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The War on Terrorism

What Do the Taliban, Hannah Montana, and the Beatles Have in Common?

[digg-reddit-me]I thought the most fascinating – and disconcerting – part of David Rohde’s recent installment in the story of his captivity were the references to American pop culture. For example, he writes:

My Taliban guards slept beneath bedspreads manufactured by a Pakistani textile company and emblazoned with characters from the American television show “Hannah Montana” and the movie “Spider-Man.” My blanket was a pink Barbie comforter.

That surreal image though has nothing on the one he gives in closing – as he describes the Taliban pushing him to sing one of my favorite songs with him, their captive:

“She loves you — yeah, yeah, yeah,” we sang, with Kalashnikovs lying on the floor around us.

Somehow these images bring home for me the idea that we lived in a radically interconnected world.