CARRIER 7: AFTERBURN By Keith Douglass

American citizens for speaking out against this dark and twisted vision

of the New World Order? …

Admiral Magruder had too fond a regard for the lessons of history to

ignore the possibility–no, the probability–that such power, once

granted, would grow, corrupt, and ultimately enslave.

Unfortunately, he and Scott were very much in the minority at this

table.

“I’m not sure giving the UN more power is a very good idea,” Scott said,

leaning forward in his chair and clasping his hands on the table before

him. “In any event, this is a surrender of American sovereignty. We have

never agreed to such a thing in our entire history. American forces have

never been placed under the operational control of foreigners. The

French tried it in World War I, and Montgomery wanted to try it in World

War II, but in each case we did everything in our power to maintain

control over our own people. The closest we ever came was in Somalia,

and I’ll point out that it was the UN component there that got our

people involved in that firefight that killed our boys. .. and then

failed to support them when they got into trouble.”

“Admiral,” Heideman said, “I respect your views, but I cannot agree with

them. We cannot live in the past any longer. National sovereignty is a

nice, high-sounding phrase, but it’s soon going to be as antiquated as

Communism. Look, you know how hard it is to get Congress or the public

to back an intervention effort. Even when that intervention is in the

national interest.”

“In other words, you intend to sidestep the Constitution by putting our

troops under the UN,” Scott said bluntly.

Heideman flushed. “Stop twisting my words, Admiral. Troop commitment is

a foreign policy decision. Executive Branch has the authority.”

“Except that Congress has the War Powers Act sitting there waiting for

you, and you don’t want to force a confrontation on whether it’s legal

for the Executive Branch to exercise the kind of authority you’re

talking about.” Scott shook his head. “The simple fact is that UN

intervention often has nothing whatsoever to do with our national

interests.”

“It does in the Black Sea,” Waring said. “Right now the whole of the

former Soviet Union is balanced on the thin edge of complete anarchy.

Our presence in the Black Sea will serve to stabilize the area.”

Reed nodded. “My point exactly, Herb. I’ll also point out that

intervention in this case helps our interests in the short term.”

Short-term interests, Magruder echoed in his mind. Penny-wise,

pound-foolish.

If the other people at the table were looking for disasters waiting to

happen, they didn’t need to look beyond the current situation unfolding

between Ukraine and the fragmenting Russian Federation. Magruder glanced

at Roger Lloyd, the new director of the CIA. He’d already given his

briefing on the geopolitical situation in that part of the world and did

not look happy with the way the discussion was going.

And Magruder didn’t blame him one bit.

The vast expanse of rolling, fertile, black-earth prairies that was

Ukraine had been one of the original founding states of the Soviet Union

in 1922, but its people had never fully reconciled themselves to Russian

domination. Ethnically, Ukrainians were not Russians; they remembered

still with blood-soaked bitterness Stalin’s forced collectivization

during the 1930s, a policy of genocide by starvation that may have

killed as many as twenty million people. Glasnost had come slowly to

Ukraine; long after Gorbachev came to power, the head of the Communist

party there had been one of Brezhnev’s cronies, and the arrests,

repressions, and police harassments had continued until his dismissal in

1989.

After extended flirtations with various union treaties, Ukraine had

declared complete independence in 1991, shortly after the failed coup

attempt against Gorbachev, then turned around and signed the Minsk

Agreement with Russia and Belarus, creating the Commonwealth of

Independent States. For a time, during the Norwegian War, Ukraine had

again been part of the Soviet empire, but with the collapse of Moscow’s

central government and the outbreak of a general civil war, Kiev had

again declared independence. .. and this time around seemed downright

eager to redress old wrongs.

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