The FBI, having analyzed the fragments of the mortars that hit the U.S. Southern Command in Miami, concluded that they had not come from Bolivia, but were from a U.S. Army batch that were obsolete and due for demolition; the servicemen in charge of transportation admitted that when they arrived at the company that would do the dismantling, they were two cases short. They speculated that they had been stolen during a stop at a roadside diner. Each case had held a dozen mortars; hence the twenty-four mortars that had been fired at SouthCom.
Conservatives as one called for war against Bolivia. "Any serious analyst knows that we cannot let another country attack us with impunity," wrote a Wall Street Journal columnist with that smug condescension that flavors conservative opinion. "We are the United States. We must send a message to anyone who dares to think about it that we will answer any attack with overwhelming force. This is the essence of deterrence. Yes, the American attack on Bolivia was probably unwise and, considering that the human target of the attack on the Ichamba mansion was not even there, poorly executed. But I repeat: we are the United States. Countries that provoke our wrath must put up with it. They do not teach us lessons. We teach them lessons."
An emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council ended with a unanimous vote reprimanding Bolivia for its attack, but recognizing its right to self-defense; another vote, asking the United States to refrain from further action, was vetoed by the United States.
By that time, an aircraft carrier group was already sailing down the Pacific coast. "We will flatten them," tweeted President Trump. "Bolivia is a country in the Andes mountains? That ends now. It will be a flat country, AND BURIED UNDER RUBBLE."
The next day, President Santos appeared on television, again giving his speech first in Spanish, and then in English. "We had hoped that, as many thoughtful Americans have said, the matter would end with our attack. President Trump has decided otherwise. So it is necessary for us to give the Americans a warning. Tomorrow at noon, there will be an enormous explosion in the state of Missouri. Again, we will take care that there are no victims. But it is the only warning that we intend to give. After this, if the American government continues with its plans, on every Tuesday and Saturday, air traffic will be disrupted from coast to coast until the government calls off its war of aggression. I ask everyday Americans: Are you in favor of your government's actions? And more to the point, do you have any control over your government?"
Ever cautious, President Trump answered, "IF SO MUCH AS A FIRECRACKER GOES OFF IN MISSOURI, SANTOS WILL ANSWER WITH HIS LIFE."
Camera crews flew en masse to Missouri. Missourians were canvassed for their opinions.
"Yeah, I heard there was some problem with B'livia," said one. "Folks in Missouri never bothered 'em. Don't know why they're comin' here."
"Must be 'cause were the center of the country," said another. "I mean, you look at a decent U.S. map, you see that. Ev'body says it's Kansas, but you take Alaska an Hawaii outta the 'quation, and it's really Missouri."
The explosion went off in the early morning hours between second and third base of Softball Field 2, leaving a crater twenty feet deep in the infield. More significant was the location of the softball field: Whiteman Air Force Base in central Missouri, home to the Air Force's famous B-2 Spirit Stealth bombers. The base commander said that, yes, there was security all around the base, but it was mainly focused on the hangars where the bombers were kept. "Besides, softball season's over 'cept for the championship: Fluid Mechanics versus Canteen," he said, "and we can play that on 3."
But the shockwave, besides setting off alarms all over the base, reached to average Americans: if Bolivia could set off an explosion in the very center of the U.S., their warning about airports certainly had weight. Business leaders and airline executives now began contacting the White House and asking for negotiations with Bolivia. President Trump would not hear of it.
By Tuesday, the carrier group was moving south along the coast of Peru, which with Chile had declared that it would not allow the United States military to pass through its land or airspace. President Milei of Argentina, a proud friend of President Trump, said he would be happy to allow Americans transit, but as either the crow or the F-15 flies, that would mean a thousand miles to Bolivia, and another four hundred to La Paz. The distance from the Pacific Ocean to La Paz was only two hundred miles. Still, Tuesday came and went without incident in American airports, though cancellations had been multitudinous.
The first attacks on Bolivia occurred on Friday. In La Paz, the capital building, La Casa Grande del Pueblo, was badly damaged by missiles, as was the congressional building, in Bolivia's second capital city of Sucre. Four military bases were also attacked. In total, some forty deaths were reported. Critics loudly asked why these facilities had not been warned beforehand, as Bolivia had been careful to avoid casualties; to which President Trump tweeted with unusual poetry, "It's no use spanking someone with a cushion. A little blood just might FOCUS THEIR ATTENTION."
To no avail, Chile and Peru both protested the brazen violation of their airspace; American fighters hadn't even bothered to fly below the radar. President Santos, hiding deep in a web of copper mines, issued a radio address to the country, saying that with the full support of the Plurinational Legislative Assembly, the Bolivian legislature, he had ordered a counterattack on the United States.
On Saturday, the counterattack occurred. At 10 a.m., drones began flying around the airports of three cities: Cincinnati, Memphis, and Las Vegas. For twenty minutes, two or three drones about five feet in diameter appeared in each place, swooping around the runways. When one drone flew off, another took its place, this for two hours. Protocols mandated that air traffic must stop because a drone could hit aircraft engines during takeoff or landing. By three o'clock, the airplanes were cleared to begin moving again, but the drones reappeared, now in Portland, Providence, and New Orleans, also flying for another two hours before disappearing. Because airplanes scheduled to pass through those cities remained grounded, the disruption rippled across the nation, and flights by the hundreds were canceled.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
