A view from behind a burkha. This is what virtually every women saw in Afghanistan until 2001. Though the practice continues in patches, it is no longer brutally enforced by the Taliban, liberating millions of Afghan women. And they are free to see a wider range of images too.
(c) Reporters / Associated Press
The following snippetrs are from this NATO website well worth reading.
http://www.nato.int/docu/review/2008/06/SUMMER_ART1/EN/index.htm
Playing the media game: the Taliban know that speed, not accuracy of information, is one way to gain an advantage in the media
A Taliban night letter: these threatening letters, designed to spread fear, are an effective communication tool among the local Afghan population.
In the physical, or kinetic battle against the Taliban, analysts like to point out that it is not that the Taliban are strong, but that they usually the only ones actually occupying the ground at the district level. I suggest that this view holds true when thinking about the media arena.
The Taliban are good, or effective, at the local level, when they are communicating in simplistic ways to their Pashtun community on both sides of the border. Here, it is the commonly held tribal values and language which gives them a great advantage over what I feel is a fairly clunky Western approach. The Taliban are good at reflecting local concerns - whether it is fear of poppy eradication and loss of livelihood, violation of honour by infidels or collateral damage to people and property.
While the Talibans media activities are not particularly sophisticated (I feel NATO/ISAF has tended to use Taliban media sophistication as an excuse for their own ineffectiveness), in many ways we need to be careful about this part of the debate. Firstly, because it is not a question so much of sophistication - but effectiveness. And there doesn't seem to be much evidence of analysis of Taliban media effectiveness. Secondly, for the main audiences to whom the Taliban are communicating, they really do not have to be that sophisticated.
While the Taliban spends much of its time fighting both kinetically and in the media, it has done little for the next generation of Afghans. This is particularly crucial in a country which still has the second highest infant mortality rate in the world. Even those who survive childhood can only expect to live to an average age of 43.
Thank God, Allah, whoever you believe in that Canada's children have a far better future.
The taliban use their propaganda as a tool to keep the local (mostly undeucated people) in line. They bend the Koran of Islam to their own translations.
This is the undercover war of words that our NATO troops are fighting against.
The talibanmedia spokespeople are on sight far quicker than our western media. this gains them time in planting misinformation, about death tolls, damages etc.
Breaking News CBC
British aid worker gunned down in Afghanistan Last Updated: Monday, October 20, 2008 | 7:14 AM ET CBC News
The Taliban are claiming responsibility for an attack on Monday that killed a Christian aid worker in the Afghan capital of Kabul.
The woman, a British citizen who worked with handicapped Afghans, was killed by gunmen on a motorcycle in the western part of Kabul as she was walking alone at about 8 a.m. local time, police said.
A purported spokesman for the militant group said it had targeted the woman because she was proselytizing.
Najib Samsoor, a district police chief, originally said the woman was from South Africa, but the British government later said she was British. Officials did not release her name.
The woman's organization SERVE, Serving Emergency Relief and Vocational Enterprises describes itself as a Christian charity registered in Britain. The group's website says the charity has been working with Afghan refugees since 1980 in Pakistan.
Taliban insurgents have increasingly targeted aid workers in their campaign to undermine support for the Western-backed government of President Hamid Karzai.
Two Canadians were among three aid workers killed outside Kabul in August.
Two German allies killed as well as 5 children
This again shows the callous disregard of life, with unarmed aid workers again targetted by the taliban
In northern Afghanistan, a suicide bomber killed two German soldiers and five children in Kunduz province, said Mohammad Omar, the provincial governor. NATO confirmed that some of its soldiers were killed and wounded in the attack.
Omar said the soldiers were patrolling on foot when the bomber riding a bicycle hit them. Northern Afghanistan has been spared much of the violence afflicting Afghanistan's eastern and southern provinces.
So Canada let's support our troops , please read the NATO website and think hard about the poor Afghans and our troops, NGO workers and anyone trying to help the Afghanis.
Nov 7 at 12 noon Memorial fountain in Charlottetown.
Nil Sine Labore
Robby
