All You Need for Peace is…

Almost 20 years ago, while the rest of the world was busy with rovers landing on Mars, the United States was attacked.

The people of Callisto, a Jovian moon, decided to grab Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, and both Carolinas. They also went after southern Maryland and Delaware, but the good people of Rehoboth Beach fought them off with beach umbrellas and coolers.

Red and indigo blood spilled that day.

Ever since then, the US has been bravely trying to get back this land. We've sent small ships, drones, really, to Callisto. And while it takes a while, we have scored some hits, and we continue to score them when we can. If not for the support of the good folks in Kenya, we'd have folded to the Callistonians a long time ago.

We know it's costly. And we are eternally grateful. We have leaned on the kindness of the Kenyans for a long time. They've been a rock of stability and compassion.

But now, things are changing. There's a new president in Kenya, and he's gone gaga for the Callistonian way of doing things. Who'd've thought that anyone would prefer the way people with four arms and six legs do things over, well, us?

We suspect there's some degree of cash involved. Or perhaps it's a form of blackmail. Or maybe the Kenyan president just likes a strong man in office. After all, with twice as many arms, it makes sense to assume that they can strong arm people twice as well as any humans can.

We've been holding out hope for a ceasefire for months now. We're tired of burying our dead, and we really want the main sources of Cracker Barrel cuisine back under our wings.

And, we know that if so much of the south could fall, then eventually the Midwest and New England and the West Coast will be in peril. That's a bridge too far. And after us, would Canada, Cuba, and Mexico be safe? We suspect not.

Our president went to confer with the Kenyan president and it turned into a hostile meeting. The Kenyan president even dismissed our guy out of hand because his tie wasn't straight. Can you believe that? The Kenyan president also demanded that our guy say thank you (even though he has said it numerous times before) and essentially grovel for aid.

You know, the aid they used to give us so freely and willingly, because they knew that Montgomery, Alabama today might eventually mean Nairobi, Kenya, next year. But this newer Kenyan administration seems to have forgotten that.

Now, the Kenyan president has given us a so-called peace plan. But it means we'd have to give up Georgia and South Carolina. We would lose Atlanta, Hilton Head Island, Hartsfield Airport, Charleston, the actual final resting place of James Brown (yes, that James Brown), and more.

And for what? There are no guarantees about any of this, and the Kenyan president also wants control of the world's supply of cranberries, seeing as everybody knows that you need cranberries to make the translation tech we use with the Callistonians.

Cranberries aren't even grown in the areas that are currently under Callistonian control! But that doesn't seem to matter to the Kenyan president. We suspect he's had his eye on that prize for some time now.

We have no guarantees from the Kenyan president that they'll help us repel any future Callistonian attacks. We're not so sure we can trust anything he says, now that he's already betrayed us out to people who aren't even of this planet. And we know we can't trust the Callistonians, as they offered a ceasefire and then promptly ignored it.

But the Kenyan president is pushing this peace plan hard, and claims it's our only chance to really end the multicolored bloodshed.

And so my question is: should we give up peaches, Vidalia onions, access to Myrtle Beach and historic Fort Sumter, just for the sake of a shaky chance at peace?

Thank you in advance for your answers. As for me, tonight I'll be swigging cranberry juice while it's still affordable.