NATO bombs Chinese embassy

Wojtek Sokolowski sokol at jhu.edu
Tue May 11 09:04:52 PDT 1999


At 04:48 PM 5/10/99 -0700, you wrote:
> That is very cold comfort but there is something else: Villains inspire
>people, idiots just depress people. If some document comes to light, for
>example that the CIA knows the address and GPS coordinates of every *other*
>Chinese embassy, people will be inspired to re-examine the government's
>recently successful claims of righteousness every time it bombs or invades
>somebody. If the story holds up that the military intelligence people were
>just idiots, it won't cause anybody to re-examine anything. In fact, that
>is what they are banking on. Notice how quickly they admitted the mistake?
>Compare that to previous mistakes that were just as obvious. They are happy
>for us to think they were just idiots. It makes me unhappy to think so.

Methinks, it was a mistake - there was nothing to be gained from such an act, and the level of incomptenece among officers of various branches of service is quite high. I used to work for a military "intelligence" (isn't that a contradiction in terms?) outfit several years ago. Below is a conversation (as I memorized it) between an Air Force Colonel (the chief of that particular department) and one of his subordinates, a captain, if memory serves:

The colonel shows up in the captain's office with a sheet of paper.

Colonel: You did that report, right? Captain: Yes. Colonel: So check those figures, they are wrong! Captain: What do you mean? Colonel: Look, this should ad to a hundred thousand, but you reported one million. Captain (similing): yeah, right, one zero too many, not a big deal. Colonel (agitated): It is a big deal, it should be a hundred thousand dollars not a million dollars! Captain (nonplussed): So I said, it is just one zero, what's the problem, I can correct that. (laughter from other offices can be heard) Colonel (with resignation): Ok ok, it is just one zero. So please redo that report and bring it to my office.

After that scene, I though what if the "one zero" in question was not in some bullshit financial report, but in a missile coordinate. Well, it looks that such might have been the case.

wojtek



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