Quote Originally Posted by Tukhachevskii View Post
...means what exactly? Without context all that video does is provide valuable propaganda and publicity for a wanabee Taliban warlord or someone who ewants his deeds to to be recgnised so that he might sit at the grown-iups table. I (humbly) submit that there is nothing in that video that isn't already known by Allied forces in theatre. Imagine joe blogs sitting at home watching that, his interpretation is going to differ vastly to that of yours. His interpretative blanks will be filled in with whatever existing narratives he prefers. A Lefty, for instance will interpret the film completely differently to, say, an Amazonian tribeman. Or, indeed, for that matter a young muslim (much betetr to show them the aftermath, then again, wouldn't do much good, just inflame their already monumental inferiority/rage/envy complex).

Now replace Dawran with...Himmler, now what do you feel.
What did you see in the movie? I would say that there we had a showing of a religious family man surrounded by young men and kids trying to protect his country from the invaders who drive up and down that road far in the distance. That the insinuation is that either/or or both of those little kids were killed by US bombing will never draw approval from a sane person. So would one be left with the feeling that perhaps the Taliban are not the devils that the western media depict them to be and maybe we should just leave them to live their own lives in that far away country? (The man did not even kill that traitor - so the Taliban must be human after all). Its not how soldiers will react on seeing the video but rather the civilian reaction which is critical.

McCuen listed this as one of the three critical success factors:

Winning and maintaining support for the war on the home front(s) and in the international community. Doing so means maintaining legitimacy and avoiding losses through incompetence.
So what do you think? Will videos like this maintain international support of for the war?