Chapter 7: "Don't Drone Me, Bro!"
Shaggy came in with bad news.
"We droned another wedding party."
I faceplanted. "Which country?"
"Pakistan."
"God help us! One of these days they'll get pissed off enough to nuke us. We would blow up a wedding party in the only Islamic country to possess a nuclear weapon."
"You could stop it, you know. You are the commander-in-chief, right? Can't the commander-in-chief order an end to drone attacks?"
"You mean I don't have to get a mission termination through Congress?"
"That's right!"
I grabbed Shaggy and took him down to the lobby. To the hot dog stand. Ben's Chili Dogs. "Give him all the hot dogs he can eat." I handed the employee a fifty-dollar bill. That ought to buy enough hot dogs to stuff even Shaggy. I hurried back to my office to make a phone call. Bye-bye drone program. The Pentagon gave me no hassle at all. The general on the other end of the line seemed, if anything, rather relieved.
"Can you set up another address, Shaggy? How many days do you need?"
The delay gave me a bit of time to think.
"Good evening, everyone. Still haven't been impeached or assassinated. I'd like to talk to you about drone attacks in the Muslim world. We just blew up another wedding party in Pakistan, and, I'm sure, created a whole new slew of angry, revenge-obsessed terrorists. Instead of the usual empty apology of mouthing the words 'our hearts go out to yada yada yada' and blowing up another wedding party in two months, I'm going to try something completely different. Our drone attacks have nailed a few terrorists in the Muslim world, but we've killed so many civilians that we're probably creating more terrorists than we kill. So no more drone attacks anywhere in the world. Yes, that's right. If you're a Muslim kid, you no longer have to be afraid of blue sky. We're not going to do it anymore. Moreso, I am ordering closed all U.S. military bases in Saudi Arabia. Our bases there are a sore point with locals, and I don't see the point of having military bases in the Middle East to guard oil that we dare not burn anyway due to the increasing effect of global climate change. So our soldiers in the Middle East will be coming home. First from Saudi Arabia, and eventually from the entire Muslim World. Uncle Sam is coming home. No more world policeman. No more CIA meddling in the Middle East. No more support for dictators. No more phony color revolutions anywhere. We are done with that. Have a nice day, everyone."
"Oh, one last thing. All you potheads who got arrested today for marijuana offenses are all pardoned."
End of Chapter 7