In the year 2017, India, China, the Middle East, and Central Asia realized that their subjugation to Western powers was little more than a hangover from colonial times.
Meanwhile, American economic, moral and military power had been on the wane for years, and modern Britain was little more than a small, resource-poor island.
Emboldened by the changing tides, Asia and the Middle East joined forces. United by a series of mutual defense treaties and a federated government, this colossal union of nations became known as Megastan. It quickly became the world’s only superpower.
Megastan was careful to maintain its image as a benevolent hegemon; they understood the vital role of soft power in maintaining power inexpensively and sustainably.
But if a smaller power stepped too far out of line—if, for example, a Central American country with important strategic assets defied great power interests by insisting on ownership of its own resources—the Megastani government was not shy about undertaking covert “corrective” operations, some of which overthrew thriving democracies(2) in order to install regimes more amenable to Megastani interests.
Public anger swelled across the globe as these and other underhanded economic and military policies became more widely understood. Attacks against Megastani interests and allies increased above and beyond the ordinary small minority of criminals, fanatics, psychopaths and terrorists who populate the world in proportion to the fear and loathing of the times.
But protests were effectively suppressed, and attacks were mostly small enough to treat as local matters.
Autumn of the American Democracy
Meanwhile, with Megastan rapidly gaining strength, devastating environmental and economic problems looming, journalism turned into little more than a burlesque show of slick, vapid ranters, and the Constitution in tatters from long abuse, the American democracy seemed to have lost its vigor.
A new party, the Re-Awakening Party (RAP),(3) appeared on the scene and engineered elections in their favor by hacking into electronic voting machines. The American Democracy Show continued, but Democracy as such formally died that day. The few brave Americans who opposed the putsch were labeled traitors and dealt with severely.
Within the Re-Awakening Party, one unlikely figure rose to prominence. Humble in public, the young man moved steadily, determinedly, and stealthily to create a new political reality that he would dominate because he alone knew what it was. His name was
Maddox Houston.(4)
After seizing the reins of power, President Houston concentrated on those whose loyalty he felt he could count on the most: the people close to him on the East Coast. By favoring them with wealth and power over the nation, he made sure they had a stake in his system and would help him maintain his hold on power.
To increase his popularity in the rest of America, Houston released all the Guantanamo detainees (which made his detention of other dissenters seem more reasonable), developed free and universal health care, invested in new infrastructure projects—including efficient power stations with the latest green technology—and modernized and expanded the police and armed forces. American secondary education was thoroughly modernized, universities were well-funded, and there was plenty of
foord and jobs for everyone.(5)
Unfortunately, just when things were looking reasonably good for most Americans, Houston foolishly tried to expand his power and popularity even further by invading a weakened Mexico.
The vicious border dispute degenerated into ruthless, static trench warfare that lasted for eight years. Tens of thousands were
killed and maimed on both sides.(6) In the end, the war was even costlier and more demoralizing than Vietnam.
Megastan had an interest in an American victory because it feared destabilization if the left-leaning Latin Americans created an arc of influence in the
strategic Americas.(7)
So when things were looking desperate for America, Megastan provided Houston with indispensable intelligence, arms (including chemical and biological weapons), money, foodstuffs, and
political support.(8)
A Megastani presidential envoy, led by future Defense Minister
Dan al-Rumfalid,(9)
made a secret visit to President Houston to express his
personal support for the American cause.(10)
Meanwhile, with President Houston tied down at the Rio Grande, California Mexicans and Leftists began to fight for their own independence from Houston’s America, which effectively aided the Mexican side. Houston had already used chemical weapons to demoralize and terrorize the relentless Mexicans, and now he turned his tactics on his own rebellious citizens.
Houston recruited gangsters, criminals, and Californians with grievances against the rebels to rape, rob, and murder the Lefty agitators and drive tens of thousands from their homes. In the most dramatic of many horrible events, San Diego was bombarded with chemical weapons, killing four thousand
men, women, and children.(11)
Megastan continued to support America without reservation. They downplayed Houston’s atrocities and refused global calls for
boycotts against the regime.(12)
See also: Stiglitz, Joseph, Globalization and its Discontents, W. W. Norton & Company, 2002. (Link is to a review by the New York Review of Books.)
It is also little understood in America that Zbigniew Brzezinski under President Carter, and then the American Congress under Ronald Reagan, armed and funded some of the worst elements of the Afghani mujahideen who fought the Soviet Union in the 1980s. This led to the rise of both the Taliban and Osama bin Laden. At the time it was considered a great victory, though it killed and otherwise destroyed millions of people, because it demoralized the Soviet Union and helped precipitate the fall of that teetering empire. But many of our most pressing foreign policy problems today can be traced directly or indirectly to our support of the fundamentalists of the Afghani mujahideen and our unwillingness to take responsibility for the enormous human cost of our actions.
See: Peter Bergen and Alec Reynolds, “Blowback Revisited,” Foreign Affairs, November/December 2005. Reprinted here.
Roger Morris, a former State Department foreign service officer who was on the National Security Council staff during the Johnson and Nixon administrations, claims that the CIA had a hand in the 1968 coup that set Saddam on the path to power.
See: Morgan, David, “Ex-U.S. Official Says CIA Aided Baathists,” Reuters, April 20, 2003.
The Iran-Contra Affair was one of the largest political scandals in the United States during the 1980s. It involved several members of the Reagan Administration who in 1986 helped sell arms to Iran, an avowed enemy, and used the proceeds to fund the Contras, an anti-communist guerrilla organization in Nicaragua, without informing Congress or the American people.
Shaking Hands: Iraqi President Saddam Hussein greets
Donald Rumsfeld, then special envoy of President
Ronald Reagan, in Baghdad on December 20, 1983.
“Long denied and illegally hidden from Congress... documents on [Rumsfeld’s] two missions have been declassified and can be viewed at www.nsarchive.org. Rumsfeld now says he ‘cautioned’ Saddam not to use poison gas, but there is no mention of this in the minutes of his meetings. He said that the United States was eager for friendly business and governmental relationships. Meanwhile, President Reagan had instructed government officials to do whatever was ‘necessary and legal’ to prevent Iraq from losing the war. To this end, the United States either supplied directly or arranged for others to supply conventional weapons, cluster bombs, anthrax, and other biological weapons materials as well as components for nuclear weapons and equipment to manufacture poison gas.”
