|
Updated Sunday 15 May, 2011 12:18 PM |
|
|
Join Writer Development Section Writer Development Member Section
This Day in Alternate History Blog
|
Part 2 [my
apologies for the delay] [we
resume midway through the 23rd of March 2004 in this ATL] In
the Indian Ocean supposedly civilian Chinese merchants ships turn out to have
some armament and have taken any tanker they can find under control, diverting
them towards China. There are naval
clashes between these actions and various Western fleets essentially trying to
do the same thing. This leads to
some bizarre situations as the fighting from the Indo-Paki war also spills into
the same seas. By the end of
daylight in this ocean many navies are at shoot first, ask questions later.
The USN has repulsed Iranian attempts to cross the Gulf [we will never
know if this was actually ordered from Tehran or was opportunistic response by
local commanders or attempts to defend the often Farsi speaking Shia Arabs of
the gulf states or kleptocracy or…]. Street
fighting rages across most Gulf cities with pogroms against expats, especially
the 3rd world ones who lack armed compounds, and against Shiia.
The Saudi NG and Army have dissolved into armed bands under various
princes or officers. Someone has
blown the main shrines in Mecca. Al J is broadcasting the tape with blame being assigned to
the US and Israel instead of the various Saudi factions. Egypt
has melted down. Iraq is doing
mutual pogroms while the US and Coalition forces essentially dig into their
bases and watch. Turkey is
threatening to send troops into Kurdistan while the Kurds have declared
independence and are ethnically cleansing the region. The
EU has managed to keep the Greeks and Turks at truce but both are mobilizing. Israel
has won its war and the Palestinians of the occupied lands are fleeing to Egypt,
Jordan. A hundred thousand crazies
are conducting essentially leaderless resistance.
They are well armed, untrained and inept but Israel’s settlement policy
has given them enough targets to tie up the Israeli defense forces for some
days. Hezbollah is firing every
rocket it has into northern Israel, some with chem. Warheads which in turn is
pulling off much of the Israeli Air Force into taking out anything that moves in
South Lebanon. With the gloves off
everyone in south Lebanon is running for Beirut.
Hezbollah is using the refugee columns as cover and the Israelis are not
spending much effort on target verification.
Some Egyptian units have tried to cross Sinai to aid the Palestinians.
There is civil disorder in Jordan from the armed refugee exodus. Africa’s
oil industry is essentially shut and the Nigerian CW has spread to all its
neighbors with no end in sight. Serbia
and Macedonia are mobilizing and Croatia has begun emergency callups.
With KFOR out of the picture the entire Albanian population of Kosovo,
Macedonia and rump Yugoslavia are running for their lives.
Greece has sealed its borders. Italy
is putting recalled reservists along the Adriatic coast and threatening to use
deadly force against refugee ships. The
Chechens have set off radiological weapons on the Moscow underground. Putin has proclaimed martial law and ordered the FSB to
arrest ‘all suspect elements’. Russian
forces are rounding up the population of Chechnya and have taken control of the
major cities of Georgia. Iran has
set off something that produces radiation.
They claim it is a nuke. Yield
seems way too low but the neighbors are panicked. French
and Spanish have set up detention camps and are rounding up anyone who looks: Arab The
port cities of the Benelux also experience major disorders and some sabotage
especially against fuel facilities Algeria
has responded to this by suspending fuel deliveries. Jihadis
in London have sent suicide bombers into the City of London and Underground.
They kill thousands. Blair
has invoked old time DORA powers and orders mass roundups.
Labor splits over this but the Tory leadership announces they will
support this on a party whip vote. They
form a national coalition without even being given ministries.
This causes further Labor defections such that Blair will within a day
find himself the captive of Tory votes to keep him in office [Lloyd George in
1918], and with a mixed cabinet after Labor resignations.
With police resources overstretched there are riots of Muslims and
lefties in major cities and counter riots by a weird mix of National Front
yahoos plus Hindus plus Sikhs plus African Christians looking for payback.
Obviously there are many cases of opportunistic theft and mistaken
identity. Crossing
the Atlantic Fidel decides to go down in a blaze of glory and declares himself
at war with the US in solidarity with Chavez.
He seizes a hundred thousand first world tourist hostages and begins
sending shells into Gitmo. The
US lacks naval and ground strength but does have air units available. B-1’s
and B-2’s roar over Cuba. Within
24 hours the infrastructure will be out and such heavy weapons as the US can
find will be toast. However
thousands of first world human shields will be dead, a dozen US planes will be
lost as the Cuban AF fights with great bravery and Gitmo will still be being
sporadically shelled. The
US-Latin war will be the final straw in Mexico’s internal peace.
Spurred on by leftist activists and Latin solidarity mobs of young people
will attack the neighborhoods of the rich and of the First World expats.
The military will not honor Fox’s orders to fire on their own to
protect foreigners. It won’t
exactly be a coup. It will be more
like the PRI structure reasserting itself.
Party bosses plus local officials plus union bosses plus police and
military officers. They will have a
shaky hold on most major cities. Millions
will be in flight to the US. Drug
and other gangs will have control of some neighborhoods and rural areas.
The PRI bosses will collectively sort of have the country but will have
no one of them particularly in charge. The
left and the mobs will be calling for an oil cutoff and to join the Latin Axis
against the US. The US will be
demanding protection for its citizens and saying that an oil cutoff will be
treated as an act of war. The
maquiladoras will be out of business putting millions out of work. The remittances to the US will have stopped dead and everyone
with any money will be running for their Houston or Miami bank accounts.
Hordes of people will flood the US from TJ, Juarez etc while hundreds of
thousands of US Latins will be heading south in their pickup trucks to get the
extended family. Texas will have some control of the border but San Diego
county and much of southern Arizona will be in a state of anarchy.
The
basic US infrastructure will be working but the financial system will
essentially be out of order. Big
cities with mass transit will be working although very heavily policed.
Rural areas and suburbs will rapidly be running out of gasoline and goods
on the shelf – just in time means everything works or nothing does.
No reserves for oops. UPS
and Fedex are only doing emergency delivery.
The Post Office admits it is at best partially functional.
The House has given Bush emergency powers but the Senate refuses [60 vote
rules]…partisanship plus a system designed to slow down things for reflection.
Bush is trying to deal with the media politics.
Cheney is issuing edicts that much of the bureaucracy is ignoring.
People are getting court orders overturning anything and everything
everyone is doing. So things are
working better red state than blue but the electronic media is amplifying
everything. Many cities are under
dusk to dawn curfew so people are sitting at home watching the cable nets
compete on turning rumor into fear. Internet
is doing an even better job of magnifying hysteria. Many banks have closed after cash runs ran them dry.
The credit card/ATM system works sometimes in some places but no one
wants to take plastic. USN
has nothing near Venezuela but manages to stage a few planes through PR to
support the anti-Chavez forces. Columbians
do better and take most of the border. Marines
get a new stanza to write in their hymn the embassy guard goes down like the
French at Camerone when the ammo runs out.
Militia slaughters everyone there. Columbian
supporting air strikes take out Aristide who was with the mob outside as
fraternal observer. In
Panama the Chinese company running the canal arms their employees to hold it for
‘duration of the emergency’. In
El Salvador the ARENA government orders arrest of FMLN politburo and declares
war on the Latins fighting the US. Sandanista
coup in Managua. Riots in Argentina
and Brazil from massive layoffs and fuel shortages. Brazilians warn Columbia against spreading the war.
Columbia’s answer would sound better in Spanish but concerns
Portuguese/Brazilian sexual proclivities. Columbian
president does autogolpe like Fujimoro in Peru.
Costa Rica declares neutrality. Chilean
military sweetly inform their government that they expect it to display
solidarity with their Spanish brethren in Columbia against the Portuguese
menace. As
midnight comes the freeways north from San Diego are littered with hundreds of
thousands of abandoned cars as people fleeing the SD chaos run out of gas.
The governor asks for volunteers for a state guard to control the chaos
and the NRA offers to email its membership list.
Arnold agrees. As
the 24th begins in the Far East, anti-Chinese pogroms begin in
Indonesia, Philippines, and Malaysia. Singapore
seals its borders to non-Han and asks for Chinese protection.
Units of China’s South Seas Fleet are dispatched into the South China
Sea. Malaysia and Philippines
control the worst of the rioting. The
Indonesian government basically implodes. Between
nationalism, Islam and general misery the nation was primed before what happened
in Pakistan and Mecca. The Arab sat
nets have been pouring gasoline onto the fire and the TV images are horrific
enough. Various army and police units either take local control or
dissolve to join the mobs. They
kill Chinese, First Worlders, Christians, Eurasians, anyone with money…scratch
one more oil source. The US –
Japanese patrol ships in the straits intervene as they can but it is hopeless.
Australia announces that it will sink refugee boats on sight.
Modifies that within an hour to exempt any with Chinese flag [any of the
three Chinese states] after Peking points out missile ranges and percentage of
Aussies in cities. DC is even more
distracted so US ambassador endorses everything on his own hook. He is in contact with Pearl and resources permitting Pacific
Command HQ will back his play. Not
a mutiny but beginnings of the US military adopting a do something approach to
the DC decision making meltdown. In
Korea Kim Jong Il decides saber rattling is in order. SK government goes into panic mode and asks US forces to
leave. SK situation just doesn’t
rate in DC so Pearl says yes on their own, starts negotiating with SK for planes
and ships to move men and equipment. Kim
likes this idea and fires a few missiles past Japan. Japanese announce that all Americans leaving SK are welcome
in Okinawa and that they will aid in relocation.
Japan severs relations with NK and tells Peking they will hold them
responsible for their mad dogs. Japanese
explode a nuke off Hokkaido and admit they have such weapons.
Two hours later Taiwan does the same.
The basement nukes are coming out into daylight.
The
SK political decision finishes their financial situation.
Their economy functions as part of a US-Japanese global structure.
At loggerhead’s with both, plants start trying to close and getting
seized by their workers with government encouragement. The
two main China’s are having small air-sea skirmishes in the Straits and
cooperating to save the Diaspora in southeast Asia. Similarly the US and China are skirmishing at sea in the
Indian Ocean and cooperating in Indonesia.
Pakistan
has melted down. Musharef has died
overnight. With him went what was
left of government in Pakistan. Sunni
gangs wander the countryside killing Shia.
Indian army units hack their way in while the Pakistani border units and
urban militias essentially die in their tracks.
The dead of South Asia have passed thirty million and are rising by the
hour. Hindu mobs are slaughtering
every Indian Muslim they can catch. The
twenty biggest cities between the two countries are gone.
Only scattered Pakistani planes still operate.
Their navy is destroyed. Perhaps
one hundred million people have fled the cities.
The railroads of all three nations have ceased organized functioning so
people are eating areas bare like locusts then fighting over the crumbs.
Indian government is still functional but many regional and local
officials are working out of central control. Refugees
from Bangladesh are swarming the Burmese border. The ones not slaughtered by Burmese troops are fighting with
the Burmese border natives for food and survival.
In
Afghanistan the Northern Alliance militias are on an anti-Pushtun pogrom.
They have occupied Kabul and are looting at will.
In the south various drug gangs and tribal militias, few overtly Taleban
but many sympathetic, are killing everyone not kin they can catch.
The few US units are laggered and trying to protect those foreigners they
can. The main bases at Khandahar
and Bagrum are safe but there are no resupply flights coming in. The
Saudi civil war has by now spilled over into the other Gulf emirates except
Kuwait where the US military are maintaining a death grip backed by the nominal
government of the Emir. The
US forces are extracting trapped US and 3rd country civilians where
they can in the other Gulf countries but the copter and Marine resources in the
Gulf as opposed to Iraq are limited and the problems limitless.
Yemen is keeping the lid on barely but has announced it will close the
Red Sea Straits to shipping. [this
is a meaningless gesture with Suez closed]. Unable
to get DC’s attention, Central Command has started consolidating coalition
units to leapfrog them back to Kuwait. The
US embassy in Baghdad keeps vetoing the decisions and getting ignored.
Central Command has negotiated with the Shiia for safe passage out and
with the Turks that US compounds in the north will be spared the invasion that
begins this day. The slaughter of the Sunni is reaching epic proportions while
the local Turkomen are fleeing to US or Turkish forces. The surviving Christians are trying to do the same.
The Kurdish militias are fighting and cleansing while many Kurdish
civilians are running south for the Shiia zones.
The ex-Iranian Peoples Muj units are laggering into the Coalition retreat
while Iranian revolutionary Guards are coming across to join the fun, intervene
between rival Shia militias and procede onwards into Saudi.
The
US and Iran are shooting it out in the Gulf.
Tehran will late in the day threaten nukes against the USN.
And before dawn have lost every nuke facility, port, army base and
airfield to US airstrikes. The
radiological disasters will interest the US not at all.
The US forces will also smash the Iranian oil facilities flat.
Scratch another oil source. Many
lower US commanders in Iraq have decided they have more ammo than they will be
able to transport. Payback is a
bitch. They are spending it on any
Sunni target. Some Sunni Arab
leaders are trying to open negotiations with Ankara about the Turks going all
the way to Baghdad…the surviving Sunni can always be the Turks’s dogs again.
They had centuries of practice. The
Jordanian Army is maintaining order, barely.
Al Q is off the air. Cairo is broadcasting enough poison but with shorter
range. The Syrians are pouring
troops into Lebanon trying to maintain order.
Many Sunni and Christian Lebanese have called Ankara asking intervention.
Israel is halfway into the Sinai ‘as a protective measure’ as Egypt
has passed meltdown. Mubarek and son are on Egyptian TV hanging from meathooks but
no one in particular has seized the reins yet.
The army has some partially functional units but the police have
dissolved into the mobs looting the cities and hanging every secular and
foreigner they catch. A small
armada of refugee ships with Copts and foreigners is heading for Greece but
Coptic Egypt is dieing fast and hard. Egyptian
TV is broadcasting the slaughter with glee.
In
the Balkans a wave of Albanians has hit Italy.
The carabinari and army have rounded up many but as the Albanians came
armed blood has been shed on both sides. Italians
are fleeing the coastal zones as though the Barbary pirates are back.
Italy is trying to round up the several millions Arabs, Muslims and other
foreigners but few Italians have their hearts in it.
Many churches, union halls and other public places are giving sanctuary
and what police can be spared are more than willing to ignore anyone not on the
street making trouble. Italy will
avoid the chaos of the other EU cities. Kosovo
and Macedonia are solving their Albanian problem the old Balkan way.
The Croat sections of BH announce union with Croatia and the Serb with
Serbia. Both ‘improve’ their
positions at the expense of the Bosniaks. The
Muslim militias fight as ineptly as usual and the NATO/EU forces start pulling
out. Albania declares war on Serbia.
Greece takes in those refugees willing to disarm but puts them behind
wire. The
EU warns Turkey halfheartedly about Iraq and Lebanon but is more concerned with
Turkey and Greece not having at it. Faced
with Kurdish riots in many EU cities over the Turkish-Kurd war, the EU decides
for once that suppression might be the wiser course.
Kurdish militants are arrested, rioters are fired upon and the rest of
the EU’s Kurds warned that disorder will produce deportation to Turkey.
In
Russia Chechen suicide bombers take out two major oil pipelines.
Civil liberties are suspended [such as they still were].
Russia’s roundups in Chechnya produce a flood of refugees but
essentially they have no place to go. Putin
offers to let any Muslim who wants out and isn’t wanted by the police leave
for Turkey. The Turks offer to
settle them in soon to be vacant Kurdistan.
Azerbaijan is flooded with refugees from Iran.
The trapped Georgians flee in circles.
The Stans de facto start aligning themselves with Moscow as does North
Afghanistan. The
Moroccan Army is maintaining order with EU support but jihadis take out the king
and palace with a Beruit sized suicide truck bomb.
French commandos restore order in Equatorial Guinea enough that the oil
can keep pumping but cannot keep the Nigerian holocaust from taking down
Cameroun and Chad. Scratch two more
oil sources. Civil
liberties are suspended throughout the EU.
Rioters face fire and then internment camps. Illegals are being swept from the streets. Blair
is restoring order such as it is. Roundups
of even vaguely suspect Muslims or leftists are accelerating.
The countermobs are dispersed but not arrested unless they use violence
against the police or army. Blair
starts looking at reopening coal pits and suspends oil exports.
Scratch another source. The
world chaos breaks the logjam in the Senate.
A ten vote Democratic rump [red state people] defect to the GOP.
Emergency powers pass. Habeus
corpus suspended by act of Congress. Marines
from Pendleton given a mission of reasserting order in San Diego while the
Governator’s new state guard has greater LA in a 36 hour curfew to allow
things to clear up. The guard
amounts to an armed posse with a policeman or reservist in uniform in charge.
They do roadblocks, street sweeps. Arnie
announces that laws be damned – until things sort out residence equals
citizenship. He wants the state ID
carded as without gasoline rationing nothing will work.
CA legislature is trying to impeach him but he is relying on charisma and
derivate emergency powers from DC. Texas
is holding up better but has essentially annexed the far side of the Rio Grande
under the rump of the Mexican PAN party people. Federal Circuit Court of Appeals in SF is issuing injunctions
against everything but USSC breaks ranks and for once in its history issues a
declaratory judgment relying on Bush v Gore [same 5-4 on issuing a judgment and
the result] – key words are that the constitution is not a suicide pact.
Bush [which means Cheney] can run government by decree without court
interference. Many office holders
at state and local levels are not accepting this to say the least and media is
in full feeding frenzy [Bushies have NOT imposed censorship but have grabbed all
3 C-Span feeds for endless government announcements].
Mexican
meltdown is hemoraging dead, damages and refugees. Oil facilities effectively done in by Mexican leftists,
Cubans and Al Q people [they are undefended and many Mexicans will help to keep
their oil out of Yankee hands]. Guatemalan
army stages coup, joins US block. Massive
riots in Haiti when news of Aristide’s death comes in.
The 1st world peacekeepers go force protection on their ROE.
A bunch of old regime militias affiliate themselves to the 1st
worlders and the rest of Haiti implodes. After
half a day of mutual massacre the DR sends troops across the border to stop the
flood of refugees. These troops
take a shoot first approach, especially towards anyone showing affinity for
Aristide. US
air strength is switched from Cuba to Venezuela – longer flight but there is
PR to refuel and by the end of the day there will be Santo Domingo as well.
As Chavez has broadcast the slaughter at the embassy anything except the
oil industry is fair game. Venezuelan
army as an organized force goes. Oil
fields go as Chavez orders it blown in retaliation.
Brazil offers to ‘mediate’ and sends ‘volunteers’ to Caracas.
Most die in the air when US planes shoot them out of the sky.
Brazil threatens to treat as an act of war.
Chile
has been recalling reservists. This
prompts Bolivia and Argentina to do the same.
Their only ‘action’ has been a planeload of ammo sent to Bogotá.
However a mob of Bolivian Indio led by a local militia get in a fire
fight with a Chilean border post. There
are nationalist issues back to the Great War of the Pacific and ‘racial’
issues – the Indios perceive Chile as ‘white’.
Prodded by their military and nationalist sentiment in their populace
Santiago threatens Bolivia that if they cannot control their border, Chile will
take ‘necessary measures’. The
Bolivian government has no control of most of the country but for nationalist
reasons will not publicly admit it. Argentina
and Brazil express support of Bolivia. Peru
makes a few pro-Chilean noises [Chile was their enemy in the war but the
Bolivian Indos have made trouble on the Peruvian border too].
Columbia
is using its freedom of action to chase FARC and ELN units out of their base
areas. AUC are ordered to reform
their units in open aid of the army. EU
NGO’s have a cow but in this new world who cares.
Columbian air strikes haven’t the GPS targeting ability of US ones but
have zero scrupples about chasing purely civilian targets.
Venezuela begins to melt down.
|
