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 Here were Waziris from Waziristan exhibiting upon one another various techniques for waylaying travelers, which reckoned in that country as a major source of income. . . .

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For somebody who doesn't care to look ignorant online, I'm trying awful hard not to sympathize with Donald Trump and his need to constantly project his ignorance onto everybody else by saying something like, "Waziristan?! Who knew that was a real place?! We all just figured Pynchon made it up! A lot of people telling me, 'Waziristan can't be a real place because I've never heard of it.' Lots of really smart people too! Just a place nobody ever heard about. Ever!" But like I said, I don't care about being seeing as an ignorant fool on the Internet because I'm special! Anyway, today I learned there's a country called Waziristan. It's probably not the first time I'd heard of it. But I just never thought about it before so the name just sieved out of my brain the way most information that doesn't immediately pertain to me does.

Of course now that I've set up some permanent neurons to remember the place, I've just opened myself up to being Baader-Meinhoffed by Waziristan.

Anyway, Waziristan was invaded by the British in 1894. So these Waziris showing off their career skills are about to learn a little something about British social expectations, like how it's wrong to steal from another person.

Here's the moment where you make a joke about the irony of that statement and go on to believe you're a hilarious genius and I was the dope who didn't have any idea what he was writing. Go ahead. I'll give you this one.

Waziristan was such a dangerous place for travelers before the British invaded (after which it became "such a dangerous place for the locals") that even Alexander the Great avoided it. When the British did invade (and you might be asking me why they invaded although you remember that bit about how ignorant I am? Why would you ask me that? Although this time, I know the answer. The British invaded because they could), the Viceroy of British India, Lord Curzon, said, "No patchwork scheme–and all our present recent schemes, blockade, allowances, etc, are mere patchwork–will settle the Waziristan problem. Not until the military steam-roller has passed over the country from end to end, will there be peace. But I do not want to be the person to start that machine."

Imagine thinking other nations need to be "solved" and that the solution might be a "military steam-roller." Oh wait, nobody has to imagine that because the world has the United States of America.