By John Ballard
Someday there might be an index for this chronology, but for the moment all I can do is pick up the links.
?Alex Strick is a PhD candidate blogging and writing from Kandahar. Via an Alex Strick tweet we find that war porn photos are as ubiquitous as ever. This 18-image slide show at Rolling Stone is not suitable for general viewing and certainly nothing I want to copy to this blog. It illustrates, however, the depths of depravity to which ordinary young men can sink when they become practicing warriors.
This phenomenon is neither new and I do not hold the individuals directly involved as responsible as those up the chain of command who absolutely know and allow such behavior. As a veteran of the Vietnam era I have been aware of this ugly aspect of war all my adult life, having heard about it first hand from eye witnesses. I blogged about it several years ago when the subject of war porn surfaced briefly during the Iraq adventure. Several of the links no longer work, but my commentary remains intact so far. Helena Cobban and others noted war porn at the time. Someone wrote to her "I would post some pic's from during the war, makes those look tame. However, up till now we have kept most of our pictures inhouse. Saddly those photos are more common then rare. Not sure currently, but the worst detail you can have is cleaning up dead bodies days after they are killed so that the outside of the FOB does not have limbs and eyes all around it." For a study in how contagous depravity can be check out the comments thread at Nur's site.
(Later...)
With a little searching I find that Weasel Zippers, one of many sites I recall being linked by Memeorandum, regularly links war porn, presumably as recreational leering. Last Friday's was tagged "Oldie but goodie." Also, Free Republic ("America's exclusive site for God, Family, Country, Life & Liberty constitutional conservative activists!") offers a helpful archival list with a quick search.
Before leaving this topic I want to say something about the word porn. My purpose here is not to deny that repellant events and images happen in war, but to raise awareness that those serious and tragic qualities should never be a source of recreational or prurient attention. In the aftermath of natural disasters there is also the genre of "disaster porn," and to some extent all media is guilty of promulgating both war and disaster pornography. The phrase "I know it when I see it" applies here. If it's good enough for a supreme court justice it's good enough for me. I'm not in favor of censorship of any kind. But I am pointing out that using war porn as a recreational pastime shows a serious lack of decency and good character.
?Who are the Rebels? by Jon Lee Anderson in The New Yorker
(H/T The Arabist)
A first-person snapshot of the rag-tag mixture comprising those fighting Qaddafi and his loyalists.
Outside Ajdabiya, a man named Ibrahim, one of many �gr�who have returned, said, �Libyans have always been Muslims�good Muslims.� People here regard themselves as decent and observant; a bit old-fashioned and parochial, but not Islamist radicals. Ibrahim is fifty-seven. He lives in Chicago, and turned over his auto-body shop and car wash to a friend so that he could come and fight. He had made his life in the United States, he said, but it was his duty as a Libyan to help get rid of Qaddafi���the monster.�
In the past month, men like Ibrahim have rushed into combat as if it were an extension of the street protests, spurred by bravado and defiance but barely able to handle weapons. For many of them, the fighting consists largely of a performance�dancing and singing and firing into the air�and of racing around in improvised gunwagons. The ritual goes on until they are sent scurrying by Qaddafi�s shells. In the early days of Qaddafi�s counterattack, youthful fighters were outraged that the enemy was firing real artillery at them. Many hundreds have died.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mustafa Gheriani, a businessman and rebel spokesman, acknowledged the ragtag inefficiencies of the revolutionary councils but urged me not to believe Qaddafi�s charges of extremism. �The people here are looking to the West, not to some kind of socialist or other extreme system�that�s what we had here before,� he said. �But, if they become disappointed with the West, they may become easy prey for extremists.�
[...] Some things are clear, though. In Benghazi, an influential businessman named Sami Bubtaina expressed a common sentiment: �We want democracy. We want good schools, we want a free media, an end to corruption, a private sector that can help build this nation, and a parliament to get rid of whoever, whenever, we want.� These are honorable aims. But to expect that they will be achieved easily is to deny the cost of decades of insanity, terror, and the deliberate eradication of civil society.
?U.S. develops cell phone 'panic button' that wipes out address books and sends emergency alerts
I came across this last night and have thought about it ever since. I'm not a conspiracy nut but there is something more than coincidental about the speed, coordination and apparent solidarity of what has come to be called the Arab Spring.
Yes, I know all about inspiration and all that.
And I have read all the smart analytical remarks made by a host of observers as an Arab social tsunami washed across MENA during the last few weeks. Remember, it only started at the end of December and today is only about twelve weeks later.
But check this out.
Michael Posner, assistant U.S. secretary of state for human rights and labour said: 'We've been trying to keep below the radar on this, because a lot of the people we are working with are operating in very sensitive environments.'
The initiative is part of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's push to expand Internet freedoms, because of the crucial role Facebook and Twitter has had in fuelling pro-democracy movements in Iran, Egypt, Tunisia and elsewhere.
The protesters in Cairo's Tahrir Square underscored how important cellphones were to modern grassroots political movements, said Posner.
America has budgeted some $50 million since 2008 helping social activists work around government-imposed firewalls and on new strategies to protect their own communications and data from government intrusion.
Posner said: 'We're operating like venture capitalists, giving small grants.
We are looking for the most innovative people who are going to tailor their technology and their expertise to the particular community of people we're trying to protect.'
The U.S. first began to publicly acknowledge Internet technologies in 2009, when it asked Twitter to delay a planned upgrade that would have cut service to Iranians organizing mass protests over disputed elections.
Since then it has viewed new media technologies as a key part of its global strategy, facing off with China over censorship of Google results and launching its own Twitter feeds in Arabic, Farsi and Hindi.
Some U.S. lawmakers have criticized the department for not doing enough to promote the new technology, but Posner said it was building momentum.
He said: 'We're now going full speed ahead to get the money out the door,' he said.
A dozen new 'circumvention' technologies now being rolled out have been funded by the government, and more will follow in an increasingly complex game of cat-and-mouse with censors.
Posner said America was working on new devices to protect both data and databases.
He added: 'The world is full of governments and other authorities who are capable of breaking into that system.
'A lot of activists don't know what their options are. They don't have access to technology.'
The United States has funded training for some 5,000 activists around the world on the new technologies -- and some sessions have turned up unnerving surprises.
At a recent training session in Beirut, experts examined the computer of a Tunisian activist and discovered it was infected with 'key-logging' software that could communicate what he was typing -- presumably to security agents.
'They started to go around and look at what was on the other peoples' computers. A guy from Syria had 100 viruses in his machine ... this is the tip of the iceberg,' said Posner.
He accepted that the U.S. move to develop these new technologies carried some risks if they fell into the wrong hands.
Secure on-line tools useful might also be useful for drug cartels or terrorist cells, raising new law enforcement and national security issues that need to be resolved.
'The fact is al Qaeda probably has their own way of gathering some of these technologies,' Posner said.
'The goal here is to protect people who are, in a peaceful manner, working for human rights and working to have a more open debate.
Question: To what extent, if any, has this technological input on the part of the US State Department contributed to the social explosions now detonating across the Arab world? This is not just a single event. It's going off like a string of firecrackers, sequentially, in a relatively short time. And it ain't over yet...
(Another question: Was Wael Ghonim an unwitting sock puppet of the State Department are was the State Department remarkably fortunate to have been at the right place at the right time? Or, more likely, is the State Department doing what political types love best -- get credit for something it had little to do with?)
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