Weapons of Mass
Distraction
The U.S. military in Afghanistan is to fight the Taliban
using Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
According to AP, the military is
trying to counter Taliban propaganda which is apparently doing a good job at
convincing people to attack their local hairdressers and revolt against the
Evil Satanic Empire of the United States.
Despite the fact that the
Taliban are about as pro-technology as a Luddite they have been using the
world wide wibble to contact lots of people who don't read traditional print
media. The Taliban, routinely makes false claims about how many US soldiers
its forces have killed or how many civilians might have died in an
airstrike.
The US admits that it is losing the information war to the
Taliban and has been wondering how to counter it. The US military is
starting to put its news on Twitter and has started to encourage troops to
post stories and photos on Web sites in an effort to portray daily life in
Afghanistan.
High on the list are all the development and engineering
projects which are being carried out in Afghanistan which have not been
making the news. (Such as automated poppy field irrigation and crop dusting. sub.ed.)