Written April 11, 2001
(The following information reflect the opinions of Stilldigging.com and the characters are fictional)

PETE 'man, it looks like the shop's getting mean and nasty with DT now'
BOSS 'yeah, like how'
PETE 'the guy goes driving to the store, and the shop hits im with a burst of nerve gas/crazy gas'
BOSS 'heee heee heee, little sucka juss don wanna keep his mouth shut'
PETE 'of course everybody knows the shop deluged DT with this gas in 1997, after he did that write up'
'on JFK'

BOSS 'whada ya mean deluged'
PETE 'as if you didn't know, they tried to kill the guys brain with the stuff, not to mention all the drugs'
'they were pumping into his system while he slept helplessly in bed'

BOSS 'dwugs you say'
PETE 'yeah to weaken the man's brain, make im more susceptible to the shops secret warfare arsenal, like '
'that atrocious inhumane banned by the Geneva convention gas I just mentioned, that we can't even use on our own '
'enemies gas, and of course the psychological warfare, that aint worth much unless the shop has their target drugged '
'or somtin'

BOSS 'heee heee heee, we good huh''

[PAUSE]

[PETE eyes the boss squarely] 'so tell me, this is such an atrocious punishment for a journalist, '
'don't you tink?'

[the BOSS pauses a second after being forced to consider the motive]
[PETE stares back impatiently]

BOSS 'lllllllittle sssucka pproliferated his his journalism, he he he he he [PETE gives the BOSS a smack]
'he bin readin the newspapers, an an an an an an [smack] an he sees everyting we do'

PETE 'whadya mean everything? Yor telling me the shop's punishing the guy for reading information'
'that the public reads everyday?'

BOSS 'dam it! Whose side you on, you know he reads between the lines'
'he he he he he he he [smack] the newspapers write stuff, dat don seem to be much,'
' but DT see what weally goin on'

PETE 'but why punish im now? With a chemical banned by the Geneva convention,'
'a chemical that we can't even use against our own enemies'

BOSS 'dam it, you saw what appened wid duh China standoff'
PETE 'you mean where the US intentionally tried to provoke the Chinese, trying to lessen their'
'world image as an aggressor nation, right before congress is slated to vote on China's trade status, '
'and to justify weapons to Taiwan, and right as China is bidding to host the US Olympics'

BOSS 'sssssssshh shuddup, nobody knows dis but DT'
PETE 'of course the American people don't know this side of the story'
'they were led to believe that Chinese pilot Wang Wei was hotdogging his F-8 fighter,'
'when it accidentally clipped the front end of the US Reconnaissance surveillance plane EP-3'
'the Chinese pilot in the second F-8 fighter, who said he witnessed the accident, said the US plane'
'intentionally veered into the path of the F-8 fighter, causing the accident over the China sea'
'news sources have stated, that there was a history of similar engagements between US reconnaissance planes'
'spying on China, and Chinese fighter pilots'

BOSS 'so'
PETE 'well that would mean the EP-3 probably anticipated similar hot dogging by Chinese pilots, '
'last April first, "April Fools Day" and on queue maneuvered into the F-8's flight path at the last second'

BOSS 'yeah but but, we let out a press release stating dat the US plane was on auto-pilot'
PETE 'yeah after DT came up with the above conclusion'
'besides, why would a US plane go on auto-pilot over enemy territory, especially with a history'
'of Chinese pilots harassing approaching spy planes in an arrogant manner'
'the assertion at this point is the press release was a fabricated lie, to limit culpability in the matter'

BOSS 'heee heee you can't prove nuttin'
PETE 'you think the American people are stupid or something?'
'the press release simply lessened yor credibility'

BOSS 'ah shuddup'
PETE 'I don't have the full details on this, but news sources tell me, US diplomats to China,'
'were cold and harsh with the Chinese immediately after the incident, simply to provoke them further,'
'and China's natural reaction was to hold the 24 crewmen and women hostage, as if out of spite, '
'and in a retaliatory manner demanded an apology'
'this readily played into the hands of the military's more sinister objective, of provoking the Chinese'
'into doing something stupid, to lessen their world image'

BOSS 'foist of all, why would the US want to povoke tensions wid a world super powa?'
PETE 'it's more the military than anything else'
'look back to 1959 when Francis Gary Powers and his U2 spy plane was shot down over Russia'

BOSS 'yeah whad a boud it'
PETE 'sources tell me the Russians were given information on the U2 spy plane,'
'this was after Oswald threatened to turn over radar secrets and defected to Russia'

BOSS 'yeah so whad if he did, whad does dat ave to do wid anyting'
PETE 'well at the time there was a pending nuclear agreement, and the U2 incident'
'stopped the agreement dead in it's tracks'

BOSS 'why? Who would wanna stop a peace agreement like dis?'
PETE 'the military, who else, the military industrial complex'
'it's like another industry, a billion dollar industry, with connections to very large corporations'
'that serve the military, in the form of state-of-the-art weaponry, missiles, ships, carriers, fighter jets,'
'bombers, etc.' 'the only way to keep this industrial complex alive is if the US were in a constant state of war'
[PAUSE]
'and at who's expense? The American people that's who, and the sons and daughters we send off to war'
[PAUSE]
'so if you look at the current state of affairs, who's potentially America's biggest threat? With the Russian's '
'pretty much out of the way, it's China'
'and look who's running the White House? Veteran's of the Cold War'

BOSS 'Bush Jr aint a Cold War veteran'
PETE 'His dad is, he was CIA director in the 70's, and he was VP under Reagan in the 80's'
'what was one of Bush's campaign promises? To build up the military' 'what was one of his first acts as president?
'to ask congress for more military funding, yet the planet is, or use to be pretty much peaceful'
'before Bush took office'

BOSS 'whad'ya mean purdy much peaceful?'
PETE 'look at the administrations foreign outlook, Bush and Powel pretty much distancing ourselves'
'from our allys, or rather the UN, almost an isolationist policy, essentially stating we would go ahead with our '
'Defense Initiative, without UN approval, irritating Russia and China and others, then the surprise air strike on Iraq,'
'irritating our Arab allies, and the European community, and of course the Russians, and then sinking the '
'Japanese fishing boat near Pearl Harbor, with a US sub, irritating the Japanese'
'then you have Russia reacting to the Defense Initiative by giving aid to Iran, in the form of potential '
'nuclear capability, just one thing after another, since the new administration took office, and now we have'
'the China incident'

BOSS 'ok, so what, so what if all dis is true, so what if our Cold War veterans have a certain way'
'of protectin dis nation, what's yor point?'

PETE 'protecting? Have you been listening? The Military Industrial complex, hello, war war war. hello'
BOSS 'shuddup sucka, you act like you know everyting dats appenin, but you don't'
PETE 'then there's the punishment, DT knows all this stuff, and bam wham, every time he writes somtin'
BOSS 'hey if he wanna keep shootin off his mouth, dat his poblem'
'you saw what appened in 97, afta he wrote dat stuff on JFK, an he still aven't learned his lesson'
'little sucka juss keep writin an writin, it his fault if he get punished'
[PAUSE]
'little sucka, we had no choice but to end the US-China standoff'

PETE 'why so'
BOSS 'dere were too many inconsistencies, an den all these would be diplomats stotted comin'
'out a the wood work'

PETE 'huh'
BOSS 'you know, guys like Jesse Jackson and Ross Perot….'
'duh whole ting was juss growin ouda proportion, so we decided to end it, especially afta Jesse said he was'
'goin to China anyway, he would a juss been a propaganda tool fo the Chinese'

[PAUSE]
PETE 'what about the copter crash over Vietnam, 250 miles south of Hanoi last Saturday?'
BOSS 'what about it?'
PETE 'sources tell me it was sabotaged to further the negative Chinese image'
BOSS 'huh'
PETE 'as if to exacerbate the situation, make it look like retaliation for the death of the '
'Chinese pilot'

BOSS 'what're you sayin? Our own people sabotaged our own copter?, eliminating our own soldiers? '
PETE 'it's happened repeatedly through history, American soldiers being sacrificed for a given purpose,'
'or simply in punishment'

BOSS 'den how come nobodys proved nuttin?'
PETE 'because the suspicion never came up, and nobody's ever bothered to look'
[PAUSE]
'besides it was a Soviet made helicopter that went down to further give it a communist association'

BOSS 'you mean the crash, the saboteurs'
PETE 'according to the LA Times, the copter swang and teetered before crashing into the side of the '
'mountain' 'if you look at the statements made by the Chinese pilot, who witnessed the US-Chinese
'midair collision, a weekend earlier, he claims the plane swang into the path of the F8'

BOSS 'so'
PETE 'don't you see the similarity, both vehicles swang before they collided, furthering the impression'
'the copter was sabotaged in a sophisticated manner, to mimick something obvious from the April first crash'

BOSS 'what for'
PETE 'come on you know how these clandestine networks operate, they talk to each other secretly,'
'in this case symbolically' 'the perpetrators were trying to make it look like the Chinese were retaliating for the
'April first crash'

BOSS 'sacrificing our own men in the process? I juss don buy dat'
PETE 'we're talking about a behemoth here, a conglomerate of monstrous proportions, '
'whose agenda and priorities exceed those of the common man, or in this case the front line soldier'

BOSS 'but these were veterans that went down in the crash'
PETE 'like I said, the common soldier, regardless of rank'
BOSS 'sounds too far fetched to me, maybe the communists really did retaliate'
PETE 'if that had been the case, we would have responded in like measure, and I would have '
'known about it'