Tuesday, March 03, 2009

The iPhone: So Easy a Caveman Can Use It


Playing the part of the caveman is Mullah Abdul Salaam Zaeef, a former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan and guest of Club Gitmo. Just think of the commercial possibilities in marketing Apple products to seventh-century mutants.
Mullah Abdul Salaam Zaeef is a former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan. He spent almost four years in Guantanamo. He wears a black turban, has a thick beard — and is never without his Apple iPhone.

The ultra-conservative Taliban banned modern technology like the Internet and TV during its harsh 1996-2001 rule, but those items have boomed in Afghanistan since the regime's 2001 ouster, helping to bring the country into the 21st century.

Zaeef, who reconciled with the Afghan government after being released from U.S. custody, says he uses his iPhone to surf the Internet and find difficult locations, employing the built-in GPS. He even checks his bank account balance online.

"It's easy and modern and I love it," Zaeef said as he pinched and pulled his fingers across the iPhone's touch screen last week. "This is necessary in the world today. People want to progress."
Of course these monsters have always embraced the technology. Helps kill more infidels.
Zaeef, the former Taliban official, said he has always been interested in technology despite his militant links. He used a laptop and satellite phone to access the Internet in the late 1990s, and now he surfs the Web an hour a day, he said.

Zaeef said he tried to persuade top Taliban officials to let Afghans have more access to modern electronics in the late 1990s, and he noted that the Taliban itself now embraces technology. Militants use remote control devices to set off roadside bombs, and they produce high-quality videos of attacks that they post on militant Web sites.

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