The attack on the United States Southern Command lasted only two minutes, but the damage was considerable. According to the security cameras in the parking lot, twenty-four mortar shells hit the facility, launched from the radio transmitter park just south of the complex. They bore through office roofs, blew craters in the tree-filled lawn in the center, destroyed dozens of offices, including the admirals, as well as the Fitness Center, SouthCom Barber and Southcom Shoppette. There were no human victims, mainly because the attack occurred at 4 a.m. on a Sunday morning.
The attackers got away cleanly, and very clever attackers they were: they had disabled traffic cams, left no equipment behind, and vanished long before the police, directed by SouthCom guards, found the trampled grass amidst the trees as the location of the attack. And by the time investigators had arrived, even the attackers footprints were hopelessly mixed with those of police.
Chaos reigned, helicopters circled, headlines crawled, anchormen panicked (This just in from Miami....), and President Trump tweeted from his breakfast table that WE WILL FIND ALL ATTACKERS AND THEY WILL BE HUNG. The search for the authors of the attack, if not the actual perpetrators, ended quickly because he revealed himself six hours later. The President of Bolivia made a televised speech to his country: the attack was in reprisal of two simultaneous American attacks on two Bolivian sites exactly six months before.
One was an attack on a building not far from La Paz Airport in which eleven people died; the target, to Americans, was a fentanyl factory. As Bolivia later demonstrated, however, that it was a pharmaceutical factory that created generic drugs using some of the same ingredients as in fentanyl. The other target, a large farm, really was the home of Carlos Ichamba, the biggest supplier of coca paste to the cartels in the north of the continent. Trump had crowed plenty about these attacks and laughed when President David Santos said that Bolivia would respond.
When President Santos finished his speech in Spanish to his country, acknowledging the attack in Miami, Bolivians en masse took to the streets, waving Bolivian flags and chanting slogans. President Santos then continued his speech in English, wanting, he said, Americans to hear directly from him.
"Exactly six months separates the Trump Administration's illegal attack on Bolivia," he said in perfect English, though with a clear Indiana swing to his words, as for ten years he had studied for his Ph.D. in medicine at the University of Indiana. American jet fighters illegally entered Bolivia through Chilean airspace from the Pacific and left through Peruvian airspace, flying low to evade radars. They killed innocent people at both places -- cleaning ladies, secretaries, warehouse workers. Carlos Ichamba, as we all know, was not at his home and is still alive. His wife and three children were not so lucky. Nor was his brother and his wife, or his six children, only two of whom survived.
"In attacking the United States, we were far more considerate: the only losses are material ones. Our intention was to send a message: Bolivia does not take lightly the violation of its territory and the murder of its people.
"Now then, with today's attack, we consider the matter finished. But if Americans want to fight, we will give you a fight, and on your territory. We will not send an army to your shores, but we won't need to. After all, this is the twenty-first century.
"Lastly, one note. After the infamous American attack on our country, I said that Bolivia would respond to it. A week later, a video created by a group of well-known comedians went viral, in which Bolivian soldiers dressed in ponchos storm the beaches of Florida. The invaders don't get far before people on the beach invite them to drink and share their fun, and the invasion collapses. Well, to Americans it was a funny sketch, which allowed them to ignore its clear tinge of racism; it was considered an insult by Bolivians. We hope that the same group of comedians will soon create a sketch about Bolivians in ponchos destroying U.S. Southern Command.
"Let me reiterate: we consider the matter of the American attack closed.But if there is any further attack on us, we will respond, and in American streets. I hope that the American administration will reflect on these events and that our two countries can continue with relations that are, if not normal, at least businesslike."
Businesslike, however, was not the word for the American reaction.
President Trump immediately slapped 1000 percent tariffs on Bolivian imports, calling it a "narco-terrorist nation," an "open sore on Latin America," and "a two-bit tinpot bunch of cokeheads." He said America would attack, and any nation that did not allow them passage would be considered in the same league as Bolivia and hit with the same huge tariffs -- and maybe more physical means of punishment.
In Peru and Chile, which stand between the Pacific Ocean and Bolivia, huge crowds poured into the streets, holding up pairs of green, yellow and red soccer balls that symbolized Bolivias cojones; their governments were thus compelled to reply that they felt Bolivia's attack was justified and they would not be bullied. By the end of the day, every country in Latin America saw such demonstrations.
In the United States, people were shocked: America had been attacked, and by a country where people lived on a dollar a day! Images played of the cavernous black craters (eight-ball head wounds, as one pundit direly described it) punched in the roofs of SouthCom, the shorthand term now on the lips of every anchor-man and -woman as if they drank their afternoon gin-and-tonics there. How had it happened? Where was our Border Patrol? The Navy? The Marines? The CIA? These agencies fanned out on news shows to point out the irksome blur of overlapping missions, of bureaucracy, of the delicate balance they must maintain between freedom of movement and the need for security. As to the complete disappearance of the attackers, one former Navy Seal laughed, "Law enforcement? It doesn't stand a chance against a well-trained team." This comment brought a prickly objection from another guest on the panel, a former FBI executive.
Yes, the media quickly swung into action and channeled the passions of citizens. Fox News, of course, followed the presidents lead and called for all manner of reprisals against Bolivia. "Do these people forget we're a nuclear power?" fumed a son of the president. Pundits scoffed at the refusal of Peru and Chile to allow the American army passage into Bolivia. "Who do they think they are?" cried one of those beautifully groomed savants on Fox and Friends. "Well, we need to change their glasses prescription and show them who," answered another.
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