Sunday, July 10, 2016

Why the missile launch conspiracies are, at best ignorant

Because nothing says popsicle like an egg yolk flavored popsicle

This week the 1996 DPP candidate for president, Peng Min-min, a stalwart of Taiwan independence for decades, commented in the Taipei Times that the accidental missile launch from the naval ship in K-town last week may not have been accidental....
It just so happens that the leader of Country B is abroad on a diplomatic visit, which offers an excellent opportunity for implementing the plot. Everything is in place, the lowly soldier is on stand-by over his launch button and all the other officers have cleared the deck to be able to present an alibi later they were not present.

A simple order is issued, the lowly soldier presses the button with the finger he was taught to use, the cannon really does fire and the lowly soldier is elated. The conspirators cover their ears and hold their breaths as they wait for Country A’s mighty “counterattack.”

However, the missile does not live up to expectations: It never reaches Country A. Instead, it hits a house in Country B and kills and injures some of its own people. In disarray, the conspirators realize that their plan has failed. They hurriedly discuss how to clean up the mess and agree that the launch should be presented as a “mistake.” They then make a big fuss as they rush to punish the lowly soldier and a few unfortunate officers, hurrying to close the case in the hope that everyone will forget about it.
This is a heaping pile of incompetent conspiratorial nonsense, and the Taipei Times should never have published it. A longtime expert pointed out the simple fact that you can't fire the missile without setting its path coordinates: the same person has to do both, more or less. No one who wanted to cause trouble with China would have kept the missile within Taiwan's airspace. Hence any talk of conspiracy is nonsense. It was just a not-very-unusual screw up.

When analyzing events, its important to retain a simple filter: never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity.

This article is interesting as a relic of the way that generation of independence activists automatically reaches for conspiracy when it wants to explain events. Sad, and very out of date...
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5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Have to say I disagree with your logic, although the missile launch was probably accidental. But saying that it must have not have been deliberate because it didn't cross the line is not convincing. What if someone wanted to give China a prod but not actually make a major incident? That would be clever, actually. But the man reason that I think it was accidental is that they hit their own fishing boat.
Jaydee

Michael Turton said...

You can always come up with ever more fanciful scenarios to explain things, but that does not mean they are "logical".

Anonymous said...

WTF is wrong with Taipei Times. It's embarassing how the Pan-Greens must clutch eagerly at everything that presents a possible conspiracy.

I'm pro-Taiwan independence and I cannot fathom why Taipei Times would want to accomodate such nonsense, that harms the Tsai administration.

B.BarNavi said...

"A longtime expert pointed out the simple fact that you can't fire the missile without setting its path coordinates: the same person has to do both, more or less."

Then ipso facto it wasn't accidental. SOMEONE set coordinates. That's the only way the missile can be fired. Your logic defeats your point. Lern2LSAT.

Michael Turton said...

""Then ipso facto it wasn't accidental. SOMEONE set coordinates. That's the only way the missile can be fired. Your logic defeats your point. Lern2LSAT.""

D'oh. SOMEONE set coordinates so that the missile didn't enter Chinese space. No one who wanted to cause trouble would have done that (or fired only one). The missile was then accidentally launched at those coordinates, because setting coordinates and launching are separate steps (again, D'oh).