Something to be Proud Of

Chapter 4: Political Dialog

In desperation, Kim Jong Il IV had ordered combined nuclear strikes and nerve gas attacks on Seoul. Nearly 100 years after Hiroshima, the third nuclear bomb was used in anger. Most of the missiles impotently missed their mark or were intercepted. But one, conventional atomic bomb got through and several pre-positioned, 10-year-old nerve gas canisters belched gas out of abandoned warehouses and into the subways. The effect was horrific - nearly 500,000 dead.

Public cries for revenge had to be appeased. The 25-member United Nations Security Council, who had two weeks earlier, condemned the “unprovoked aggression of South Korea,” considered joining war on her side. As most of the major cities of North Korea had already been levelled by conventional means, the military was hard pressed for a target. Pyongyang had been so pummelled that it was said to have lost 10 feet in altitude per day. Nearly 2 million North Korean soldiers had surrendered. Refugees were clogging the roads south. What was the point? Never in History was the moral high ground so tempting, but the thirst for revenge had to be sated.

Ultimately, Seoul, Tokyo, and Washington agreed on a “demonstration strike”, wherein a neutron bomb would be detonated at 10,000 feet, so that the entire country could witness the false dawn. Beijing, once again, was consulted in advance – this time, explicitly. As luck would have it, intelligence discovered the paranoid (and possibly syphilitic) Kim Jong Ill had retreated to his lair in the Kumgang Mountains. Other than wiping out the remainder of the dynasty, 1,000 sycophants, and an uncompromisingly gaudy mansion, the casualties were astonishingly light. Saint Augustine would have been proud.

Unconditional surrender was almost immediate. Simultaneously, news of the discovery of the breeding facility was leaked. The next morning, newspapers across the world announced the end of the bloodiest three-week war in world history. A Pulitzer Prize was awarded for a doctored photo that captured the imagination of the world: Silhouetted against the light of a mushroom cloud, were three man-apes, scrambling for food. The headline read, “Oh, the Inhumanity!”

As the news spread of the work camps, the starvation, petty deprivations and misery -- post facto support for the war increased. Sanctions were slowly lifted. American and Japanese complicity was forgiven. But the horror and legacy of the Ape-Men became the World’s problem.