Creating a New Picture of War, Pixel by Pixel

A very interesting commentary by Robert Wright for the LA Times on how America may not have brought democracy to Iraq yet, but it has already democratized Iraq's technology.

Excerpts:

[...] The revolution that is happening now — a grass-roots digital empowerment — will change the nature of war and the place of war in American foreign policy.

[...] Imagine civilians whose neighborhoods are bombed uploading pictures of wounded, crying children directly to the Web. And digital technologies more broadly will boost any postwar insurgencies.

[...] Right now, the digital revolution is complicating life for the very authoritarians who need toppling. The technologies that decentralize political power — computers, modems, mobile picture-phones — are the infrastructure of a modern economy.

[...] To restrict them tightly is to condemn your nation to a poverty that, in the long run, is politically unsustainable.

[...] The good news from Abu Ghraib is that technological evolution is on our side — on the side of democracy and transparency, and against barbarism, whether the barbarism comes from a dictator or a prison guard. In trying to create a world of open societies, Bush is going with the flow of history. The sooner he realizes that, the better.

emily | 4:18 PM | The Military and Iraq. Images and Issues |
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