Romania mulls options, one of which sucks

BUCHAREST (JYB News Bureau): As officials debate how to respond to Iran’s capture of an offshore Romanian oil rig today, one option seems to be on everyone’s lips: “Of course we wish to resolve this crisis through diplomatic means, but any more serious response may include the re-activation of the Special Carpathian Regiment,” Romanian President Traian Basescu told reporters this morning.

Lacking traditional special forces or counterterrorist units, the Romanian Army relies instead upon the SCR, a shadowy unit of hardened veterans who have never been photographed, and who have developed a brutal reputation for dealing with the country’s enemies.

Col. Vlad Tepes, the unit’s commander, agreed to speak with JYB reporters at the unit’s Transylvanian headquarters. Tepes, banging out a minor-key fugue on the converted castle’s pipe organ, explained that the elite unit had extensive experience in precisely this sort of daring infiltration. “During World War II, the SCR often led raids—exclusively nighttime operations—upon occupying Nazi forces. We were able to reach well-protected Nazi leaders that no one thought were vulnerable.” The fit, dark-haired Tepes himself participated in one such raid, assassinating an SS major in a bunker so well-protected that only a bat, or perhaps someone who had assumed gaseous form, could enter without being noticed.

“This is a fight we are eager to embrace,” our reporter was told by the immaculately coiffed Captain Strahd von Zarovich, who like Tepes is descended from nobility and holds the title of Count. “Romania suffered greatly under Ottoman occupation since the 15th century. It won’t happen again. There is simply too much at stake,” he told us, wincing at his own choice of words.

But some human rights advocates are appalled by the prospect of the SCR becoming involved in another conflict. “They may look like ruffle-shirted dandies, but they are butchers,” said Abraham van Helsing, a professor of Peace Studies at Berkeley. “I believe they were trained at the School of the Americas”. Prof. van Helsing handed our reporter a copy of an Amnesty International report dated 1990, entitled Ritual Exsanguinations of Former Ceaucescu Regime Members in Romania, which accused SCR personnel of gruesome impalements and other human rights violations in retaliation for decades of Communist misrule.

SCR members belittled the allegations. “Let’s just say that if the Iranians want to play “blood for oil”, we can accommodate them,” Capt. von Zarovich said, with a low, chilling chuckle that quickly crescendoed into a maniacal laugh.