'The US Struggle to Keep the Taliban From Stealing What's Inside This Box
Wednesday 11 February 2009
by: Shahan Mufti, GlobalPost
Wednesday 11 February 2009
by: Shahan Mufti, GlobalPost
Peshawar, Pakistan - Throughout the ages, this ancient Silk Road town near the border of Afghanistan has been the place where the black market thrives and the military spoils of empires are hawked openly.
Here in the storefronts you can still buy antique field rifles left over from the British presence of the 19th century and find uniforms and revolvers from the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s.
Now the shops in this industrial rim of Peshawar are filling with military equipment and computers looted from the most recent empire to bog down in this hostile and impenetrable terrain: the United States of America.
In the age of computerized high-tech warfare, it is not just American hardware available on the black market. Now there is also vital technology and information up for grabs and - as military officials here and in the U.S. fear - leaking into the wrong hands in this region where the Taliban and elements of Al Qaeda have a known presence.
I was recently able to purchase a U.S. military laptop for $650 from a small kiosk, which is known as the "Sitara Market," on the western edge of the sprawling open-air markets on the edge of Peshawar.
The laptop, which has clear U.S. military markings and serial numbers, contained restricted U.S. military information, as well as software for military platforms, the identities of numerous military personnel and information about weaknesses and flaws in American military vehicles being employed in the war in Afghanistan.
Longtime observers of the region and military experts say the open market on U.S. military hardware and technology is increasingly compromising the American military supply route that runs from the Pakistani seaport in Karachi through the Khyber Pass and into neighboring Afghanistan.' Lees verder: http://www.truthout.org/021209A
Here in the storefronts you can still buy antique field rifles left over from the British presence of the 19th century and find uniforms and revolvers from the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s.
Now the shops in this industrial rim of Peshawar are filling with military equipment and computers looted from the most recent empire to bog down in this hostile and impenetrable terrain: the United States of America.
In the age of computerized high-tech warfare, it is not just American hardware available on the black market. Now there is also vital technology and information up for grabs and - as military officials here and in the U.S. fear - leaking into the wrong hands in this region where the Taliban and elements of Al Qaeda have a known presence.
I was recently able to purchase a U.S. military laptop for $650 from a small kiosk, which is known as the "Sitara Market," on the western edge of the sprawling open-air markets on the edge of Peshawar.
The laptop, which has clear U.S. military markings and serial numbers, contained restricted U.S. military information, as well as software for military platforms, the identities of numerous military personnel and information about weaknesses and flaws in American military vehicles being employed in the war in Afghanistan.
Longtime observers of the region and military experts say the open market on U.S. military hardware and technology is increasingly compromising the American military supply route that runs from the Pakistani seaport in Karachi through the Khyber Pass and into neighboring Afghanistan.' Lees verder: http://www.truthout.org/021209A
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten