That Other War

[Lemur]

While we in the U.S. have been obsessing over Iraq, there is still our original war, still being waged. Some grim reports have been coming out lately, suggesting that we are not doing so well. I suppose we are in a bit of paralysis over what to do with Pakistan, since it has a leader who publicly allies himself with the GWOT, and a population firmly in support of the Taliban.

Anyway, Time has an article (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1601850,00.html) that you may or may not have seen, and it's a decent primer on the challenges we still face. There's also some chilling video (http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=eca975183d) from Helman province, with live shots of Talibanis burning a school, and a depressing interview with the province's minister of education.

Given that we already have a shortage of Arabic translators, and given that Pushtun isn't exactly taught in our high schools, I wonder at how effective our counterinsurgency can be. Given that we're already straining to feed the beast that is the Iraq war, I wonder about whether we will really give Afghanistan the attention it needs.

I also wonder whether the U.S. population is ready and primed to think seriously about what's going on in Afghanistan. Signs are not good. The covers below are all from the same week. Note the slight discrepancy between what is fed to Americans versus what the rest of the world gets.

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/Lemurmania/time20echoes20newsweek20on20jihadis.jpg

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/Lemurmania/newsweeks20around20the20world.jpg

[Lord Winter]

I don't know if I would say we're losing but Talbanistan defentily needs to be taken care of.

[lars573]

All I hear about is Afghanistan, and how it might be going south. Just today 6 of our soldiers were killed when their Stryker was taken out by an IED.

[KafirChobee]

Lemur, I think your point is well taken. They know how sensitive we Yanks are and don't want to upset us with the same pictorials or unedited news stories they show the rest of the world. To allow the American public to become aware that the Bushys Afghanistan plan is as bad as their Iraq one - might get some upset. Oh, wait .... they already are.

Truth is, look to who owns the publications. Saw a report last week that said that 90% of all media in the U.S. (film, tv, radio, newspapers, magazines) are owned by 6 corporations. Scary?

Where is binLaden anyway? As I recall, Bush promised to capture him in short time. Kept a USN&WR - Oct 2001, that reported how close we were and the various methods and agencies being employed to assure he is brought to justice. Even had a map showing how the "net" was tightening - it might just be a matter of days ... 'according to informed sources" (probably Cheney - he has yet to be right about anything).

Oh, well. It is a curiousity that the cover pages had ro be different for us - it was reported here of course - as a curiousity.

[doc_bean]

A real shame, at least in Afghanistan there was potential for fighting terrorism, now in Iraq they've created terrorists instead of fighting them...

[Ronin]

*thinks quietly to self*'Should I tell them that us on the rest of the world don´t depend on Time and NewsWeek for news reporting?......it´s probably best to just let them hold on to that scrap on self confidence' *internal tough end*



so...crazy weather we´re getting hey guys?:clown:

[Banquo's Ghost]

*thinks quietly to self*'Should I tell them that us on the rest of the world don´t depend on Time and NewsWeek for news reporting?......it´s probably best to just let them hold on to that scrap on self confidence' *internal tough end*

That's not really the point. As far as I know, those magazines are relatively widely read in the States, and the editors feel it necessary to have rather anodyne cover stories compared to those sent to the rest of the world.

The question is why? Is it commerical (ie the readers have shown they don't want analysis of the wars, therefore buy less if war is on the front cover) or political (best not frighten the natives)?

[pevergreen]

In Australia, something like 4 corperations own everything.

[Ronin]

That's not really the point. As far as I know, those magazines are relatively widely read in the States, and the editors feel it necessary to have rather anodyne cover stories compared to those sent to the rest of the world.

The question is why? Is it commerical (ie the readers have shown they don't want analysis of the wars, therefore buy less if war is on the front cover) or political (best not frighten the natives)?

yes..I understand....I was just adressing a sub-point that was being made in your post by pointing out that outside the US very little people care what those magazines say...

about your question .....I´d say a combination of the 2....not ruffling any political feathers is probably seen as the best in a comercial sense......american consumers have proved in the past that they can get mighty testy if you show them a reality they don´t want to see.... :sweatdrop: after all poiting out an existing problem might mean that you *gasp* hate freedom or something :oops:

I always found America to be such an interesting place...because despite the fact that when you talk to american´s one on one they are interesting and level-headed people (for the most part) all together as a nation your reactions are what better can be described as manic-depressive......

I´d thought I´d seen the top of this behaviour during the "freedom-fries" debacle....when good patriotic americans were protesting against France by going into a store...buying expensive French wine....and dumping it down the drain...... grinning for the camera....not realizing that once you PAY for the wine French farmers don´t really care what you do with it :wall:

it seems I was being overly optimistic....the party is clearly still underway....:clown: :juggle2:

[Vladimir]

Oh dear. Using Time and Newsweek's logic the battle of the Coral Sea would be considered a loss. :shame:

[Grey_Fox]

Coral Sea was a draw...

[Vladimir]

Coral Sea was a draw...

That depends on how you define victory. If the goal was to thwart the invasion of Australia then is was a US victory. According to Time and Newsweek, it would be a US loss. The Japs had their nose bloodied and returned to safer pastures, just like the Taliban does. Just because they are able to launch a suicide attack or throw some tribesmen on NATO bayonet’s, doesn't mean that we're loosing Afghanistan.

[Tribesman]

Oh dear. Using Time and Newsweek's logic the battle of the Coral Sea would be considered a loss.
Using Time and Newsweeks marketing logic you wouldn't have heard much about the early parts of world war 2

[Lemur]

Just because they are able to launch a suicide attack or throw some tribesmen on NATO bayonet’s, doesn't mean that we're loosing Afghanistan.
Interesting. So you assert that the Taliban are nonexistent as a fighting force. May I inquire what you're basing that on?

[Tribesman]

Interesting. So you assert that the Taliban are nonexistent as a fighting force. May I inquire what you're basing that on?
Well obviously it cannot have been based on the statements describing them as the toughest opposition that have been encoutered , both on the battlefield and as insurgents .
Neither can it be based on statements saying it is hannging in the balance , has reached a tipping point where losing is a very real possibility .
And it certainly can't be based on a statement that says the coilition are winning the battles but losing the war .

And of course none of those statements would happen to be from commanders on the ground in Afghanistan would they . :oops:

[Banquo's Ghost]

It is more disconcerting that it appears as though many ordinary Afghans (at least in the south west) are seriously considering supporting the Taliban (http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article2432448.ece) - if only for security's sake.

Even Karzai is beginning to negotiate with them.

We want the Taliban back, say ordinary Afghans

At least we felt safe under the extremists, say Kandahar residents too afraid to go out after dark

By Chris Sands in Kandahar
Published: 08 April 2007

Faiz Mohammed Karigar, a father of two, fled Kandahar when the Taliban held power in Afghanistan because he was against their restrictions on education. Now he wants the fundamentalists back.

"When the Taliban were here, I escaped to the border with Iran, but I was never worried about my family," he said. "Every single minute of the last three years I have been very worried. Maybe tonight the Americans will come to my house, molest my wife and children and arrest me."

Last week, President Hamid Karzai acknowledged for the first time that he had held talks with the Taliban in an attempt to reach a peace deal and avert a bloody struggle for control in the south and east of the country, where the movement has enjoyed a resurgence in the past year.

The failure of Nato forces to deliver security and development and rising civilian casualties inflicted by Western forces in clashes with the Taliban have led to a loss of support in Kandahar. "How can we forgive the Americans?" asked Mr Karigar, who like most people here does not distinguish among the different elements in Nato. "I will fight them any way I can."

The majority of forces in Kandahar province are Canadian, with a British commander, Major-General "Jacko" Page, about to assume responsibility for the whole of southern Afghanistan at a time when a renewed Taliban offensive is thought to be imminent. British troops have been based mainly in neighbouring Helmand province so far, but the fresh forces now arriving will operate across the region.

The Taliban failed last year to carry out its threat to seize back Kandahar, its former stronghold, and Nato insists the movement can never win a military victory against it, even if many Afghans believe it possible. But the occupiers have lost crucial support in the city, which has become one of the most dangerous places in Afghanistan.

Political and criminal violence has spread fear among the population, and most try to avoid going out after dark, when the only sounds are the helicopters flying overhead and the odd burst of gunfire in the streets. Suicide attacks are common, and on several occasions in recent months nervous Nato troops have shot civilians they mistakenly believed were about to blow themselves up.

Whatever the cause of the bloodshed, the local population almost always blames the foreign soldiers in their midst. Even moderate Afghans are openly declaring they will join the insurgency.

The British Government calls the Taliban "terrorists" and "extremists", but people in Kandahar associate it with security. Before the 2001 invasion, they say, they could walk the streets safely as long as they complied with the movement's strict interpretation of Islamic law. Now even a simple outing to the local market is seen as a risk, and the Taliban, established as a response to lawlessness in the 1990s, is gaining fresh strength.

"I think life under the Taliban was very good," said Maria Farah, a mother of five. "If we did not have a full stomach, we could at least get some food and go to sleep, and if we went out somewhere there were no problems. How about now? If we go out, we don't know if we will arrive home or not. If there is an explosion and the Americans are passing, they will just open fire on everyone. The security problems are too much here."

Foreign attempts at development were waved aside by Haji Abdul Rahman, a tribal elder, who demanded: "If a road has been built and you are killed, what good is it? Everyone is a robber. I guarantee if you sit in my car and we go for a drive, no Taliban will take you away. But I cannot guarantee that about the police. If they stop you they will steal your money and your camera."

The Nato-led International Security Assistance Force denies the insurgency is gaining strength. "Most polling data shows only about 5 per cent of the people actually support the Taliban extremists," said a spokesman, who insisted that fighting in Kandahar province was a result of foreign and local troops "extending the reach of the legitimate government" into militant strongholds.

But a recent poll of several thousand men in Kandahar and Helmand by the Senlis Council, a Brussels-based thinktank, found that Taliban support among civilians had jumped to nearly 27 per cent. Only 19 per cent in the two provinces felt that international troops were helping them personally.

In southern Afghanistan, said the report, people "are increasingly prepared to admit their support for the Taliban, and the belief that the government and the international community will not be able to defeat the Taliban is widespread".

In the Panjwayi district west of Kandahar city, which saw heavy fighting last year, Mawlawi Abdul Hadid said 18 members of his family died in an air strike last May against suspected insurgents. "In the beginning you had only one enemy. Then you made two, then three, and now I also stand against you," he declared.

[Devastatin Dave]

Islam, 'nuff said....

[KukriKhan]

For reference, both Time and Newsweek newsstand sales have dropped over 24% the past year. Subscriptions, however, hold steady, and website hits have increased 33%.

So their coverage (# of eyeballs reading content) has basically increased overall, with impulse-buying decreasing.

The difference in focus between US and non-US editions is troubling to me.

[CrossLOPER]

I've never bothered with Newsweek. I held Time to a high standard as I was growing up, but recently, it seems to be getting worse. Maybe I'm just noticing things. Does anyone know if the actual CONTENT of the magazines is different, or if the covers are just different to prevent denizens of the US from being discouraged by "news" and "fact" and "an ever present reality that's been there from the start OMG how can you not see IT???!!!".

[Lemur]

Personally, I'm more of an Economist guy, which probably makes me an elitist :daisy:. My point in reproducing those covers was not to reference Time and Newsweek as paragons of journalistic integrity, or to elevate them into some position they don't deserve.

Rather, they are two of the most commonly read news weeklies in the U.S. that also maintain worldwide editions. And I thought their collective opinion about what to put on the cover was telling. The rest of the world will be interested in Afghanistan. In the U.S., no so much. This is troubling, but tangential to the larger problem of what the hell we're going to do to get things right in our original move in the GWOT.

[CrossLOPER]

And I thought their collective opinion about what to put on the cover was telling. The rest of the world will be interested in Afghanistan. In the U.S., no so much.
The war in Afghanistan is seen as a sort of "special" thing in the US, as it came as a sort of counter-strike against the enemy which had a hand in the the attacks. While one may find it rather easy to criticize the war in Iraq, it is much harder to draw fault in the that conflict. Remember that the coverage pretty much narrowed to a trickle after Kabul fell. Not much news other than the occasional small skirmish, although I have come to believe that the US has fractured control north of Kabul and no control in the south.

The closest thing to news concerning Afghanistan that is being air in the US now concerns Tillman.

[Vladimir]

Interesting. So you assert that the Taliban are nonexistent as a fighting force. May I inquire what you're basing that on?

Yes. If you read my post, that's exactly what I said, to the letter. :inquisitive:

[English assassin]

It is more disconcerting that it appears as though many ordinary Afghans (at least in the south west) are seriously considering supporting the Taliban - if only for security's sake.

I thought the problem could be summed up that many ordinary Afghans ARE the Taliban...

Who was it had as his number one military rule : never engage in a land war with Russia*? To which we might add: never send any troops to Afghanistan. Its not as if there is a long history of successful military intervention there is there? They are all mad, they all have guns, and they live up mountains.

IMHO the best you can hope for long term is to keep the madmen in Afghanistan, where they seem to be quite happy being mad, and growing opium.

Edit * Field Marshal Montgomery, apparently. Easy for him to say.

[Lemur]

Just because they are able to launch a suicide attack or throw some tribesmen on NATO bayonet’s, doesn't mean that we're loosing Afghanistan.
Interesting. So you assert that the Taliban are nonexistent as a fighting force. May I inquire what you're basing that on?
Yes. If you read my post, that's exactly what I said, to the letter.
OOoooookay, let's try it this way: on what are you basing your estimate of the situation in Afghanistan?

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

What the hell. Let's give the 'Stan to the Taliban and just to be safe we'll bomb it every five years.

:wall:

[Major Robert Dump]

They pile themselves in no-mans land in the mountains along the border where pakistan won't dare touch them. All the troops we send in there get pwnt and come scurrying back out dead or wounded. The drug trade funds them. When the weather clears up I feel sorry for anyone not tucked safely in a base. The US military public affairs have been warning of this, the free press nas been warning and the afghan "government" has been warning. This is nothing new, and the civil grant money we give goes to build nice mansions for complacant people while the people the money is meant for goes about life poor, hungry and illiterate. It makes me sick tbh. I want to go there.

[Mooks]

I like how the Afghan policemen didn't even take the time to aim before they revealed themselves. They just yelled, and didnt shoot a thing. Then the part where the guns were going off in the air is great.

But on a serios note. I gotta get me one of those turbans for halloween.

[Fragony]

They pile themselves in no-mans land in the mountains along the border where pakistan won't dare touch them. All the troops we send in there get pwnt and come scurrying back out dead or wounded.

Change of tactics, make a pile of 5 rocks and wait untill they snap and come out of their caves to kick it down. I dunno, dutch troops seem to be doing fine, supposedly the talitubbies couldn't shoot themselves.

[Cataphract_Of_The_City]

Just because they are able to launch a suicide attack or throw some tribesmen on NATO bayonet’s, doesn't mean that we're loosing Afghanistan.

I am sure the Taliban could not wish for a better enemy attitude. You won't lose Afghanistan militarily you will lose it politically.

[TevashSzat]

Afghanistan actually had some hope for the future after the invasion contrary to Iraq, but it's starting to go downhill again due to all of the money and troops being sent to Iraq.

I read somewhere that the majority of the world's opium supply (something higher than like 75%) comes from Afghanistan and those getting rich off of the trade is mostly the Taliban or the warlords seeking to undermine the central government

[lars573]

90% actually. And since it's the only cash crop the farmers are loath to stop growing it too.

[Husar]

For reference, both Time and Newsweek newsstand sales have dropped over 24% the past year. Subscriptions, however, hold steady, and website hits have increased 33%.

So their coverage (# of eyeballs reading content) has basically increased overall, with impulse-buying decreasing.
I somehow think that's not necessarily the case.
If they lost 24% of 100 readers and gained 33% from 10 internet viewers, then they lost 24 readers from the papers and gained 3.3 on the internet which means what were 110 readers total before are now only 89.3.:inquisitive:

That said, the cover comparison was quite funny, though as a US citizen I would be a bit concerned. It' a bit like Africa IMO, just because it isn't in the news anymore does not mean people there stopped starving...

[KafirChobee]

According to informed sources the Taliban (& alQuaeda) are preparing for a Spring offensive - coming from their safe bases in Pakistan.

Our fearless leaders seem so focused on Iraq that they seem unable to comprehend that the war in Afghanistan is being lost through their incompetence and under estimation of the foe there. We live in a bubble that doesnot allow the realities of poorer nations to permeate. The idea that if we could simply stop the growth of poppies we would cut off the funding to our enemy is both naive and discustingly unrealistic. Certainly the Taliban is paid a tithe by the smugglers and warlords that control the trade (if they help by informing the smugglers what paths to their trading outlets are open, but that is it - the rest is a myth created to divert attention from the reality of the situation).

As to Newsweek and Times - the question is who, why, and what was the purpose for changing the covers? It ought to be disconcerting that someone has the power to alter the perceptions of a "free press".


BTW, the street value on all illegal drugs is down - there is more reaching our shores than at any time since the supposed "war on drugs" began under Reagan.

[KukriKhan]

I somehow think that's not necessarily the case.
If they lost 24% of 100 readers and gained 33% from 10 internet viewers, then they lost 24 readers from the papers and gained 3.3 on the internet which means what were 110 readers total before are now only 89.3.:inquisitive:

You're right: that was a poorly-crafted paragraph; the 24 and 33 percent citations were of different things, not a 100 percent statistical universe, so the numbers wouldn't/couldn't add up. Sorry.

More people reading individual digital articles, but fewer people paying for the entire magazine, were the conclusions I wanted to point to.

Although Time and Newsweek are not the most popular weeklies (I think People Magazine is #1 in US), they both enjoy considerable saturation of their markets - hence a difference of cover-story and focus is cause for concern for anyone interested in the difference between how the US portrays itself to itself, and how it is portrayed outside the country.

"My Life in Pictures" getting more emphasis than "Losing Afghanistan" in the US edition, tells me that the publishers estimate that their US readership is war-weary, compared to the rest of the world.