Creative Solution

by

Kortpeel

"The one thing we don't want to get involved with is another guerrilla war."

"So what are we going to do?"

"I say we either kill the bastards or get out altogether. Our boys are dying over there because we're pussy footing around with all this human rights shit." The five star General was a lot more sensitive to losses than he'd want known. He covered it with belligerent bluster.

"But wouldn't killing them defeat the object of our getting involved there in the first place? Remember our beautiful vision of a free democratic society for them?" The speaker, female, was a weird blend of academic detachment and pie in the sky idealism. She was present as the Ethics Advisor, a recently created and somewhat controversial post.

"That was our hope for them. We gave them the chance and they've blown it. If we pull out they can get back to killing each other." The chairman of the meeting, a gentleman of the old school, was wishing that they'd come to a decision so he could take a smoke break. His need for nicotine was becoming urgent. Neither his temper nor his concentration would be right until he got it. How he longed for the good old days when meetings like this one took place in a room filled with a smoky haze. And there no goddamned women present.

"We can achieve our beautiful vision," the man from the occupied territory said. "We can gain world brownie points for doing so." The man from the occupied territory hadn't said much until then. And because he was the man on the spot it was good sense and good etiquette to listen to what he had to say.

"Please do tell us Mr. Warringer. How do we achieve our beautiful vision?" the Chairman said, wishing that the Cuban cigars his brain had put on the table in front of him were real.

Warringer took his time, framing his words carefully. He had to sell this idea for the benefit of the people in the occupied territory. "Most of the people there are regular folk. They just want to get on with their lives and bring up their kids to a better future than they've had. The overwhelming majority of the people are decent, law abiding and peace loving. They would love for our beautiful vision to become reality."

Warringer paused to take a breath and take stock of his audience. So far so good.

"The people making the trouble are few in number but they are well planned, well organised and highly motivated. Their motivation is primarily greed. They're greedy for wealth and power. They don't give a damn for any religion or ideology. But they do exploit religion and ideology for their own ends. That's how they sucker in their ground troops and suicide fools."

Warringer paused again. They were still listening. That was good. "There are no more than twenty men at the top of their organisation. They are well protected and we can't get to them. We know who they are but not where. Next to them we have the middle layer who are responsible for implementing the attacks and acts of sabotage and terrorism. We know most of them. At the bottom we have their ground troops who do the killing and the dying. They just do what they are told and it doesn't much matter who they are. One is as good or as bad as another.

"So what's your plan?"

"We terminate them with minimal prejudice."

"What do you mean?"

"Instead of killing them we leave them alive but neutralised. They will no longer be effective opposition."

"Please speak plainly Mr. Warringer." The chairman was staring at a chorus line of good Cuban tobacco dancing on the table top. He had to resist the temptation to reach out and grab one. He was in no mood for Warringer's circumlocution.

"In a nut shell, so to speak, any troublemakers we catch we remove them from the gene pool."

"What the fuck good would that do?" the five star general wanted to know.

"It means the seventy virgins that await them in paradise won't be any damned good to them. Except for washing their socks. It removes the main motivation of the ground troops."

"Interesting." The five star general was giving the matter serious consideration. Anything that undermined the morale of the enemy was okay with him.

"Oh! You mean castrate them?" The Ethics Advisor was just a little bit slow on the uptake but she soon got into her stride. "That would constitute a gross human rights violation and a war crime. I could never let you-"

"So was the Hiroshima bomb," said the general. "It saved more lives than it cost."

"We wouldn't be actually killing anyone," Warringer pointed out.

"We've lost 200 men in six months. There's no shortage of killing. What are a few balls against all that pain and suffering?" The general looked pointedly at the Ethics Advisor.

"Well, when you put it like that... Will it work? Can we do enough of them to have any effect?"

"Word of mouth," Warringer said. "After we've interrogated them, got as much as we can from them, we just turn them loose without a mark on them, back into the population. They won't say much but word'll get round."

"I like it." The General was enthusiastic. "It won't hurt to try. What have we got to lose?"

"There is one detail," Warringer said. "There is something of an ancient tradition with these people. "Years ago they used to hand over enemy captives to the women who removed certain bodily parts and sewed them into the prisoners' mouths. We believe that today's women would happily continue the tradition, perhaps in a more humane way. It would avoid any negative publicity for us."

The Ethics Advisor wasn't at all sure but surely in a matter of testicles versus lives it was no contest? She couldn't put her finger on the flaw in the logic but there had to be one.

**************

At 23 Fatima Wallala was a widow with two children to feed. Her beloved husband, a good man and a good father had been innocently going about his business when a car bomb exploded not ten feet from him. Unmercifully he did not die immediately. He lingered on for twelve days, blind, deaf, paralysed and in great pain. Fatima had prayed for divine mercy for him.

She was thankful for the nursing training and for this new job at the local clinic. It was nothing to do with the foreign soldiers who now ruled her country. The clinic was the initiative of a wealthy local benefactor. Part of an old military establishment had been made available for the venture. It was solidly built and although not entirely suitable at least it had plenty of space.

The clinic shared the building with the police station. Fatima recognised the prisoner whom the newly re-formed local police brought in. He had been a soldier under the old regime, an officer. She clearly remembered the day they had come to their house and arrested her father. This man had been the leader of the group of soldiers. He'd been the one who'd punched her mother when she'd tried to stop them from beating her father. They'd taken her father away and they'd never seen him again.

And now she would be expected to nurse this man? She wondered what was wrong with him. He'd looked healthy enough as they'd led him to one of the old cells that this building had in abundance.

"Fatima, did you recognise that prisoner?"

"Yes, Doctor."

"You have no reason to love him, I understand?"

Fatima was thankful for the veil. She held it so that the doctor would not see the tears that rose in her eyes. They were tears for the memory of her father, her husband and for all the suffering that that man and the others like him had inflicted.

"No doctor. I have no reason to love Mohammed bin Yakob."

****************

Mohammed bin Yakob knew that his time on earth had to be drawing to an end. They'd strapped him tightly to a table. He was unable to move He wore only a hospital gown, the sort that patients in surgery wear. He knew he had been betrayed, sold out by some traitor, may he rot in hell, to the infidels who had conquered his beloved land. It was God's will he told himself. He would face whatever was coming strong in his faith and the knowledge that he had always done his duty to the best of his ability.

He had served well, had always dutifully done the dirty work for his military masters and even after the invasion of the godless foreigners he had been active in the resistance, serving his masters right to the end. He'd killed as many of the infidels as he'd been able. Now he was their prisoner. He expected no mercy but he would go down fighting. He would bear whatever pain they inflicted on him. And he would not betray his comrades, brave heroes, all of them.

Bin Yakob was not afraid to die. Had not the clerics told him of the pleasures that awaited the faithful in paradise? Beautiful women to attend his every need and whim? God was merciful and God was great. Bin Yakob was looking forward to paradise. So when would they start on him? What were they waiting for?

The door opened. A woman, veiled from head to foot in a burqa such as Afghan women wore, entered. A nurse?

She lifted the gown that Bin Yakob was wearing and folded it back as far as the strap over his waist would permit.

"Woman, what are you doing?"

The woman said nothing but as she put a finger to her lips to hush him he saw she was wearing surgical gloves. She proceeded to shave his pubic area.

What manner of torture was this? If this was torture he could endure forever. The nurse ran a latex clad finger lightly over the shaved area to check its smoothness. She turned. Bin Yakob hadn't noticed the trolley containing surgical instruments before. He couldn't see it properly because he couldn't raise his head. The nurse took a long straight piece of thin plastic rod and showed it to him. He nodded. So what?

She took a gentle but firm grasp on his erect penis and inserted the plastic rod into the urethra. He got a burning sensation as she pushed it in. It was sore rather than painful. He could bear it quite easily. She gave his penis a few gentle strokes which helped.

From the trolley she took a glass ampoule, and showed it to him. He recognised it as containing anaesthetic. She opened it and proceeded to fill a syringe with its contents. It was a disposable type syringe which the invader used. Again she showed it him. Then she approached and brought the syringe over his face as if to make quite sure that he could see it. Of course he could see it. Some drops of the anaesthetic splashed onto his face. "Careful, bitch."

Some of it went into his eyes and partly blinded him. Some went into his mouth and his tongue was numbed. Why was she dripping it onto his face? Surely it should be injected? He couldn't see what happened next. She was doing something to him down there. He could feel it. Again it was sore but not beyond what he could bear. He detected a burning smell. The bastards were trying some stupid kind of psychological torture on him. Let them try. He'd tell them nothing.

The lightning bolt that shot up through his abdomen transformed him from a human being into convulsing ball of agony, unable to think of anything but the pain. It was more than he could bear. He slipped into the release of unconsciousness. How long was he out? Dammit the pain was too much. Whatever it was he doubted he could survive another jolt like that. But it was gone now. He just felt a soreness down there.

There was that nurse again. "What did you do to me woman?"

"This."

Another bolt of agony went up through him. Again he passed out.

Not for long. He recovered consciousness shaking and trembling. One more of those would kill him.

"No more. What do you want to know?"

"Whatever you have to tell us. Speak."

Bin Yakob spoke. He told everything. Through a grey haze be could see that the nurse was standing near the area of pain. He thought she was looking at him but he couldn't be sure. He just didn't want another of those... whatever they were. He talked and kept talking. His throat was dry. His voice grew hoarse. He continue to talk. Anything to avoid more of that pain. When he couldn't think of anything fresh to say he repeated himself. He knew that he just had to keep talking...

******************

The soldier on lookout duty was wide-awake that night. There was a special high level gathering at their hideout in the hills. The leaders were meeting, planning the bloodbath that would drive the infidel from their land and allow them to regain power. How he longed for that day. He heard the approaching trucks before he saw them. He alerted his commander who told him to keep watch and report. How many were there?

He watched the approach. He saw one truck with two armoured personnel carriers as escort. The small convoy stopped on the road below him.

He reported in and observed.

Two soldiers got out of the back of the truck and he saw another man, naked, climb out of the truck. He moved slowly and carefully as if in some pain. The soldiers watched the man as he walked away from them. Then they jumped into the back of the truck. The convoy made a u-turn in the road and returned whence it came.

The sentry reported in. He stayed at his post and observed as a detachment of men went to bring in the man who had been dropped off.

It would have made little difference had the sentry observed the incoming missiles. that pounded the hill top hide out to fragments. There would have been no time to react.

The sentry survived the bombardment and so did the detachment of men who went to collect Bin Yakob. Although common foot soldiers they were not cowards. Neither were they fools. They saw what had been done to bin Yakob. To die for their cause was one thing, to be reduced to the living travesty that was bin Yakob was another. A merciful god had chosen them to be spared and they were grateful. They found ordinary clothes, ditched their weapons and went home.

****************

"Warringer's idea worked out even better than we thought," the chairman said with some satisfaction. He was so pleased that he'd forgotten his nicotine craving, albeit temporarily.

"Very satisfactory conclusion," the General agreed. "Our people are all back home. And we have a democratically elected government installed."

"Now it's up to them," said the Ethics Advisor. "Think they'll make it?"

The chairman snorted. "With their oil revenues? They can't fail."

****************

The Head Mistress of the High School studied the newly appointed teacher sitting on the other side of her desk. Her prayers had been answered.

"Welcome to the staff, Mr. bin Yakob. Normally we would never consider a man for the position of math teacher at an all girls school. However no one can object to us having a fully neutered eunuch for the post. I think it's rather nice to maintain the

old traditions. I'm sure the girls will appreciate it."

Bin Yakob forced a smile. There were five hundred girls at this school, all of them virgins, no doubt and, alas as far as he was concerned, virgins they would remain. It occurred to him that sometimes God shows his mercy in ways that are not easy to understand.

End