The Enemy Gap

       “The world is doomed. Perestroika killed the Soviet Union as an enemy. The Eastern Bloc countries are all turning to democracy, The Germanys are bracing for reunification. Panama and Nicaragua have changed leadership. Even South Africa is in danger of experiencing freedom. Now there’s even talk of a Peace Dividend from cuts in defense spending. This is a grave situation.”

       Fargo sat back in his chair, indicating he had finished his report. The guys from the club were all assembled in my office. We called ourselves the Supra Intelligence Club, we had no official name since we were not supposed to exist. The National Security Agency created the club but they kept us a secret. There were four of us that were SIC, and all four sat silently looking at each other.

       It was obvious what we were all thinking though no one said it aloud. The U.S. was experiencing an Enemy Gap. I had to speak.

       ”The United States has always had enemies. It needs enemies. The U.S. has survived because it has always known it was the best. This Superiority complex has been sustained by always keeping someone inferior, whether they really are or not. When we lost one enemy, there was always another to take its place. The U.S. now has a Respect surplus. The average American now respects almost three times as many foreign governments as he or she did five years ago. This respect has led to a lack of B.G., or Bad Guys. With no B.G.’s available the Superiority complex is crumbling. The U.S. depends on being the best. We must act now. Any suggestions?’

       Des Moines spoke up. ”I have one, Ogden. How about if we topple a Central American government and put in our own dictator? He could be a real bastard, slaughter his own people, that kind of stuff.”

       Everyone just looked at him and rolled their eyes. Fargo was the first to respond. “Des Moines, can’t you at least TRY to be original? I was thinking more along the lines of a guerilla leader, maybe a military coup.”

       “No.  That’s the CIA’s style,” I said, “We need something really dangerous, plainly evil and easy to dehumanize. Someone the whole country can really get behind and HATE.”

       The room quieted down and everyone sat looking blankly into their “ABSCAM” coffee mugs.

       Lansing finally broke the silence, “Why don’t we take a remote place and give them nuclear capabilittes?”

       Everyone stared at Lansing with their mouths open. Lansing had been the one who invented the “War on Drugs.” That was a good one, but it didn’t have the antipathy that we needed right now.

       I was the first to speak. “You’ve done it again. I’m just mad I didn’t think of it first, But where do we do it?”

       Fargo grabbed the globe from my desk and gave it a spin. “Say when” he called.

       ‘Now” I said. The globe continued to spin.

       “When,” said Lansing. Fargo stopped the globe’s spinning with his finger, and peered at the spot he had pointed to.

       ”Easter Island,” he exclaimed.

       ‘That’s it,” l said. We were about to close the Enemy Gap.

       I volunteered to fill out the requisition forms for the missiles. I wouldn’t have lf I had remembered what a pain it was, I had to look up my Social Security number, then call home to get my phone number from Mom. Lansing came into my office just as I was finishing up.

 “How many Megatons?’ he asked,

 “Just a few dozen,” I answered, ”I don’t want to cause any trouble, you know?”

 He nodded Agreement.

 “Hey, who do we give the stuff to? I mean, does anybody live there?” he asked.

 “Yea. Fargo said some big tall bozos with huge heads.”

 “I think those guys are stone statues,” Lansing replied.

 “Oh. right. Well we’ll just ship son migrant workers there. Tell ‘em they won a vacation from Ed McMahon.”

 “Got it. I’ll go to immigration and pull some green card applications. Talk to you later.” Lansing left.

       It was only about a month later that the missiles were on their way to Easter Island with four Mexican families. The operation would take a while because we had to ship them by boat. I still can’t believe they don’t have an airport,. The Pentagon almost messed things up too, because they sent us 10 less Megatons than I asked for. They were nice enough about it though and they sent us 100 Stinger missiles free of charge. We gave the Mexicans all the supplies they would need: food, the mission directive, and a tape player with several Julio Iglesias cassettes. All they had to do was read and follow the directive. All we had to do was wait. They set sail humming the Theme from the Tonight Show.

       According to the plan, the Mexicans should have sent threatening notes to the President, maybe a phone call, and then send up a missile to reinforce the threatening tone. Then we’d have ourselves one hell of a solid enemy.

       A month went by with no word from the Mexicans, then a postcard showed up in the mail. It was addressed to me, care of “the department of sneaky gringos.” It had a picture of a sunset, and on the back was written in Spanish “Having a good time, Wish you were here. Thanks for the tape. Julio rules. Yours truly, Juan and Amigos.”

       Every great plan had some snafus, and ours just hit a big one:

       These guys couldn’t read English.

       A week later Des Moines was on a ship bound for Easter Island. Since the mission had already been hit by delays, we wanted to act fast. Des Moines brought a guidance system with him to help make the missile launching easier. It was built into a small cassette player, and the flight course was on tape. The course would send the missiles into U.S. airspace to look threatening, but veer off course so it wouldn’t do any real damage.

       Des Moines had a fiesta with Juan and his friends the first night on the island, and became very sick on some bad tacos. He sent letters back describing how the giant statues came into his hut at night to borrow his hair styling gel. We knew he was hallucinating badly at that point, because Des Moines was completely bald. He explained to Juan the guidance system as best he could, but in his delirium he forgot where he put the flight pattern tape. Juan hooked up he guidance system successfully but loaded his Julio Iglesias tape instead of the flight pattern. The missile launched properly, but its target was New Jersey.

       Most of New Jersey was completely destroyed; Fargo came running to my office with the damage reports.

       “It’s awful,” he said, ”The whole country is ecstatic. The President is busy working on a thank-you note to the government of Easter Island. New Jersey was just not a popular place. The only negative reaction was from MTV. They had a moment of silence for the loss of Bruce Springsteen and Jon Bon Jovi’s homeland.”

       The next day a telegram arrived from Des Moines on Easter Island, It said, “oops.”

       The President soon sent a delegation to the Island to set up a permanent embassy. Soon after that the Easter Treaty was passed establishing LIBIDO: the Little Island, Big Island Defense Organization.

       The President broke into the Cosby show with a speech praising, ”The United States’ newest and strongest ally, the Grand Republic of Easter Island,” He also commented on “the success of Prime Minister Des Moines in bringing together such diverse cultures as those that exist on Easter Island.” Later I heard a rumor that he had sent a top secret request to Des Moines asking if he could send another missile or two over to knock out certain overly liberal sections of the South before 1992.

       I sat in my office surrounded by the remaining members of our club, Lansing and Fargo. We all were staring out the window.

       Lansing broke the silence. “Well not only did we not close the Enemy Gap, we widened it. Everyone loves Easter Island now.”

       “Yea,” I said, ”the next thing you know they’ll name a holiday after the place.”