violence
Chronicle of Ordinary Madness
September 22, 2002
What I've just seen, heard, demands a reaction. I turned on my TV at random, as usual, and stumbled upon a report on Pakistan, presented as a panoramic overview. Karachi, a city of all trafficking and all dangers, tribal zones where weapons and drugs circulate freely, where women all wear burkas, where you can buy hashish or heroin at every street corner, where no one has ever managed to change anything.
An old man from the tribal zones shouted:
- We fought Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, the British, the Russians. No one has ever forced us to surrender. We are great warriors.
His beautiful dark eyes shine. The Afghans are a noble race. Men and women are magnificent.
You old fool!
The report continues. We hear a tribal chief in these "tribal zones," where there is a tribal economy, tribal justice, tribal droit de cuissage, tribal drug management. The man complained about bad weather conditions preventing the planting of poppies. Ah, know this: poppies grow about as easily as weeds in these mountainous regions. I also heard that the combined production of Afghanistan and Pakistan accounts for 40% of the heroin consumed in the United States.
A passing remark. I've mentioned on my website high-tech weapons like micro-drones, and the possibility that crop circles might correspond to tests of microwave weapons. One might be indignant: How dare they test such weapons in the middle of the English countryside, when they could kill people! But consider things from another angle. If "Crop Circles" result from the impact of extremely precise microwave beams on nodules at the base of wheat stalks—so precise that they bend the stalks into beautiful patterns—would you oppose developing a similar system capable of remotely destroying poppy fields? A poppy that allows "poor South American, Afghan, and Pakistani farmers to survive," but which kills others elsewhere, enriches others, and funds undesirable movements. If we can grow poppies somewhere, then we can grow something else—even if it's less profitable, perhaps just enough to eat.
What would you say if one day, alongside serious economic aid to poppy farmers (not charity, not aid that gets diverted before reaching those who truly need it), the international community encouraged them to switch to less harmful crops—while simultaneously building roads and supplying refrigerated trucks so they could transport their vegetables to cities—while also warning people that poppy harvests would be destroyed by microwave beams, using a mirror made of ionized gas, and advising the good people cultivating these fields not to be in those fields at night? Would you protest against this unbearable interference in a country's right to self-determination, and against this violation of free enterprise and the freedom to export?
Economic aid must still reach those who need it. World Bank officials know that money sent to the Russians was immediately diverted by countless people—by the Russian mafia, by military personnel needing funds to maintain their equipment, and by members of the family of the drunken, vodka-sucking Eltsin. As an aside, I recall a phrase I heard from a tribal chief in Pakistan:
- The Americans are in our regions searching for Bin Laden? Then why don't they just give us the weapons and money so we can conduct these searches ourselves?
Do you really think we're fools, old man?
Many years ago, I was passing through Addis Ababa on my way to Kenya. I arrived during a famine. Forced to stay two days, I bought tins of corned beef to distribute during my "tourist walks" through the city to people visibly dying on the sidewalks. I saw a magnificent hospital in the city, expensive and reserved for those who could afford treatment. I also learned that the family of the Negus, now senile, was selling sacks of wheat delivered by humanitarian aid organizations to... Somalis, their neighbors, then putting the money into Swiss bank accounts. One evening in town, I narrowly avoided an attack thanks to a sword I'd cautiously bought from a secondhand dealer. On my return trip, I had to pass through Addis Ababa again, and this time I was subjected to a police extortion attempt. I was held captive for a day at the police station "because I spoke English too well." These people wanted a bribe to let me board my flight to Paris. But I had no money—only my sketchbooks from the safari I'd taken through Kenya and Tanzania. At the last moment, seeing it wouldn't work, I was driven by a police car to the door of my plane. Otherwise, I would have caused a repatriation problem. The police couldn't have made me disappear, though.
When fools dress at high-end fashion houses.
Back to the Pakistan report. We discover... what we already knew: this region of the world resembles the Balkans before the war of 1939–1945. In Kashmir, attacks follow one another relentlessly. Islamic fundamentalists slaughter Christians who have done no harm to anyone. In a border zone at 6,000 meters altitude, Indians and Pakistanis engage in senseless artillery duels. Men laboriously haul shells up to the ridges, from where light howitzers will fire at the "enemy." The journalist noted it was difficult to obtain such images. Of course, displaying such stupidity so openly is something. On these snow-covered ridges, "honor" is being fought for on both sides, no doubt. An Indian senior officer declares:
- Yes, we have the atomic bomb. We also have missiles. The Pakistanis have all of this too. If one of us fires a missile, the flight time is just a few minutes. So how can we know what kind of warhead the missile carries—whether it's nuclear or not, whether it was fired intentionally or by accident? We have no way of knowing. If our radar detects a missile crossing the border, we have only one choice: respond.
This is the "response on attack" strategy dear to American tactician Garwin, in the early 1980s, when the U.S. wanted to entrust the decision to retaliate to a... computer. Madness among the bronzed. Wake me up—this is a bad dream. But in fact, it's not the worst. In a climate of political-religious assassinations (an interview with a member of the elegant and beautiful Benazir Bhutto's family, who paid a heavy price in these affairs), we come across an interview with a Pakistani businessman. These men are very industrious. The man owns about fifty companies. What is a Pakistani company? For example, a simple hangar with tables, secondhand sewing machines, and dozens of men and women sewing shirts just to earn enough to eat and make my...