Deep in Taliban country

[Pragmatic Thinker]

Welcome to the technology age where your foe has access to "up-to-the-minute" news from your home country via the worldwide web. They realize as any good student of irregular/guerilla warfare does that popular support or lack there of is instrumental in your strategy against a western foe. Al-Qaeda's #2 man, Ayman al-Zawahiri, is no slouch in his guerilla studies and has long promulgated the specific targeting of Americans and other westerners such as Brits, Canadians, Aussies, and Kiwi's....he knows all too well that public support at home (whether in U.S., Canada, or U.K.) for an unpopular war will cause a change in political course over time. He also plays this in reverse and uses the killing of civilians as a launchpad for further criticism of allied actions in Afghanistan. This will most suredly cause Karazai to try and place further restrictions on our operations to defeat the Taliban threat in the southern provinces.

In Department of Defense circles there is a lot of talk about Information Operations or IO, and for the life of me I can't understand how we as westerners are losing this fight. If there is one thing we love and that is our media outlets, especially television. I think it is shameful that our government does such a poor job a garnering its citizens' support for these wars. I understand not being able to reach an audience in Pakistan or Afghanistan, but for the life of me I can't understand how we fail here at home!?!?

[marct]

Hi PT,

In Department of Defense circles there is a lot of talk about Information Operations or IO, and for the life of me I can't understand how we as westerners are losing this fight. If there is one thing we love and that is our media outlets, especially television. I think it is shameful that our government does such a poor job a garnering its citizens' support for these wars. I understand not being able to reach an audience in Pakistan or Afghanistan, but for the life of me I can't understand how we fail here at home!?!?

Probably too much to go into here but, in the really short form, let's just say that a democratic system with highly polarized politics is very amenable to media manipulation. The real problem is that while Afghanistan was a fairly well supported operation, it has been overshadowed by the vey unpopular Iraq war.

FL - let's hear it for the Vandoos!!!! I am waiting to see if any of them take the "company R&R actions" that they did in WW II <evil grin>.

Marc

[goesh]

The allowance given to understanding the enemy is conditioned with the denial of the right to hate the enemy. There is no celebration over the demise of our foes yet they measure the sale of beheading and torture videos by the tonnage. Maybe it really boils down to monotheism V polytheism and while we placate the Gods of Law and Economics and Perception and Politics and Policy and Opinion Polls and Political correctness, they slip quietly away unscathed across borders and into population dense no-kill zones.

[FascistLibertarian]

let's hear it for the Vandoos!!!! I am waiting to see if any of them take the "company R&R actions" that they did in WW II

The Vandoos will do great! I have no doubt in my head that they will do their duty and make our country proud.

The allowance given to understanding the enemy is conditioned with the denial of the right to hate the enemy. There is no celebration over the demise of our foes yet they measure the sale of beheading and torture videos by the tonnage. Maybe it really boils down to monotheism V polytheism and while we placate the Gods of Law and Economics and Perception and Politics and Policy and Opinion Polls and Political correctness, they slip quietly away unscathed across borders and into population dense no-kill zones.

I think we can still hate the enemy.
We just cant hate the entire population anymore.
The feelings America had for say the Japanese will never be repeated.

for the life of me I can't understand how we as westerners are losing this fight. If there is one thing we love and that is our media outlets, especially television. I think it is shameful that our government does such a poor job a garnering its citizens' support for these wars. I understand not being able to reach an audience in Pakistan or Afghanistan, but for the life of me I can't understand how we fail here at home!?!?

I agree we have the moral highground.
I am just not sure what else we could be doing.
I think the problem is not only with our governments poor explanations but also with the structure and nature of the media.
The media is so diverse these days (google news anyone), they always want a story, and people have access to so much different media.
Hard to have unity anymore.