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Message from Kabul
When his message came, the Taliban had just fled, Northern Alliance soldiers had taken over his village, and everybody rushed to barbers to cut off their beards and to nearby holes and hiding spots to dig up their Walkmen, VCRs, TVs, CD players, and -- in Junis's case -- his ancient Commodore, one of four in the village. Cafes had popped up all over, with impromptu dances and parties everywhere.
Junis's e-mail -- routed to Kabul, then Islamabad, then London -- was a reminder that there are civil liberties, and then there are civil liberties. Computers had been banned under penalty of death by the Taliban (except for the Taliban themselves), along with music and TV. Junis, a computer geek obsessed with Linux, had first e-mailed me years ago while I was writing for Hotwired. He was genial and obsessed with American culture. He loved martial arts movies, anything to do with Star Wars, and rap. He was perhaps the Taliban's prime kind of target. (Now he's furiously trying to download movies he's missed and is mesmerized by open source and Slashdot.)
"I could still see the dust of the pick-up trucks carrying the Taliban out of my village," he wrote, "and some friends and I went and dug up the boards of a chicken coop where I had hid the computer. They might have beaten or killed us if they'd found it. It was forbidden, although they used computers all of the time." He claims American commandos are skulking around dressed as Northern Alliance tribesmen.
Junis describes life under the Taliban as brutal, terrifying and profoundly boring. What the people in his town -- especially the kids -- missed most was music, posters of Indian and American movie stars (he'd kept his own decaying poster of Madonna), and American TV. Junis missed the fast-changing Web and sees, he says, that he has fallen "forever behind," and that programming is more complex than ever. But at least "Baywatch," which everyone in his town acutely missed, is back, and there's already a lot of talk about "Survivor." Junis predicts "Temptation Island" will be the number one show in Afghanistan within a month.
If the world needed another demonstration of America's most powerful weapon -- not bombs or special forces but pop culture -- it got it again this week. People all over the planet fuss about whether this healthy and democratic or corrupting and dehumanizing, but people's love for American techno-toys, TV shows, music and movies is breathaking. Watching TV pictures of tribesman on horseback, it's easy to forget that technology reached deep into this culture as well. Junis says phone service around Kabul remains spotty, but reporters, U.N. workers and foreign soldiers are wiring up. He's already made his way to some sex sites, and wishes he had a printer.
There are many computers in Afghanistan, Junis said, many in clusters in cities like Kabul and Kandahar (news reports have frequently mentioned that Bin-Laden's organization used both e-mail and encrypted files to communicate). Computer geeks are already hooking up with one another all over the country; Junis isn't the only Afghan e-mailing these days. He says other coders and gamers hid their PC's as well. Meanwhile, he's especially eager to get his hands on the Apple iPod, and has been drooling over the Apple website site since he got back online. And some things, of course, never change. "I thought they were going to get Microsoft," he wrote. "I guess not."
A decade ago, when East Berlin teenagers stormed the Wall and crossed over into West Berlin, the first thing many of them did was rush to music stores to buy tapes and CD's they'd been secretly, illegally listening to for years.
The Taliban worked to create the antithesis of the American world, one without technology, computing, the Net, music, or any vestige of popular culture (not to mention women's rights, elections, a free press or any religion except fundamentalist Islam. Junis said people in his town risked their lives repeatedly, not to fight the Taliban, but to try and listen to CD's and watch videos smuggled in from Pakistan, watched in the dark under blankets and in cellars. It seems the outcome was inevitable.
Technology is part of evolution. You cannot stop, confine, or reverse technology. This is something the taliban has no chance of doing.
--
FearLinux.com
He's trying to download movies on a Commodore?
How can this Afghani geek afford an Ipod? When did DSL/broadband get into Kabul?
This story sounds fishy, but then it is Tuesday.
I reckon one of those could play movies.
Best Slashdot Co
Has he gotten spammed yet?
They certainly were that repressive. But think about how Americans would react if a fundamentalist government seized power, banning computers, music and TV. Surely there would be a mass hiding of equipment against the day when the government fell.
I must say though, it makes me feel a little sick that the first thing the Afghans will see when they brush the soil from the TVs will be Jerry Springer, Temptation Island and MTV...
They open the theaters, people get their TVs and computers back. It's good.
But the women aren't allowed in the theater, they can't function in public, and they still aren't allowed to see doctors. It's not that removing the Taliban is a bad thing, but for a significant part of the population, the current status really hasn't gotten any better.
Food for thought, and it makes me thankful that I was born in the US and have the ability to say such things...
What are the odds that the copy of Independence Day is pirated.
http://www.windmeadow.com/
Of course, as nice as this sounds, the story is a little strange - I was under the impression there were almost no remaining international phone lines and that electricity was probably out in many of these areas, so I am a bit suspicious. But what do I know, maybe he has a generator and maybe the international phone lines are back up. Also the line about trying to download movies is definitely suspicious. At 9600 baud perhaps? OK, give them the benefit of the doubt, 28.8k. Doesn't sound too believable to me.
So I think this submission is either a bit of a hoax or a bit exaggerated, but it still is a nice sentiment even if the specifics are not true. And hopefully there is a guy somewhere in Afghanistan digging up his old Commodore.
Apart from the fact that he's supposedly saying that he's "downloading movies" on a commodore (ie a machine with little or no hard drive and no processing power to decode div-x's, with modems that are so antiquated that even downloading a 20meg divx would probably take a few weeks... no wonder he's furious...), it all sounds... I don't know... fake is probably the word.
As for digging up all the forbidden stuff as soon while they could still see the dust from the trucks of the talibans, that is just plain unbelievable. I doubt anyone who's just lived under such an oppressive regime would take that risk. What if they forgot something and drive back up to get it? Just because the trucks have driven away doesn't mean they're gone for good.
I would think that people living under oppressive regimes develop a sort of natural paranoia as a survival mechanism... my father who lived most of his life in communist Romania still has it twenty years after fleeing the country... I find it surprising that afghans would lose it in minutes...
Daniel
So the top three TV shows mentioned in the story ("acutely missed" is the phrase connected to one of them) are Baywatch, Survivor, and Temptation Island?
Three shows based on the concept of manly men frolicking with scantily-clad women, and in the latter two, premised on the assumption that all humans are conniving backstabbers, and that relationships cannot last in the face of lust, respectively.
And we're trying to convince the Middle East that America is a just and moral nation? Ya ha ha, whatever.
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
You failed to ask the most important questions! ;)
What is the perception of the afghan's people about the US intervention? Do they feel that the sacrifice of innocents (accidents/mistakes on US forces part, but none less deadly) justify their new freedom? Do they feel that westerners should continue to use force to try to democratize Afghanistan? Or should the coalition now leave from their point of view?
I saw on TV an Afghan who lost 8 members of his family to US bombs. Yet, he had one message for the US forces: aim better. He did not asked to stop. Others though were very angry against the US after loosing some family member.
I want to know what the people of Afghanistan wants. I see some demonstrations in western countries asking for the bombings to stop. I say, that we might at least hear what the Afghan have to say. If they believe that the bombings are worthwhile, who are we to ask to stop these actions?
BTW, have you some websites/forums to suggest where we could directly interact with Afghanistan people? I would really like to have a few exchanges with some of them.
Remember the year 2000? They promised us flying cars. They delivered the PT Cruiser...
I hope that things don't move too fast in Afghanistan. It's easy to sit here in the west and think this is all fine and dandy, but if this all gets pushed in too fast it could end up being culture shock to a lot of people, and potentially generate more fundamentalist extremists (who would of course be anti-american). Afghanistan needs to change, but it needs to do it slowly. It needs to find that middle ground that most of the people will find socially acceptable.
For better or for worse, this once again proves that once Pandora's box is open you can't shut it, no matter how hard you try.
Having lived in Africa, I've seen firsthand how quickly, frighteningly so, things can change during a coup d'etat. People whose constraints have been mostly external for some time, lose control very quickly when those constraints are lifted, but within a few days things settle down and they regain their internal control/balance.
Perhaps we can get this guy from kabul to answer some questions for us?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
a few things that REALLY make me think that Katz either made this crap up, or is the victim of a VERY poorly fabricated hoax:
1 - I know it's been said already, but it bears repeating...how does one download MOVIES on an "ancient commodore"? And furthermore, how does one play them?
2 - When you're living in Afghanistan, who do you call to get internet access?
3 - If the guy's using that "ancient commodore", what would prompt him to salivate over an IPod? First of all, it's doubtful that he would have ever acquired even a single MP3 file, let alone enough to fill an IPod. Oh, and Commodores didn't have firewire back in my day. Seems like the guy would be more likely to lust after a 2-year old Athlon system and a broadband connection rather than an IPod.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who noticed this pile of absolute rubbish. Katz should be sent over to Kabul to investigate the situation himself.
Didn't the Taliban STRICTLY regulate technology? The Taliban thought the Internet was evil, after all, and outlawed it. So I find it HIGHLY suspicious that someone managed to start up an ISP in the middle of this war, and that someone else out there is more concerned about getting on Slashdot than staying alive and eating, which is what 99% of the Afghani population is probably concerned with.
This was bullshit. Sorry, but it *can't* be legit.
"Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
I got an e-mail from Timmy-bin Hashareef. He has cancer of the appendix. It said for every time you forwarded his e-mail, the Afghanistan chapter of the American Appendix Society would donate little Timmy 3 cents and a camel. It also said that if you didn't forward the e-mail, you would get beaten by the Taliban. SEND OUT THE WORD KATZ! THIS IS 274% TRUE!
haha I want a pink slip with Katz's name on it for Christmas.
Chaos, Mayhem, and Destruction: Not
Hi, my name is Junis. I live in a town 35 miles from Kabul in Afganistan. I am doing a school project to see how many people can read an email in 30 days. Please forward this to everyone you know, and keep the headers intact.
Thank you, your pal,
Junis
P.S. I really like Jon Katz, he is great.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
We'd all love to read it.
[mod this up if you agree -- I'm at the cap anyway, so I'm not KW'ing]
Besides, according to Numerous sources the average salary in Afghanistan is on the order of $10-20 USD equiv per month.
I haven't felt this way before, but this is the first article I have really wanted to see withdrawn from slashdot. It scares me that a news orginization with the readership of its magnitude could post this crap.
-Sean
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
I would agree, except that Katz says he knows this person from before the Taliban. That makes it very unlikely anyone duped Katz. Of course I could believe that Katz and/or Junis are exagerrating a wee bit. Sensationalism on Slashdot? Never.
The only other alternative would be that Katz is outright making it up, but much as I've disagreed with him before, I don't think he would stoop that low.
1) click on "Preferences" on the upper right hand of the page
2) go to the "authors" column, check "JonKatz"
3) click "submit"
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
This guy from just outside of Kabul will get another rude, nasty surprise when he figures out that a C64 can't download or play movies from the Internet very well at all. Poor guy, he'll have to wait for them to get released in the video store or something.
"Look at me, I invented the stove!" -- Ben Franklin
John says: "Junis, a computer geek obsessed with Linux, had first e-mailed me years ago while I was writing for Hotwired."
.af domain then yes, you could be suspicious, but if John has known this guy for years then he's in a better position to judge than we are.
If you got a random email from someone you've never heard of from a
Baz
I don't believe this for a moment. I hope Katz is above simply fabricating something like this, but I have no idea why he would just 'describe' the letter rather then reposting it here so we can all see for ourselves.
And as others mentioned, you can't download movies to a commodore, it just wont happen And he wouldn't have been able to do 'modern' programming on it for a long time. While I have heard reports of video stories and movie theaters opening back up, they're more likely to renting Indian and Pakistani films. Although I'm sure some people go for the American ones as well.
And comments about the iPod and Macs? Yeh, right. This sounds like more of a katzian fantasy to me. How would he even hear about the thing? And why would he want it rather then more reasonable mp3 players. After all, on a pure modem link he isn't going to be able to download movies.
And unless the northern alliance has managed to get DSL installed in the past few days, he isn't going to be downloading movies no matter what computer he has.
Katz if you have an journalistic credibility, post the actual message.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I'd love to believe this, but no.
Still, the guy must be brilliant - not only has he got a five year old Commodore to get onto the Apple site, with a five year old browser, over non-existent phone lines but he's planning on spending five years wages on an ipod too?
It's bollocks.
I've been to the area and know the sort of conditions. First up, if anyone is using email in Afghanistan it is not over the standard POTS. If much of that is still remaining, it is in no way any condition to get a data connection over. Internet connections in Afghanistan are satellite (Bin Laden's is, so are the Aid Agencies and the journalists). So unless our hero has a either a sat phone, or a 3ft dish in his back garden, I doubt he sent an email from anywhere in the area.
"Junis's e-mail -- routed to Kabul, then Islamabad, then London" is not the way it would go - if I remember correctly, the main Pakistani bandwidth goes via Singapore. Unless Katz means this email was sent to someone in Kabul who forwarded it to someone etc etc etc.
In which case I'd hazard a guess to say the first passing was on paper, not electronically.
Next, "Junis, a computer geek obsessed with Linux, had first e-mailed me years ago while I was writing for Hotwired. He was genial and obsessed with American culture. He loved martial arts movies, anything to do with Star Wars, and rap. He was perhaps the Taliban's prime kind of target. (Now he's furiously trying to download movies he's missed and is mesmerized by open source and Slashdot.)"
Well, Hotwired's URL was first registered on 21-Apr-1994, but Katz's first writings were on Netizen. That started in 1996. The Taliban took Kabul in 1996, so Junis must have been quick. Obsessed with Linux then, sure - but now mesmerized by open source?
Which brings us to I thought they were going to get Microsoft," he wrote. "I guess not."
How did he know of the court case? Meanwhile, where did he learn perfectly idiomatic English? "Get" Microsoft? I "guess not"?
Temptation Island? Survivor? Riight - an area that until a week ago was isolated from the rest of the world is now aware and anticipatory of a tv show that is not even being aired on a nearby satellite network?
I'd love to believe this, I really would. But it's smelly as all hell, not to mention the highly dubious "they did it all for the toys" politics.
Still, if JK posts the email, with the headers, I'll be happy to believe, and drink a toast to Junis and his friends.
((satire))
Cheers,
-- RLJ
if you're not getting the joke
I spent some time in Uzbekistan this October for academic reasons. Uzbekistan is not the most advanced place on Earth, but it's still light years ahead of what's left of Afghanistan with regards to telecommunications infrastructure.
Now, in Uzbekistan I had quite trouble getting Internet access outside the larger cities such as Samarqand or Tashkent; in rural areas, where you've partly still got manually switched telephone lines, you can just about forget it. It's Soviet telecom infrastructure, basically.
So how on Earth is this guy supposed to have Internet access in rural Afganistan where you can't even take it for guaranteed that there's electricity or running water, let alone toilets or telecom infrastructure? (All of this experienced in southern rural Uzbekistan.)
So either this guy has a satellite phone and a generator hooked up to his ancient Commodore to download movies with, or he's in one of the rare villages with running telephone on a one-phone-per-village basis and continually occupies it for use with the 1200 baud acoustic coupler modem and his Commodore to download movies and inform himself about getting Linux on his Commodore, or this is just a hoax.
The sad thing is that it's such a primitive hoax in the first place - just like the "technology conquers all" nerd variation of the romantic patriotic young outlaw theme.
So unless I get to read the original e-mail including forward information some time soon, JonKatz goes down in the dumpster for me.
There is absolutely no reason to panic.
What business is it of ours how women are treated in Afghanistan?
Mankind is my business, and yours too. Enslave someone *anywhere*, and I have the moral right to stop you. Morality does not stop at national borders.
Ask orthodox Jews or the Amish if they'd like to be forced to "modernize", and see what they think!
The Taliban forced people to do things they didn't want to do. It's not like all of Afghanistan sat down and agreed, "OK, women stay at home, don't get schooling, and have to wear burqas." People with guns forced others to behave that way.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
Not that this doesn't sound a bit fishy to me as well, but I'd like to point out a couple things about Kabul that you may have missed:
These people may not have much, but they do seem to have a fair share of electronics.
Viv
Gmail invites for ip
If you look at IBM's PCM site, they list 2 Commodore 286s and 4 Commodore 486s, and it's perfectly possible to upgrade a Commodore to some bastard Pentium chips. Of course he'd be limited to VESA video cards, probably, but it's completely possible to get Windows 95 running on one of those... or at least Linux.
GPL Deconstructed
Hi guys.
We've all been putting in long hours but we've really come together as a group and I love that. Big thanks to Omar for putting up the poster that says "There is no I in team" as well as the one that says "Hang In There, Baby." That cat is hilarious. However, while we are fighting a jihad, we can't forget to take care of the cave. And frankly I have a few concerns.
First of all, while it's good to be concerned about cruise missiles, we should be even more concerned about the scorpions in our cave. Hey, you don't want to be stung and neither do I so we need to sweep the cave daily. I've posted a sign up sheet near the main cave opening.
Second, it's not often I make a video address but when I do, I'm trying to scare the most powerful country on earth, okay? That means that while we're taping, please do not ride your razor scooter in the background. Just while we're taping. Thanks.
Third point, and this is a touchy one. As you know, by edict, we're not supposed to shave our beards. But I need everyone to just think hygiene, especially after mealtime. We're all in this together.
Fourth: food. I bought a box of Cheeze-Its recently, clearly wrote "Osama" on the front, and put it on the top shelf. Today, my Cheeze-Its were gone. Consideration. That's all I'm saying.
Finally, we've heard that there may be American soldiers in disguise trying to infiltrate our ranks. I want to set up patrols to look for them. First patrol will be Omar, Mohammed, Abdul, Akbar, and Richard.
Remember it, write it down, take a picture, I dont give a fsck!
This is obviously a fake. Afghanis watching Baywatch? A Linux-Loving geek from Kabul? Where the heck did you people come up with this stuff?
Stupidity.inc?
According to CIA factbook...
1 The number of ISPs in Afghanistan (as of 2000)
NA The number of Internet users
10 The number of TV stations
100,000 The total number of TVs
14.7% The infant mortality rate
31% Literacy rate
$800 GDP per capita in 2000 (estimate)
Telephone system: general assessment: very limited telephone and telegraph service
domestic: in 1997, telecommunications links were established between Mazar-e Sharif, Herat, Kandahar, Jalalabad, and Kabul through satellite and microwave systems
international: satellite earth stations - 1 Intelsat (Indian Ocean) linked only to Iran and 1 Intersputnik (Atlantic Ocean region); commercial satellite telephone center in Ghazni
It seems for all this talk about the information age we still can't get in contact with people in a war zone like Afghanistan to get at least their opinion of the situation. I've been wanting to talk with the Afghani "man in the street(rubble?)since 911. In a situation like this how do you go about it? Was anybody able to get in touch with any Afghani Geeks?
Demand. Well-educated people are naturally drawn to Blue areas, and ignore the "opportunities" available in the cheaper Red ones. It's very much a cultural type of thing. Well-educated people also tend to have bucks, so housing prices are bid up big-time.
The huge downside, of course, is that only the Blues that are wildly successful have even what might be considered a middle-class lifestyle in Red-land. I think this may be why many Blues have leftist voting records; they don't think of themselves as rich, even though technically they have lots more money than the rest of the country. I'm personally conservative because I deeply resent the government's share of my income, in view of the exceptionally poor quality of most government services. Because we have a progressive tax structure, "rich" blues who still can't afford a half-decent house are penalized more than Reds who can.
The sophisticated stuff does cost lots of money, but you can avoid it if you want, so that's not the total answer.
As Daniel (the anonymous coward below this post) said, it's harder to buy stuff in the Red zone; you can't get ballet tickets, and you can't get fantastic ethnic foods. Those things balloon Blue budgets beyond all reason. In Redworld, you are more or less forced to live within your means.
This is, of course, exactly why Blues are highly unlikely to venture into Redworld and be happy; we need (or think we need) that urban cornucopia of stuff.
D
To the operators of Slashdot:
/. community and the reputation of this site.
1.) Please remove this article at once. It is a filthy assortment of random lies and is an embarrassment to the
2.) Please strongly consider firing Jon Katz for his lack of journalistic integrity. Better yet, decide via a Slashdot poll.
3.) A major improvement to Slashcode would be a system by which readers can moderate the posting of articles on the main page.
That being said, I am all for the overthrow of the Taliban regime and the restoration of the rights and freedoms of the Afghan people.
People all over the planet fuss about whether this healthy and democratic or corrupting and dehumanizing,
American culture is all of those things.
The tidal wave of American culture is frightening and Borg like.
As long as it is seen this way, reactionary forces will gain support from the many who watch with despair as traditional culture and values developed over many centuries are replaced within a generation with what comes over satellite television from America.
It's too bad we're incapable of giving the Afghans freedom, democracy and human rights without simultaneously injecting a huge dose of consumerism laced with appeals to lust and violence.
Oh well, I suppose I can't fault the rest of the world for falling into the same traps that my fellow Americans have for decades. Don't like it? Don't watch it.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
They have the technology to follow me around from a satellite if they want, but why would they? They've got bigger fish to fry.
... DOH!
That's the point, with new technology they can fry all the fish. Traffic analysis, vacuum cleaner information gathering. Collect them all, and let the database sort them out.
Here's the kind of thing that could happen: Intellegence could find out that I've gotten copies made at BestCopy in Toronto (credit card) which was connected with Bin Laden, Bonk! My security risk karma gets a +1. So more automatic tests get run. Maybe I made a phone call to the next-door neighbour of a gun-runner, Bonk! I've mentioned gun-powder on Usenet, Bonk! I associate with the notorious Keith Henson, charged with threatening $cientology with weapons of mass-distruction, Bonk! And so it goes... Wider and wider searches that find possible and maybe connections.
The trouble with systems that collect everything is that there will be a temptation to automatically create profiles, and if it's not done right, some innocent person's security risk karma could max out -- and we're weakening the rules on innocent until proven guilty.
Sounds it sounds paranoid, but security agencies are paranoid by nature, and have to look at possibles and maybes.
If you want an excellent look at what a paranoid "knows everything" system would be like, the best I've read is Sam Hall by Poul Anderson. Hard to find short story, but well worth the search!
Luckly I paid cash at BestCopy so they'll never know
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
It's ridiculous that Katz should take this at face value, or that /. editors would pass this on without comment. The minor effort required to check even one of the outlandish "facts" in this piece would have been worth some effort.
This is really sad. I've been after Katz to look at his journalistic basics since the day he decided that ABC TV was "wrong" when they used a hidden camera, wielded by a paid undercover operative, to show Red Lion supermarkets selling rotten meat.
He claimed that it was "unethical" to get a job at Red Lion with a falsified job app, even if you already knew potentially lethal poison was being sold to people.
At the time he was celebrating a decision (later overturned) that would have hog-tied such investigative practices.
He doesn't understand the basic debt that a journalist owes his readers, and probably never will. One can only hopes that he takes this embarassment as a lesson.
I survived the Dick Cheney Presidency 7 to 9 AM 7-21-07
I wouldn't rely on information from the CIA World Factbook too much. The problem is mainly that it relies heavily on government sources. You can see this when you compare, for example, the literacy ratings for various countries. Most ex-Soviet countries are listed with 99 or near 99 percent, for example, which is a relic from Soviet times where they claimed the literacy rate to be 100%; they do have excellent literacy, but it's not quite that excellent. Now what sources did they have for Afghanistan? Do they list them anywhere? Are they credible?
Another problem is that some figures are pretty difficult to estimate. Consider "Internet users", for example. For Uzbekistan, for example, it lists 42 ISPs and 7500 Internet users. How on earth did they get that number? What constitutes an "Internet user"? How do they count Internet cafés which are really widespread in the cities of poorer countries, for example? Is an Internet café a single Internet user, or do they count the 100 or 200 regular café users individually? In the first case, the figure means nothing at all, in the second, it's plain wrong from personal experience.
Also, you never know precisely when they collected their data, which, in telecommunications or computing, does make quite a bit of a difference.
In general, be as careful with the CIA factbook as with any other source. In spite of the label, it does not only contain accurate facts, and the label "CIA" does not necessarily imply correctness of information.
There is absolutely no reason to panic.
It may not be any business of yours, but I'm making it my business. You can try to stop me, but you won't do so with words.
If your only issue is whether the people in these places want change, that's an easy question to answer: they do, go visit one of these countries sometime and ask.
If you were truly correct that the people in these societies liked the conditions they lived under, it would be a different matter. The fact is, though, most of them don't; however, brutal police states, corrupt governments, and lack of resources stops most of them from doing anything about it.
I've travelled and lived in Africa, and travelled in the Middle East, and what you often see is similar to what used to happen in the Soviet Union: people do the things people do anyway, if they can get away with it, but they do it underground and at serious risk to their lives and freedom. You may not care about this, but having lived in environments like this, I do.
And, despite your belief that "putting our nose in somebody else's business" got us into this, one can make a credible argument for the opposite being true: the U.S. has remained too hands-off in its foreign policy, only getting involved when it has a clear, direct strategic interest in a particular situation. The reasons for this foreign policy date back to World War II and Vietnam. However, this may not be in the the US's own interest. It means that from the point of view of people in other countries, US involvement is capricious and unpredictable, leading to resentment when the US does or doesn't get involved in a situation where others think it should or shouldn't.
A policy based more clearly on things like human rights interest could actually go a long way towards improving America's reputation in the rest of the world, and would not necessarily cost significantly more money, since America could certainly get international backing and cooperation for such a policy.
It's not as simple as that. Do you have the right to e.g. punish someone that thinks he/she is doing the right thing, no matter what organisation, religion or culture that person belongs to?
You don't have the right to force someone to do (or don't do) something unless that other person "agrees" (has the same cultural, religious or ethnic backround, or lives in the same country and abides to the same laws).
I think things like for example the U.N. declaration of the human rights are good things, but some other things don't simply have global validity. You take them for granted, like double glased windows, central heating, universities without fees, and taking your shoes off when going indoors (I'm a Swede), but everyone else does not. You can't enforce things like that, not even the U.N. declaration of human rights, on anyone.
Enforcing a way of life upon someone is wrong. It is a violation of the integrity of the other person. It is denying everything that the other person is.
I'm not saying it's wrong to stop people hurting each other. I'm saying it's way wrong to call it your moral right to do so, because morality is not global.
And don't forget: The conflict in Aghanistan exists because of American foreign policy, because of economics, because of oil. Prove me wrong.
5000 people is a small prise to pay to ensure that ones interests in the middle east are not jeopardised. Don't come talking about moral, because moral is nothing.
It's 11pm, do you know what your deamons are up to?
I certainly wouldn't mind seeing some evidence, but I do think that in general, the Katz series of articles tend to be designed more towards provoking debate and seeding ideas than toward investigative reporting. It's a piece about the power of technology, not a master's thesis on broadband in Kabul with footnotes. I may be too trusting, but I don't think that Jon presents an entirely implausable scenario. How could this be proven if it were in fact true? Would email message headers do it? I doubt it.
;).
The way I see it, sufficient proof would be full email headers, substantiating email from each member of the forwarding chain, photos of the much ballyhoo'd Commodore (preferably playing a downloaded copy of The Phantom Edit), and ISP records proving that movies could be (and had been) downloaded on the outskirts of Kabul. Or alternatively, I guess a video interview with the dude in Afganistan might suffice, though it's not like Jon can just hop on a flight to Kabul (unless he enlists in the special forces
Frankly, that's a pretty heavy burden of evidence to place on any journalist and especially here on Slash-(We'll post obvious product advertising literature sent from company email addresses)-dot. I'd be curious what sort of evidentiary standard reporters are generally held to at upstanding newspapers and magazines.
Screw on-topic! Let's start a thread...
What is reasonably required to back up a journalist's story? And especially here on Slashdot (Katz, Taco, rest-of-crew feel free to chime in [unlikely]... or mod down [more likely])
- StaticLimit
It turns out that the "plans" for nuclear (read 'Nukular' in Bushspeek) weapons they discovered in Taliban hideouts may have been based on a scientific parody magazine (and subsequently distributed via the internet):
y 2. php
."
.The chain reaction then promptly produces
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0147/ridgewa
WASHINGTON, D.C.-Suddenly, Al Qaeda doesn't look so smart. Just
yesterday, a Times of London reporter found a cache of plans, left in
a Kabul home as the Taliban retreated, that included notes for making
a thermonuclear device. The papers sent a chill through the Western
world, since they appeared to indicate sophisticated designs for an
atom bomb.
Now the online Daily Rotten says at least part of those documents
photographed by the Times are taken verbatim from a "semi-famous"
pseudo-document that has been circulating on the Internet for years.
It's a reprint of a scientific parody called "How to Build an Atom
Bomb," from the geek-humor newsletter Annals of Improbable Research,
originally known as the Journal of Irreproducible Results.
In his report for the BBC, reporter Anthony Loyd held some of the
papers up for the camera, giving a glimpse of documents the Daily
Rotten now compares to the 1979 parody.
Even the language Loyd uses to paraphrase the abandoned material
sounds like that of the satirical document.
Describing the scene in a Times article, Loyd wrote: "The vernacular
quickly spun out of my comprehension but there were phrases through
the mass of chemical symbols and physics jargon that anyone could
understand, including notes on how the detonation of TNT compresses
plutonium into a critical mass producing a nuclear chain reaction and
eventually a thermo-nuclear reaction . . .
The parody document reads: "The device basically works when the
detonated TNT compresses the Plutonium into a critical mass. The
critical mass then produces a nuclear chain reaction similar to the
domino chain reaction . . .
a big thermonuclear reaction. And there you have it, a 10 megaton
explosion!"
To find these faux atomic-bomb plans, do a Web search for "The device
basically works" or "Let's Build an Atomic Bomb!" instructs the Daily
Rotten. "It gives us pause and joy to know the Taliban are wasting
their time downloading what amounts to joke mail and spending time
trying to discern the facts therein."
Homeland security secretary Tom Ridge acknowledged the plans had been
found, but downplayed their importance. With this Daily Rotten report,
the public may get a glimpse of why.
Reached at the Pentagon spokesperson Major Tim Blair said, "I can't
comment on that. You can find all kinds of reports, and you have to
look at which ones are credible. We issue briefings and press
releases, but we don't talk about anything dealing with intelligence.
I'm not throwing stones, but the media should check the credibility of
their sources. You all have to do your job."
The foreign editor who handled the story for the Times was not
immediately available for comment.
--
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
... this is a ridiculous concoction. Digging up a computer after it's been buried 4-5 years? Um, even leaving a computer in a hot trunk all weekend can cause it to fry ... 4-5 years of climate changes, dirt, moisture ???? Watching video on a Commodore computer? Correct me if I'm wrong, but an "ancient" Commodore is not even as powerful as a gameboy or an old HP scientific calculator. And internet access - from a string tied between two empty bean tin cans?
Katz, either you are (A) purposely perpetrating a propaganda fraud or (B) so fucking clueless that you would buy into a hoax email and trot it out as a feature story or (C) got your dates confused and thought it was April 1 today but that would be a sick joke ...
That does it ... as soon as I post this, I'm going to set my /. preferences to filter out all "stories" by Katz. If I want Cinderella tales or bedtime stories, I'll go see the new Harry Potter movie ...
AZspot
Post the e-mail this guy sent you. Feel free to conceal his real name and e-mail address if you see fit. But post the e-mail, with full headers, so we can see that you're not pulling this all out of thin air.
--
The real Raunchola isn't cool enough to have any imposters