MANICHAEAN
04-24-2011, 07:41 AM
Submarine Dilemmas on the Dark Continent.
It was the rainy season in East Africa and the proposal for the land locked Ugandan navy to purchase half-a-dozen ageing U-boats in a 7.7 billion dong deal was not exactly greeted by its citizens dancing in the streets. If you added those nasty words "maintenance costs" it did not look too healthy for the country’s bank balance either. There had even been rumblings that the deal had not been entirely "transparent" _ heaven forbid!
However, to Admiral Odonga Odinga, brother of the President’s fourth wife, there was a perfectly valid explanation for the planned purchase. He recalled having read somewhere about a ceremony to mark “National Submarine Day” in Portsmouth, England. This was rather intriguing because although Uganda didn't have any submarines, this was no reason to his mind to dampened Submarine Day spirits. And that could be the answer. The navy needed the subs so that they could celebrate Submarine Day properly, without pretending they had got subs when they hadn’t.
In fact any reasoning citizen should be capable to see the dilemma. So to the Admiral’s mind, his request to First Sea Lord Ogolie Aloba, (also related through his third junior wife and 10% on the commission payment), it was a perfectly reasonable request.
Up to now the Admirals of Ugandan Navy Command based in Entebbe had been restricted to celebrating the great day with plastic replicas in the bath.
The problem facing the navy however was how to persuade the tax-paying public to fork out billions of dong on something the country had managed to do perfectly well without since inception. The main question was what they were going to do with the subs once they had them? These particular vessels were said to be quite useful attack submarines. But who or what were they going to attack? Invading Nile perch, known carnivores in Lake Victoria? Or maybe man o' war jellyfish, which could be pretty anti-social.
There was also that cloud on the horizon raised by a member of the opposition party in the Entebbe parliament, Joseph Kazong Babangida, a known environmentalist subversive, always raising problems over climate change. Only last week he had expounded to the House how Lake Victoria, also known among the shoreline tribes as Nanza, or Ukerewe, or The Eye of the Rhino, or Nalubaale, Sango, Lolwe etc had, during its geological history, gone through some quite substantial changes.
Geological cores he had explained, taken from its bottom showed that Lake Victoria had dried up completely at least three times since it was formed. These drying cycles were probably related to past ice ages, which were times when precipitation had declined globally.
Thus he pointed out, Lake Victoria had last dried out 17,300 years ago, and it had only started being refilled about 14,700 years ago. What he wanted to know, were the Ugandan submarine corp objectives and operational capability if they had no water?
The First Lord of the Admiralty rose to the occasion however and explained that in the event that Lake Victoria dried up, then the subs would proceed down the White Nile to Lake Albert in Kenya until it filled up again.
The Chamber being packed with the President’s extended family and tribal members concurred unamanously and the purchase motion was passed.
It was the rainy season in East Africa and the proposal for the land locked Ugandan navy to purchase half-a-dozen ageing U-boats in a 7.7 billion dong deal was not exactly greeted by its citizens dancing in the streets. If you added those nasty words "maintenance costs" it did not look too healthy for the country’s bank balance either. There had even been rumblings that the deal had not been entirely "transparent" _ heaven forbid!
However, to Admiral Odonga Odinga, brother of the President’s fourth wife, there was a perfectly valid explanation for the planned purchase. He recalled having read somewhere about a ceremony to mark “National Submarine Day” in Portsmouth, England. This was rather intriguing because although Uganda didn't have any submarines, this was no reason to his mind to dampened Submarine Day spirits. And that could be the answer. The navy needed the subs so that they could celebrate Submarine Day properly, without pretending they had got subs when they hadn’t.
In fact any reasoning citizen should be capable to see the dilemma. So to the Admiral’s mind, his request to First Sea Lord Ogolie Aloba, (also related through his third junior wife and 10% on the commission payment), it was a perfectly reasonable request.
Up to now the Admirals of Ugandan Navy Command based in Entebbe had been restricted to celebrating the great day with plastic replicas in the bath.
The problem facing the navy however was how to persuade the tax-paying public to fork out billions of dong on something the country had managed to do perfectly well without since inception. The main question was what they were going to do with the subs once they had them? These particular vessels were said to be quite useful attack submarines. But who or what were they going to attack? Invading Nile perch, known carnivores in Lake Victoria? Or maybe man o' war jellyfish, which could be pretty anti-social.
There was also that cloud on the horizon raised by a member of the opposition party in the Entebbe parliament, Joseph Kazong Babangida, a known environmentalist subversive, always raising problems over climate change. Only last week he had expounded to the House how Lake Victoria, also known among the shoreline tribes as Nanza, or Ukerewe, or The Eye of the Rhino, or Nalubaale, Sango, Lolwe etc had, during its geological history, gone through some quite substantial changes.
Geological cores he had explained, taken from its bottom showed that Lake Victoria had dried up completely at least three times since it was formed. These drying cycles were probably related to past ice ages, which were times when precipitation had declined globally.
Thus he pointed out, Lake Victoria had last dried out 17,300 years ago, and it had only started being refilled about 14,700 years ago. What he wanted to know, were the Ugandan submarine corp objectives and operational capability if they had no water?
The First Lord of the Admiralty rose to the occasion however and explained that in the event that Lake Victoria dried up, then the subs would proceed down the White Nile to Lake Albert in Kenya until it filled up again.
The Chamber being packed with the President’s extended family and tribal members concurred unamanously and the purchase motion was passed.