Politics - Tuesday, March 4, 2008 22:33 - 0 Comments

Ecuador actually turns OFF the radar at night

So - you are managing a country, let’s call you Pepito, and you have VITs (very important terrorists) aka revolutionaries roaming around your border. So, as the sovereign nation that you are (Ecuador), you don’t sign up for a plan to help you fight the VITs. All in the name of independency, democracy and good old pride. Plus you really think you can manage the border because you have a few old planes and one radar. Yes, one.

So - Pepito, you go in your merry way defending your border against the VITs, let’s call them the F.A.R.T (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias Terroristas). So the F.A.R.T, has a lot of money because apparently, being a selfless revolutionary pays a lot of money down south.

The revolutionary gig goes something like this: You change your god-given name from silly,Luis Edgar Devia Silva, to a really cool Comandante-Marcos-style name of Raul Reyes. Now folks can call you Comandante Reyes rather than Luisito. Now with your really cool revolutionary name you go on and become the voice of the FART and lead a few battalions into war. At this point your new name has you in such celebrity-style haze that you don’t even care what you are fighting for. Anyway, after a few days of ordering people around and getting use to your revolution by defending FART territory your superior, who has a cooler name than you do (darn), gives you a huge bonus. A wad of cash. The bonus is for taking care of the revolutionary territory, that just happens to be filled with very interesting plants that are super valuable in the US and Europe. Who knew! But who cares, you’ve got a wad of cash and a cool name and you get to kill a dude or two in the jungle every now and then. Mainly your own compatriots.

Anyway, going back to the FART and border security. So - you are defending your country against the big and nasty FART with your really old planes and sole radar. Since the grid is shaky in the Amazon Jungle and because you need to save electricity you actually turn off your only radar that patrols the border at night. After all what kind of FART would even think about sneaking into your country after hours. They have stuff to do, business to take care of.

But Mister Raul, one of the biggest FARTs, decides that he wants to turn in one of his personal pets (aka POW) to you, the country’s president and you take in the FART and decide to talk to the FART. Ay, Pepito. In secret of course. Who knows when that would happen.

Anyway, you wake up thinking how cool you are because you can defend your little country against the FART and how they are going to make you even cooler by turning in Ingrid to you. But wait, you get a call (at noon the next day) saying that Mister Raul has been killed in your territory (oh, darn). Your plan is screwed up now. But how is it possible that no one woke you up in the middle of the night to tell you about this incident, Pepito asks bewildered. The answer mister silly President, you turned off your radar at night and your three 12-people battalions (that are actually jungle natives that couldn’t care less about either country) took more than 12 hours to get to the area.

Yes Pepito, you are silly, but who cares… now you get to run around other countries throwing a tantrum and making us Ecuadorians look even sillier.