Technology and the Generations 

Technology and the Generations

I have linked to a story about U.S. intelligence in Iraq overhearing a conversation about a video game, and believing it was a conspiracy by insurrectionists.

Slate has a similar story in "Other Magazines": "Not so intelligent: In the 'Washington Whispers' section, U.S. News says that in April 2003, one Don Emilio Fulci made it to the top of the government's daily threat assessment. Then someone ran a Google search on Fulci, who was reported to be planning attacks on London and Washington, D.C. Turns out the shadowy terrorist is a character in the video game Headhunter."

The person who did the Google search is probably considered really techno-savvy in her or his office. Yet no one there had the slightest clue they were chasing a character in a video game.

I think this helps to clarify one amazing part of the Iraq prison story: the sheer number of cameras and photos. Apparently some troops were ordered to take pictures, to add to the humiliation of prisoners. Mickey Kaus asks (quite reasonably): wouldn't it have been just as effective to have the flashes go off, but no actual photos recorded? One gets a sense that all the older generations are simply floored by the fact that "official" pictures have circulated very widely, and even more by the fact that all or almost all of the young military people in Iraq have cameras, and put their photos on the Internet. Then (much too late) Rumsfeld meets with his staff to consider how to contain this, as if it were a specific piece of paper in a specific place. It may or may not speak to job competence, but there are some aspects of the modern world about which they are (apparently) absolutely clueless.