The Seamy Side Of Diplomacy - African Accords Come With Offshore Bank Accounts And Steamy Favors

Paul X was a senior State Department official with the rank of Ambassador but charged with the President's aggressive policy to resolve the many conflicts on the African continent, so many in fact that a California-type fire map would show the whole place burning.  With the exception of course where Big Men were in power and Presidents-for-Life who with cadres of praetorian guards, a well-paid secret police, and loyal militias, kept civil order. 

 

'A big job, Mr. President', Paul X said in a sit-down meeting in the Oval Office.  'These conflicts are no different than the aboriginal, tribal wars that have characterized the continent since the first human settlements there.  They are bloody, cannibalistic affairs.  Rape, disembowelment, beheading, and dismemberment are just the beginning of a victorious feast of...'

The President raised his hand, signaling the Ambassador to hold his fire.  Washington is a leaky bucket, and even the Oval Office is porous.  Although he would have been quite happy to once and for all dispel the myth of a 'sentient, primally attuned, spiritual' Africa and finally end the fabulist notion of the black man atop the human pyramid, politics dictated circumspection. 

'You're sending me into a hellhole, Mr. President'

The President gracefully rose from his chair behind the Resolute desk, walked over to the Ambassador and embraced him.  'That's why I picked you, Paul'. 

The Ambassador wondered whether the President was complimenting him on his ability to resolve the most intransigent conflicts in the world, or whether he was deliberately sending him down a shithole oubliette.  He smiled back at his boss, shook his hand, and took his leave. 

Paul X's first assignment was to negotiate a settlement between two neighboring African states fighting over a treasure trove of rare earth materials increasing geometrically in worth with every advance in AI or cell phone technology.  The Presidents of the warring nations were from opposing tribes - tribes which had fought each other for land, power, slaves, and women for centuries.  The savagery between the M'bogo and N'guenya tribes was legendary, and no white man had dared to come between them.  Every European explorer from Mungo Park to Sir Richard Burton gave that part of Africa a wide berth. 

The ethnologist/adventure Paul du Chaillu writing at the end of the 19th century noted:

The M'bogo people, according to local legend, are the most savage, brutal, and inhuman on the face of the earth, more feared than a pack of hungry lions.  They ravage, slaughter, and eat their victims roasted over a grand ceremonial fire, saving the heart and liver for their chieftain.  They are matched in their Satanic horrors by the N'guenya whose Dance of Death, pirouettes of headless bodies on spikes cause every white heart to palpitate with fear...

'Why should I sign this agreement?' asked the President of _____, for the value of the rare earths far outweighed any favors granted by the American government. 

'Yes, Mr. President', replied Paul X, 'but our offer is immediate, substantial, and irretrievably yours, while your take of beryllium after months of fighting will only be a fraction of that.  Cash on the barrelhead, Mr. President...and if I may add, only a small stipend for yours truly'. 

These Americanisms befuddled the President for a moment, but a quick, decisive man, he got the drift.  Hundreds of millions of dollars into his offshore accounts, and a beautiful Fulani girl from his personal harem for the pleasure of the Ambassador.  'Chump change' the President thought, smiling at his grasp of at least some of American popular idiom 

Now, the transfer of these funds, while not as secretly and illegally managed as Ronald Reagan's Iran-Contra Presidential dirty tricks, was worthy of Jeffrey Skilling, Enron, and Bernie Madoff.  The funds were available in significant amounts, untraceable and unaccountable; so Paul X did not have to haggle.

Best of all, the African president simply had to pull back his troops from the border and  temporarily call off his attack dog militias operating in enemy territory, and the spy satellites would do the rest.  The president would be applauded for his political courage, could send his tanks back in after a few months' hiatus, and enjoy the rewards of a newly refreshed Aruban bank account. 

The ink was not even dry before Paul X was drinking champagne on the verandah with his Fulani princess overlooking the river and the thousand miles of jungle to the east.  His president would be delighted; but of course there was the other side, the other country and the other tribal chieftain to deal with.

Africa is no quadratic equation - it is a very simple place; and what worked in Country A would certainly work in Country B.  Human nature had evolved into some very complex expressions in the West - self-interest, territorialism, ambition, and amoral expansionism - but Africa was still little changed from the primordial nature of  the days when Lucy, the first human, walked the veldt.  Dealing with President _____would be quite straightforward indeed. 

Paul X guaranteed the President that the funds granted to him were exactly the same as that given to his neighboring counterpart down to the penny.  The monies would be deposited in Grand Cayman and not Aruba, the same temporary military withdrawals on the other side would be assured, and Paul's princess would be Tunisian royalty and not Fulani, but all in all it was a fair and equitable agreement. 

'How did you do it?', asked the American President, pleased at the peace accord and amazed at how easily and quickly it was included. 

'Africa is no quadratic equation', the Ambassador repeated.  Bags of cash do the trick every time', and so it was that the American president received even more kudos for his international diplomacy and urged to solve other sticky affairs there.  

 

Which he did, relying on his Wall Street allies who, after the market collapse in 2008 and SEC fatigue, were able to come up with even more creative instruments to move money and profit mightily.  For only a few presidential guarantees that federal watchdogs would be kept in their kennels, Wall Street was very, very generous. 

Everybody benefited from the agreements - both African presidents became even more fabulously wealthy; their constituents were pleased that their leader ended the war; Paul X had never had such beautiful, complaisant lovers, and the American president rode high in the polls.