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Other segments from the episode on July 10, 2012
July 10, 2012
Guest: Dexter Filkins
TERRY GROSS, HOST: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. My guest, Dexter Filkins, wrote an article in the current edition of the New Yorker titled "After America: Will Civil War Hit Afghanistan When the U.S. Leaves?" He writes: After 11 years, nearly 2,000 Americans killed, 16,000 Americans wounded, nearly $400 billion spent, more than 12,000 Afghan civilians dead since 2007, the war in Afghanistan has come to this: The U.S. is leaving, mission not accomplished.
Objectives once deemed indispensible, such as nation-building and counterinsurgency, have been abandoned or downgraded. Filkins went to Afghanistan and spoke with Afghan soldiers, police and civilians, many of whom are expecting civil war once the U.S. and NATO leaves.
His article is based on travels through Afghanistan in the spring. Filkins first reported from Afghanistan in 1998. He reported on the war in Iraq for the New York Times. He shared a Pulitzer Prize as part of a team of Times reporting for their reporting from Pakistan and Afghanistan. His book "The Forever War" won a National Book Critic Circle Award. Dexter Filkins is now a staff writer for the New Yorker.
Dexter Filkins, welcome back to FRESH AIR. In reading the paper this week, I was struck by a similarity between one of your first trips in Afghanistan and something that was just reported. In 1998, when you first went to Afghanistan, one of the things you witnessed was an execution in a stadium, in front of a big audience, an execution by the Taliban.
And what was reported this week in the New York Times, I guess it was reported in some other places earlier, is that a woman was executed for adultery with an audience watching, with Taliban commanders watching, a Taliban fighter shot her several times on camera, and the people on camera were saying that the person who executed her was actually her husband. That has not been fact-checked, but that's what's said on the tape.
So I was thinking about, you know, your first trip, witnessing an execution in a stadium and the fact that this, that similar things are going on now. What does that say?
DEXTER FILKINS: Well, a couple of things. I think, you know, the first one is there's a lot of debate on how much the Taliban have changed, if they've changed, over the years. You know, they're much more sophisticated than they used to be, and they put out statements now which, you know, try to give the impression that we're much more modern, and we're not going to do some of the terrible things that we did back in the day. And, you know, here we are.
They shot her nine times in the head, I think, the woman - which is remarkably, I mean almost to a T what I saw in 1998 in the Kabul sports stadium. They brought the whole town in. They brought the whole capital in. You know, there were, you know, several thousand people, and they - this was a guy, it wasn't a woman convicted of adultery, it was a man convicted of robbery, I think, or no, convicted of murder.
Brought him into the stadium, put him down on the 50-yard line, and the brother shot him. The brother of the victim was handed a rifle, and as they read into the Quran, he killed him.
So very, very similar. I think the other thing that struck me about that story was where that execution took place. It took place in Parwan. That's north of Kabul. Boy, you know, I didn't even know the Taliban were up there. I mean, that means they've got basically - I mean, it suggests that they've got control over a place that, I don't know, I thought that was under government control. I guess not.
GROSS: So standing back for a second, what's your general sense of what's been achieved and what we've failed to do in the past 11 years in Afghanistan?
FILKINS: Well, I don't want to be too sweeping, but I mean, we've certainly failed at a lot more than we've - we've certainly failed a lot more than we've succeeded. If you want to make a little scorecard, I'd say over on the achievement side, I'd certainly put education, the education of women in particular.
There were absolutely no, zero, girls in school by the time the Americans came in in 2001. That's probably the biggest one. And also just a kind of - the modern world came to Afghanistan, which is really extraordinary. I mean, if you're just a - you know, if you're a kid growing up in Kabul, their lives are so different, now, than they would have been.
And they know that, and they recognize it, and they're aware of the modern world, and they have the Internet, and they have TV and satellite TV. And they - you know, that would be a lot harder to bring those people back to the fourth century, where they were under the Taliban.
And those are real achievements, and I think particularly when you're talking about women and girls, you know, think really hard about that when you hear people shrug and say uh, it's all hopeless, and we've achieved absolutely nothing in Afghanistan. It's not true. We've achieved quite a bit on that front.
But I think the greatest failure, really, and I don't know how you get around this, we haven't really built a state, a state that kind of holds the country together and governs the country and administers the country. We just haven't done that.
There is a state. It's a very flimsy, kind of ramshackle, corrupt thing, and most people recognize it and see it as such. And I guess the big question that we all face, as the Americans and the rest of NATO draws down, is: is this ramshackle, hodgepodge thing that we've built called the Afghan state, is it going to hold together?
Is it going to stand on its own when we leave? Boy, I don't know. You know, I don't know if I'd put my money on that, or for how long. That's a very risky proposition.
GROSS: So your article in the New Yorker in the New Yorker is subtitled "Will Civil War Hit Afghanistan When the U.S. Leaves?" One of the places you went to recently was Kabul, and there's something of a middle class that was created with the help of the U.S. presence and U.S. money.
And one of the people who you met who is part of this new middle class is a producer for a TV station, which you describe as one of the many private channels that has sprung up since 2001. And he describes to you how when he grew up, his neighborhood was a no-man's-land. And how did the American presence help turn that around?
FILKINS: Well, this was a guy named Abdul Nasser(ph), and he's a great guy. I mean, he basically just in telling me the story of his life, he told me, like, you know, the recent history of Afghanistan. When he was - you know, he lived through the Soviet invasion 1979 to 1989. He lived through that, which was a good time for him.
He lived in Kabul. It was a secular family. He wasn't in the countryside where most of the, you know, most of the fighting was going on. Then the civil war came, which he described vividly, which killed tens of thousands of people. And then the Taliban time, which he described - was a time he hated.
And then he described, in his life, the American period, in which he has prospered. And, you know, he's got six kids, and he has a house outside of Kabul, where he has like an orchard. And he's a TV producer. He's done very well. He's a modern man. And he's very, very worried about the future.
And what he described for me, his neighborhood, and I met him in a pizza restaurant, in a restaurant called Cartise(ph), just outside of there. His neighborhood was a kind of no-man's-land during the civil war in the 1990s after the Soviet Union left. It was a no-man's-land between, like, three of the many, many militias that were fighting for control of the capital.
And in the process of that civil war, as Abdul Nasser described to me, his neighborhood, the whole city was destroyed. I mean, it was just annihilated, and it was just a terrible, terrible time, and he can - I mean, he kind of walked me through that.
I mean, it was bizarre the things he told me. You know, he was just a kid. I mean, he was a teenager. I think he was maybe 18. He was going to university, and then Kabul University closed. There was no electricity. There was no government. There was nothing and - except these militias, all of which were basically, you know, kind of ethnically based militias, you know, this militia on that side of the road, the other militia down the street, this one up on the hill all fighting for control of his neighborhood.
So for instance, in his house, where he grew up, one of the militias moved in, and they knocked holes in all the - they knocked holes in all the walls of the houses on his street so they could move back and forth between the houses during the fighting.
So, you know, he'd just be literally sitting in his living room when a bunch of soldiers would sort of run in through the tunnel in his house. But that's the kind of - that's what it was.
GROSS: That's just bizarre, yeah.
FILKINS: Yeah, I mean, you can imagine just a horrible time. I mean, and whenever you talk to Afghans about, you know, that period, it just was such a dark period. You know, the Soviet Union was there for 10 years. And then, as bad as it was, and it was a horrible time - I mean, the Soviets killed, you know, tens of thousands of people - when they left, the state collapsed, basically, and the army collapsed.
GROSS: And then all the mujahedeen, you know, the holy warriors that we the United States and Saudi Arabia and others had armed and trained, poured into the capital and began to fight for control. And that's - and, you know, the connection between then and now is direct. I mean, this is not a kind of notional thing. It was only 20 years ago, and it was essentially that chaos of the civil war in the 1990s led to the Taliban. And the Taliban led to 9/11, and then here we are, you know.
So this man who you write about, who is living a much better life than he lived before the Americans came, he's worried that when the Americans leave, there's going to be a civil war again, and that's a concern many people share. Why is he worried about that?
FILKINS: He's convinced he's - as are many Afghans. I think he's worried - Abdul Nasser told me he's worried about what everybody else is worried about, which is the Afghan state, right? If you guys aren't here, what do we have at the end of the day? And what do they really have?
I mean, if you ask him, he'll say we have a bunch of gangsters who got rich off the American presence, all the people around Karzai, all with foreign passports and foreign bank accounts and homes in Dubai and London and the United States. They're all going to leave. They're all going to take the first plane out.
Then what happens? He's got no confidence that the Afghan army, you know, which the Americans are spending billions of dollars trying to train and get ready, he has no confidence that they're going to be able to carry the day. And so I think what he sees when he looks into the future is a replay of what happened in the 1990s when the Soviet Union left.
And that's the big concern, and that's kind of - I mean, it's a conversation that is going on everywhere in Afghanistan, and all I had to do was kind of tap into it.
GROSS: So after the Soviets left, the militias took over, and they were accused of, like, murder and rape and, you know, taxing people. You couldn't, like, go anywhere without being taxed by some militia or another. They were fighting each other.
And when the Taliban took over, that pushed the militias aside, and of course Taliban justice is pretty terrifying. But those militias from the post-Soviet era, are those the militias that would be coming forward now? Is it the same groups?
FILKINS: Yes. It's remarkable. I mean, in some cases it's the same people, which is, you know, astonishing - you know, they're 20 years older. So when you walk around today, it is remarkable. It is some of the very same groups. You know, I could list the names, whether it's, you know, Jamiat-e Islami(ph) or Hezbi Islami(ph) or Hezbe Wahdat(ph).
These militias are basically - they're - you know, essentially what happened was that the militias became political parties. And now the big question is are the political parties going to become militias again? Are the parties going to arm? We'll see.
GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is Dexter Filkins, and he's reported from Iraq and Afghanistan and Pakistan. And his new article in the new edition of the New Yorker is called "After America: Will Civil War Hit Afghanistan When the U.S. Leaves?" Let's take a short break, then we'll talk some more. This is FRESH AIR.
GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is Dexter Filkins He's now a staff writer for the New Yorker, but before that, he reported for the New York Times from Iraq and Afghanistan. He's written from Pakistan. His new article is called "After America: Will Civil War Hit Afghanistan When the U.S. Leaves?" And this article is based on his recent trip to Afghanistan, where he went to several areas to see what was going on.
So one of the places you went do was Kunduz, which the United States had had a military presence there, and one of its goals, you know, its goal was to get rid of the Taliban. And it enlisted militias to help with that, and apparently that was successful, the militias and the U.S. military drove out the Taliban.
But now what do you have? It seems like you have militias in power there?
FILKINS: Well, that's kind of what happens. You know, you hand a bunch of guys guns, and then, you know, they do their thing, but they don't go away. Yeah, I mean, the situation in Kunduz is just really fascinating. It's almost like a test tube. If you look back, just a few years ago 2009, early 2010, Kunduz was basically under the control of the Taliban.
It was - it's a city in Northern Afghanistan, and it was - I mean, you can talk to people about it. It's absolutely fascinating. There were Taliban governors, what they call shadow governors because at the same time, there was still - you know, there was sort of a functioning Afghan government, as well. So there was a shadow Taliban governor, there was a shadow police chief. They collected taxes.
They used to have trials in the mosques. The imams would hear cases. They'd collect taxes. They - I mean, it was a fully functioning Taliban government. So in about early 2010, the American moved in, in force, did a lot of - in particular did a lot of night raids in villages, and these shadow governors started disappearing pretty quickly.
But the really effective thing was they set up these Afghan militias. And what they did, and it's remarkable, what they did in many cases was they went back to the old militia commanders from the civil war and said: Can you get the old team going again? You know, here's some money.
And so you can drive around Kunduz as I did when I was there, and, you know, the Taliban are - the Taliban are gone, for the most part. It's pretty quiet. But what you have is, you know, every - you have these little fiefdoms. I think in one little corner of Kunduz Province that I was in, I counted nine different militias, and they each control, kind of, a few neighborhoods, a few villages.
Some of them are paid; some of them aren't. They do what they want. You know, they're...
GROSS: Paid by who?
FILKINS: Some of them are paid by the Americans. Some of them are paid by the Afghan government. And it's sort of, you know, keep order, keep the Taliban out. But the trouble is they are - these militias are now - certainly what I saw - they're stronger than the government itself. And the police chiefs will tell you that. I mean, they'll say well, we couldn't have gotten rid of the Taliban without these guys, but now we can't get rid of these guys. So yeah, it's pretty troubling.
I mean, if - I'm thinking of one town where I was, it was called Ali Abad, and I met a militia commander, and he was an old guy, old, I mean, you know, kind of old, gray beard. And he had been a commander in the civil war for one of the militias, and he was approached by the Americans to set up a bunch of checkpoints and sort of protect some bridges and some roads and some construction projects and stuff.
And he said to me - and, you know, you drive around there. These, you know, basically a bunch of 19-year-olds with Kalashnikovs set up all over the place. And when I went and saw him, he was building a new house, a very nice house, and he said: Once a month, this American guy drives out in his Humvee with a bag of money, and he pays me, and then that's that.
And that's what you've got in Kunduz. And so what happens now? What happens when we're not around? What happens when you stop paying those people?
GROSS: Now, another place you went to in Afghanistan in Kushamond, where you looked at the military - the Afghan military presence there and the police. Why did you choose Kushamond to do that?
FILKINS: Well, I - completely random, completely random. Kushamond is this village in Paktika Province in eastern Afghanistan. So it's a - you know, it's in a very heavily Pashtun area. It's near the Pakistan border. I just wanted a look - you know, really, I wanted a random place. I wanted to go to a place and say: Show me what you've built.
Because the key to everything, certainly the key to any kind of success, and that's small S at this point, but the key to everything is the Afghan army and the Afghan police.
GROSS: You spent some time with Lieutenant Mohammed Kasam(ph) of the Afghan military. And you describe him as the embodiment of all that the Americans and the Afghans could hope for in an officer: He's smart; he's 24. What was his reaction to the Americans leaving?
FILKINS: It's remarkable. He didn't even know that the Americans were leaving. He knew they were drawing down, but, you know, I got to Kushamond, and literally as I stepped out of the vehicle, and this is in sort of - you know, it looks like the moon, but as I stepped out of the vehicle, the Americans were bulldozing the base where they had been for the last several years.
And they were pulling out. And I think Lieutenant Kasam thought oh, I know the Americans are drawing down. They told me that. I didn't know they were leaving, leaving. The Americans are drawing down to zero in his area. They were going to do the - you know, they were going to come in every couple of weeks or so and do a patrol, do a couple patrols with him, but he was on his own, and I think - he had no idea.
When I told him, he, you know, kind of his jaw fell open. And so here we were on this little patrol base, in a place that looked like, you know, the Sea of Tranquility on the moon, this giant, treeless, mountainous desert. We had no water. We had no electricity. They didn't have any machine guns. I think they had five Humvees, three of which were broken down. It was rough.
I mean, it was not hard to imagine that place getting overrun. Now, the Americans have told me that it's since gotten better, but it's - you know, maybe it has, maybe it hasn't. It's just kind of hard to check these things.
But that's what's happening right now and will be happening for two years. You know, basically every day the Americans are coming out, and we are kind of putting the Afghan army and the Afghan police in our place, with a hope and a prayer.
GROSS: Dexter Filkins will be back in the second half of the show. His article "After America: Will Civil War Hit Afghanistan When the U.S. Leaves?" is in the current edition of the New Yorker. I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.
GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross back with Dexter Filkins. We're talking about his article in the current edition of The New Yorker, titled "After America: Will Civil War Hit Afghanistan when the U.S. Leaves?"
Filkins covered the war in Iraq for The New York Times and shared a Pulitzer with other Times reporters for their coverage of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Filkins is now a staff writer for The New Yorker. His new article is based on his travels around Afghanistan in the spring. He spoke with Afghan soldiers, police and civilians and found many people are expecting a civil war. The Americans are leaving the Afghan military and police to keep order.
When we left off, Filkins was describing an Afghan military base he visited that was noteworthy for what it didn't have. Three of its five Humvees weren't working, it had no machine guns, no electricity and no running water.
Did you spend time with the police? And are they doing any better or worse than the Afghan military there?
FILKINS: Well, you know, again, this is just one place that I found. But in both cases it was it kind of - with the police and the army, it was the same. The Afghans that were kind of running the show were OK. I mean the guys on the ground, they were committed, they wanted to fight, they were brave, they were tough, they didn't really - they didn't have anything, though. You know, so they were just kind of on their own.
So, you know, for instance, there's a scene in my piece, it was remarkable. The police went out, the Afghan police, there was a police commander named Abdul Raqman(ph), tough guy. They went out at night and ambushed, you know, they set up kind of an ambush for these Taliban they thought were coming through, and sure enough the Taliban came through and they got into a firefight. So this is like five o'clock in the morning. And so at like five o'clock in the morning an Afghan guy shows up at our base on a motorcycle saying, help us, help us, help us - this is one of the Afghan police - and they radios to call for help. So, you know, everybody woke up really fast and Lieutenant Kossum(ph), the Army guy, was going to go bail them out, that's what's supposed to happen. But, you know, he only had to Humvees and the other three were broken down. So basically what happened was and, you know, it's kind of predictable, the Americans who were still there, they're gone now, the Americans basically got it going and went out there and bailed them out. And that's, you know, that's the - that's it right there in a nutshell. That's what happened...
GROSS: So what happens when the Americans aren't there?
FILKINS: What happens when they're not there? You know what happens. There's no radios. And why aren't there any radios? There's like a thousand reasons, right, if you ask. Well, we sent the radios. They never got there. They got stolen. They don't work. They don't know how to make them work. They can't fix them when they're broken. It's always this stuff. It's just everything that you set up in that country because it's so hard. Everything is so hard there. It just, it just, you know, it just kind of slips through your fingers.
GROSS: So if this base, when you were there, if three of their five vehicles were broken, if they had no radios to communicate with the rest of the military or with the police, and the only water they had was American bottled water, it makes you wonder where has the money that America has spent on the Afghan military gone?
FILKINS: Boy, that's a good question. It is a gigantic project, which I think at the moment they're spending $11 billion a year building the Afghan army. That kind of, you know, full-blown, pull-out-the-stops effort is not that old. I mean this is part of the problem in Afghanistan. We've kind of reinvented the wheel every few years. And so really the kind of the big effort to build a big Afghan army is only a few years old. I think the short - there's two quick ways to answer that. The first is, you know, it's Afghanistan and it's just, it's hard to imagine unless you see it, but if you can imagine a place on the moon, trying to build a base on the moon...
FILKINS: ...or in the Grand Canyon, it's so remote and it's just nothing. And so everything, even after 11 years, everything is so hard there.
GROSS: It's huge too. It's a huge country.
FILKINS: Yeah, it's enormous. And so you're building these bases all over the place and they've all got to be kind of self-sustaining, you know, and it's gigantic, I mean the effort. And it is kind of bottomless and in that way it's kind of demoralizing. But the other piece of this is just, you know, the Afghans state itself, you know, it doesn't work very well but it's also spectacularly corrupt. And so, you know, everywhere you go you hear or see about, you know, money getting siphoned off, things being stolen or things being sold, that's the kind of thing that you hear. And so these, you know, these very elaborate detailed plans that the Americans work night and day to build and kind of break their hearts doing it, when they meet the Afghan reality they often don't work very well.
GROSS: I think the Obama administration is hoping that there will be some kind of peace negotiation with the Taliban and that because the war obviously isn't going to be won militarily with an American presence because the American presence is leaving. So what progress has been made on a peace deal that includes the Taliban?
FILKINS: Well, there's been a lot of discussions - very quiet discussions, you know, back channel and they're mostly kind of talks about talks, how they would happen, what we would talk about, that kind of thing but they've been pretty substantial. And so over the last several months there was a kind of a very, very preliminary, I don't want to say deal, but there was going to be a kind of a prisoner exchange. The Americans were going to release I think five Afghan soldiers who had been captured from Guantanamo or send them to Qatar or some place and the Taliban were going to release an American, I think the one American POW held by the Taliban, Bowe Bergdahl. That was kind of the preliminary swap, the kind of deal, but that was kind of coming together and then it basically fell apart and we are kind of back at zero again. But that's what everybody wants. Everybody wants a kind of a deal with the Taliban I think, you know, and that what kind of end the fighting.
I think the trouble is, is when you begin to imagine what would the deal look like. You know, would the Taliban be back in power? Would they share power? Would they just be given control over a number of provinces? You know, I mean there's quite a lot of discussion about well, maybe we just sort of, you know, bring the Taliban into power or in certain parts of the south and the east and that's where it gets to be really difficult when you start to imagine these things in the details.
A lot of people believe that - a lot of Afghans believe - that, you know, what the Taliban, all the Taliban have to do is just run the clock out, right? You know, the Americans are leaving. All we got to do is hang on for two more years and then it's ours and we can knock this government over in a second. That's one possibility and there's certainly a lot of evidence to suggest that that's the case.
When you talk to some of the American officers about that they will say the following, and it's interesting and I think there's some evidence to support this, they say the Taliban are really, really hurting badly. That the American, particularly the night raids, I mean there are so many night raids, every single night they are carrying out, you know, dozens of raids and they kind of swoop into these villages and they grab people or they kill them. And this is just...
GROSS: You're talking about night raids conducted by the U.S. military or by the Afghan military?
FILKINS: Yes.
FILKINS: By Special Forces guys and they didn't say much, they never do. But, you know, they - if you talk to the American officers about this they'll say the incentive is that the Taliban are just suffering very badly, that the U.S. has been extremely effective in taking out their leadership and I mean, sort of, the important leadership that fights, you know, the guys on the ground, the sort of mid-level people, that they've been decimated at that level. It's hard to say I mean you never know when you hear these things. s it true? And so the American - I mean I spoke to an intelligence officer who said that when they look at when they interview prisoners - they've taken Taliban prisoners or when they listen to radio intercepts - that the pain is evident and the frustration that they are really getting hammered by particularly by these kind of relentless raids that the Americans are doing.
GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is Dexter Filkins. He reported for The New York Times on the Iraq war. He's been reporting on Afghanistan on and off since 1998 and he has a new article in The New Yorker, where he is now a staff writer, called "After America: Will Civil War Hit Afghanistan when the U.S. Leaves?"
Let's take a short break here, then we'll talk some more. This is FRESH AIR.
GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is Dexter Filkins. He reported on the Iraq war for The New York Times. He's reported on Afghanistan on and off since 1998. He's now a staff writer for The New Yorker and he has a new article called "After America: Will Civil War Hit Afghanistan when the U.S. Leaves?"
Now you write that a deal like the one the United States wants, a deal with the Taliban, could create conditions for civil war. In what sense? What are the concerns?
FILKINS: Well, that's, yeah, I mean that's the paradox here. Everybody would love - you would think - everybody would love to have a deal with the Taliban, right? Now look, it's not, you know, the Taliban aren't going to sort of come forward with a white flag and say OK, we quit. Everybody recognizes that. So I guess the really, really tricky part here is what's a deal look like? What does the deal look like that everybody can agree to? You could sort of imagine theoretically, that there'd be a kind of a deal where the Taliban would sort of stop fighting in exchange they would get to share power in various places. I mean that's kind of really the only thing you can imagine that would be kind of workable.
The trouble with that is that you have, particularly in northern Afghanistan, where the minorities are who suffered the most under the Taliban, they are absolutely opposed to any kind of deal with the Taliban. I mean they are the people that were massacred during the Taliban period. They are the people that suffered the most. And so when they start thinking about that they say, you know, we're going to fight. You bring the Taliban in the government or you make a deal with the Taliban, we're not going along and that, you know, that's civil war. I mean I interviewed people who told me just that, you know, the government makes a deal with the Taliban, we fight.
GROSS: Wow. OK. And meanwhile, you also write that Hamid Karzai is afraid of a coup within his government. Who is he suspicious of?
FILKINS: Well, this is all part of the same piece. If you kind of stand back and you look at a map of Afghanistan, basically the conflict, the internal conflict inside of Afghanistan is basically a north-south thing. The Pashtuns are in the south. They're not a majority but they're the most powerful group, they're the largest group. They...
GROSS: Karzai is from that group.
FILKINS: Karzai is a Pashtun. The Taliban are Pashtuns. I mean they kind of, they're the group that's always kind of called the shots. And then, you know, arrayed across the north are all the minorities, the Tajiks, the Uzbeks and people like that and essentially most of the conflict inside of Afghanistan has been a north-south thing. I mean, the civil war is - was, the fight against the Taliban largely is. And so when the Americans toppled the Taliban in 2001 and they set up the Afghan army, our kind of allies on the ground, the really pro-American people, were the northerners. They were particularly the ethnic Tajiks and they made up the nucleus of, and make up the nucleus of the new Afghan army.
And so remember, if you just stand back and do the math, you have Karzai who is a Pashtun, wants to make a deal with the Taliban, he's always referring to his Taliban brothers, and then on the other you have the Tajiks who make up the nucleus of the officer corps in the army who are implacably opposed to any kind of deal with the Taliban. And that's kind of what you're facing here. So there's been a lot of talk that if Karzai were to try to make a deal with the Taliban then the Tajiks in particular, the minorities inside the army, would basically tried to stop him.
GROSS: So one of the places you recently visited in Afghanistan is Bamiyan, which is a place that you visited in the late '90s in one of your first trips or perhaps your very first trip to Afghanistan. And Bamiyan became famous because that was the place where the Taliban destroyed several ancient sculptures of the Buddha. And it was shocking to Americans to read about this. And so why did you return there? And I'm going to ask you to briefly compare what you saw then with what you saw now.
FILKINS: Well, I did. It was I think my first trip to Afghanistan in 1998. I went to Bamiyan and I saw the Buddhas, the great, you know, 300-foot-high Buddha statues that were sort of carved out of the cliffs, absolutely extraordinary, and they're now gone. In their place is these kind of caverns really where they carved them out but they blew them up, the Taliban did, you know, in the high fever of their zealotry, this was I think in 2000. I went back because - to Bamiyan because it is really exhibit A of the challenge that we face. The last 10 years for Bamiyan have been the best 10 years that they've ever had. Bamiyan, the area which is in central Afghanistan, it's inhabited largely by an ethnic minority called the Hazara people and they are an ethnic minority but also a religious minority. They're Shiite in a country which is largely Sunni.
They got the worst of the Taliban. They were massacred by the Taliban. They were persecuted, you name it. This has been their golden age. If you go to Bamiyan now there is a woman governor. The schools are filled. There is no insurgency. There is no poppy trade.
It is the best they've ever had it and it's peaceful, it's quiet, it's extraordinarily beautiful. And this is a real achievement and it is an achievement which, depending on how the future goes, is at risk. And so I wanted to go back there just to kind of feel that and see it and talk to people.
GROSS: Now you've been very generous to FRESH AIR with your time and we've had several interviews with you on our show. And one of the things we've talked was an article that you wrote - this was a couple of years ago for the New York Times - about some girls in Afghanistan who were going to school and some men, probably Taliban, threw acid at them.
And several of these girls had their faces, you know, scarred or destroyed by acid. And after writing about that, readers started sending money to you and you've had to figure out how to use it. So one of the things you did was buy a school bus for this school so that girls could safely get to school and get back home again.
So what is the state of that school now and are the teachers there and are the parents whose children going to school, are they worried about civil war? Are they worried about girls no longer being able to attend school?
FILKINS: Well, I'm really glad you asked me about the girls. That's the Mirwais Girls School and it's just outside of Kandahar which is, you know, the heartland of the Taliban. And I did, a couple of years ago after writing about these girls who'd been burned by acid but they refused to close the school. They kept going. And it was a very moving thing and I wrote a story about it.
And I was deluged by people wanting to do something and contribute so I just said, you know, said your money to me and I'll do something with it for the girls. I'll get medical care for them. You know, we'll do something for the school. And I did.
You know, I raised thousands of dollars that way and put it in a bank account and got medical care for a couple of the girls who'd been burned. And then we did, we bought a school bus which the parents - you know, I had a kind of PTA meeting there in the girls school with the parents and they wanted a bus because they were worried about the girls walking to school. They were worried about them, you know, getting attacked again. It's basically a Taliban area. And so I bought a school bus and I hired a driver and it's still going, although the money's getting low. So I'm going to - I mean, I think we pay the driver $250 a month and it costs about that much for gas.
So it's still going, which is just, you know, wonderful and amazing. And so, yeah. But of course they're worried. I mean, everybody's worried. But the school today, the Mirwais Girls School is still open.
GROSS: Well, Dexter Filkins, I want to thank you so much for talking with us. Thank you and be well.
FILKINS: Thank you so much.
GROSS: Dexter Filkins' article "After America: Will Civil War Hit Afghanistan When the U.S. Leaves?" is published in the current edition of The New Yorker. You'll find a link on our website freshair.npr.org. Coming up, Lloyd Schwartz reviews a new DVD recording of a performance of Bach's oratorio the "St. Matthew Passion." This is FRESH AIR.
TERRY GROSS, HOST: Bach's oratorio the "St. Matthew Passion" has been called the Everest of Western classical music. For some three and a half hours it tells the story of the last days of Jesus based on the Gospel of St. Matthew. Classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz has a review of a new DVD that presents this monumental work in an original way.
LLOYD SCHWARTZ, BYLINE: Facing Bach's "St. Matthew Passion," I often feel a combination of anticipation and dread. It's a very great work, profound in both its humanity and spirituality, with sublimely beautiful music. But it's a long haul, and if it's not a good performance, well, I'm stuck.
A new DVD recorded in 2010 at Berlin's great concert hall, the Philharmonic, would be of major interest under any circumstances. Sir Simon Rattle was tackling this piece for the first time, when he was leading the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and Berlin Radio Chorus and half a dozen admirable international singers.
But what makes this even more engaging is that unlike most performances of the "St. Matthew Passion," this one is staged, and by the brilliant and controversial American opera director Peter Sellars. He calls it a ritualization. It's without scenery or costumes, but the moment the music starts, something startling happens.
The chorus is not standing as usual, grouped at the back of the stage singing from their scores. The individual members are now filing in through the orchestra to the center of the stage. They look at each other, hold hands, even hug, and actually sing to each other.
Sellars treats each singer in the chorus as an individual. And since the chorus represents the community - us - they are expressing our pain and grief, our hopes and doubts, nothing abstract or distant here. One of Sellars' most powerful innovations is the way he characterizes the evangelist, the Gospel writer who is the narrator of the Passion.
Instead of simply telling the story, the extraordinary British tenor Mark Padmore acts out in his own body the torments of Jesus, while Jesus, German baritone Christian Gerhaher, stands apart on one of the stage balconies - an image of isolation.
It's Padmore that the Czech alto Magdalena Kozena, as the Mary Magdalene figure, tries to comfort. Sellars even has the obbligato instrumentalists who accompany the arias play from memory, placing them right next to the solo singers as if they were having a conversation with them, or reading their thoughts.
Here the violinist Daniel Stabrawa, one of the Berlin Philharmonic's three concertmasters, laments along with Kozena in one of Bach's most moving arias, "Erbarme dich."
MAGDALENA KOZENA: (singing in German)
SCHWARTZ: Near the end of the "St. Matthew Passion," the bass soloist - the great German lieder singer Thomas Quasthoff, who has just sadly announced his retirement, sings an aria that is almost the moral of the whole story: I will entomb Jesus in myself, so that in myself he may forever take his sweet rest.
THOMAS QUASTHOFF: (singing in German)
SCHWARTZ: "The Passion" ends with the chorus gathering around Jesus' tomb and singing an uncanny lullaby. In Berlin's magnificent concert hall, the audience surrounds the performers on all sides and becomes a kind of extension of them, just as the television cameras bring the viewer at home into the action.
We're all right there, and we're all implicated. Even the conductor seems to be part of the action. Sir Simon's face and body language show him reflecting every word, every note of the score. And we can hear that, too.
GROSS: Lloyd Schwartz is classical music editor of the Boston Phoenix. He reviewed Bach's the "St. Matthew Passion," a DVD released on the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra's own label.
Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.


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A project that could enable the development of revolutionary electronics and a separate project that could dramatically improve diabetes monitoring and treatment are the first two research efforts to be supported at Princeton University from the Eric and Wendy Schmidt Transformative Technology Fund.
Google CEO and Princeton alumnus Eric Schmidt and his wife, Wendy, created the $25 million endowment fund at Princeton in 2009 to support the advancement of science and engineering through the development and use of entirely new technologies.
The winning research efforts will be led by Ali Yazdani, a professor of physics, and Claire Gmachl, a professor of electrical engineering and director of the University's Mid-Infrared Technologies for Health and the Environment Center (MIRTHE). Yazdani will lead a collaborative team of five faculty members and their research groups to explore the use of exotic insulators in electronic and optical applications. Gmachl will direct a partnership to develop "clip-on" medical sensors to enable non-invasive, continuous glucose monitoring.
"The research endeavors led by Ali Yazdani and Claire Gmachl have truly transformative potential, exemplifying the vision and the spirit of the Eric and Wendy Schmidt Transformative Technology Fund," Princeton President Shirley M. Tilghman said. "These cutting-edge activities hold promise for high reward. Yazdani's work could enable the development of entirely new classes of electronics, and Gmachl's non-invasive glucose-monitoring devices could dramatically improve the lives of millions of people around the globe. Such tremendous potential for reward does carry with it some risk, and we are grateful to the Schmidts for their foresight in recognizing the need to fund projects of this nature, which have the capacity to yield pathbreaking advances in science and engineering."
The fund was established to allow Princeton's scientists and engineers to explore truly innovative ideas that might include breakthroughs that traditional funding sources would consider too risky to support.
Yazdani's partners include Nai Phuan Ong, the Eugene Higgins Professor of Physics and director of the Princeton Center for Complex Materials; Robert Cava, the Russell Wellman Moore Professor of Chemistry; Associate Professor of Physics M. Zahid Hasan; and Assistant Professor of Physics Jason Petta.
In recent years, this group has spearheaded many of the experimental breakthroughs in the burgeoning field of topological insulators, positioning them at the forefront of the knowledge frontier. Topological insulators are highly unusual materials featuring interiors that do not conduct electricity and metallic surfaces that are highly conductive, owing to the presence of special electrons that behave in extraordinary ways. The juxtaposition of non-conducting interiors and so-called "topological" surface states confers upon these insulators a host of exotic electrical, magnetic and optical properties with vast potential for exploitation in next-generation devices such as optical detection applications, novel superconducting technologies, and "topological" quantum computers -- machines with computing capabilities far superior to today's devices that would harness the unusual behavior of electrons to process information.
To date, members of this collaborative team have led the charge to demonstrate the existence of "topological" surface states in a variety of compounds and to identify some of their fundamental properties. These include excellent electrical conductivity and an unusually large electrical response to the absorption of light.
With a $700,000 award from the Schmidt Fund, the group will pursue a wide range of experiments to demonstrate the utility of topological insulators for electronics and optical applications. Their research plans include the purification of topological insulator materials, the fabrication of nanowires from topological insulators, and a series of experiments to explore more fully the magneto-electric, optical and thermal properties of the materials.
Gmachl will collaborate with Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering Gerard Wysocki to develop fingertip sensors for diabetics that measure blood glucose levels as quickly and painlessly as pulse oximeters measure oxygen saturation in the blood.
The diabetes epidemic has reached epic proportions, affecting nearly 10 percent of Americans and more than 200 million people worldwide. According to the World Health Organization, the global epidemic caused more than one million deaths in 2005, and this figure is projected to double by 2030. The effective management and treatment of the disease hinges on the careful monitoring of levels of blood glucose, or blood sugar, with the frequency of glucose measurement being tightly coupled to the successful management of the condition.
Efforts to develop non-invasive laser sensors for glucose testing have been stymied to date because glucose does not have distinguishing optical features in the visible and near-infrared ranges of the spectrum, the region in which light passes through human tissue easily and for which sensitive photo-detectors have already been developed.
With a $500,000 award from the Schmidt Fund, Gmachl and Wysocki will build on Gmachl's pioneering work on the development of quantum cascade lasers, which emit light in the mid-infrared region of the spectrum, where glucose has characteristic spectral features that distinguish it from other major tissue components, including water, urea and albumin. Additionally, they will draw upon Wysocki's expertise in the development of highly sensitive, compact optical sensor systems.
Their research plans include the development of quantum cascade lasers that emit light at the precise wavelengths needed for glucose testing as well as the creation of photon detectors, electronics and software that can be incorporated into a clip-on sensor for the fingertip or earlobe that can serve as a prototype for commercialization.
Gmachl and Yazdani's projects were selected through a campuswide competition under the auspices of the University's dean for research.
"The response to the Schmidt Fund call for proposals was extraordinary, and we were frankly overwhelmed by the quality and innovativeness of the proposed projects," said Dean for Research A.J. Stewart Smith. "After a detailed internal review, we also consulted external experts to advise us how they would place the promise, potential and risk of these efforts on the world scene. The ideas and plans put forth by these physicists, chemists and engineers have enormous potential for broad and transformative impact. It is wonderful that the generosity and insight of the Schmidts has given the University the capacity to invest in projects of this nature, and it is inspiring to imagine the breakthroughs that may result from these endeavors.
"Based on the experience gained in the inaugural competition, early in the new year we shall be announcing the next call for proposals to the Schmidt Fund," Smith added. "I am completely confident that the depth and breadth of ideas in the Princeton community will lead to future awards as compelling as the ones we announce today."
Schmidt earned a BSE in electrical engineering from Princeton in 1976 and served as a Princeton trustee from 2004 to 2008.


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Global Onboarding Software Market 2018 - BambooHR, Qualtrics, Lessonly, UltimateSoftware, iCIMS, Goodwinds, BirdDogHR
Global Market report from QY Market Research on Onboarding Software Market Professional Survey Market 2018 in-depth complete study of the current state of the Onboarding Software Market Professional Survey worldwide.
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The program also looks up your current in-store markup (percentage rate). If your in-store markup is less than 15%, you are already receiving special pricing and you are not eligible for this service. For example, employees who may have a rate lower than 15% are not eligible.
Each Organic Food Depot store sets its own defaults. These are the discount percentage, the minimum dollar purchases necessary to become eligible for in-store discounts and the number of preceding days to use for sales accumulation.
Since there may be more than one local Organic Food Depot stores which are independently owned, the member card issued at one Organic Food Depot may not be eligible for an in-store discount at another Organic Food Depot. You will need to ask the manager at the store where you are shopping before beginning your purchase.
You will receive a 5% in-store discount if the total of your online plus in-store purchases are greater than $100.00 during the last 30 days. Since the in-store markup is 15% above online prices, a member with qualifying purchases will receive an in-store markup rate of 10%, effectively giving you a 5% discount on in-store purchases. This does not apply to online pre-ordered purchases, only in-store purchases.
If prior purchases are insufficient to meet the required minimums for additional discounts, no in-store discount is given and the current sale will proceed normally at regular retail pricing.
Members MAY NOT enter into a dispute with the cashier about a discount given/not given. The software calculates eligibility quickly and efficiently. Cashiers do not have access to sales history. If you feel you had qualifying purchases, but were not given a discount, please complete your transaction and then contact the manager, who will take down the necessary information and forward the matter to our programming staff for investigation.
You will also be eligible for the in-store discount when picking up a pre-order after you present your completed, initialed online order check-off sheet to the cashier. When the barcode at the top of that sheet is scanned, our computer looks up your account and determines eligibility.
However, even though you may have an online order, if your account has never had a card issued, the discount option is not active and no discount will be given. Be sure to request your initial pair of member cards so you become eligible.
After the program applies the discount, sales checkout proceeds normally, with nothing further required on anyone's part. The current sale total is automatically reduced.
Each member account receives two cards with your first online order at no charge. Replacement or additional cards are $5.00 each. Should you need a replacement, please contact the store manager and allow up to three days for processing.


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Open House
Andrew Paquin
Grindstone Pictures
When Alice is imprisoned in her own house by the psychotic David (Brian Geraghty), in preparation for the arrival of his "partner" Lila (Tricia Helfer), who gets her kicks seducing men (and women) just before she has their throats slit, it isn't long before David develops a misguided relationship with his prisoner Alice whom he is keeping chained up in a closet in the basement.
This is a film where terrible things happen within the safety of a sanitized suburban environment. Precise and brightly lit, the cinematography reflects the obsessive-compulsive behaviour of David as he documents with a video camera each unfortunate encounter with the deadly Lila.
While the script is a little rigid the performances carry the slow burn of the film providing a lot for very little and the sparse score does much to enhance the charged air of anxiety in this incestuous story of manipulation through sexual desire and violence.
Although let down only by the cheap and obvious ending, this is an intelligent instalment in the slasher genre, far more provocative than any I Know What You Did…
Chris John Brooke


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Hacking Chinese Resources
Click one or more tags to show relevant resources. Follow @ChineseLinks on Twitter, to get notified about new resources!
7 resources found.
Chinese Learn Online (CLO)
Learn Chinese Online with CLO - Go from absolute beginner to intermediate learner with our step by step, progressive audio lessons in Mandarin Chinese Read more.
Adam_CLO – over 9 years
Non-fiction book summaries written in easier to understand Chinese (with audio)
I've taken some book summaries of interesting non-fiction books, rewritten them into simple English and had them translated into Chinese. This way, the vocabulary and grammar will be easier to unde... Read more.
Nick Dahlhoff – over 4 years
Duolingo: Learn Spanish, French and other languages for free
Finally, Duolingo added a En->ZH course. As Duolingo is the most popular gamification learning app, the learning experience is relatively streamlined and tested. The monetarization aspect leads to ... Read more.
stefanwienert – about 6 years
Hacking Chinese: A Practical Guide to Learning Mandarin (video/Audio/Text course)
Through video, text and audio, this course helps you become a better language learner. It also explains many Chinese-specific learning strategies necessary to avoid wasting lots of time or missing ... Read more.
Olle Linge – about 8 years
HSK Study and Exercises
HSK Course is an online platform for HSK preparation. It aims to help you not only successfully pass the exam, but gain confidence in using Chinese language. It mainly has 3 parts: Grammar Les... Read more.
Sabina – 12 months
Global Language Online Support System (with Chinese lessons)
This page offers several hundred lessons for Chinese about different topics, including both reading practice and listening. They also have some learning activities, including quizzes. I have tried ... Read more.
Olle Linge – over 9 years
The Cozy Study
A blog written and managed by an advanced Chinese featuring reviews of books, TV dramas and games. Additionally, the blog also features recommendations for utilising media in Chinese language learn... Read more.
花谢月令 – 25 days


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Chad Billingsley (5-7, 3.54) vs. Paul Byrd (3-7, 5.21).
COMMENTS: "Is there a Son of Steve Garvey in the house?" "Why yes, I'm a Son of Steve Garvey." And so it came to be that our very own jet-setting Alex Cora is watching the Dodgers play for the sixth time this season...and only for the second time at home. AC has compiled a 2-3 record in those five games, so both he and the Dodgers are looking to reach .500.
Billingsley is looking to continue his defiance of all things Ohio after striking out nine Reds in his last start. Cleveland starts the soft-tossing but durable Byrd, who is 0-3 with a 3.79 ERA lifetime at Dodger Stadium. The Dodgers need a win today to avoid the sweep, so let's hope they squawk! do the Byrd!


text:
L*V Damier Azur Siracusa MM Shoulder Bag (SHF-14579)
Item is in stockHurry! Low inventoryItem is out of stock
Item is unavailable
Fresh and artistic, Louis Vuitton remains one of the world's most coveted symbols of status and sophistication. The Damier pattern was designed in 1888 and the Monogram, in 1896. Over a hundred years later, these remain two of the most recognizable prints in the world. Nicolas Ghesquière, previously of Balenciaga, is the artistic director of women's collections (2013). Virgil Abloh is the artistic director of the men's line since March 2018.
Note: Our Items are totally New High quality Brand Inspired Refurbished. Please make sure you are well aware of it before buying any of the Item. T&C's Apply in case of refunds. Please send us message on below chat to confirm availability. We will send the Refurbished Model in case you place an order with us. Enjoy Shopping. Always Send Us message to confirm availability before buying, In case of refund the transaction fee remains non refundable. Thank you.


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Parshat Noach
It is ten generations since the creation of the first human. Adams descendants have corrupted the world with immorality, idolatry and robbery, and G-d resolves to bring a flood which will destroy all the earths inhabitants except for the righteous Noach, his family and sufficient animals to repopulate the earth. G-d instructs Noach to build an ark. After forty days and nights, the flood covers even the tops of the highest mountains. After 150 days the water starts to recede. On the 17th day of the 7th month, the ark comes to rest on Mount Ararat. Noach sends out a raven and then a dove to ascertain if the waters have abated. The dove returns. A week later Noach again sends the dove, which returns the same evening with an olive leaf in its beak. After another seven days Noach sends the dove once more; the dove does not return. G-d tells Noach and his family to leave the ark. Noach brings offerings to G-d from the animals which were carried in the ark for this purpose. G-d vows never again to flood the entire world and designates the rainbow as a sign of this covenant. Noach and his descendants are now permitted to slaughter and eat meat, unlike Adam. G-d commands the Seven Universal Laws: The prohibitions against idolatry, adultery, theft, blasphemy, murder, eating meat torn from a live animal, and the obligation to set up a legal system. The worlds climate is established as we know it today. Noach plants a vineyard and becomes intoxicated from its produce. Ham, one of Noachs sons, delights in seeing his father drunk and uncovered. Shem and Yafet, however, manage to cover their father without looking at his nakedness, by walking backwards. For this incident, Canaan is cursed to be a slave. The Torah lists the offspring of Noachs three sons from whom the seventy nations of the world are descended. The Torah records the incident of the Tower of Bavel, which results in G-d fragmenting communication into many languages and the dispersal of the nations throughout the world. The Parsha concludes with the genealogy of Noach to Avram.
Strictly For The Birds
"From each bird according to its kind, and from each animal according to its kind" (6:2)
Recent world events have shown that anti-Semitism is alive and well and living in all those centers of civilization in which it was considered extinct half a century ago.
The existence of a Jewish state, the 19th century Jewish intelligentsias ultimate panacea against anti-Semitism, has failed to prevent the emergence of an anti-Semitism as potentially virulent as any strain to date with the ultimate irony that we are now dubbed the new "Nazis"!
What is all this supposed to teach us?
The existence of the Jewish People in an other-worldly phenomenon. The "unhistory" of the Jewish People has perplexed historians and left them either wanting to change their professions or fudging the facts. Logically, they say, we shouldnt be here at all. And in a sense, theyre right. We dont belong here. We occupy this world as a piece of rented real estate. This is not our place. We are an other-worldly people.
The Jewish People is likened to a bird. In its natural element, the bird can soar to the heights, leaving its earth-bound cousins far below. However, when you enclose a bird in a cage, not only does it no longer soar, but its very advantages become its weaknesses. Its feet are not suited to walking around. Its wings atrophy. Its plumage wilts.
In this weeks Torah portion, when the animals entered the ark, the Torah lists the birds before the land animals: "From each bird according to its kind, and from each animal according to its kind." However, after the entry to the ark it mentions the land animals before the birds: "And the animal that is not kosher, or the birds." And when about to leave the ark, the order reverts to the birds being mentioned before the land animals: "Every living thing that is with you of all flesh, of birds, of animals."
Why did the Torah change the order?
The ark was a microcosm of the world. Just as the world as three levels of holiness, so too the ark had three levels. Just as the world has a sun that radiates light to it, so too the ark had a precious jewel fixed in the ceiling that radiated light to it.
Outside the ark, the birds can fly. They are pre-eminent. However, when they are cooped up in an ark, they become the least of the animals.
We are a nation that has been designed to soar to the skies, but if we choose to lock ourselves into an ark of physicality we will find ourselves as sprightly as a Dodo.
Midrash, Maharal, Table Talk,
Rabbi Chaim Zvi Senter, Ariel Hershkowitz


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Debugging The Linux Kernel Using Gdb
Debugging the linux kernel using gdb
The majority of day to day kernel debugging is done by adding print statements to code by using the famous printk function. This technique is well described in Kernel Debugging Tips. Using printk is a relatively simple, effective and cheap way to find problems. But there are also many other Linux-grown techniques that take debugging and profiling to a higher level. On this page, we will discuss using the GNU debugger (GDB) to do kernel debugging. The GDB page describes some basic gdb command and also gives good links to documentation. Overall, starting using gdb to do kernel debugging is relatively easy.
Most of the examples here will work in two (open source) situations. When using JTAG and when using QEMU system emulation. As the second option does not require any hardware, you can go on and try it right away!
The open source JTAG debugging world is not that big. One project that stands out in terms of debugging capabilities is OpenOCD and this is the tool used in this documentation. OpenOCD is pretty usable on the ARM11 and ARM9 targets we tested.
You need to get a GDB that is capable of understanding your target architecture. Often, this comes with your cross-compiler, but if you have to, you can compile it yourself, but you need to understand the difference between --target and --host configure options. GDB will be running on the host (e.g. x86) but will be able to understand the target (e.g. armv6). You may also want to have the gdbserver that can serve as a stub for your user land debugging.
A JTAG Dongle:
The basics
To debug the kernel, you will need to configure it to have debug symbols. Once this is done, you can do your normal kernel development. When needed, you can "hook-up" your debugger. Start debugging a running kernel.
- start openocd
vmlinuz v.s zImage
When you want to debug the kernel you need a little understanding of how the kernel is composed. Most important is the difference between your vmlinux and the zImage. What you need to understand at this point is that the zImage is a container. This container gets loaded by a boot loader and that execution is handed over to the zImage. This zImage unpacks the kernel to the same memory location and starts executing the kernel. (explain that vmlinux does not have to be the real kernel as it is possible to debug a "stripped" kernel using a non stripped vmlinux). overall if we look at a compiled kernel we will see that vmlinux is located at the root of the kernel tree whiles the zImage is located under arch/arm/boot
vmlinux arch/arm/boot `-- zImage
vmlinux is what we will be using during debugging of the Linux kernel.
Debugging the kernel
The JTAG based debugging method described here is not intrusive. This means that besides debugging symbols you don't need to modify the kernel in any way. This is because we operate on the hardware, CPU core level. Overall this means that you can follow your normal development method. You can let your bootstrap and boot loader do their work and for example start debugging a running kernel. If your gdb-aware debugger is running it can be as simple as loading the vmlinuz and connecting to the remote target:
load vmlinuz target remote :3333
Loading a kernel in memory
Once you are used to using gdb to debug kernels you will want to use gdb to directly load kernels onto your target. The most practical way of doing this is to set a hardware breakpoint at the start of the kernel and reset your board using the JTAG reset signal. Your boot loader will initialize your board and the execution will stop at the start of the kernel. After that you can load a kernel into memory and run it.
Execute the following:
(gdb) file vmlinux (gdb) target remote :3333 (gdb) break __init_begin (gdb) cont (gdb) mon reset #perhaps this needs to be done from the openocd telnet session.. Breakpoint 1, 0xc0008000 in stext () (gdb) load vmlinux Loading section .text.head, size 0x240 lma 0xc0008000 Loading section .init, size 0xe4dc0 lma 0xc0008240 Loading section .text, size 0x219558 lma 0xc00ed000 Loading section .text.init, size 0x7c lma 0xc0306558 Loading section __ksymtab, size 0x4138 lma 0xc0307000 Loading section __ksymtab_gpl, size 0x1150 lma 0xc030b138 Loading section __kcrctab, size 0x209c lma 0xc030c288 Loading section __kcrctab_gpl, size 0x8a8 lma 0xc030e324 Loading section __ksymtab_strings, size 0xc040 lma 0xc030ebcc Loading section __param, size 0x2e4 lma 0xc031ac0c Loading section .data, size 0x1e76c lma 0xc031c000 Start address 0xc0008000, load size 3345456 Transfer rate: 64 KB/sec, 15632 bytes/write. (gdb) cont
This will boot your kernel that was loaded into memory via JTAG.
Getting the kernel log buffer
Sometimes the kernel will panic before the serial is up and running. In such situations is it very handy to be able to dump the kernel log buffer. This can be done by looking at the content of the __log_buf in the kernel. In gdb this can be done by issuing
p (char*) &__log_buf[log_start]
There must be a simple way of printing the memory area between log_start and log_end.
The problem is that gdb stops after the first line. Currently we use this routine that copied from wchar.gdb until something "normal" came out. We defined dmesg it like this:
define dmesg set $__log_buf = $arg0 set $log_start = $arg1 set $log_end = $arg2 set $x = $log_start echo " while ($x < $log_end) set $c = (char)(($__log_buf)[$x++]) printf "%c" , $c end echo "\n end document dmesg dmesg __log_buf log_start log_end Print the content of the kernel message buffer end
and call it like this:
dmesg __log_buf log_start log_end
Debugging a kernel module (.o and .ko )
Debugging a kernel module is harder.
Determining the module load address
gdb itself does not have knowledge about kernel modules and when debugging a kernel module. We will need to help gdb a little. One problem with modules is that it is not possible to determine where in the memory a module will be loaded before it is actually loaded so only once it is loaded we need to determine the address in memory it is loaded and tell gdb about it. There are many ways of determining this information. Here are 3 ways:
cat /sys/module/mydriver/sections/.text
#gdb implementation of the linux lsmod
define lsmod
set $current = modules.next
set $offset = ((int)&((struct module *)0).list)
printf "Module\tAddress\n"
while($current.next != modules.next)
printf "%s\t%p\n", \
((struct module *) (((void *) ($current)) - $offset ) )->name ,\
((struct module *) (((void *) ($current)) - $offset ) )->module_core
set $current = $current.next
Loading Symbols of a loaded module
add-symbol-file drivers/mydrivers/mydriver.o 0xbf098000
Note that we use the .o file and not the .ko one. The address at the end is the address where the kernel decided to load the module
In the Linux Documentation directory under the kdump you will find file called gdbmacros.txt and it looks very promising as among other things it contains the a dmesg implementation
head linux-220.127.116.11/Documentation/kdump/gdbmacros.txt # # This file contains a few gdb macros (user defined commands) to extract # useful information from kernel crashdump (kdump) like stack traces of # all the processes or a particular process and trapinfo. #
A "find . -name "*gdb*" in the linux kernel directory also shows up a few interesting .gdbinit files that apparently can perform low level initialization.


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Contemporary Art: World Currents
Terry Smith
Laurence King
In this comprehensive guide, Terry Smith lays the groundwork for a new comparative approach to contemporary art, emphasising its relationships to all aspects of life.
For many, the term "contemporary art" has lost its meaning. How does contemporary art differentiate itself from modern art, and when did the shift take place? If we take a step back and think about what has been happening in the art world since the 1980s, we are confronted with a scene of teeming multiplicity, proliferating differences and new technologies.
Being honest with ourselves, it can be overwhelming, and Contemporary Art: World Currents offers a welcome assessment of key works by both well-known and little-known artists, showing how contemporary art achieved definitive force in the markets and museums to become a global phenomenon. Addressing 21st century complexities – the fragile planet, globalisation, dislocation, communicative media and world terror – this book has real critical weight and is well worth your attention.
Bethany Rex