Viagra: Weapon of mass bargaining power

Our latest weapon in the war on terror isn’t a new ballistic that could destroy even thousands more than our current WMD’s.

Nope. It’s Viagra.

Aside from helping millions of men in America with its arousing effects, Viagra has been used as an incentive by the CIA to get Afghan tribal leaders and land-owners to cooperate with them, according to a Dec. 26 article in The Washington Post.

“Whatever it takes to make friends and influence people – whether it’s building a school or handing out Viagra,” said one longtime agency operative, according to the Post.

There you have it. Nothing is outside the enlarged prerogative of the CIA in its refusal to be relegated: politically impotent.

Of course, the notoriously clandestine CIA is no stranger to using odd and controversial tactics. Besides its policy of rendering terrorist suspects to other countries where they can be tortured, it has also been reported that the agency has used such tactics as astral projection to spy on other countries. But controversy aside, Viagra apparently appeals greatly to Afghan patriarchs who are welcoming a little help with their marital duties, compounded as they are.

“Afghan tribal leaders often had four wives, the maximum number allowed by the Koran, and aging village patriarchs were easily sold on the utility of a pill that could ‘put them back in an authoritative position,'” according to one official quoted by the Post.

Though unorthodox, using Viagra as a means to achieve our objectives in Afghanistan is certainly preferable to the inevitable civilian deaths that result from using destructive weapons. In this way, using the drug to accomplish our mission should be lauded. In fact, its success is quite amusing.

“The enticement worked. The officer, who described the encounter, returned four days later to an enthusiastic reception. The grinning chief offered up a bonanza of information about Taliban movements and supply routes, followed by a request for more pills,” according to the Post.

Despite the success of using Viagra as leverage to accomplish our mission – phallically focused as that mission has, of late, become – there is still something rather, paradoxically, deflating about it. For one, the question remains as to whether the United States should even be inserting itself into localized incidents of friction within Afghanistan or if we should pull out altogether. It’s like the CIA is taking on the role of playground drug dealer, dealing out whichever drug will induce cooperation. Also, what happens when the CIA is no longer there to help out these Afghans? When the currently benefited patriarchs suddenly can’t deliver anymore, will their wives corner them with demands for an explanation? Maybe leave them for someone more upstanding? Did the CIA consider this dilemma?

Still, it’s hard to argue with success.
“He came up to us beaming,” the Post reported one official saying about an Afghan patriarch. “He said, ‘You are a great man.’ And after that we could do whatever we wanted in his area.”

Here’s to the erection of new healthy, working relationships.