During the months of August, September and October, Commetric monitored and analyzed local media sources in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Our findings point to the conclusion that NATO messages relating to goals and strategy are not coming through.

Titled Fire Watch, the weekly reports I helped prepare revealed that faith in the Coalition Forces has been deteriorating, as they have faced mounting criticism both in Afghanistan and at home.

The graphs above, extracted from Fire Watch, indicate that while the Strategy and War on Terror topics predominated, the secondary debates around them shifted, moving away from Troops Deployment towards an increasing fixation with casualties, civilian and military.

The period we covered was ripe with controversies. Doubts were expressed about the legitimacy of the Afghan elections, and locals were encouraged, then disheartened, by the pledge for a change in strategy, closely followed by military action which resulted in dozens of civilian deaths.

In the weeks following the August 31submission of General Stanley McChrystal’s situation report — which called for 40,000 more U.S. troops and an increased focus on civilian protection — media outlets in Afghanistan and Pakistan published the highest volume of negative coverage on the Coalition Forces in the period analyzed. The U.S. may have hoped for a favorable response to their strategy, but in reality, negative articles rose from 30% of all coverage in the last half of August, to 60% by the end of September.

While some of this criticism focused on the prospect of an increased U.S. presence, the vast majority honed in on the incident on September 4 which quickly robbed McChrystal’s pledge of any meaning for locals —   the aerial bombing near Kunduz of two fuel tanker trucks, reportedly hijacked by Taliban fighters. As The Nation (Pakistan) noted somewhat scathingly:

“Hardly had ISAF commander Gen. McChrystal communicated the new procedure of the Afghan war to the Pentagon that the troops would take extra precautions to protect civilians before they opened fire than a U.S. jet fighter struck a fatal blow to his plans, and with it receded the prospects of winning the hearts and minds of the people.”

To make matters worse, local media also spread news of serious problems with discipline, with the South Asian News Agency reporting on September that the General was forced to ban alcohol at the ISAF quarters after “troops were found to be too drunk or hungover to respond quickly to news of [the] deadly air strike“. The same day a British-led pre-dawn rescue operation for kidnapped New York Times reporter Stephen Farell resulted in the death of his Afghan colleague Sultan Muhammad Munadi in the cross-fire, and to further negative coverage including accusations of double-standards. Meanwhile, Afghan and Pakistani media seemed to have drawn strength from the apparent wavering of several coalition members such as Canada and Italy. (Six Italian soldiers were killed in a car bomb attack on September 17, prompting Prime Minister Berlusconi to rethink Italy’s presence in the Afghanistan.)

Apart from their combat strategy, the ISAF and U.S. Forces were often scolded for their misguided attempts to develop Afghan society. A Kabul Press article (12 Oct 09) criticized the way Westerners, including the UN, are fighting illiteracy in Afghanistan by promoting English at the expense of the local Dari and Pashtu languages:

“While NATO seeks to bring Afghans together to fight al-Qaeda and the Taliban, the U.S. State Department, the United Nations, the EU and others are working at cross-purposes, by promoting English-speaking Afghans and discriminating against those who have not embraced English (…) Promoting English as Afghanistan’s primary language is contrary to the NATO war strategy. The Taliban is using this very emotional issue to rally support against the foreign presence in Afghanistan. (…) [Westerners] have disrupted the local wage scales such that becoming a translator for a Westerner has become one of the best paying jobs in the country.”

Interestingly, the U.S. Forces and ISAF missed a golden opportunity to influence coverage at the end of August/beginning of September, when the presence of their spokespeople was at its lowest. I believe that some positive quotes at that particular moment could have helped them improve their image. However, they managed a partial recovery, albeit tardily.
So, Fire Watch strongly suggested that at the very moment the most senior U.S. General in Afghanistan had declared the war against the Taleban “winnable,” local media were adopting an increasingly negative and pessimistic outlook.

My take is that these local viewpoints will continue to inform how the wider world of journalists and commentators assesses the success of the Obama administration in not just the combat aspects of the operation, but also in convincing people in the region that a continued NATO presence is justified. I’m looking forward to producing further Fire Watch reports on this and other global issues and will be available to field any questions you have about our methodology or our findings.

To read more about the Fire Watch study, please visit:
http://www.viennareview.net/international/seen-afghan-mirror-3139.html

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