How The Cell Phone Has Changed Afghanistan

[longknife]

by War News Updates Editor

Let Freedom Ring: Gen. Cartwright Says 4G Is America's Lasting Legacy In Afghanistan (Updated) -- Foreign Policy

What will the longest-lasting and perhaps most important legacy of the United States' 11-year war in Afghanistan be? A 4G cell phone network capable of supporting smartphones. That's right, according to retired Marine Corps Gen. James "Hoss" Cartwright, who stepped down as vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in August 2011, smartphones are the most important thing the West has introduced to Afghanistan.

"As we leave Afghanistan, the thing that will most affect that culture over the long term is leaving behind that network and those cell phones because they are talking across mountains and social barriers that heretofore have never been crossed by that culture," said Cartwright today at the Center for Strategic and International Studies during a speech on how information technologies are changing war. "I don't know where that's going to take them, but the introduction of that technology is probably far more lasting than anything else that we're going to do in Afghanistan and far more influential."

Read more ....Let freedom ring: Gen. Cartwright says 4G is America's lasting legacy in Afghanistan (Updated) | Killer Apps

My Comment: I am 100% in agreement.

Sharing information is probably the most powerful weapon against tyranny of any kind, whether it be political or religious. The end of the Warsaw Pact and the fall of the Iron Curtain is another great example. China is undergoing major changes for the same reason.

Yet, here in the USA, we probably lead the world in this area and we find ourselves moving towards a socialist tyranny. Please explain this to me?

 

[PaulS1950]

The people who are trending toward socialism are educated individuals (most of them anyway) who have no idea what happens when the ideal of socialism enters into reality. Most won't even admit that their views are socialistic. They are progressives out to make all people equal, save the rights of animals, prevent climate change, end all wars, force people into being loved and nurtured so long as they conform, and save our children from the ravages of capitalism.

All of these are extremely grand goals on the surface but impossible to bring into reality. People are not perfect - so the perfect society will never exist. It will be corrupted by those who want to take advantage of the lack of direction to make themselves famous, rich, powerful or what have you.

The past has proven that the only way to cure the mindset is to expose them to the real life of their dream. I simply do not wish to participate in that experience as I have learned from history.