Over the years, I've heard a couple of creative suggestions
for dealing with our nation's enemies. One of these suggestions in particular
has stuck with me as a real possibility for making a different sort of attack against
those who pose a threat. This suggestion was made in jest. But the more I've
pondered it, the more I think it might hold real promise as a strategic/tactical
measure in times of war.
The suggestion was made by Andy Rooney during one of the
commentaries he'd deliver at the end of every 60 Minutes TV program. He
proposed that, instead of dropping explosives on our adversaries - we should
carpet bomb them with all kinds of material goods. We should drop load after
load of all the kinds of commodities that American families are famous for
having in such plentitude.
We could of course drop the necessities of food and clean
water. However, Rooney also proposed that we drop objects that are essentially
frivolous but that make for distracting good fun. We could parachute down house
slippers that look like kittens, bags of potpourri, video games, crocheted
Kleenex box covers, clocks that chirp the hours, coffee mugs dedicated to
"The Best Grandfather in the World," butterfly hair clips, and on and
on. We could drop whole Wal-Marts full of goods on our enemies, blanketing within
their borders on and on, around the clock.
Rooney pointed out that a bombing campaign of that kind
would really help maintain full employment throughout our economy. We'd need
every worker available to crank out these goods and to package them for
parachuting. At the same time, we'd catch our enemies completely off-guard.
While they were geared up to strike back against machine gun fire, hand
grenades, mortar shellings, and missiles - they would hardly know how to combat
a 6-foot stuffed panda come flying at them. What's more, they'd be completely
disabled trying to store all these possessions in their homes. We'd make them
as glutted as we are. With their living spaces chock-full of Elvis-on-velvet
paintings - they'd be too bogged down to come out and fight.
Rooney signaled how truly he was saying all this in jest
when he ended his commentary by reflecting, "On second thought, we really
shouldn't bomb countries with all our stuff. That would be too cruel."
Better stick to TNT.
But wait a minute! Why does that suggestion of a way to wage
war have to be a joke? Couldn't some version of that approach in fact work a
lot better than conventional bombings? Since people so often become soldiers in
order to escape poverty or boredom, wouldn't a barrage of delightful
merchandise occupy them in less destructive ways? Not that most of our current
terrorist foes necessarily come from poor families. It's been shown that many
of them actually come from supportive, middle-class families. But their anger
often stems from a more general sense of privation and humiliation. So a
judicious supply of some of the goods necessary for them to start their own
all-consuming businesses could perhaps deflect them and their likely supporters
more than gunpowder has been doing. People seeking ways to express qualities of
dedication, commitment, and zeal, could find outlets other than religious
fundamentalism.
But if we were to seriously adopt such a strategy, there
would be many other things to consider about the nature of the products we
deployed. We'd have to be sensitive to the cultures of the countries into which
we dropped our goods. No liquor on Muslim countries. No milk products on
populations that generally couldn't digest lactose. Nothing so chauvinistically
American or in such quantity that it played into resentment against what's been
perceived as U.S. materialism or paternalism. Also, we couldn't launch so many
free goods into a country that the influx would destroy what was likely their
already fragile economy. Nor could we drop stuff in such a way that our
largesse would give rise to cargo cults among any receiving tribal peoples
below.
We could perhaps include some whimsical, purely frivolous
items such as those cuddly kitten house slippers. But in reality, we shouldn't
drop an indiscriminate mix of goods. Most of what we drop should be genuinely
useful in the context of the countries where we drop it. In addition to
dropping laptops, radios, books, illustrated how-to guides, and other means of
self-learning - we'd want to drop practical self-help things, especially when
fighting against poorer nations. Some possibilities might be biogas ovens,
water purifiers, pumps, antibiotics, insecticides, bicycles, baskets, jars, coolers,
ice, tents, anti-bacterial soap, spackle, batteries, pens and paper, incidental
spare parts and nuts and bolts and nails of all kinds, basic tools, saws, and
stepladders. When doing this as a serious stratagem, we'd probably want to
represent the shelves of Home Depot more than those of Wal-Mart.
Then just because we'd be bringing bounty rather than
devastation to the enemy, we shouldn't assume our soldiers would be in any less
danger making the deliveries. Our pilots would probably be subject to as much
or even more repulsive force than when they were dropping bombs over their
targets. This has frequently been the case whenever any country has tried to
deliver humanitarian aid to combatants. The heads of State, the heads of the
different fighting factions, are fierce in trying to prevent anything helpful
getting through. Such outside help diminishes the leverage and overall power
they exert. So as a simple self-defense measure, our soldiers might still have
to pack plenty of TNT along with their chemical toilets.
Another problem that might arise if we were to deal with our
enemies this way is that we might risk seeing The Mouse That Roared
scenarios develop in countries all over the globe. In that Peter Sellers movie,
the officials of a (fictional) small, bankrupt Duchy decide to wage war against
the U.S. Their plan, after what they assume will be their inevitable defeat, is
to sit back and collect the reconstruction aid that the U.S. can be counted on
to rain on its former foes. But if the worst we have to fear from a beneficent
approach to battle is a declarations of war against us from the Grand Fenwicks
of the world, it will certainly be worth the risk.
In spite of all the danger and in spite of all the
diplomatic difficulty we'd face in finding the right mix of goods with which to
bombard our enemies, the results could hardly be worse than the destruction and
loss of life that current methods deliver to both sides. If I were President. I
would seriously attempt this radical new approach to combat. Instead of dropping
bombs on al-Qaeda and ISIL strongholds and all the surrounding population and terrain,
I'd drop carefully considered care packages on much of the host territory - day
after day, relentlessly. I'd turn that old saying into literal fact - I'd kill
them with kindness. What Andy Rooney proposed in jest, I'd execute in earnest.
