W E M U S T P
R O T E S T .
BY JIM
STALLARD
- - - -
Tang Jiaxuan
Foreign Minister
The People's Republic of China
Dear Mr. Tang,
On behalf of the United States Government, I want to express my
gratitude for allowing our inspection of the EP-3 Navy patrol
aircraft that was forced to make an emergency landing on the island
of Hainan. It is our deepest hope that our two nations will not allow
this unfortunate incident to interfere with the important economic
relations that hold such promise for a prosperous future.
However, I must take exception to certain actions of Chinese
personnel who boarded the EP-3—which our government considers to
be sovereign territory—while the aircraft was in your
possession. Close examination of the aircraft has revealed clear
violations of the equipment and confidential data within the
aircraft, which is protected by international law. Some of it appears
to fall into the category of outright sabotage.
Among the violations discovered so far:
- The musical compact disc (CD) collection under the workstation of
Senior Airman Curtis Towne had clearly been disturbed. There are
several pieces of evidence bearing this out:
- The CDs by Metallica ("Load") and Bad Company ("Running With the
Pack") were not placed in their respective cases but left unprotected
on top of Lt. Towne's monitor.
- Jethro Tull's "Aqualung" had been incorrectly filed in
the section delineated for singer/songwriters.
- Two CDs by the Woo Tan Klan ("Wu-Tang Forever" and "Enter
the Wu-Tang") are missing.
- Computer records show that the half-finished novel on Lt.
Tierney's hard drive had been opened and examined. Regarding the
unsolicited comments inserted at the end of the document: It is not
your nation's prerogative to judge whether a creative
work-in-progress is "overly derivative."
- A personal photograph of Lt. John Comerford's wife was
defaced with graffiti making a crude reference to U.S. scientist Wen
Ho Lee's "having been" to a site on the photograph. Mrs. Comerford's
current grave illness makes this act especially outrageous.
- The messages in the fortune cookies left on Lt. Robert
Harper's seat are not appreciated. I won't go any further on that
subject except to point out that Mannix is a fictional television
character, not a real person.
- More than 16 minutes of audiotape containing
irreplaceable surveillance data was recorded over with what seemsto
be several persons making oral sounds that resemble machine guns,
exploding bombs and human flatulence. Analysis of the sounds (and
accompanying snickering) allowed U.S. linguists to establish that the
persons on the audiotape were raised somewhere in the province of
Hunan in your nation.
- Electronic analysis by U.S. military technicians revealed
that three VHS videotapes aboard the EP-3 plane ("Red Dawn";
"ET—The Extra-Terrestrial"; and "The Thin Red Line") were
duplicated while the Chinese government had control of the aircraft.
This is a flagrant violation of international copyright laws.
- Two bathroom commodes were apparently used and not flushed.
- The seat of Lt. Patrick Honeck in the cockpit had been
adjusted to accommodate a much smaller person and not returned to its
original position.
I don't feel the need to remind you that the United States is not
a collection of drunk, unarmed students celebrating in the middle of
a public square. In addition to its formidable military strength, the
U.S. exports a staggering amount of filmed entertainment, popular
music, computer technology and tobacco. In the future, violations
like the ones listed above will be met with swift, merciless tariffs.
For a nation thought to be 4,000 years old, it is unfortunate that
yours feels the need to act like one so immature. On behalf of the
U.S., let me say we are truly shenbiao qianyi this is the case.
Sincerely,
Joseph W. Prueher
United States Ambassador to China
OTHER McSWEENEY'S STORIES:
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Ask a Former Professional
Literary Agent, Part XI By John Hodgman
Exercise By David Rossmann
Nineteen Boys By Sarah Manguso
Cases From the Files of Traig &
McGrath, Shut-In Detectives By Jenny Traig and Peter
McGrath
Thirteen Short Satirical
Fragments on 20th-Century Subjects Which Are Either Obscure or Have
Long Since Passed From the National Memory, Done in the Style of
Voltaire By Greg
Purcell
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