Hard Charger

By now Americans are waking up to the news that the Taliban detonated a bomb in Afghanistan yesterday that wounded 77 of our own and killed two Afghans.  I will not link to the story, because I know the Taliban wins if they receive coverage for their cause.  That said, I am morbidly amused that in the wake of the bombing, they have attempted to exercise agile public affairs, with a command message saying, “But remember, we didn’t have anything to do with 9/11.”


The Taliban is trying awfully hard to professionalize their information campaign to look a bit more like coalition public affairs.  I suspect some hard-charger in their ranks recognized that it’s not enough to intimidate the Afghan people and control territory:  They have little hope of reestablishing long-term rule unless they gain the coalescence of the international community.   Their best hope for victory is to foster and capitalize on apathy and exhaustion on the part of a war-weary world – both abroad and at home. 

I’d like to shake the hand of that hard-charger.  He obviously didn’t have the boss’s ear when the Taliban planning team decided it would be a great idea to kill two Afghans alongside Americans on the anniversary of a highly emotional event with which they wish not to be associated.  Go team.  Really.