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WASHINGTON, DC--Taking steps to fill the void that has
plagued the American military-industrial complex since
the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, Secretary of State
Madeleine Albright announced yesterday that the U.S.
will hold enemy tryouts next week.
Slated to begin Nov. 2, the tryouts will take place at the
Pentagon. More than 40 countries are signed up to compete for
the role of official U.S. adversary, including India, China,
Afghanistan, North Korea and Iran.
"Over the past seven years, the State Department, working
closely with the CIA, Congress and the president, has made
vigorous efforts to develop a stable relationship of hostility
with a foreign power of consequence," Albright said. "The grim
fact is that these efforts have been fruitless. If we are to
find a new Evil Empire, we need a more proactive approach."
Though tryouts are not until next week, Albright said the
State Department has already received a number of impressive
preliminary proposals.
"We met with the Syrian representative yesterday, and he
promised that Syria would house terrorist enemies of the U.S.
and stockpile chemical weapons near the Israeli border,"
Albright said. "We've also gotten an unexpectedly tempting
proposal from the Kazakhstani delegation, which claims to
have nine of Russia's stolen nuclear missiles and a fanatical
willingness to launch them against the U.S. unless we release
450 Muslim extremists currently held in Western prisons.
That was certainly a pleasant surprise."
The decision to hold enemy auditions was made during an
Oct. 16 meeting at the Pentagon attended by a number of top
military-industrial complex officials, including Albright,
Defense Secretary William Cohen, the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Strom Thurmond
and Lockheed Martin CEO Thomas Reuthven.
"Everyone was of the opinion that an enemy was needed--
and fast," said Reuthven, whose company has laid off
14,000 employees since the end of the Cold War. "Nobody wins
when there's peace."
General Electric CEO Jack Welch, who was also at the meeting,
agreed. "Our profits are down 43 percent from 10 years ago.
We sold more tritium hydrogen-bomb ICBM/MIRV triggers in 1988
than in the last six years combined," he said. "Something had
to be done."
Once the tryouts conclude, Albright said, an interdepartmental
task force will spend a week evaluating the proposals before
announcing its choice on Nov. 16. The new U.S. enemy will be
formally anointed in a special treaty-breaking ceremony, where
President Clinton and the leader of the rival state will sever
diplomatic ties with the ceremonial burning of 1,000 doves.
Since the end of the Cold War, potential new U.S. enemies
emerged several times, but in each instance, hopes were
invariably dashed by peace. Most promising among the candidates
was Iraq, which briefly aggressed against the U.S., but a truce
was declared before a deep and lasting enmity could take root.
Yesterday's announcement was hailed by leaders of numerous
U.S. institutions, including the motion-picture industry,
whose action films have suffered from the absence of
a global antagonist.
"Hopefully, there will be an enemy soon," Paramount Pictures
vice-president of development Mort Glazer said. "During the past
few years, in the absence of a Soviet Union or a Nazi Germany,
Hollywood has been forced to pit American heroes against
uncompelling enemies like the IRA. A $250 million-grossing film
like Rambo or Top Gun is simply not possible in today's climate
of global detente."
The lack of a clearly identifiable foreign nemesis has taken
a toll on the American populace, as well: In the years since
the fall of the Soviet Union, Americans have been forced to find
other outlets for their deepest insecurities and fears. "Without
an outward threat like the USSR, Americans have had to channel
their anxieties about life into a wide range of other, less
concrete things, including space aliens, drinking water, sexuality
and our own government," psychotherapist Dr. Eli Wasserbaum said.
"If a new national enemy is not found soon, the trend will only
worsen."
Speaking to reporters, McDonnell Douglas CEO Richard Klingbell
said the State Department should have foreseen the possibility of
peace and taken steps to avoid it years ago.
"For decades, we took Soviet aggression and the arms race for
granted," Klingbell said. "We failed to realize that one day it
might all come to an end. We failed to sow the seeds of future
foreign discord, for our children's sake. Thankfully, though,
we're finally setting things straight. We're finally remembering
that to make it in this world, you've got to have enemies."
Conspicuously absent from this entire undertaking was national
drug czar General Barry DeCaf, who had been occupied with vital
negotiations in Moscow regarding the elimination of shamanistic
tribal cultures throughout Siberia. These talks recently ended
in failure, to the chagrine of the general, who had assumed that
his title would have an ingratiating effect on monarchists among
the Russian conferees. To soften this blow, the administration
had a new counterinsurgency pact with Colombia ready to present
General DeCaf upon his return to Washington.
Although the general refused to comment on these developments,
reporters found an eager interviewee in his personal pilot,
Major Daryl Crosshairs. "I'm a tad wet inside right now, if you
get my meaning, but I don't mind telling you guys that this new
thing is - hey - just great. None of us are getting any younger,
and this campaign will be 'Nam all over again. I'm telling you
there's just nothing in this world to compare with hanging up
there in a Cobra like God Almighty and zapping a peasant village
with a couple of fires [FFARs: Folding Fin Aerial Rockets - Ed.],
except maybe R&R, where the women are willing and the dope
(Editor: The interview concluded on this note, so abruptly
that a close-quote was judged technically inappropriate.)
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