Anyone catch this yesterday (and or day before)? It's a program where independent journalists do 20 minute pieces, and they put 3 of them in a show. Usually unrelated, but this time they were all about Pakistan and the Taliban. One female journalist, from Karachi, went to neighborhoods in the Swat Valley, Peshawar, refugee camps, and Karachi. In one of the neighborhoods in the Swat Valley, she was talking to two 9yr old girls about their school getting destroyed, and to one of the girls' father about the Taliban. The Taliban broadcasts 24/7 on the radio, rants, edicts, etc.. This guy said everyone listens to the Taliban radio not because they support them, but to hear the edicts so they can follow them when outside.
Then she talked to two kids in the refugee camps, 14yr old best friends. One lost his cousin to an American air attack. He was planning to join the Taliban if given permission by his father. His best friend didn't blame the Americans for his friend's cousin's death. He blamed the Taliban. He planned to join the Pakistani army to fight the Taliban.

The most disturbing thing though, was an interview she got with a Talibani in Karachi. He was in charge of indoctrinating 3-7 year olds. He talked about it like any other 9-5. The other Talibani were similar in their lack of nuance. There was one guy, I forget what they were talking about, but it was something related to an attack or fight, who said basically, 'they had something we wanted, so we have to jihad against them.'.


It made me wonder again, as I often do, why we don't fight the information war. Because that's the war they are fighting. She talked to the head of a madrassa who said, 'we have a limitless supply of sacrificial lambs.'. They are constantly after recruits, and we do nothing to counter-recruit. To counter the lies and justifications they use. Why? We had 2 years of non-stop campaigning in which enormous effort was made to inform, disinform, and shape opinions and convictions. Why don't we turn that enormous weapon on them?

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1984 300TD

There are various reasons...


1) The Embassy in Tehran was taken over 30 years ago most of our Farsi and Pashtun speaking FSOs and CIA operatives have long retired and the programs to teach those languages have been shut down

2) First Carter and then Clinton basically shut down the PolMil sections of the CIA. These were the guys engaged in agitprop and things like the contras. With the emphasis on electronic information gathering at the company now, the Drectorate of Operations (DO) has been cut to about 1/10 of what it was during the Cold War. Agitprop venues like VOA have been shut down. Life in the CIA is nothing like a Tom Clancy novel. Basically all the people who could run a thing like this are gone.

3) Congress does not want to fund any propaganda efforts so even if we had people who could speak the languages, there would be no venue for them to work from.

I agree that we need to do something to win the hearts and minds of the people in these areas. That is why I send donations to Spirit of America. At least the do things like send school supplies and balls and water purifiers to these people. If nothing else, it show that Americans are not just savage infidels who bomb the people at will and don't give a ***** about the aftermath...

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"I have no convictions ... I blow with the wind, and the prevailing wind happens to be from Vichy"

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I'm not just talking about boots on the ground type stuff, though that's obviously very important. We should be recruiting locals for that. We should have presidential campaign managers design pro-America campaigns.

A few years back, there was a documentary about the American soldiers (a general and a colonel) who were assigned to appear on Al Arabiya and Al Jazeera. We need to do more of that. I thought it was great that Obama appeared on Arab television, even though conservatives didn't. So many people become our enemies in that region based on ignorance and disinformation. And there's no voice to counter that. Cut off recruitment and these terrorist organizations will die.

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1984 300TD

It is absolutely a war of ideologies, and the Bush administration it seems did everything possible to feed the jihadist propaganda. BTW, that Frontline episode was a re-run from a few weeks ago. Now the Taliban in Pakistan are dying and on the run, thanks to the Pakistani army but mainly thanks to the Pakistani people who've had enough of the Taliban crap and gave the army the popular support to do what's needed.

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2004 VW Jetta TDI (manual)

Past MB's: '96 E300D, '83 240D, '82 300D, '87 300D, '87 420SEL

You must be kidding me here. The reason why the Pakistanis have any kind of b#lls these days is because Bush, who you deride so much, has worked with the Pakistani govt from the beginning of the war. The people lost confidence in Musharraf, elected him out, Butto (sp?) was assasinated, and Bush (yes, Bush) took the command decision to take advantage of the situation and start killing the Taliban and Al Queda leadership via the CIA Predator drone program. A program, that I might add, is now being continued and increased in scope hand in hand with the Pakistani govt. Because of the program, the Pakistani Army has the confidence and tactical upper hand as many of the Taliban and Al Queda senior leadership are either dead or can't come out.

Sometimes, it would be good to take off the political blinders and acknowledge that the former President did some good and that the current President agrees with his some of his decisions

And where is this all coming from? My Time magazine subscription, hardly a right wing publication

I have acknowledged some good things about Bush, believe it or not, but it's absolutely true that Bush did a lot to feed the jihadist propaganda, especially with the Iraq invasion and Abu Graib prison scandal. And those Predator strikes, while successfully killing some legitimate targets, also killed many bystanders including women and children and no doubt recruited more terrorists. If those strikes are so great and flawless as you seem to think, then why is Obama having to do a surge in Afghanistan against a resurgent Taliban? Also you don't seem to be aware that until a few weeks ago the Pakistanis were in large part tolerant if not sympathetic to the Taliban until the Taliban started terrorizing cities and neighborhoods beyond the agreed-upon area covered by the recent peace plan with the government. Bullets and bombs alone will never win over terrorism. Any intelligent and knowledgeable person can tell you that, especially our Gen. Patreus. A good chunk of any successful counter-insurgency is psychological warfare and diplomacy.

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2004 VW Jetta TDI (manual)

Past MB's: '96 E300D, '83 240D, '82 300D, '87 300D, '87 420SEL

Not according to my paper this morning.






I think you are a bit confused. I think it's more likely you just started paying attention to the kind of b#lls the Pakistanis have when Bush started talking about them.

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1984 300TD

What did the paper say this morning? I read a few days ago that the Taliban had suffered over 1000 dead in the recent Pakistani army offensive and their morale was low. Are they making a comeback?

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2004 VW Jetta TDI (manual)

Past MB's: '96 E300D, '83 240D, '82 300D, '87 300D, '87 420SEL

Militants detontated two bombs in a busy market in Peshawar and attacked two police checkpoints. 14 killed. It came one day after 30 were killed in Lahore. The Taliban said their targets are security forces and they regret killing innocent people in the Lahore attack. Which is funny since they are bombing marketplaces. The guy who said that also said there were plans for attacks on Multan, Rawalpindi, Lahore, and Islamabad.

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1984 300TD

Well, I've read about those but that doesn't invalidate what I said. The Taliban are indeed dying and are on the run from the army offensive. But of course that doesn't mean they can't strike back in vulnerable places.

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2004 VW Jetta TDI (manual)

Past MB's: '96 E300D, '83 240D, '82 300D, '87 300D, '87 420SEL