Integral Dynamics

Newsvine featured a column, Bush Plan to Nuke America, Everything is in Place (link)

The nuking of America by our own President now appears to be a done deal as we approach 9/11 ‘07

And the author, Jimmy Swindell, writes,

Of course I realized at the time this was a rather far fetched scenario

Well, not as far fetched as his name but anyway, far fetchedness is the liberty of columnists creating scenarios.
I realized I had also developed a rather far fetched scenario, called the ‘Dick Cheney end-game’. It was tucked away in some comments at this Newsvine seed, The New York Times Calls For Iraq Withdrawal (link).

The Dick Cheney end-game scenario

First, let start with the ‘regular’ scenario regarding martial law in the US.

1. Between now and a year two (more or less) simultaneous events

(1.a) a catastrophic emergency; one or more major attacks at U.S soil (dirty bomb, chemical wmd, etc.) by Al Qaeda

(1.b) a serious offensive move by Iran against the US or US interests / allies (launching missiles in the direction of Israel, Europe, or even the US and / or attacking the US fleet in the Persian Gulf)

(1.c) and as an extra wildcard: a third party (North Korea, Venezuela, or Russia does something nasty to make the situation even more dire for the US

2. President Bush invokes National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive and as the uncontested ‘ decider’, decides to attack Iran with possible nuclear weapons.

3. No US Presidential elections in 2008

OK, quite reasonable in a ‘War on Terror‘. From this base scenario it is easy to come up with the Dick Cheney end-game.

It is more or less the same as the above one but with a few minor changes.

1. Between now and a year two (more or less) simultaneous events

(1.a) a very specific catastrophic emergency; President Bush is assasinated by Al-Qaeda or … (Conspiracy Theorists are allowed to fill in the dots)

(1.b) a serious offensive move by Iran against the US or US interests / allies (launching missiles in the direction of Israel, Europe, or even the US and / or attacking the US fleet in the Persian Gulf)

(1.c) and as an extra wildcard: a third party (North Korea, Venezuela, or Russia does something nasty to make the situation even more dire for the US

2. VP Dick Cheney becomes POTUS

3. The first act of President Cheney is to nvoke the National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive and as the uncontested ‘ decider’, decides to attack Iran with possible nuclear weapons.

4. No US Presidential elections in 2008

IDEA of Open-Ended Issues

Based on the above scenarios see the following new OEIs

United States proclaims martial law, with indicators: red, even chance
United States cancels 2008 elections, with indicators: red, even chance

This gives the following Key Global Issues Monitor.

Probability of events

How to describe the probability of events? We have choosen to use the Estimative Language from the (United States) National Intelligence Esatimates (NEI) The US Intelligence Community also strugles with (source)

judgments pertaining to likelihood are intended to reflect the Community’s sense of the probability of a development or event. Assigning precise numerical ratings to such judgments would imply more rigor than we intend. The [list] below provides a rough idea of the relationship of terms to each other.

Remote —- Unlikely —- Even chance —- Probably, likely —- Almost certainly

We do not intend the term “unlikely” to imply an event will not happen. We use “probably” and “likely” to indicate there is a greater than even chance.
We use words such as “we cannot dismiss,” “we cannot rule out,” and “we cannot discount” to reflect an unlikely—or even remote—event whose consequences are such it warrants mentioning.
Words such as “may be” and “suggest” are used to reflect situations in which we are unable to assess the likelihood generally because relevant information is nonexistent, sketchy, or fragmented.