What You Have Heard Is True

Now I'm as sure as the next guy that another proxy war in Asia would be a jolly good time, and surely no one disputes the plain fact that nothing says "Trust us :) ;) lol !! xoxo" like "teams of CIA officers and Special Forces soldiers . . . providing . . . weapons and money." And does anything say, "I'm on your side," like a covert incursion across an international border in disputed territory? Flowers? Baskets of artisanal jams and mustards? Certainly nothing will palliate the oft-articulated grievance that the United States subverts and interferes with other nations, peoples, and governments like arming the breakaway tribal leaderships of a restive foreign province so that they can combat al-Qaeda without--needless to say--ever even considering using their new arms and funds to solidify their status as polities independent of the central Pakistani government. You know, I've rather talked myself into it. This is a fantastic idea.

Now read this:

Intervening in another Muslim country is risky, to put it mildly. That's why a successful counterinsurgency program would need Pakistani support and why its economic and social development components would be critical. The concept should be President John F. Kennedy's "Alliance for Progress" to counter radicalism in Latin America, rather than "Operation Iraqi Freedom."

Yes. Because we all recall what a sky-high success the Alliance for Progress was. You remember. The program to counter the rising threat of Communist Cuba. A rising threat that did not, in fact, exist. The program that failed entirely to produce land reform, that fomented the rise in right-wing military dictatorships, that laid the groundwork for the failed narco-interventions of the seventies, eighties, nineties, and today. The program whose development portion turned out to be an immense boondoggle for funneling government money to American companies which were privileged by law as the unique recipients of aid, construction, and development contracts. The program that more than anything else turned Latin American populations decisively against the United States and laid the foundation for the current explosion of populist, anti-Americanism throughout the region. The program that even more than our canal-zone hijinks and United Fruit Company invasions in the earlier years of the century turned the Monroe Doctrine into a vast, bloody, cocaine-fueled enterprise in repression and nun-killing. You remember. That program. Hey, at least Joan Didon got some good material out of it.

Anyway. That's what David Ignatius advocates we try in Pakistan. Instead, you know, of invading. Those being are the only two options.

THE COLONEL

What you have heard is true. I was in his house. His wife carried a tray of coffee and sugar. His daughter filed her nails, his son went out for the night. There were daily papers, pet dogs, a pistol on the cushion beside him. The moon swung bare on its black cord over the house. On the television was a cop show. It was in English. Broken bottles were embedded in the walls around the house to scoop the kneecaps from a man's legs or cut his hands to lace. On the windows there were gratings like those in liquor stores. We had dinner, rack of lamb, good wine, a gold bell was on the table for calling the maid. The maid brought green mangoes, salt, a type of bread. I was asked how I enjoyed the country. There was a brief commercial in Spanish. His wife took everything away. There was some talk then of how difficult it had become to govern. The parrot said hello on the terrace. The colonel told it to shut up, and pushed himself from the table. My friend said to me with his eyes: say nothing. The colonel returned with a sack used to bring groceries home. He spilled many human ears on the table. They were like dried peach halves. There is no other way to say this. He took one of them in his hands, shook it in our faces, dropped it into a water glass. It came alive there. I am tired of fooling around he said. As for the rights of anyone, tell your people they can go fuck themselves. He swept the ears to the floor with his arm and held the last of the wine in the air. Something for your poetry, no? he said. Some of the ears on the floor caught this scrap of his voice. Some of the ears on the floor were pressed to the ground.

by Carolyn Forché from The Country Between Us