International Crisis Group paper on Taliban propaganda

An International Crisis Group (ICG) report on Afghanistan, regardless of subject, is routinely a “must read” for Afghan analysts everywhere.  This latest report, entitled “Taliban propaganda: Winning the war of words?” gives a detailed and well-researched overview of the origins of current Taliban activities, together with perceptive analysis of the means, methods and language they use.  This subject matter is in my opinion more important than most people realise and this paper is probably the best single piece of work on this very difficult but fascinating area to date.   In particular there is some extensive information on the magazines and websites used by the Taliban.

While I never seemed to find it difficult to find things to disagree with in papers from the Senlis Council, I am really struggling with this ICG paper.  However I have managed to dig up some thoughts, comments and hopefully constructive critique. 

Sometimes, as a “Western” analyst, looking in to a very complex and “non-Western” subject such as the Taliban and their activities, it seems that, in compensating for the lack of verifiable information and our own difficulties in grasping this issue, we tend to attribute capabilities to the Taliban that they do not possess.  I still feel that it is broadly wrong to describe the Taliban’s communications activities as “sophisticated”.  It is one thing to use sophisticated technology, but another to put out a sophisticated message.  What are in fact contradictory Taliban statements can end up being reported as clever Taliban “disinformation” campaigns. 

Where the Taliban have the advantage in getting their message out, however, is:
a) being able to occupy or dominate districts in the absence of ISAF or Afghan government presence
b) a complete apparent absence of any Afghan of ISAF strategy to pro-actively counter the Taliban messages.  

Sometimes we, the international community, bring it on ourselves – lazy journalism has gifted the term “Spring offensive” to the Taliban.  The ICG report notes that, in the aftermath of the Taliban attack against Karzai in Kabul earlier this year the sight of: “…soldiers fleeing the parade ground…had a profound influence on the population.”  Did it?  How do we know this?  It would be useful to see more analysis on how effective all this supposedly “sophisticated” Taliban strategy has actually been.  They are certainly not creating the “Jihad” that they continually aspire to. 

For those that might take issue with my comments, my get out comment is that, although the Taliban are not particularly sophisticated in what they say or do,

a) they don’t often need to be, and
b) they are getting better - and this is what we should worry about

Over the years, I have often wondered about the ICG “Recommendations” sections in their papers, where they advise the Afghan government, neighbouring countries and the international community on what they should be doing.  Each piece of advice generally falls into one or more of three categories – the very sensible, the very obvious and the very obviously going to be ignored.  Hence in this paper, I pondered the value of once again recommending that the international community “Press the Pakistan military to end its appeasement of pro-Taliban militants…” when it seems that both Pakistan government and the international community are clearly unwilling or unable to do so. 

As I considered the recommendations further, I felt it would have been useful to additionally have recommendations for the Afghan government, NATO/ISAF and the international community as a whole for proactively (and perhaps even aggressively) tackling what the Taliban are saying – and not saying.  The recommendations as given seem to be an acceptance that the Taliban are right to point out Afghan government and ISAF failures (corruption, collateral damage…) and we should concentrate on fixing our mistakes (transparency of law and governance, improving the police and the military…).  All these are of course necessary steps, but just how hard can it be to push out a consistent message that, if you analyse all the Taliban communiques, statements and websites, all they offer the Afghan people is violence and a very harsh system of justice.  The Taliban make no credible statements about reconstruction, governance, education.  Infrequent and clumsy “half-statements” about an education system and a constitution have no credibility whatsoever and should be thrown right back at the Taliban with maximum publicity. 

In this respect I think the ICG is wrong to state that “the Taliban is not going to be defeated on the battlefield and is impervious to outside criticism” – my italics.  The Taliban are most definitely pervious (at time of writing, I am unsure if this is a real word).  There are many areas where they are clearly vulnerable to public opinion and criticisms of their actions.  If these criticisms could be focused and the debate widened, perhaps the media initiative the Taliban seem to possess could be wrested from them.  Lets face it, if you were a Western journalist looking for a big story, would you want to travel in the badlands of Helmand province to sit down for an interview with the Taliban or attend a NATO press briefing?  Perhaps then it could be the Taliban who could be continually explaining all the contradictions, confusions and omissions in their statements.   Didn’t former spokesman Hanif once say that it was “un-Islamic” to kidnap women?  Sure enough, weeks (perhaps months) later, 20 or so Korean women ended up in the hands of the Taliban.

Of course, the ICG report highlights these contradictions in the Taliban statements and does recommend that “…the legitimacy of [Taliban] ideas must be challenged more forcefully by the Afghan government and it’s citizens”, but I feel the emphasis on pro-active challenging of the Taliban is very weak and even a missed opportunity.     

But what the ICG paper helpfully does above all is remind us of this vital issue and that there is a real need for greater analysis of what the Taliban are saying and how they are saying it...