US Media Has Karzai's Back

What can be said of Ahmed Wali Karzai? How about irony? In an exclusive interview with the Associated Press, President Hamid Karzai’s infamous half-brother claims the Afghan government has lost its propaganda against the Taliban in the south.

"Our public relations is very weak,” he said. “The government doesn't get credit for what it does. How many roads are paved and clinics built and schools? It is a tremendous achievement."

That may or may not be the case, but his doubts are fascinating either way. If Kabul really has lost the propaganda battle in Kandahar and Helmand, the US media tries its best to fill the gap. Regardless of how many lumps Karzai takes the same predictable cycle always rescues him in the end. Afghanistan’s government could be losing the media battle at home and winning in America, courtesy of the US government.

Only the hard left and isolationist conservatives have broken ranks. Television networks like ABC, NBC, and CBS, news sources like the AP, CNN, New York Times, NPR, Washington Post, New Yorker, most conservative media, and many “non-partisan” think tanks all play a part in lowering the debate on Afghanistan so that Washington can work in relative silence.

Then they eagerly disseminate its message.

Karzai brother mends ties with US, reads the AP headline. Is that because he called Americans “my friends?” Or should we thank him for speaking the obvious: “You want us to achieve in eight years what you achieved in 100 years?”

More like 200, so twice as impossible.

A truly ironic headline when Karzai brushes off allegations of drug trafficking, CIA funding, and corruption as “misinformation.” He must be talking about a senior NATO military official who described him as "not the only problem" in Kandahar but someone with whom international representatives must have "a tremendous amount of dialogue" in order to "change his behavior."

Karzai has been threatened will death or imprisonment by at least one US military official.

Only through media manipulation could the AP actually carry this headline when Karzai said America’s general in 2002 was better. At least he’s mended ties with Tommy Franks.