Hit Them Where They Hide
September 30, 2008
Last week, I was dispatched to the Texas coast to report on the aftermath of Hurricane Ike. While there, I saw destruction on a scale far worse than any war zone I've ever visited. Many of the people I've spoken with recently, however seem interested to know more details about reports that American forces have been making incursions into Pakistan to kill Taliban leaders.
My understanding is this: The Taliban have, for years, hidden out in the tribal areas of Pakistan where the government of that country has virtually no influence. There, these terrorists have been able to barter or buy safe haven from the tribal groups that control those areas. Since Pakistan is ostensibly our ally, we've refrained from hitting the Taliban there, to keep our "friend" Pervez Musharraf from losing face with his people.
But that allowed the Taliban to grow strong and begin slinking across the border to make attacks on American troops. So when Musharraf stepped down in August, our forces took the opportunity to act on solid intelligence and hit the enemy where he thought he was safe. And so far, it appears to be working. Pakistan is feeling the heat, and has sent troops to root out the insurgents in the tribal areas and therefore put some muscle behind their assertions of national sovereignty. In doing so, they now claim to have killed over 1000 Taliban militants in the last month. This should be good news for our forces if these numbers are anywhere close to real.
And therein lies the problem: the Taliban propaganda machine is unfortunately more developed than our own. That means that when we send a team of operators across the border and surgically take out a meeting of taliban leaders, the operation is, by design and by necessity, top secret. But that leaves the Taliban free to report whatever they like - and what we see are stories of great massacres of women and children - which are happily pounced upon by the popular press, and held up as evidence of American brutality. Even when there's proof that the numbers of non-combatants killed is a complete fabrication, it is often too late once people's opinion has been whipped into a frenzy by untrue reports. This has even led to the destruction of more than one good officer's career.
The military needs to open its doors just a little wider - and they need to do whatever they can to win in the media battlespace. In Iraq, this same problem led to the hiring of outside publicity firms - not to distribute untrue propaganda, but simply to disseminate the truth about what was happening on the ground. We need to do the same in Afghanistan.
Our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines have no equal in ground fighting. But if they are defeated in the press, that will lead to ultimate defeat overall, since the politicians who will determine whether or not this war is won or lost rarely take the time to dig deeper than the evening news.
Chuck Holton
BOOTS ON THE GROUND Main Page >>
A caring friend will be there to pray with you in your time of need.
