The First Lunar-American War
“We now believe, and have credible evidence to support, that the Moon is harboring weapons of mass destruction. We shall therefore commence bombardment of the lunar surface to make them submit to our will.”
| First Lunar-American War | |||||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||||
 United States
|  The Moon
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| Strength | |||||||||
| 1,029,874 | 1 giant ball of rock | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
Military dead:
Civilian dead:
Total dead: 1 | Unknown | ||||||||
The First Lunar-American War was a conflict between the United States of America and the Moon that began in June, 2009 and ended in April, 2010. This conflict was started over accusations by President Barack Obama that the Moon had been stockpiling nuclear weapons. The CIA had gathered numerous intelligence reports that these weapons were being stockpiled on the southern half of the Moon. Confusion and mutual distrust grew as the Moon remained silent throughout these accusations. Many attempts to reconcile the situation through diplomacy ultimately failed as the Moon declined to release any statement involving the issue. After an initial attack by the United States in mid-2009[1], the war remained relatively low key. As the budget for the war began to grow, however, due to misappropriation of funds by the U.S. Congress, President Obama eventually acquiesced and declared his intent to surrender to the Moon in a speech[2] at Kennedy Space Center on 15 April, 2010. Obama also called for an immediate cessation of all combat operations, which occurred the same day, thus resulting in a de facto end to the war. Full surrender was approved by Congress by mistake when a subsection of the Shark Conservation Act of 2010 carried a provision for formal surrender. Representative Barney Frank (D - MA) slipped the provision into the bill along with an amendment that defined the nature of shark reproductive capabilities. As the bill was fast-tracked for passage and was 742 pages long, no one realized the provision was in the bill and it passed both the House and Senate. President Obama signed the bill into law on 4 January, 2011, formally ending the war.
A history of suspicion
The true nature of Lunar society is unclear because it appears to be a totally closed system. The Moon adamantly and repeatedly refuses to participate in international diplomacy, fails to submit returns to UN statistical surveys, silently refuses all attempts at foreign commerce and tariff-reduction agreements, and rebuffs every attempt to open lines of communication with the major world powers. Rumors persist that the Moon has been secretly communicating with primitive nations in Africa and participating in their strange religious rituals. This often entails fantastic stories in which the Moon provides these societies with guidance and a plentiful harvest in return for blood sacrifices, but no serious scholars can find evidence that any sort of tangible communication between the Earth and the Moon takes place. This lack of communication supports the consensus that the Moon is operated as a secretive, tyrannical personality cult, like North Korea or perhaps Disney World.
In 2002, President George W. Bush approved a secret reconnaissance mission to the Moon involving NASA probes and billions of taxpayer dollars listed under their "black budget." The data from the probes proved alarming as it appeared that the Lunar surface could possibly contain liquid water, and therefore life, and therefore civilization, and therefore weapons of mass destruction. The U.S. Congress received word of this threat and bipartisan majorities authorized the U.S. to arm against the Moon. U.N. Security Council Resolution 9201 created a multinational task force to pacify the Moon. Its members were the U.S., Andorra, the Vatican, and Costa Rica. Notably, the U.S. was the only named Guarantor of the Peace that had a military force, at least one involving vehicles. The resolution had very little impact however, and the world would look on with growing suspicion to its mysterious neighbor in the sky for years to come.
Pre-war events
Growing mistrust
In the months leading up to the commencement of hostilities, relations between the United States and the Moon had been deteriorating rapidly. After ascension to the Presidency, Barack Obama began calling for reductions of funding for programs related to the Moon. It is unclear if this had angered the Moon, but many Republicans in Congress believed so. They declared on the floor of the House that unless these programs were continued, the Moon would become even more ambivalent towards America, and the world in general. They immediately gathered the party faithful outside the Capitol and sacrificed a young maiden in order to appease the Moon. The sacrifice appeared to have little affect as the Moon was again silent on the matter, which deepened fears of impending hostilities.
The ultimatum
On 16 May, 2009, President Obama issued a statement to the Moon concerning the WMDs that it was harboring, and its refusal to come to the table for negotiation in an international forum. In a speech on the floor of the United Nations, he declared that "Whereas the Moon has refused on numerous occasions to discuss these matters within these walls, and whereas the Moon has violated numerous international treaties banning the stockpiling of weapons on the Lunar surface. Whereas we have demonstrated here in this chamber that the Moon is stockpiling weapons of mass destruction, let it be resolved here today that the United Nations authorize the United States to lead a campaign to disarm the Moon of its weapons and bring greater peace and security to the world and our solar system. If the Moon will not comply with UN Resolution 9201, force will be necessary to compel the Moon into compliance." A standing ovation lasting 23 minutes followed his closing remarks. The same day, The UN Security Council unanimously approved Resolution 9346 giving the Moon exactly one month to the day to disarm itself or face consequences. The Moon was still silent after this and the international community was stunned. They had fully believed that the Moon would respond to such a strong statement. Great fear gripped the international community as the prospect of war drew ever closer.
Course of the war
Commencement of hostilities
On 17 June, 2009, one day after the expiration of Resolution 9346's deadline, the U.S. Congress passed the Lunar Military Operations Act of 2009 (The act did not use the word "war"; they generally never do, so technically the War on the Moon is merely a "period of inter-celestial-body conflict"). This act gave the President immediate authority to launch a full-scale attack on the Moon in order to force compliance with international law. On 18 June, President Obama ordered the U.S. Air Force in conjunction with NASA to launch a special reconnaissance and first-strike mission into space toward the Moon. The craft arrived in Lunar orbit a few days later and began to map the surface of the Moon to prepare for an assault. On 9 October, The craft launched a canister missile at a site on the Lunar surface located near the Cabeus Crater near the Moon's south pole. The impact created large columns of moon rock and dust that expanded out into space for miles[3]. This is considered to be the first shot of the war. Many observers and pundits predicted a quick surrender by the Moon in the face of actual military hostile action. Dick Cheney was publicly jubilant when the expected speedy surrender of the Moon never came. In an interview with CNN in early 2010, the former Vice President was highly critical of the Obama administration and the way the war was being handled in general.[4] "What, did he expect that we would be greeted as liberators by the Lunar inhabitants?" Cheney opined. "It just goes to show how naive this current administration is: they have no exit strategy and no real knowledge of the Lunar culture. In fact, we know hardly anything about the Lunar inhabitants in general. I can tell you this though, we must end this war as soon as possible." The President's response, however, was escalation of operations. The Air Force and NASA from then on sent numerous missions into Lunar orbit that analyzed the surface of the Moon, preparing areas for Lunar colonization after the planned conquest.
The war effort and planned colonization
The war plan itself called for a three part initiative; reconnaissance, bombardment and annihilation, and colonization. The reconnaissance phase was completed by November of 2009. Bombardment commenced jointly with the survey of the celestial body when the October 9th attack began. After that initial attack, the United States did not conduct any more military operations in light of the Moon's extremely passive to non-existent resistance. Instead, NASA focused on the colonization phase. The agency envisioned a preliminary outpost would be set up at the site of the October 9th attack on the Moon's south pole. More occupation bases would follow, and once any lunar inhabitants were subdued, the Moon's surface could be mined and harvested for valuable resources.
The Moon throughout the entire ordeal had remained completely silent, much to the astonishment of authorities and political scientists. Many contend that this is the first conflict in history in which one side has completely ignored the other in all regards, including hostile actions. Some theorize that this may have been the Moon's strategy all along, akin to an Opossum playing dead. Preliminary reconnaissance of the surface yielded no signs of WMD facilities. President Obama began to suggest that new intelligence showed that the facilities may be underneath the Lunar surface and hinted that it might take tactical nuclear strikes to eliminate them. Since the Moon had taken no action and had still refused to contact the opposition forces, many began to speculate just how the Moon would wage a war against the United States. Possible methods of warfare the Moon could use to strike back were theorized, including; altering its orbit to cause planet-wide chaos on Earth in relation to wild animals and the schedule and intensity of tides, suicide-bombing the Earth by dropping out of orbit, or simply leaving the Earth system and taking up residence elsewhere, presumably in the Venus or Mars systems. Ultimately though, the Moon would take very little action against the United States. The only known casualty of the war was SSgt Juan Rodriguez, an Air Force sergeant who was killed by the afterburners of a rocket launch at Nellis AFB. Rodriguez was given a large parade in Washington, D.C. and was awarded the Medal of Honor.
Around January 2010, it began to come to light to the public and the media that the intelligence President Obama had cited about weapons of mass destruction had turned out to be faulty. An analyst at the CIA had in fact spilled coffee on the reconnaissance photos and was too embarrassed to report his mistake. Subsequently, the stain was interpreted as an advanced MIRV Nuclear missile silo complex. This sparked massive backlash against the President and the war effort.
Cessation of hostilities
America began to sink more and more money into the war and colonization effort, causing civil unrest and protest within the United States in light of the Great Recession. Facing significant pressure from home and abroad, President Obama began to privately look for a way to save face and back out of the costly conflict. The planned colonization of the Lunar surface proved to be the most costly portion of the war and the President determined that a change was in order. President Obama began to publicly suggest that an olive branch of peace would be extended to the Moon during a policy speech in February of 2010. On 15 April, 2010, President Obama delivered a speech from Kennedy Space Center in Florida in which he outlined his plan for immediately ending the war. The President admitted that there were in fact no WMDs on the Moon, and that the war had been unjustified. Furthermore, he suggested that surrender to the Moon was the only option in order to appease its anger. In light of this, he ordered the immediate end of all military operations and colonization planning. This effectively ended the war that same day.
Surrender, aftermath, and legacy
Obama's order for cessation of hostilities was roundly considered to be the end of the war by many pundits and government officials, and therefore no specific legal end to the war was sought. Plans for colonization were abandoned, funds were relocated to other government programs, and a general air of normalcy returned once it was realized that the Moon did not plan to retaliate for the unjust war. Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, however, was personally very concerned that no formal surrender had been declared. Therefore he secretly slipped a formal surrender and reparations plan into the Shark Conservation Act of 2010 almost 8 months after the cessation of hostilities. Being that the act was impossibly long at around 700 pages, not a single congressman found the provision in the bill before it was soundly passed into law. It is safe to assume that the surrender clause would never have been found if not for Frank's public declaration of his actions after the President signed the bill into law on 4 January, 2011. Not a single person has been able to finish reading the entire bill, even to this day.
The surrender clause constituted a full, legal military surrender under international law, and was therefore the first time in history that the United States had been militarily defeated in a war. The clause compelled the United States to admit total fault for the war and to pay reparations to the Moon in the sum of billions of dollars. The sites on the Lunar surface that the United States had surveyed for colonization were formally ceded back into the sovereign realm of the Moon's governing authority (whatever it was), thus ending any speculation that the United States has seized any territory in the war.
The legacy of the conflict is still unfolding, but many are fearful that despite this show of obvious goodwill, the mysterious Moon may seek revenge on the United States or even humanity as a whole. Many Americans are very angry over the provisions of the treaty, especially the war-guilt clause and the amount of reparations. The general consensus, however, is that the United States made a foolish mistake to try and colonize the Moon, and many fear that there may yet be future conflict between the Moon and America over territory and resources.
Notes
