank accounts, an’ I’m the highest ranking officer left, so I got to surrender, I guess, not that it matters, ’cause there’s no army left anyway. So I surrender inna name of Free New Biafra, motherfuckers…”

  And he lifted his hand to his brow in a shaky salute.

  “Death to Free Biafra!” he shouted. “Long live United Nigeria!”

  He lowered his hand and peered closer into the camera as if speaking confidentially to it. “Now lemme tellya what United fuckin’ Nigeria has won. Not Igbo oil, hah, hah, hah, that’s all gone, the Americans sucked it dry, not the money they paid for it, that’s all in Switzerland. You didn’t even win the war. You didn’t beat us, Hausas, the Americans did. When there was no more oil to steal, they abandoned us. They screwed us! They betrayed us.”

  From somewhere off-camera he produced an automatic pistol. “You don’t even have anyone t’try for treason, United Nigerians. The government of New Biafra’s gone t’Europe along with the generals, an’ I’m all that’s left. Go try th’ majors, go try the captains, go try the sergeants! God bless fuckin’ America!”

  And he raised the pistol to his temple and blew a gory hole in his skull as the screen went blank.

  * * * *

  The celebration that broke out in the camp drowned out the terrible echo of that gunshot in my ears, and I was both propelled away from the televised nightmare and drawn outside into its joyous consequences. There was shouting, laughter, drumming, dancing, whisky and beer and kif passed around, and neither Moustapha nor any of his officers did anything to impede what turned into a wild party that went on and on into the afternoon unabated.

  But there was no joy in it for me or my jihadis. After all we had done, after more than half of my men had died, it had all been for worse than nothing. I made my way through the celebration to the jihadi camp in an ireful and shamed funk. Far from being the hero of a victory, it was the Americans who had delivered that victory to the Nigerians by successfully completing the only real mission they had had in the first place and leaving with their booty, leaving behind a betrayed people, and no doubt laughing all the while.

  All Osama the Gun and the Ski Mask Jihadis had accomplished was to give that treachery a flimsy mask of its own and the Americans a threadbare excuse to turn their satanic attention to the subjugation of the Caliphate, to dismember the only champion Dar al-Islam had, however imperfect, and thereby to deliver a crushing blow to Islam itself.

  I found that I could not long bear the sullen beaten silence and averted gazes of my men, and I left them to their chagrin and despair and returned to the headquarters of the thoroughly-defunct psychological warfare corps, to the solitary penance of watching the disaster in which I had been duped into playing no small part unfold on television, wondering what evil ploy of the Great Satan would reveal itself next.

  It was revealed within the hour by CNN, and in a manner that made it clear that it had been part of the satanic plan long before even the cutting off of food exports to the Caliphate, before the Americans had even created the republic of New Biafra. It came in the form of a so-called “leak” from the Pentagon, and aimed at the Caliphate to cow it into submission before the American ultimatum could even be answered.

  “CNN has learned from Pentagon sources that for the past twenty months the United States has been stockpiling oil in its Strategic Petroleum Reserve by importing a million barrels a day more than our military and civilian economy have been consuming, mostly from Biafra through a series of proxy purchases by American oil companies,” the announcer intoned breathlessly as if this was a breaking story uncovered by their intrepid reporters.

  CNN then produced an “expert” who explained that this would allow the American economy to function at a somewhat frugal though normal level for over a year without imports from either the Caliphate or the depleted Nigerian oil fields.

  “And military operations?” she was asked.

  “Would not be adversely affected for the same period, or much longer, if there should be a protracted war somewhere requiring manageable sacrifices on the part of the American people…”

  “Such as on the Arabian Peninsula?”

  The expert replied silently with the sort of smile that would have not been at all out of place on the face of a cat about to devour a succulent canary.

  * * * *

  That evening, after the sundown prayers, Caliphate Television broadcasted the Caliphate’s answer to the American ultimatum, delivered by the Caliph himself, and with live coverage arranged on CNN, Al Jazeera, and the BBC as well.

  “In the name of Allah, the All-Powerful, the Caliphate rejects the satanic ultimatum of the United States, demands that it remove its naval forces from the Persian Gulf, and warns that it will defend its territorial integrity with all the forces at its command against any aggression overt or covert, as is our right under the United Nations Charter and international law.”

  This much, no doubt prepared by the foreign ministry, he read woodenly from a sheet of paper as the temporal ruler. But then his visage changed, his eyes flashed defiance, his voice deepened, and he spoke words that were
clearly his own; as the successor to the rightful rule of the first Caliphate passed down from Allah through Mohammed and his descendants but destroyed by the Crusaders, and as the heir to the leadership of the Sons of Osama who had restored it.

  “We will oppose you, America, with all the weapons at our command, including the nuclear arsenal that Allah and the Sons of Osama have placed in our hands. For you have declared the Jihadi of Satan against Muslims everywhere, against Allah Himself, and should any American foot defile sacred Caliphate soil, should any attempt be made against the unity of Allah’s Caliphate, the Jihad will be upon you, America, and no American life will be spared. Your fleet will not be spared, your cities will not be spared, your heartland will not be spared. You may have the power to destroy our cities, our lands, our bodies, with your nuclear might, but you cannot destroy the souls of those who have faithfully entrusted them to Allah. You cannot destroy Islam, and Allah has given us the own power to make you pay with millions of American lives and the destruction of your evil civilization itself. Attack us with your nuclear weapons, and you will destroy yourselves by your own hands. Allahu Akbar!”

  “Allahu Akbar!” I shouted.

  Even I, who had been betrayed by the Caliphate, whose death it might have sought, found my soul nourished in its darkest hour by the Caliph’s words, the courage with which he had spoken them, and his faith in the triumph of Islam had restored my own.

  For this was to be the final battle in the Holy War between the forces of Allah’s Light and Satanic darkness. Islam had lost many battles but the time had come to win the war. It was the true and final Jihad that the Caliph had declared. And I knew in my heart that Allah the All Powerful would insure that His Faithful would prevail.