Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2016/08/15/after-nz-spooks-misidentified.html
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“thumbs up for democracy,”
That name does raise some red flags, for NSA simpletons.
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FTA: Chris Tremain, then-Minister of Internal Affairs for New Zealand, stated that “I have good reason to believe that … you are involved in planning violent action intended to force a change of Government in a foreign state; and you intend to engage in, or facilitate, an act of terrorism overseas”
What constitutes a “good reason” these days??
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Of course - you know what’s necessary to hold guns and make bombs? Thumbs.
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TIL Fiji has a military. All of 3,500 active duty personnel plus 6,000 reservists. Would that be enough to take over an island of 900,000 people if the people particularly objected to the coup?
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There was a military coup in 2006, though, according to Wikipedia at least, popular opposition was muted.
That was my point. Apparently the previous government was heck of corrupt, and once the new guy finally got around to a free election he got 60% of the vote, with neutral international observers saying it was legit.
It makes you wonder though, what’s in it for someone trying to take over Fiji? Great, you control a miniscule island nation. Now you got all the burden of governing the joint and not a hell of a lot of power to throw around internationally. You were already living in an island paradise to begin with fer chrissakes, how much better is your situation gonna be with a bunch of added responsibilities?
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Fiji has been unstable for a generation. A big issue early on was opposition by descendants of indigenous Fijians to the political role played by Fijians of Indian descent. Business, and increasingly politics were dominated by the Indian ethnicity, while indigenous Fijians controlled the military.
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But why do they care? You live in paradise, chill out. So there’s an Indian civil servant living next door, so what?
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Its more about the Indian civil servant being prime minister. Its the same old racist story.
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For a trained, disciplined and provisioned army against a relatively unarmed disorganized population, easily. Most small nations can neither afford nor wish to spend the economic and political capital to maintain a standing professional army. Fiji is something of an anomaly in that regard, mainly due to internal turmoil as their neighboring islands don’t even maintain militaries, and a single active duty brigade and two reserve brigades would not stand a chance against invasion by a medium or large power, though they could be used to train resistance fighters in the unlikely event anyone chose to invade Fiji. Therefor the military exists as a form of law enforcement, including anti-piracy duties and UN peacekeeping deployments, both of which small militaries use as real-world training experience.
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The worst kind of terrorist is the engaged citizen.
That’s why we keep an especially close eye on those types
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The obvious, and patriotic, conclusion is that the NSA was just helping protect America from terrorism by ensuring a steady supply of that Fiji bottled water for the TSA to confiscate, avoiding dehydration that would otherwise impair their ability to protect our skies.
Seems legit, right?
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