Sludge Report #110 - Kiwis, Proud of the USA

Wednesday, 26 September 2001, 12:20 am
Column: C.D. Sludge

IN THIS EDITION: Dear People of the World: From WTPoNZ-1 - Subject: Proud Of The USA – A Canadian Tribute To The United States...America: The Good Neighbour - Guerilla Warfare: Carpet Bombing with Food – The Wingdings Prophecy (UPDATE)

NOTE: Authors of this report will be anonymous and wide ranging, and occasionally finely balanced. Indeed you are invited to contribute: The format is as a reporters notebook. It will be published as and when material is available. C.D. Sludge can be contacted at sludge@scoop.co.nz. The Sludge Report is available as a free email service..Click HERE - http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/myscoop/ to subscribe...

Sludge Report #110

Kiwis, Proud of the USA

EDITOR’S NOTE: More Sludge reader’s contributions. This time reaction to the assertive Kiwi who posted a message on behalf of all NZers concerning the US’s War on Terrorism republished in the last edition of the Sludge Report… Finally there is another version of the “Bomb Them With Butter Thesis” – again anonymous, and a link to a story demystifying the Q33NY wingdings prophecies…

See also…Sludge Report #109 – Bomb Them With Butter

Dear People of the World - From WTPoNZ-1

You will have just received from this noble e'zine a message from "We, The People of New Zealand" regarding the approach to be taken in the light of the horrific terrorist attacks in NY and DC.

This is to advise you that, as incomprehensible as it may sound, I never got the opportunity to sign off on this message.

Consequently the salutation is in fact from WTPoNZ-1 (We The People of NZ –1), the one (1) being me of course.

There may well be others although I would not be so unbelievably arrogant and/or adolescent to assume I was speaking for others on such an important matter.

Although I shall in short order compose my own address to the world for your consideration, a few points as to the inadequacy of this one are in order.

Firstly ignore Bob Harvey (a kind of lefty-green-creative local body politician of some unimportant area in an unimportant city) and his claims as to NZ ownership of the first bombs for butter email. You'll have laughed at the naive hubris of this given that it has been circulating for discussion for many days now on, among others, the evolutionary psychology, counterterrorism, zmag and atheism mail lists (my intellectual base is revealed). Many of you will have read the stimulating debate around the proposal which transverses the difficult terrain of reprisal, justice and the extent of American 'complicity'. A debate mirrored here, with zero additional light I might add, through the words of our own Russell Brown.

Regarding the letter that WTPoNZ-1 have composed, could I suggest some context for the benefit of the 'world' reader, no doubt puzzled at its content.

Remember we are a tiny insignificant country of the most insular sort. We have no real experience with power and responsibility and have more than our fair share of idealistic communitarians uncomfortable with a pluralistic world and the concept that people are very very different.

As an unviable nation state, we know that we're heading for identity-death as an independent body in this globalising world. This leads us through manic swings from one cargo-cult 'ism' to another as be desperately look for something to 'be'. As a people, we have no concept of easy patriotism, no access to a broad spectrum of public policy debate and no feeling of significance that characterises larger states. We can so often appear naive as we interpret and report world events through our juvenile black and white lens.

Like a child with little experience of the outside world we so often fail to reach the scale required to adequately deal with events as momentous as S11.

I may be courting fate and/or disaster but I do hypothesise that WTPoNZ-1 may actually equate to a group of 1st year female christian sociology students at Waikato (*cough* leftwing-post-modern-feminist-green-indigenous rights) University and that the nation's 'Message' may in fact be their collective work, perhaps as a term assignment.

Clues are:

Naive Absolutism and Non-Situational Ethics-
"It is an illusion that war is still an acceptable option"
"All wars are obsolete"

Straw Man Making-
"They think that whoever kills the most wins"
"Even your schools are no longer safe from violence and murder"

Environmental Catastrophism-
"Can the planet actually sustain another major war"
"Are you willing to destroy the entire planet on you way to victory"
"The entire ecosystem is on the edge of collapse"

Many other examples.

Stereotyping-
"can not believe that American people are so blinded by hatred and revenge"

But What About The Children!-
"Billions of people who don't want a war don't matter"
"No one has asked the billions of other creatures which will die if they want another war"

End Times Eschatology and Religious Piffle-
"Look deep into yourself and find your essential goodness"
"Reach back to your Christian Foundations" (anyone spell deist and read the federalist papers?)
"The people in charge apparently intend to fly the whole world into a wall and drop us into an abyss of a thousand years of darkness" (ooohh that's a giveaway, Revelations 20:3)
"Jesus told us to love our enemies" (care to draw the line between humility and humiliation?)

The authors make some interesting points about the irony of fighting terrorism with, if not exactly terrorism at least with more terror. Also useful is the reminder of the not altogether noble history of the US, but you will have read this analysis rationally argued from Chomsky, Albert and Shalom and Robert Fisk among others. You may also dig the smallest gems regarding the lack of American generosity in a poor world. Picking out of the context, the role of elites, as always, requires examining.

Overall though world, this New Zealander wouldn't for a minute expect you to have got past the first paragraph of this emotionally charged and altogether unhelpful contribution to the great debate currently underway.

If only the answer was as simple as "why can't we all just get along".

Best wishes to those deserving of them.

(-1)

Subject: Proud Of The USA

Dear Sir,

I am a New Zealander currently residing in the United States with my NZ husband and 3 children. Recently I received 2 emails you had on your web entitled "Anonymous letters sent to the world on behalf of NZers". Thought provoking.

However this was the thought that it provoked in me.

Anyone with an opinion as strong as the ones expressed in these emails should atleast have the guts to put their own names to them. I for one do not appreciate being lumped in with this persons opinion although I do believe he or she has a right to express it.

I guess thats what freedom gives us, (least we forget that our parents and generations before them fought to allow us this right). It also appears to me that anyone who needs to try and validate and elevate his/her opinions by giving the appearance that their thoughts are those of an entire NZ population is either delusional or extremely arrogant.

Personally I like the idea of bombarding them with food and techno devises however I am a realist and doubt it would have worked with Hitlers masses or now with Afganistans.

Perhaps you will publish this email with it contribution below (See next item “A Canadian Tribute To The United States - America: The Good Neighbour “) to help your page from toppling to one side of my computer.

Regards
J W
New Zealand Citizen

A Canadian Tribute To The United States - America: The Good Neighbour

Widespread but only partial news coverage was given recently to a remarkable editorial broadcast from Toronto by Gordon Sinclair, a Canadian television commentator.

What follows is the full text of his trenchant remarks as printed in the Congressional.

TRANSCRIPT BEGINS

"This Canadian thinks it is time to speak up for the Americans as the most generous and possibly the least appreciated people on all the earth.

Germany, Japan and, to a lesser extent, Britain and Italy were lifted out of the debris of war by the Americans who poured in billions of dollars and forgave other billions in debts. None of these countries is today paying even the interest on its remaining debts to the United States.

When France was in danger of collapsing in 1956, it was the Americans who propped it up, and their reward was to be insulted and swindled on the streets of Paris. I was there. I saw it.

When earthquakes hit distant cities, it is the United States that hurries in to help. This spring, 59 American communities were flattened by tornadoes.

Nobody helped.

The Marshall Plan and the Truman Policy pumped billions of dollars into discouraged countries. Now newspapers in those countries are writing about the decadent, warmongering Americans.

I'd like to see just one of those countries that is gloating over the erosion of the United States dollar build its own airplane. Does any other country in the world have a plane to equal the Boeing Jumbo Jet, the Lockheed Tri-Star, or the Douglas DC10?

If so, why don't they fly them? Why do all the

International lines except Russia fly American Planes?

Why does no other land on earth even consider putting a man or woman on the moon? You talk about Japanese technocracy, and you get radios. You talk about German technocracy, and you get automobiles.

You talk about American technocracy, and you find men on the moon - not once, but several times - and safely home again.

You talk about scandals, and the Americans put theirs right in the store window for everybody to look at. Even their draft-dodgers are not pursued and hounded.

They are here on our streets, and most of them, unless they are breaking Canadian laws, are getting American dollars from ma and pa at home to spend here.

When the railways of France, Germany and India were breaking down through age, it was the Americans who rebuilt them. When the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central went broke, nobody loaned them an old caboose. Both are still broke.

I can name you 5000 times when the Americans raced to the help of other people in trouble. Can you name me even one time when someone else raced to the Americans in trouble? I don't think there was outside help even during the San Francisco earthquake.

Our neighbors have faced it alone, and I'm one Canadian who is damned tired of hearing them get kicked around. They will come out of this thing with their flag high. And when they do, they are entitled to thumb their nose at the lands that are gloating over their present troubles. I hope Canada is not one of those."

Stand proud, America!

Wear it proudly!!

TRANSCRIPT ENDS

Guerilla Warfare: Carpet Bombing with Food

We are preparing for war. We will send our cruise missiles into useless targets in Taliban territory where the best we can do is kill a few innocent standbys. The action, whatever it's costs and no matter how powerfully executed, will be entirely symbolic. Moreover, it is self evident that its effects will be exactly what Bin Laden wants. It will solidify Islamic support against us.

This will not be a war against terrorism. Anti-terrorism is what we do here or in Europe. In Afghanistan, we will be faced with guerilla warfare. Guerilla warfare has a long history going back, at least, to the Maccabees who drove out the Greeks, the Romans who only reconquered Israel at prohibitive cost. They did so by destroying all of the people. There was no other way.

The British tried to conquer Afghanistan twice and lost as did the Soviets after them. The Germans never did succeed in stamping out guerilla forces in Yugoslavia, Poland, and Norway for all their efforts. We faced similar challenges unsuccessfully in Viet Nam. Given two thousand years of experience, it is clear we could not have "won" in Viet Nam without killing off most of the population.

The grand master of guerilla warfare was Mao. During WW2, the communist underground pinned down vast Japanese armies trying to control northern China. Mao identifies two key principles for guerilla success. First, they can pick their battles. They pick the ones they can win. Standing armies are forced to respond. So, we will go to Afghanistan fighting according to Bin l;aden's rules, not ours. Second, guerillas have the advantage of being invisible. They are of the people, among the people, and hidden by the people. That was amply demonstrated in Viet Nam.

If we are to destroy Afghanistan as a base for terrorism, we must impose different rules on the guerillas and undermine their ability to remain hidden.

How? Some years ago, in a simulation of crisis management, one "president" player decided to bomb the enemy with food with all kinds of positive results. Let us contemplate such a strategy as a means of destabilizing the Taliban. Suppose we carpet bomb Afghanistan's villages with food and medical supplies.

First, we should note that this is a cheap offensive. A colleague asked," How much food could you buy for one cruise missile?" Far more than you could carry in many 747's. Suppose, our initial symbolic action will only cost one billion dollars. We could lease many aircraft being grounded by our airlines, take out the seats, and hire them to airdrop the food and supplies. The food won't cost much. We have mountains stored at great cost. We are talking about bags of flour, wheat, beans, and maybe cooking oil. They do not eat supermarket food over there.

Second, it will be hard for anyone to oppose such an action. We could use bases in the old Islamic Soviet republics. Food bombing does not represent a threat to the Russians. It will be easier to do from Pakistan. Even the Iranians might prove helpful if they see this as a way to turn back the thousands of refugees clamoring to cross their borders.

Most critical, will the impact be on the Taliban. Will they forbid, in the name of Allah, their people the right to eat this food in the face of starvation? If they allow them to eat this food, how do they explain its origin to their people? The rationality of their Islamic fanaticism will be confounded, confused, and challenged in the hearts and minds of those who eat our food. That is destabilizing and a serious threat to their ability to govern. The very intractability of the Afghani countryside that enabled them to win makes it extremely difficult to govern. Peopl will simply opt out which is exactly what we want them to do.

If Bin Laden's rules make only symbolic responses possible at this time, we should aim our actions to destroy the symbols that sustain the Taliban and his terrorist activities.

As food and medical supplies are dropped into Afghani villages and circulate among the people to be hidden, the anomaly of the terrorists will become apparent. As Afghanis eat our food, the logic of terrorism will make less and less sense. And when that logic fails, hiding terrorists becomes increasingly problematic. Given that the Taliban and the terrorists have brought little joy to the people of Afghanistan, it should take very little to make more visible.

Most important, carpet bombing with food can be done rapidly. While we are busy softening the enemy's hinterland with food, we can take our time to select and execute those military battles we can win just like guerillas do.

The Wingdings Prophecy (UPDATE)

In Sludge Report #107 the following item was included..

------------
How Did Bill Gates Know?

Outrageous!
Try this .... type the following letters, which represent the flight number of one of the planes that crashed into the WTC. Enlarge to font size 36 .... then change font to Wingdings.
Q33NY

------------

This is a hoax. For a full explanation of how the hoax came about and its antecedents see…

Terrorist Attacks: The Wingdings Prophecies
http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/blwingdings.htm

SLUDGE REPORT #110 ENDS

Anti©opyright Sludge 2001

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Alastair Thompson

Scoop Publisher

Alastair Thompson is the co-founder of Scoop. He is of Scottish and Irish extraction and from Wellington, New Zealand. Alastair has 24 years experience in the media, at the Dominion, National Business Review, North & South magazine, Straight Furrow newspaper and online since 1997. He is the winner of several journalism awards for business and investigative work.

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