Guns in Pakistan

Making Guns in Pakistan:

You should really watch this video, of what is described as "the largest illegal arms market in the world." It's in the area under the control of the Afreedis in Pakistan -- I say "in Pakistan," although government control over the area is notional at best. I don't find the video alarming, as others seem to; I think you should watch it because it's a picture of the tribal society in the part of Pakistan that is sheltering the Taliban.

A friend of mine has spent a lot of time in Pakistan, and he told me years ago about this town. (I spoke to him again last week, and by coincidence this place came up in an unrelated conversation -- he thinks this is where Bin Laden probably is, given the power and strength of the Afreedis to protect him.) My friend was, as the filmaker is, totally impressed that these tribal villagers turn out military-grade firearms with nothing more than hand tools.

Well, it is impressive, as a show of skill. But it hasn't been that long ago that all firearms were made with hand tools -- and the technology really hasn't changed very much in many years. Any firearms made of metal and wood can be made by hand perfectly well.

It doesn't matter if you can make firearms out of scrap metal and wood; so can we, if we want to (and better ones, through the miracle of computer aided design). That's nothing to be alarmed about.

What is important, though, is to understand how to engage people like this. They're basically decent: "Lots of sons and lots of guns" is a fine motto for a man's life. The tribal clashes and gangs are a problem for them: visiting this town requires taking some armed friends along for mutual protection. Yet it hasn't been that long ago that much of Europe was the same way; the introduction to Dicken's "Tale of Two Cities" reminds us of that.

In England, there was scarcely an amount of order and protection to justify much national boasting. Daring burglaries by armed men, and highway robberies, took place in the capital itself every night; families were publicly cautioned not to go out of town without removing their furniture to upholsterers' warehouses for security; the highwayman in the dark was a City tradesman in the light, and, being recognised and challenged by his fellow-tradesman whom he stopped in his character of "the Captain," gallantly shot him through the head and rode away; the mail was waylaid by seven robbers, and the guard shot three dead, and then got shot dead himself by the other four, "in consequence of the failure of his ammunition:" after which the mail was robbed in peace; that magnificent potentate, the Lord Mayor of London, was made to stand and deliver on Turnham Green, by one highwayman, who despoiled the illustrious creature in sight of all his retinue; prisoners in London gaols fought battles with their turkeys, and the majesty of the law fired blunderbusses in among them, loaded with rounds of shot and ball; thieves snipped off diamond crosses from the necks of noble lords at Court drawing-rooms; musketeers went into St. Giles's, to search for contraband goods, and the mob fired on the musketeers, and the musketeers fir on the mob, and nobody thought any of these occurrences much out of the common way. In the midst of them, the hangman, ever busy and ever worse than useless, was in constant requisition; now, stringing up long rows of miscellaneous criminals; now, hanging a housebreaker on Saturday who had been taken on Tuesday; now, burning people in the hand at Newgate by the dozen, and now burning pamphlets at the door of Westminster Hall; to-day, taking the life of an atrocious murderer, and to-morrow of a wretched pilferer who had robbed a farmer's boy of sixpence.

All these things, and a thousand like them, came to pass in and close upon the dear old year one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five.

Allowing for dramatic license, that picture is not wholly inaccurate.

The town shows the third-world combination of technology and poverty. Live animals roam the streets, destined to be dinner. Sanitation is not extant. But there are sparkly stickers to decorate vehicles, shiny toys, and the latest weapons they know how to manufacture with the most primitive tools. They are not haters of the world of the West, then: what they can get of it, they proudly display everywhere they can.

There is ignorance: a people who has learned to make these guns has not learned to understand them. They must know how the firearms operate since they know how to build them, but they seem not to have given any thought to the ramifications of that knowledge. The photo team finds bullets on the ground where they are walking, shattered from having been shot in the air and then falling to earth. The "place for shooting" is right over a busy street, firing without any thought for a backstop or other basic safety mechanism.

It should not be necessary to fight most of these people, even though they give shelter (for now) to people who have declared themselves our enemies. It should be possible to befriend them.

They are decent, and they want technology and its pleasures and comforts. They lack understanding we can bring them, which could improve their lives. We can see in the pictures that they also lack much of modern sanitation and health, which we can also provide.

What we need is a tribal-style client relationship with some of these tribes. We have plenty with which to purchase it; there is a great deal that we have to offer. They are plainly not religious zealots who hate all technology, however they may have been portrayed by those who haven't been out to see for themselves.

This is a place where our enemies have made a home for themselves, because it is disconnected from us and our laws and treaties. That need not be the case forever. Some of these enemies, sheltering there, have seduced their young men into the idea of fighting us as a path to glory. Most of them, though, remain there, making guns because guns are what they know how to make, and because there is a demand.

"How can you beat these people?" asks the narrarator. I have a different question: Why should you wish to?

We'll talk more about disaggregation in coming days; those promised COIN posts. This is a good place to start thinking about it, though. These seem like good folk; I like sons and guns myself. How to draw them away from those who are the enemies of the West, and create the client relationship that will let them receive America as an ally and friend?