Naïveté in the Gaudy Age of the Grotesque

As I kick off the fourth part — and probably not the last either — of the Grotesque series, I’d like to make a reference to a film I rather enjoy watching. It’s called Once Upon a Time in Mexico. I still recall my initial reluctance to watch it, but damn, is it ever good. The Depp plays Agent Sheldon Sands, a CIA agent who is in Mexico to try and bring “balance” to the country. His job is to eliminate anyone who’s either too much of a good guy or bad guy.

In other words, rather his own words, “My name is Sheldon Jeffery Sands. I work for the Central Intelligence Agency. I throw shapes, I set them up, I watch them fall.”

There’s this book I quite like, one of the few money and finance-related books I’ve actually finished reading (A half-read Economics for Dummies has been lying forlornly on my bedside table looking up at me for God-knows-how-long). This book is called Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins. Written from the author’s own experiences, it details how he was covertly recruited by the US National Security Agency, put on the payroll of an international consulting firm and told to visit several developing countries and get them to accept massive World Bank loans or US Aid.

In the process of paying them back, the countries in debt would be crippled by the loans and would effectively find themselves at the mercy of the US. Secondly, according to Perkins, the other job of economic hit men was to approach “strategically important” countries and try and broker some deal that would effectively trigger off events in those nations that would profit the US. The fall of the Shah of Iran, the Iraq invasion and even the death of Panamanian leader Omar Torrijos were triggered off by economic hit men, who in that regard were a bit like Agent Sands — throwing shapes, setting them up and watching them fall.

I’ve had some suspicions in the past — unfounded, I used to say dismissively — but I’m more or less convinced of a few things. The first of which is that we’ve been incredibly naïve. It began with economic liberalisation in India in 1991. Well, there really was no choice as we were bankrupt around then and the IMF had to undertake the dirty job of bailing India out of the red. International trade also began at kick off around that time and with it came Nestlé, Levis, Coca Cola (which had been banned previously) and of course, McDonalds.

On the foreign relations side of things, it began with Bill Clinton warming up to India and India returning the warmth. Then came George W. Bush and with the September 11 attacks, the War on Terror® was launched and Bush soon managed to become good pals with India. Tony Blair was already Bush’s best friend at this point. The Hyde Pact nearly split India in half, with the Left and Right of the country not taking too kindly to the US humouring and entertaining India’s nuclear aspirations.

Soon came the Season of Change™ with Obama — a man who in his speeches opposed the outsourcing of jobs — winning the US elections and stacking his cabinet and crew of advisors with people of Indian origin. India’s really on the map now, people began thinking. Wow! Sunita Williams going into space. Of course she’s Indian, everyone told themselves. She made some statement like “I like Indian food” and the whole of this country goes into a crazy frenzy with certain people nominating the American (read that again) for national awards.

November 26 hit Mumbai soon after. Hit Mumbai hard. Pakistan and India suspended sporting ties and all other ties and got caught in a war of accusations, with neither party willing to back down. India claimed that the state of Pakistan (and not just terrorists from there) launched the 26/11 attacks, while Pakistan countered that India was financing terror in Pakistan’s Baluchistan region. All along, random drone attacks on Pakistan, empty threats of consequences that would follow if Pakistan didn’t cooperate in the War on Terror® and assurances of justice to India flowed thick and fast from the US.

Obama in his baritone, would talk about how India and the US were closer than ever and his smiley-gladhands in India (sometimes called Consul-Generals and Ambassadors) would talk about the immense respect Obama has for Dr Manmohan Singh and how the US is committed to Indo-US ties... blah blah blah. Raising India’s dreams of permanent membership on the UN Security Council, only to back Japan instead did not sour India’s post-Cold War love for the US. And trust in the US. And at some point Slumdog Millionaire and its slew of Oscars happened and idiots were convinced that the world and especially, the US loved India.

In the last week, however... that’s when things turned interesting. David Coleman Headley in American custody, admitted to being involved in the 26/11 attacks and scouting out locations for the recent Pune blast. The US refused to extradite him to India so we could interrogate him. Until recently, they refused to even let us send a team to the US to quiz him (Note: The FBI merrily strolled down to India to interrogate people, including allegedly Mahesh Bhatt’s son, who from all indications, had nothing to do with anything). The final decision on an Indian investigating team getting access to Headley are still in limbo.

Why the US would be so cagey about letting India investigate Headley’s involvement is still a noodle-scratcher at this point. But let’s look at some points here.
- Headley visited Pakistan on numerous occasions on DEA work
- Headley claimed to be a CIA agent, a claim that the US has neither confirmed nor (more worryingly) refuted yet
- The 26/11 attacks brought India and Pakistan on the brink of another war
- In the aftermath of those attacks, India bulked up its armoury and set up the Force One commandos
- It’s all Taliban, Taliban, Taliban for the US; they’ve never been particularly keen on pursuing Lashkar-e-Tayyaba or any of the other terror outfits. It’s almost like they’re trying to sweep them under the rug. Hide them. Because-... No, that’s too whacky even for me.

Who else feels that something just isn’t kosher here?

I had written the phrase “In the last week” in bold letters above. This is why the last week turned not kosher into an all out paranoia attack. So, in this last week, the US gave indications that it would be signing a similar nuclear deal with Pakistan as it did with us. What the-...? But weren’t they just saying that Pakistan was a failed state, a short while ago? Would you really want to empower a failed state like that?

The claim from Washington now is that no such deal was actually planned, it was more a plan to discuss new energy sources for Pakistan. Well played. I’m not convinced.

Here’s what I do think. India for a while, enjoyed naïve childlike hoop-la over receiving all these gifts from the phoren, kinda like little kids go nuts when relatives from abroad — aka the phoren — bring them a little chocolate bar with some snazzy logo or some Made in China toy that they’ll forever cherish. And so with the secret sauce of a Maharaja Mac (the Indianised Big Mac, for the uninitiated) dripping from Mother India’s Maybelline-lined lips onto her Prada bag, that rested on her new Levi’s that look so cute with that new pair of Jimmy Choo peep-toe pair of shoes, she never saw Uncle Sam play her like a fiddle.

While ol’ Devious Sam was giving Mommy India all sorts of gifts and presents, she never saw him handing some out to Step-Uncle Pakistan just around the corner. She never realised that when Uncle Sam sold her his A-Class Merc and sold Uncle Pakistan his E-Class, it wasn’t by mistake! It was an intentional ploy. Hollywood and the Academy was in on it. How did you miss it, Mother India? Were you so blinded by the gaudiness on offer?

Did the bright lights and shiny pretty things make you lose focus? Or were you just being naïve? You better shake out of it soon, Mommy. Despite Tony’s submissiveness to George in modern times, the British did teach the Americans a few tricks. It’s divide and conquer all over again up in here. There’s never been a more urgent need for paranoia.

PS: Coming Soon — Paranoia in the Gaudy Age of the Grotesque