News from the front may not be all good

That certainly put the icing on the cake: “War declared on mosquitoes”. Reading newspapers nowadays always makes me feel as if I’m crouching in a bunker. After the war on drugs, war on poverty and war on corruption, now our beloved authorities are going after the tiny little insects.

But you can’t just blame the media. It’s always the politicians who drag out the term “war”, isn’t it? They love that word for some unknown reason. Why must politics have to be about “war” all the time? Can’t we stop fighting and think about peace and love?

Reading all the headlines, I imagine Government House as a big 19th-century fortress with thousands of hardened soldiers marching in and out. If we fantasise a bit more, a conversation between the supreme commander and his ranking officers might go like this:

Supreme Commander: How’s it going on the Poverty Front?

Commander A: It’s a big battlefield success, or so it seems, sir. Our soldiers are heroes in a strange sort of way, and they’ve performed some astonishing feats that no other unit in the past could have. We’ve made the rich richer while the poor still fervently believe they’ll be rich themselves soon. Your idea to carpet-bomb our enemies with your “$$$” brain-washing missiles was brilliant: the poor really do believe they are now living above the poverty line.

Our “Bt30-for-all-diseases” tanks are a very effective weapon, sir, used in conjunction with our “borrow-till-you-drop” leaflets, which have won even more sympathisers and badly confused the enemy.

All in all, our target, “poverty”, proved very vulnerable. There’s no report that any of our people want to live in poverty. As long as you can keep providing your “$$$” missiles, everything should be fine. We hope you can do it, because if or when we run out of them, things may spin out of control, sir. The enemy could strike back and overwhelm us as fast as we did them.

Supreme Commander: Let’s move on to the Drug Front.

Commander B: We’re winning, but winning ugly, sir. Our troops have been accused of killing indiscriminately, and there’ve been calls for you to be taken before an international tribunal like the Khmer Rouge leaders were.

Nevertheless, you’ve been a genius in singling out targets for us. We’ve invaded pubs, khao tom shops, discos and schools and wreaked havoc in all those areas, but we’ve lost a number of our best fighters, including senior police officers and, not to be forgotten, our renowned “spaghetti-strap buster”, who was our only “clean” man, according to the media.

We’ve marched into schools nationwide to collect urine samples from students and separated young drug-abusers from others. Then we persuaded all of the schools to erect a “White School” sign out front. That strategy should have wide appeal for rural folks: parents are happy to have their kids studying in those white schools.

We’ve won major new allies in prosecutors and judges, because we’ve done them such a great favour. Now they save a lot of time on cases, thanks to our troops’ killing spree. The only complication of the war involves our international image, but we shouldn’t pay too much attention to that sort of criticism, sir. After all, the superpowers do it all the time. Many innocents have died in the Iraqi War too, but you never see Supreme Commander Bush complain. And you were so right when you told them that our troops were only shooting in self-defence. Your strategy was brilliant: pick a simple target, strike hard and fast and waste no time declaring victory.

Supreme Commander: Well said, and a great briefing. Now, let’s move on to our biggest battlefield. How bad is it?

Commander C: Very bad, sir. The enemy is too powerful and our resources limited. They overrun us day in and day out. There are signs of mutiny among the troops, who feel that you’ve not paid enough attention to this front. Our intelligence units also believe there to be “moles” operating near you, because the enemy seems aware of our every move and always stays one step ahead of us, sir.

Supreme Commander: Moles? What do you mean?

Commander C: I mean the enemy might be right here, sir. They’re fighting us from the inside while we hit at insignificant targets. Oh, and our spies also report that the enemy has acquired a powerful new missile called the CTX. I have just one suggestion if it’s trained on our fortress.

Supreme Commander: And what is that?

Commander C: Run like hell, sir.

Published on May 14, 2005