simple sabotage

Welcome to part 2 of sabotage week. Disclaimer: Despite how this may seem coming from a part-time anarchist, all of this is entirely for entertainment purposes. Entirely.

Back in 1944, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) released a field manual to its officers regarding how to recruit citizen-saboteurs and use simple sabotage against the enemy. The OSS was disbanded in 1945, but its legacy and functions live on in modern agencies like the CIA, the State Department, and the U.S. Special Forces. The document I'm referencing was declassified in 2008 as the ways and methods described within were no longer being used practically. (You can find the entire document on CIA's website here: Simple Sabotage Field Manual.)

From its table of contents:

The document goes on to lay out so many oddball, low-tech ways that a lone person could sabotage the effectiveness of a governmental agency, a company or a facility that it may cause you to question whether some of your own coworkers in 2025 are actually citizen-saboteurs. For example, it states in the introduction, "A non-cooperative attitude may involve nothing more than creating an unpleasant situation among ones fellow workers, engaging in bickerings, or displaying surliness and stupidity." (Hmm... Did someone on your end come to mind?) They refer to this type of activity as "the human element" and comment on how even in normal environments this causes accidents, delays, and more. They advise, "The potential saboteur should discover what types of faulty decisions and non-cooperation are normally found in this kind of work and should then devise his sabotage so as to enlarge that 'margin for error.'"

The target of these efforts were Nazi Germany and Axis-sympathetic people, places, and things. The actions were intended to harass, demoralize, or reduce efficiency on the end of the enemy. The hope was that the cumulative effect could aid the Allied military actions by introducing "friction" into the enemy's war efforts. But enough backstory, let's get into the best of the best of what the government suggested:

c. Where destruction is involved, the weapons of the citizen-saboteur are salt, nails, candles, pebbles, thread, or any other materials he might normally be expected to possess as a householder or as a worker in his particular occupation. His arsenal is the kitchen shelf, the trash pile, his own usual kit of tools and supplies. The targets of his sabotage are usually objects to which he has normal and inconspicuous access in everyday life.

"His arsenal is the...trash pile" really works for me and you should know why after reading last week's ia.

Forget to provide paper in toilets; put tightly rolled paper, hair, and other obstructions in the W. C. Saturate a sponge with a thick starch or sugar solution. Squeeze it tightly into a ball, wrap it with string, and dry. Remove the string when fully dried. The sponge will be in the form of a tight hard ball. Flush down a W. C. or otherwise introduce into a sewer line. The sponge will gradually expand to its normal size and plug the sewage system.

Did you know water closets were so vulnerable? I love to picture OSS cloak-and-danger men soaking sponges and tying them with string as a form of R&D.

(4) Water, urine, wine, or any other simple liquid you can get in reasonably large quantities will dilute gasoline fuel to a point where no combustion will occur in the cylinder and the engine will not move. One pint to 20 gallons of gasoline is sufficient. If salt water is used, it will cause corrosion and permanent motor damage.

Reasonably large quantities of urine? Check.

(2) See that the luggage of enemy personnel is mislaid or unloaded at the wrong stations, switch address labels on enemy baggage.

I guess every time this has happened to me at the airport, I've been the target of the OSS.

(3) Anyone can break up the showing of an enemy propaganda film by putting two or three dozen large moths in a paper bag. Take the bag to the movies with you, put it on the floor in an empty section of the theater as you go in and leave it open. The moths will fly out and climb into the projector beam, so that the film will be obscured by fluttering shadows.

Three dozen moths probably works better than two, just saying. The manual does not mention whether the citizen-saboteur WILL or WILL NOT be issued a butterfly net.

And two last ones:

(c) Act stupid

(1) Cry and sob hysterically at every occasion, especially when confronted by government clerks.

Check and check.

I'm not condoning the use of any of these tactics in 2025 against anyone, but their effectiveness remains to this day I'm sure. I may have or may not have participated in some simple sabotage in the past myself. At one point, the city of Pittsburgh allowed electric scooter rentals. These scooters were left all over town, blocking sidewalks, parking spots, handicap ramps, and more. Originally, I would call or email customer service to try and get them removed. I would get a reply and the scooter might even be moved by an employee. The problem continued. Eventually, I aimed to overwhelm their system. I used a form email that I would send every time I saw one in the wrong place. I could send one off in less than a minute and often sent many a day. At some point, they stopped even sending me the automatic reply to a request. Maybe they blocked my emails. Still, the company no longer exists and all of the scooters are now in a landfill somewhere. I like to think I created a little "friction" in that situation and that my efforts sped up the end of my enemy and that terrible era.

We don't want this manual and its "invaluable" information to fall into the wrong hands, but what you do with it is entirely up to you.

indoor animal is curated by a human: Tim Papciak. On Mondays, he shares one link to one music video to help spark creativity in himself and in other creative types. On Thursdays, he recommends a book, movie, show, art piece, or link to some dusty corner of the internet that he believes either 1.) adds to the human experience, or 2.) serves as a coping mechanism in the year 2025. Note: this is not, and never will be, self-help content.