World’s first Internet enabled war

The way one learnt about Vietnam was different from the way one came to know about the gulf war. And now, the internet changes the way one gets updated about America's latest war I was preparing to go out that day, to celebrate. My birthday, if you will. But at 7 in the evening, in comes an SMS - terrorists ram plane into World Trade Centre. Switch on CNN or BBC. I run for the tv and watch slow-motion action replays of a jet slamming into a building I stood on top of not a year ago. SMS's start pouring in. I'd forwarded what I got to a few people, and now everybody's telling everybody else.

By 8 pm, I think to myself, there's probably no mobile phone user in India who doesn't know. Wonderful, networked world we live in. Run to the comp. cnn.com has it in a site that loads glacially slow. MSNBC doesn't yet. back to the tv. Boom! as I watch, a tower caves in. the anchor at the scene doesn't notice. I'm yelling to him didn't you see that tower collapse, damn it, why aren't you talking about it? I watch tv like I use the net, many windows open. MSNBC, fox, CNN, BBC world. P-I-P was never used so much before. I slowly see biases or is it blinkers? come to light. Talking heads on American channels go on about how, when, what. Some mention who. But no one talks of why. Cut to the BBC showing celebrations in Palestine. But watching it live is something else. Gut wrenching. I get all heated up. Fume off to the comp. CNN, MSNBC are up with flat, fast pages that repeat the news. Slashdot is already bursting with discussions trust geeks to be first off, the block. Hello, I want to scream to my American friends, why is nobody talking of why it happened? I dash off a long email to a handful of friends in the us. "Do people really hate us?", I ask at 3 am. I say there's no justification for any attacks whatsoever but ask them to wonder why this suicide bombing happened. Most are blissfully unaware of what American foreign policy is or was. Let alone if it created incredible loathing for the stars and stripes in people as far apart as Sudan, Vietnam, Iraq, Korea and Pakistan. I surmised then that it was probably Osama and gang, about the same people behind similar bombings that happen every day in Kashmir - ones that somehow don't make world headlines. People who were incidentally created, trained, armed and funded by those wonderful people at the Cia the reactions cascade in immediately. Many appreciate a different perspective. Some say I'm dead wrong. others agree but fault my timing the tragedy wasn't even ten hours old then. It's been fifteen days now since. Judging by responses, those few people eventually forwarded that mail to a few thousand. A rejoinder comes in about the greatness of America and all it's done to keep world peace. Opinions morph, from "we're perfect", to "maybe we screwed up" to "even if we did, we don't deserve this". The email gets picked up, posted on a few sites. More bouquets, brickbats come in from total strangers. People I haven't heard of in ten years surface, they've seen what I wrote, they write to say hi. We trade news of people we know who had miraculous escapes at watch, and people who didn't. I head from the us economic consul that a common friend was safe at the state department in Washington DC. Fifty people SMS me a few days later, asking for a place to stay, signed Osama. More unprintable Urdu Shayiri and 'bush' jokes surface. An afghani journalist sends email saying bombing his country will merely redistribute the rubble already there. This is not Iraq, where we watched mute and expressionless as people rammed guided missiles into another on live tv. This is 2001, and we're watching the same thing again, perhaps with roles reversed. But now we have the net. We have mobile phones. We have voices. We can talk, argue, discuss, curse, swear, deny, defy, defile, insult, grieve, wonder and even joke about it. nothing is black and white. nothing is 'a sure thing' anymore. Nothing will be the same again. the battle on the ground may end in a foregone conclusion. But the battle in our hearts and minds won't. This is the first internet-enabled war. Log in, and go to your battle stations.